My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Page 134

If I could describe bronydom in stages as a running analogy, then let's start at...

Stage 1: What the fuck are these ponies?

For me, it all started in January or February. I was browsing /b/ like usual, and then I saw the strangest thing. Powerpuff Girls...ponies? They were everywhere. Newt gingrich was being utterly overwhelmed by them. What caught my eye was how hilarious the image macros were. At first I honestly thought that somebody created them as a huge joke and I, a master in various martial arts of trolling including the discipline of Tommy Wiseau, bowed my head to what I believed to be the greatest troll since Rick Roll.

Then I discovered that it was from an actual cartoon. I started lurking pony threads and saving funny macros, determined to get on board with this latest trolling craze. I saw the wars being waged against it and the pony locomotive only gaining steam and I knew that as a troll, this was going to be the crown jewel of my arsinal, even better than The Room. If it could take on newt gingrich and win, it had to be something very special.

My interest was peaked because I saw that it reminded me of the old classic art style of Powerpuff Girls/Dexter's Lab/Fairly Odd Parents, all shows that I enjoyed back in the day. Nostalgia definitely played a big part in my journey through liking the show, as well as the show's purity.

Stage 2: Sticking my toe in the water.

Fast forward to mid/late March. I had finally decided to give the pilot a try and at first I thought "meh, just another silly girl cartoon with 1-dimensional plots". You know the ones I'm talking about. There's a "crisis" with an obvious solution and you sit there and roll your eyes as you watch the vapid characters struggle to find the answer for over 5 minutes. Then it ends with nothing accomplished. But something at the back of my mind told me that this was going to be different, despite how it started (oh, the character named FlutterSHY is SHY, big fucking whoop), so I kept watching. Then, holy fuck, the episode turned out to be surprisingly epic and made me want to come back. I watched the second half of the pilot and was astounded at how good it was. The song was coming on (these usually are deal-breakers for me), but it wasn't cheesy and even the characters facehoofed at it, so I didn't need to. I left the episode kind of dazed. What had I just watched? A show about ponies, good? I then proceeded to troll a bit harder with it but kind of left it at that. MLP had received a serious tip of my hat.

As weeks went by, I gave the episodes the very occasional gander. They weren't bad at all and they were certainly good enough to keep me watching. I was kind of disappointed that they weren't as epic as the pilot was; I was hoping for the show to have that dark adventure atmosphere to it all throughout the season. I mostly left it alone for a while since I was almost a month behind on my GSL videos, so I was spending all of my video watching time on those and running a WoW guild with my best friend.

Stage 3: I'm...a fan...?

Finally, sometime around July, I got to episode 7. That is where it began to change for me. Something about this episode made me really like it. Was it the fact that it had strong representation from the characters? That there was both an internal (Rainbow Dash vs Fluttershy) and external conflict? Was it the Fluttershy beast mode ending? Was it the various ponies' attempts that reflected their characters? Either way, I became a fan of the show after watching that episode. I started watching episodes at a much faster pace from before, eagerly wanting to see what the mane 6 would be up to next time.

I was definitely a fan, and the episodes kept getting better and better for me, but I wasn't quite a brony yet. The characters were really beginning to grow on me and that made the episodes even more special. The CMC episode also really struck a chord with me because, even though I'm 24, I felt that I hadn't really found my purpose in life. I haven't been to post-secondary and I certainly hadn't found my true calling, so I was really able to relate to the episode.

Stage 4: Event Horison

This is the stage I attribute to that one special "something" that causes the transformation in a person, that makes them a true brony. When, what, and where the event horison is for everypony is different. It all depends on the person watching. Hell, it could even be fan content, who knows? Either way, this is what I like to call the point of the show that just pushes you over the edge. Once you get to this point and cross it, there is no going back. One way I like to think of how good the show is is to liken it to the Ricter Scale and earthquakes. Each chunk of content you watch is equivilent to 1 point on the scale and its effect is measured in order of magnetude. Call it odd, but that really best-describes the show and its effects on me.

The event horison for me that I've been alluding to all this time is episode 16. The awesome visuals, the emotions the episode creates throughout the whole thing, the Icarus reference, Cloudsdale, everything hit me at about mach 10 (which, incidentally, is about how fast Rainbow Dash flies when creating a Sonic Rainboom).

Now I have to make one thing clear before I continue. I've always had emotional problems in my life. As a child, I was ravaged by emotions, so my brain in a desparate act of self-defense decided to give me the emotional range of a teaspoon, so I've had tremendous difficulties feeling and dealing with emotions for over half my life. For example, I've definitely been in situations where I should cry, but I haven't in over a decade. That being said, I got choked up and misty-eyed at the end of the episode. That's how much of an effect it had on me.

From that point on, I knew I was a brony.

Stage 5: Embracing it.

I plowed through the last 10 episodes quite quickly, sometimes watching multiple episodes a day. I knew Season 2 was a good ways off and I wanted to discipline myself to stretch out season 1 for as long as I could to decrease the gap between content for me, but it didn't help much, unfortunately. You'd think spending 6-7 years studying martial arts would give me more discipline than that. Oh well.

Anyway, I continued to eagerly watch the episodes, sitting back and embrace them, even the emotional parts. I even think I finally figured out what I want to do with my life. It was a combination of the second CMC-centric episode and Cutie Mark Chronicals that gave me this epiphany. I want to entertain others. At first I thought I wanted to be involved in media, as I've made over 120 WoW videos over the 5 years I've played the game (I've since hung up my daggers, as it were), but what I really got a kick out of was creating an experience for others and feeding off their enjoyment out of what I've done.

The same goes for the 30 level StarCraft 1 campaign that I designed and the Doom 2 Megawad I'm working on currently. Blizzard Entertainment has had a very powerful influence on me, as I've been playing their games since about 1996 and I realized that I want to be a part of something like that. I want to be responsible for something that causes multitudes of people to look back on and think "I can't imagine my life today if this didn't exist".

In the coming months I'm most likely going to approach my local university's counciller and present them with my spiel and portfolio of stuff that I've done over the past 10 years to see what classes would be a good fit for me. I don't know exactly I'm going to be getting myself into, but it should be for the best. I honestly attribute this realization to MLP.

Beyond all of this, this show has had a superbly positive effect on me as a person. I am attempting to channel the show's morals and ideals. I find myself trying to be nicer, more considerate, and more eager to make friends and be a good friend to my existing ones. I'm also trying to get everyone I know to try the show on the basis of how awesome and positive it is and everyone should experience it (no, I don't troll/bombard people that have tried it and find it not to their liking, nothing, even MLP, is for everyone).

Now that I'm such a big fan of the show, the new episodes are playing me like an instrument. I feel sad when it wants me to feel sad, I feel happy when it wants me to feel happy, I get massive nerd chills when something epic happens, and I squee when they have awesome references such as GokuDash and Chocolate Rain.

Welp, I think that just about covers it from my side. Hopefully everything is in an easy to read and coherent manner. As for my favourite pony, originally it was Fluttershy, then it was a super close race between her and Rainbow Dash, but on account of how impactful episode 16 was, I had to give the edge to Rainbow Dash with Fluttershy as a super-close second. However, I probably relate the most to Twilight.

Thank you very much for reading. I hope this brought some smiles and/or insight to you if you waded through this much text.

Now if you will honour me, stand up and remove your hats as we join Youtube user DreamHuK in the singing of our national anthem: