Wow. Just, wow.
I will try my best to accomodate to the level of cynicism, prejudice and arrogance displayed in this thread. But first let me state my personal expierience with the show:
I was fascinated (at best) by the phenomenon and had some rather negative suspicions about it. But i choose not to be as forward as some have chosen to be here and keep all of that to myself.
Eventually the debate on whether the show had racist undertones kinda lured my into trying it and i ended up watching the entire season on like two weekends.
I considered the show not particularly great but fun, wholesome entertainment and i was actually pleased that something this insightful is shown to kids today instead of the visual feces i had to suffer through 25 years ago.
All of that happened roughly two month ago. Since then i have felt no particular desire to post ponies on the internet. My life continued unponyfied but enriched by a minor fun expierience that certainly was at least par for what the entertainment industry throws at you.
Btw: I found the racism claim to be perfectly ridiculous. I could address every argument in that direction at some length.
Maybe my naive non-american perspective letting my assume Twilight Sparkle was black for like the first four episodes was a factor.
Let me add that i like few things more than finding an American entertainer who is a bigot to bash. Among those few things is finding something to ridicule a vocal Catholic on this board.
So i really tried my best to hate the show. Unfortunatly it was really decent.
I think it's mostly based on adolescents who have just dicovered irony and aren't aware that they can overkill on it
I've never seen an episode but I'm probably still right.
You feel good about that second sentence? I mean, not that it isn't better than the first one.
I've never watched it and agree it looks slightly odd, but there are a lot of shows targeted at children that have a large periphery demographic (and justifiably so), so I won't think anything of it.
The first one not to judge what he doesn't know.
I applaud your patriotism.
Teenagers without enough social cop-on are exactly the type of people to post fan art.
What about men, aged 30, who do six foot blondes, when they are not debating overly judgemental people on the internet?
I don't see a difference between this and Harry Potter quite frankly. Both are intended for children but are enjoyed by adults.
I hate, hate, hate Harry Potter...
Because it's a cartoon specifically made and targeted towards prepubescent girls based on a toy specifically made and targeted to prepubescent girls.
I understand when people like cartoons, because it's nostalgic; they watched it when they were 8 or something, like TMNT, or when the target market is not 11 year old girls, but if you're making an effort to watch a cartoon made for kids, especially one of such a specific demographic, and you're above the age of 13, there is something deeply wrong with you.
Erm, shows don't always work out the way they were originally intended. Audiences may jump in in unexpected proportions, you may have accidentally created a breakout character, etc.
Ask Matt Groening and David Hyde Pierce about it (who have between "their" shows some 60 Emmys in some part based on such phenomena).
What the hell is the deal with this?
It's a cartoon targeted at prepubescent girls, based on a child's toy, again for prepubescent girls, and there are adults who unashamedly watch this?
Am I the only one who finds this at best moronic, and at worst completely and horifically creepy?
What's the appeal here?
The appeal is what others have discribed as the show not being "cynical" without being shallow or stupid. The show basically deals with moral dilemmata that the ponies eventually overcome by clearly favoring virtue ethics over consequentialism.
Four of the ponies represent the cardinal virtues: Fluttershy is temperance, Applejack and Rainbow Dash share justice and courage between them (they messed that up a bit with the insistance on the whole Southerner theme) while Twilight Sparkle - the pony i originally thought of as black embodies what would have been the most anti-stereotypical trait possible, the highest of all virtues: prudence.*
A trait that would have, more equally distributed, spared us this thread...
Let me emphasize once more: The ponies usually don't get to do this the easy way. They frequently fail and often in a rather harsh way, considering that some pre-school children watch the show.
Most of the dilemmata are perfectly applicable to adult life and some of them have political angles to them, both of which a child wouldn't understand.
*Rarity adds sophistication, while Pinkie Pie is just superfluous. and quite annoying.
Please note that i had to look up the names of the ponies on wikipedia to do this. You know, before you call me a fanboy or anything...
The fact that someone had to make an image macro of that (who is probably a 32 year old basement dweller) hardly helps the cause.
A blanket ad-hominem argument, stating that everyone who disagrees with you on this
must be a loser.
How adult...
Like I said: it's just a supplement for gaydar. No big psychoanalysis necessary. Moving on.
An incredibly bold and uninformed statement on a subject that happens to be not history. Nothing new. Moving on.
That would make more sense if they really didn't, in fact, care what we thought. Many of them do.
I believed that was the purpose of this forum. Like... by definition.
Basically my choice is a) not to read or post or b) to care about what you think.
Unfortunatly.
You seem to disagree.
Unfortunatly.
PS:
Dear Moderaters: I gladly take a point for this if any or all of the serious, gaydaring, "creep" fearing, non-idiotic etc. etc. etc. *gaspingforair*... adults feel that i have failed to reciprocate their polite and diplomatic approach to the issue.
