I don’t spend that much time in cafe society but it seems every time I check in the my little pony thread is there. It has an incredible number of posts for a CS thread. My attempts to read or understand it have utterly failed, I read the posts and it’s like Ancient Greek to me.
Am I alone here? Why is the thread so popular? Isn’t it a children’s cartoon? Is this a number of posters reliving their childhood? People with children forced to watch? Is it only a few people making many posts or many people making a few posts?
I was more of a GI Joe child perhaps it’s just possible I’ll never understand.
I haven’t seen it, but flipping through the first page of the thread, its apparently a new cartoon and not the 80’s TV show that they’re watching, which clears up some of they mystery.
You’re not alone. I posted in that thread once to ask if it was a huge inside joke. Apparently, it’s an internet meme.
Haven’t seen the show since I am not all that into watching tv shows unless I get stuck somewhere where tv is the only entertainment. And especially not cartoons (I might hate anime more than anything though)
I don’t understand what is baffling. This is not the first time a show for kids has attracted adult attention. Some people enjoy the show because it has a tone they find pleasant and amusing.
People liking a cartoon I understand just fine. Reading that thread I could barely figure out what the cartoon was.
Generally threads about TV shows discuss the plot or characters, even if I don’t watch the show I can go into a thread and get the idea. I often do this on the Dope to identify if I might like a show or not.
I started watching with kids, but I like it a lot myself (and my username is a line from one of its songs).
I had heard of it before watching, but I thought it was going to be another sickeningly sweet, everything is so perfect all the time cartoon for girls with sappy songs. Like the Happy Elves show that Lisa watched on The Simpsons that drove everyone else mad. But when I finally watched, I found it to be really funny with a lot of jokes aimed at grown-ups. The songs are fantastic and the animation is really cool to watch. Even though I like it and follow a lot of news about it online, I don’t know that I quite understand people who are more obsessed than me.
So it’s more than one might anticipate from a rebooted girls’ cartoon from the 80s on a fringe cable network.
There isn’t an overarching storyline through the seasons. Each episode is self-contained, hence the lack of any sort of discussion of new developments and whatnot.
The key is to look past the veneer of cute to the deep well of badass.
Consider some abstract character information:
Character A-[ul]
[li]Telekinesis with sustained lift capacity in excess of 1,000 tons and range measured in miles.[/li][li]Teleportation[/li][li]Macro-scale transmutation of living and non-living matter[/li][li]Animation of non-living objects[/li][li]A substantial and still-growing array of lesser powers, known and unknown[/li][/ul]
Character B-[ul]
[li]Unaided flight at speeds in excess of Mach 5[/li][li]Weather control, including creation of tornadoes and generation of lightning[/li][/ul]
Character C-[ul]
[li]Unaided flight at subsonic speeds[/li][li]Mental domination of both sapient and non-sapient creatures[/li][/ul]
Character D-[ul]
[li]Short-range precognition, primarily warnings of imminent threats[/li][li]Uncanny infiltration capabilities[/li][li]Remarkable knowledge of obscure information and tactics[/li][li]An array of unusual devices matched to the character’s theme, including aircraft[/li][/ul]
See, without the cutesy names, they sound like the roster of a team of superheroes.
(Okay, so I didn’t try to come up with anything for Applejack and Rarity. I figure making Pinkie Pie sound like a combination of Batman and Spider-Man is enough of a feat.)
I am led to understand that it’s not really about cute and sweet ponies, so much as tapping into what little girls really used to imagine when they played with their My Little Pony toys at four years old. Basically, they’ve let their imagination roam wild and free.
Applejack would probably be like Richard Kimble in the modern version of The Fugitive, not so much gifted as sort of the unstoppable force.
Rarity only had one episode so far where she was able to be powerful, when she was kidnapped by the cave-dwelling creatures (trolls?). Her power there seemed to be as the world’s greatest nagger. I lurved, but it doesn’t lend itself to the general view of a hero.
