Help! My Heart is Full of Pony! - Looking Back · 4:21pm Oct 28th, 2019
I recently stumbled upon an essay I wrote after the alicornification of Twilight, addressing the fandom's split response to it.
I'm sharing it now because some of the points I made feel relevant somehow now that the show is over. It's also mind-blowing to look back.
Here it is:
STAMPEDING, Jan 2013.
Stampeding. Horses do it in the wild. Background ponies do it in Ponyville, tearing apart their own town at the first sign of trouble. We bronies do it too. I suppose it’s in our equine nature.
Whether it was the conversion of Discord, the anticipated and somewhat controversial season finale (withholding spoilers), or the prospect of a made-for-TV movie that was only described in the vaguest of terms (in relation to Hasbro’s attempts to shoot for an older audience), you can’t throw a rock in this fandom without hitting somepony who is convinced that whatever is on the horizon is The End of Pony As We Know It.
Everypony has their reasons for feeling that way, and farbeit from me to try to invalidate those feelings. I’m not going to say that the show will be great no matter what. After all, such things are subjective, and what you think makes the show great might not be exactly the same as what I think makes the show great. However, I will say this - it doesn’t matter in the slightest.
On a good week, we get 22 minutes of new pony. Let’s say you re-watch the episode three more times. That’s still only 88 minutes a week spent actually watching the show. Compare that to the amount of time spent talking with one another, sharing your love of pony, reading fan fiction, writing fan fiction, roleplaying, getting involved in the brony music scene, and annoying your friends with your inability to stop grinning when something completely unrelated makes you think about My Little Pony.
Our fandom was built around a love of a great television show, but it is kept alive by our sense of community - by our friendships. At this point, even if the absolute worst case scenario happened, and Hasbro fired all the brilliant people involved in production of the show, and replaced them with <<INSERT YOUR LEAST FAVORITE SO-AND-SO HERE>>, it wouldn’t mean the end of our fandom.
Even if Season Four were completely unwatchable (which I seriously doubt will be the case), it doesn’t nullify your love for the episodes that originally sparked your passion for pony. It doesn’t make them any less awesome. It certainly doesn’t change the plain and simple truth that friendship is, in fact, magic.
While the show has captivated us all in some way, and even been a life-changing inspiration for thousands upon thousands of us, at the end of the day, we are in it for each other. If there were no fandom, no memes, no fiction, no discussions, and no music, would you really devote as much thought and attention to those pretty, pretty ponies as you currently (probably) do? I’d wager not.
We have each other.
We need to stick together. We need to act like a community.
If they were to cancel the show tomorrow, or take it in a direction so remarkably bad that we all unanimously agreed to stop watching, it still wouldn’t mean the end for us. We would still be right here, hanging around our favorite pockets of the internet, formulating theories about the little details, making memes, and sharing all the joys of past episodes.
Please try to remember that the next time you get to thinking that one of the upcoming episodes might be the ponypocalypse. You should also remember that if you happen to disagree with the neighsayers, and you feel like you’re the only reasonable one around. After all, losing patience with the concerns of your fellow brony really doesn’t help.
Star Trek fans built a fandom of millions from a show that only aired for three seasons. Firefly fans continue to giggle over Jayne’s wool hat and make memes about it, and obsess over the Browncoats, even though there were only 13 episodes total and those all aired over a decade ago.
If anything happens to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, (and I’m not saying that it will), we bronies will still continue doing what we bronies do best - going completely nuts about the episodes of Pony that we already love, and everything will be fine.
Equestria exists. It’s a place we all go to - maybe not with our feet, but with our hearts. Nobody can take that away from you.
-Sprocket
Please support me on Patreon. That is, if you want to. No pressure of course, but I ask because I do have mouths to feed. You can also follow Heart Full of Pony on Tumblr
This is as well said now as it was then, Sprocket. Thank you!
And may well remember that while the show brought us together, it is the friendship that keeps us together.
Nicely said. :)
(Also, Firefly was over a decade ago? Wow.)