Christmas 2011 - Easter 2012
This was the greatest time in the fandom's history. You know, in my personal opinion.
In early 2012, I'd say I watched most of these videos every day before school.
You might know by now that I really, really like Hip Hop (What do you think we listen to in Joburgh: Indie Folk!?). And I don't doubt that these first three videos really made me more comfortable with thinking of myself as a brony.
In fact, the first pony video I ever watched was the original post of Fluttersy's Rap:
It was a long while until I actually watched that episode. So I didn't understand why the pink pony had a swollen tongue, and why that white one sounded like a 1950's American film star but had the hair of a Rastafarian.
This fandom always had a silly side that I kind of fell in love with.
And it's still alive!
Fluttershy's Rap must have turned me into a brony before Christmas 2011, though. Because by then I had started watching the episodes, visiting Equestria Daily and ponybooru, and listening to our music. What really got me was the art. And I had a big, beautifully categorized folder on my computer that I was terrified someone might find. By next Christmas, my brother had dug it up somehow, and gave me a gingerbread man with a unicorn's horn made of icing. I listened to this next song a lot. But I guess I never got the message.
In January of 2012, I had started reading Fallout Equestria. One of the first and only works of fan fiction I would ever read. It inspired me to play through Fallout 3, a game that I had probably put at least a hundred hours since its release. My character was named Natalie Monterey, after Natalie Portman and the cheese, likely because I couldn't bring myself to name her Littlepip. I had modded out the game until it was almost new to me, and played it in line with Fallout Equestria as best I could (I had Natalie and Littlepip in the Pitt at the very same time. And finished both on a gray afternoon in February, not long after turning 17.) I started listening to Florence and the Machine, Noah and the Whale and Bon Iver, getting caught on the wave of genuinely good indie music that gave birth to today's hipster.
(I didn't even know until I came to America. They're everywhere. They're everyone.)
But you can't talk about music here without bringing up Shiropoint. If you haven't already, find something to play for a few hours and listen to the Remix Culture series. It's genius. Shine Like Rarity and Play Like Pinkie Pie were two more videos that really punctuated the time between the first days of my senior year in high school and Fallout (Equestria).
Still, I'm not the kind of person that can listen to music while I play a game, unless it's perfect.
