• Member Since 27th Feb, 2013
  • offline last seen Tuesday

Sprocket Doggingsworth


I write horse words.

More Blog Posts281

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  • 21 weeks
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Jun
21st
2018

Help! My Heart is Full of Pony! - Summer Sun Celebration, Pt. 1 - Personal Reflection · 9:19am Jun 21st, 2018

In honor of the Summer Sun Celebration, I have two essays to share: the first one being personal; and the second one being analytical.

PERSONAL

I watched Season One of My Little Pony entirely with my daughter, and soaked it up through a series of episode binges. It wasn’t until June of 2011 that I discovered the fandom. It was a small community then that was reeeeeeeeally super intent on filling in the blanks – constructing elaborate theories, holding detail-oriented debates about how the Equestrian economy worked (or might work), where the princesses had come from, what direction the fandom should take - that sort of thing.

That wealth of imagination electrified me.

It was on this day, seven years ago, that I read a post honoring the fandom‘s first Summer Sun Celebration. Folks all shared their designs for an Equestrian flag. It inspired me, as a musician, to stop hoarding my work on my computer, and start sharing it with the Internet – the world. I wrote a song called Equestrian National Anthem, and catapulted myself into the crazy world of pony content creation - as a musician, then Facebook admin, charity organizer, and ultimately, as a writer.

The point of this post isn’t to talk entirely about myself, however, (even if I did label this as the “personal” essay), but to reflect on how far we as a culture have come. I want to take a moment to celebrate that creativity – that drive we have to fill-in the blank‘s – to make Equestria just a little bit more real by passionately participating in the idea of it.

So thanks to all you content creators - writers, and musicians, and artists, and craftsponies who devote their talents, their souls, and their time to the celebration of the simple but glorious idea that friendship is magic; the exploration of these beloved characters, and their struggles; and the glorification of the dream that is Equestria.

What a long strange trip it’s been. Seriously. Eight Summer Sun Celebrations. Wow.

I also want to thank you, the fandom, for making this all such a vibrant experience – for participating in those discussions; for giving so generously to charity; for being so passionate! You’ve made both this online community, and the convention scene an electrifying place to be a part of.

This Summer Sun Celebration is for you. By honoring one of Equestria’s great traditions, we make a little piece of Equestria also part of ourselves.

Tonight I raise my glass. To Friendship!

-Sprocket

Please support me on Patreon. That is, if you want to. No pressure of course.
You can also follow Heart Full of Pony on Tumblr

Summer Sun Celebration, Pt. 2 Coming Soon

Comments ( 5 )

To Friendship. :)

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These are very nice and positive words, but, here comes me, the optirealist (ssh, yes, that's a word now!) who has to point out something unpleasant, because only pointing out the unpleasant that people don't wanna hear can help to make things better, by raising awareness for a problem that exists:

It was a small community then that was reeeeeeeeally super intent on filling in the blanks – constructing elaborate theories, holding detail-oriented debates about how the Equestrian economy worked (or might work), where the princesses had come from, what direction the fandom should take - that sort of thing.

And it wrote tons of stories about background ponies, theorizing about them and writing about how their lives could be. Everyone has heard about the big, classic fandom literature like "Background Pony" or the Winningverse.
Just adding this for completion, as you left it out.

Today, though, all of this has dried up. Thinking about Equestria, theorizing about the world, doing long thoughts about a pony's/creature's motivations and reasons to do certain things, these things happen rarely anymore these days.
Worse, it has been mostly replaced by calling everything a "plothole" that isn't explicitly stated and explained in the show and by ranting on and on about episodes being supposedly rushed, accusations of characters going through the same development again and of having forgotten what they learned, enraged screams about why character X didn't solve that situation faster and how this and that doesn't make any sense.....
And if someone does dare to speak up and rather get invested in Equestria and its population and brings up an interesting thought or an intriguing theory, they get mostly ignored and, often, even ridiculed and belittled for taking what they see in the show serious and for treating it with earnest respect and curiosity.
Who hasn't seen something like this? A fellow fan of the show explains a certain theory they have in a long comment and it is mere minutes until someone comes and answers something like "Yeah, no..... You're looking too much into this. It's a show for children, it's not that deep.", all intent on shooting down the theory they read. And then the discussion dies before it has even come to life.
This is the norm in the fandom these days, not the exception.
And the same goes for background ponies. These days, barely anyone still cares for background ponies. We have seen plenty of intriguing and exciting background ponies who just make you wonder how their lives are since Season 4, but most don't care about them.
Even the most exciting ones of them who blew you away by doing something incredible during their first appearance, like Lily Longsocks who lifted a whole house when we saw her first, only get very moderate attention.
Rather than people writing entire universes for them as it used to be, those background ponies mostly fall on deaf ears and blind eyes today.
That wealth of imagination you mentioned, it is not really there anymore these days.
It is not completely dead yet. Sometimes, the rare moment happens when an interesting theory about Equestria and something we still don't have an answer on is discussed, when the right people get together and when the neighsayers miss the conversation somehow. Just recently, there have been a lot of discussions about how Cozy Glow might be evil and become a villain eventually.
And people still enjoy stories about background ponies sometimes and, here and there, it can happen that a story about a background pony generates huge interest and even makes it into the Feature Box.
But moments like this are very rare and, most of the time, people don't invest thoughts into Equestria (or, now, the surrounding lands too) or write/read about background ponies anymore these days. This spirit has not completely died yet, but it is comatose.
Today, the fandom is saturated with cynicism and negativity and this is what has almost killed the fandom's creativity and imagination.
This is something we must change. We must stop being so cynical and negative, start embracing what we have again, rather than condemning it, and take Equestria and the world around it and the ponies and creatures living there serious again where it counts.
We must stop treating these old times as blissful nostalgia and bring these nostalgic feelings into today, by recollecting ourselves and returning to our creative and positive roots.
Only then we can wake up the spirit Equestria has given us from its coma and truly feel good about it again when we say "To Friendship".

4886847

One person believes the fandom is better off with being cynical and negative. :pinkiesmile:

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