Happy Decennary MLP!

On Sunday 10th October 2010, the first episode of My Little Pony: Friendship of Magic was aired. The target audience was exactly as you'd expect; little children and preteen girls, as well as perhaps any family watching the TV with them. It was, on the surface, nothing out of the ordinary, just another cartoon to entertain children in a format that appealed to their normal sensibilities, make a profit for the production companies and the channel broadcasting it, and to serve as an advert for the various asthetic toys that would be rolled out to the same audience that had just grown to like the new show and its cast of various characters. Sure, it was educational, teaching some life lessons and various small tidbits of information about how one should conduct themselves as they encountered life's expected obstacles, and how people should treat others, but its primary focus was corporate, with the ultimate goal being profit and continuation. On Sunday 10th October 2010, the franchise became publicly available for the first time, and instigated something magical and phenomenal, something that became renowned and touched the lives of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, across the world. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that it was a cultural paradigm shift.

While never designed as more than a company product for a company purpose, the cartoon attracted the attention and ire of blogger/journalist Amid Amidi, who wrote an article now known by many across the internet, entitled "The End of the Creator-Driven Era in TV Animation", which he published on the 19th October that same year. This was a assessment of purpose and ethics within corporate culture and therefore fell outside the interest of the target audience of the show, but it did attract the attention of people who had an interest in animation, cartoons, stories, and other such fascinations, who watched this new iteration of a familiar brand to see if it was as bad as was claimed. From their assessment, they found it to be adequate, and not at all a cynical ploy. In fact, it was pretty decent for a kid's cartoon, they argued. They promoted their view of events, and spread the message of this great show, which then attracted people who watched it for a laugh. That was nothing new; in the 90's uni students watched Teletubbies (another favourite of mine as a child, admittedly), but it did spread the reach of this cartoon far and wide, and that meant that it gained traction from people outside the intended target audience.

Whether ironic or for genuine entertainment value, boys began watching MLP in droves. That's right. Men. Males. People of both the wrong sex and age for the show's themes and presentation. These people became a significant part of the audience of this show, and began making memes and content of their own, which brought them to the attention of the wider public (and the ire of the internet, on many ocassions, for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons). Viewers became genuine fans, and this in turn attracted more fans. The wackiness of this fandom drew positive and negative attention, which fed the cycle more, and...I think you can see where this is going.

I was in secondary school when MLP first came to my notice. I think I heard it online somewhere, or someone in school mentioned it in passing, but those two things definitely happened at some point. I saw memes and people talk about "bronies", and how this show was becoming popular among people who weren't the intended target audience. I had to look up which generation of the franchise people were even on about, and it wasn't clear what the hype was about. My closest friend at school mentioned it, and one of my friends I met through him mentioned it too, and eventually I began actively trying to figure out what it was. I saw the Know Your Meme featured video about it, but most of my experience of it was me hearing other people getting in on this trend, and other people thinking it was weird. At some point, after muddling my way through information about the show (I can't tell you what happened when), I came across a video by CS188 - which has now been deleted or privated, unfortunately - called "My Little Porno: Friendship with Benefits". Yes, that's right; the thing which convinced me to give MLP a chance was a Youtube Poop which decontextualised the characters and the show and made everything even weirder than it already was. Still, I thought it was hillarious, and I was intrigued by the "British one" (Rarity wasn't British, I discovered later) and the "explorer pony" (turned out Applejack wasn't an explorer, but her being in a cave with her hat and no other context made me think that, for some reason) as well as the bright colours of the cast, because I was apparently that easy to please back then.

So I asked my aforementioned friends, who had admitted to being fans of the show, and they encouraged me to watch it. What helped was the presence of a social butterfly who was popular among the school, and his ready admission of being a brony, and his friend who was open to questions and guidance on the show itself. Between the four of them, we had a sizable brony presence within my friendship group, and I was given enough of a reason to delve into the show with the social butterfly's friend's recommendation; "Watch episode 24, called The Best Night Ever." I did, and I loved it. But I wasn't a brony, surely? Nah, it was just good, and I needed context, so I watched episode 1 and 2, and they were good, so I watched episode 3, and then 4, and then...

By the time I'd binged all the way to Over A Barrel over the course of a couple of days, I realised I probably was a fan. But a fan can call themselves a fan without using the label "brony", right? I could, as it turned out, but there wasn't any reason to actually avoid it, other than self-consciousness. I didn't mind being a brony, other than the fear of other people's reactions. It turned out I enjoyed the show, and I could join in the in-jokes with everyone else, like how MLP was like Half-Life; episode 3 was never gonna come. I told my other friend I watched it, and his complaint that "it was spreading" (it was a joke) was soon washed away when, a couple of weeks later, he came into school, laughed sheepishly, and offered a brohoof. Another friend I've lost contact with had the exact same reaction about half a year later. When we realised that even the most vocal critics seemed to convert after actually watching the show, and I created the label "coming out of the stable", which caught on and became an in-joke among our friendship group.

I've rambled a lot, and included a lot of details that seem uncessary; why do you need to know that I began watching the show in mid-to-late 2011 despite knowing about it for months prior, for instance, or that I was told to watch episode 24 in the maths corridor of my school? Well, you don't, not really, but I feel the need to share, because those memories are vivid and have been etched into my mind, because this show was, and is, special. Even years later, I can recall exactly how I felt first watching those ponies, the cringe and the awe and the unexpected laughter, and what that led to. Even years later, seemingly insignificant things like someone's expression when they admitted I'd convinced them to watch the show, or where I was when people showed off their MLP-related memorabilia (a painted wodden carving of Rainbow Dash's cutie mark, made into a necklace, comes to mind), these things are still amazing, and I can still enjoy them now. This show did something special for me, and I know it did for a lot of other people too.

I met friends with which I made some fantastic memories, including visiting a water park just for a casual meetup (I still have a photo of us on a log flume, trying to look bored for the camera as a tryhard joke), or hanging around in town and grabbing lunch, or going to someone's house to rewatch the Filli Vanilli episode (and accidentally creating a joke which carried on into the viewing, and which I intend to use in my creative writing someday), or having a friend surprise me on my 16th birthday by cheekily buying me a brushable Fluttershy toy so I could open it up in front of my parents (which, when I bought a girlfriend home several months later, she found hillarious, brushing its mane when I left to do something elsewhere in the house). Some of these people I only ever met once, and even the ones I met up with regularly, I've forgotten a lot of their names. Of the friends I had at school, I don't regularly see many of them, even though we stay in contact and there are a few I can always go and say hi too. I have nothing but good memories and warm sentiments for all of them, and the time we spent being weird and just having fun around this shared interest was a magical and defining part of my teenage years. It forged moments that never would've otherwise happened.

I'm not an exceptional story at all, but I am an example of something unscripted and genuine. Here's a boy whose life has been touched by a silly cartoon show, and the consequences of the widespread shared interest people had in it. It was real and special, and I love that I got to experience it. Across the world, people launched careers on the back of their MLP hobby, and friendships were forged, relationships built, and life lived as a result of this show which spiraled into something it was not. People branched out their interests, learned new things, shared creative visions and products, and generally became more rounded people. Charities raised money. Couples found love. All of this was because a show existed, and people dared interact with it, and with other fans of that show, as well as the creators and staff. And, among all that, is me, an unremarkable but sincere part of this beautiful and weird family.

FIM was dreamed up and created well before its broadcasting date, and we owe our thanks to Lauren Faust and the various crew, staff, and other people working behind the veil of publicity who made this possible, even Hasbro (begrudgingly), but its true and real inception was on the 10th October 2010. A decade ago, this gem was birthed, and we got to experience what it brought. It grew, and we grew with it, shaped it and were shaped by it in kind. Ten years ago today, the brony fandom was made possible because, in spite of its intention and the corporate oversight, Lauren poured her passion into a brand new universe, and her world was given life and light by the wonderful actors, animators, and variety of talented specialists who made it something more than a marketing gimmick. It was something special that we embraced, and we're still riding that wave, I believe. The show is over, the franchise has moved on, and the apex of the fandom wasn't even in the last couple of years, but I'd say the spirit we fostered is alive and well. That's fine. People develop (as I've said in my last blog), and a person doesn't look the same in their teenage years as they do as an adult in either appearance or mannerisms, but that doesn't mean they aren't the same person with the same value (or more, perhaps). Will this site be up forever? No. Does that matter? No. The site's here now, and people are still around to enjoy this milestone, and my message commemorating it. Even if there's basically no one, and one person reads this, that's fine.

I've taken a lot from this fandom; my interests have broadened and I've developed motvation to pursue them, my writing has improved, my humour has developed, my sense of worth has balanced out, and I've gotten perspectives on other people that've really improved my interpersonal relationships. Things that I've picked up from other fans and creators are things I use outside of this site, and I can always come back here to admire the old and the new, that spirit still sparkling even after the fandom's "end". I'm not the biggest writer on this site, but neither do I really want to be. I'm happy where I am (a few more likes and follows would be welcome, though), and I'm happy producing stories people seem to like. I'm happy to have grown as a result of this fandom, and so I feel I should give a shout out to its life span and remind everyone here just how great it was and is. There are other creators who have made better tributes, so go watch them to properly celebrate today, but I'll summarise by saying this;

This show had a massive impact on my life and the lives of many people, and it's time to celebrate that; whether or not the show made it to a decade, the fandom did. Bless everyone out there who made this fandom what it was, whether or not I met you, whether or not I remember you or you remember me, and perhaps most of all, bless Lauren Faust and the team behind the show and the characters who captured our hearts and our imaginations. Bless all the good times we had, and all those we're yet to have.

There has been plenty of good and some bad, and I wouldn't change it for the world.

Happy decennary.