Fans of My Little Pony, Please Help!

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Mikeyfell

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Aug 24, 2010
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Zhadramekel said:
Mikeyfell said:
Zhadramekel said:
Haters, please steer clear of this thread. I need the responses for university work.

Bronies and pegasisters, I need your help. I'm writing a dissertation/thesis on my fandom of My Little Pony and it would really, really help me out if you could respond to just a couple of questions.
I have a question, What's your degree going to be in?
Thanks very much for replying to my questions. My degree is actually in Journalism but we're given pretty much free reign on the topic of dissertations, as long as it's related to media in some way. Originally I was going to cover the whole basis of culture on the internet (people who make money/earn a living through YouTube etc.) but my supervisor recommended that I narrow it down.
That's really cool
good luck.
 

Neverhoodian

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Apr 2, 2008
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1. It has strong, three-dimensional characters, terrific music, great voice acting, and impressive animation for Flash. Most of all though, I enjoy the show because it's a draught of wholesome, child-like innocence in what can be a jaded and cynical world. Everyone needs a dose of innocence from time to time.

2. I started seeing pony-related images and macros popping up in ever-increasing numbers online. Curiosity got the better of me and I began watching clips on Youtube. It all snowballed quickly from there.

3. My (admittedly small) Youtube channel started getting increasing numbers of hecklers and dislikes on my videos when I switched from TF2 related content to pony related ones (which is kind of strange, as the TF2 community is known to have a large brony contingenet). It's one of the reasons why it's been kind of languishing for a while (that and I'm a lazy bastard).

As for real life, my father is uneasy about me liking the show, so I don't bring it up when I visit him (my mother enjoys it, though). Some random frat brat called me a perma-virgin when checking out pony merchandise at the local Hot Topic branch as well. Ultimately though, it really doesn't matter much to me. I know what I like, and I'm not going to change just because others don't enjoy the same things I do.
 

GB-1025

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Jul 30, 2012
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1. The animation and the writing is fantastic. It has compelling characters that people can relate to, a clever sense of humor, unbelievably catchy songs, and subtle (and not so subtle) references to everything from Benny Hill to Looney Toons etc., and above all else it's just genuine, bright and colorful, lighthearted fun. I can always count on the show to put a smile on my face.

2. I would notice a few pony avatars on various forums and websites. I thought to myself, "Hmm, that's interesting." It was ultimately a youtuber named Bhaalspawn who created a couple of videos on 'Brony Culture' that made me realize that this was much bigger than I had realized. So I sat down and watched the show on youtube. A week later I had seen every episode up until that point (the season 2 finale was only a few weeks away) and I had become completely absorbed in brony culture.

3. Not much, really. There's the usual hater in the youtube comments, but I never received any hatred personally. My mom certainly thinks its weird that I like this show and she doesn't quite understand the concept of 'brony culture', (or any other subculture for that matter) but she's not bothered by it. My dad on the other hand is unaware of bronies, but he watched it with my niece and admits that he likes it. (Best dad ever!!) If anything the person that I get the most crap from is my little brother. He is 14 after all, but even by teenage standards his concern about self-image kind of worries me.
 

Leemaster777

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Feb 25, 2010
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Ah, My Little Pony. A subject I am well-versed in. (God, if you had asked me 3 years ago if I would EVER say something like that, and I'd have called you nuts.)

1. Why do I watch the show? Well, the usual reasons: It's funny, the characters are fun and endearing, the animation is pleasant, etc. But the main reason for me? Honestly... it's the fanbase. I love all the fan-made content, from the art, to the songs, the vids, the in-jokes, the livestreams, etc. This is such a fun, quirky community. Sure, there's... less than reputable members, but they're in the vast minority, and what's good about the fanbase far outweighs the bad.

I can safely say that without the fanbase, I probably wouldn't follow the show anymore. Or at least not as much as I do now.

2. How did I start? Why, on this very site, of course! I entered a MLP thread WAAAAY back when the second half of season 1 was still airing. I thought the thread was about the OLD MLP, only to soon realize it was about a new show. So, I got curious, and the rest is history.

3. Have I received any hate? Nope. Not at all. I've told all my friends (and my sister) that I watch it, and at worst, I got "dude, are you serious?". After showing them some of it, they'd say "oh, I see now". Some watched more, some didn't. But I'm really the only "brony" I know in real life. I haven't told my parents, not because I'm AFRAID or anything, but because I'm 100% certain they wouldn't understand/wouldn't care, mostly because they don't really like cartoons, and they're not fans of musicals.

Hope that helped.
 

verdant monkai

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Oct 30, 2011
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Zhadramekel said:
1) Why do you like the show?
2) How and why did you start watching?
3) What kind of backlash / hate (if any) have you received - either online or offline?
1.) I'm into some grisly shit like zombies/horror movies/punk, the ponies are a nice contrast to all of that business. I like all of the characters and it always leaves me with pleasant feelings.
2.) I saw a meme and then did a quick google of it, then I watched the show on youtube late one night whilst I was baby sitting.
3.) None I don't talk about it all that much, I have never posted the sort of thing that warrants mocking (I've never useda picture of a pony with the caption "deal with it" to justify my terrible opinions).
In real life my mate mentioned he watched it and I said I did too, then my other friend said "oh no your not a brony are you?" I just blankly stared at him and said "yeah", we then carried on the same as normal.

I don't know if I'm what you would call a hardcore Brony... I've never announced that I am or gone around asking people if they watch it too. I do however read hotdiggedydemon's satirical Jappleack tumblr and watch his animations, so I suppose that could be considered fan material.

Basically if you are writing a dissertation the general reason for its popularity is the appeal of the diverse cute characters, the unique art style, and apparently the writing people hold in such high esteem. In my opinion the writung is better than average kids show stuff, its ok but you aren't going to find anything life changing in it. For example all the episodes on Fluttershy (the cowardly socially inept one) are her friends aiding her to overcome her fears, and how she becomes stronger from her friends help. When we all know what she really needs is strong alcohol.
 

crimson sickle2

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Sep 30, 2009
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I only watched the first season, but...

1)It exemplifies many of the ancient cartoon tropes and they're pretty entertaining to watch as a plus.

2)I heard about it before it aired and as I heard some more information about it, I watched it when I had some extra time.

3)I know a lot of people that have said they're the most hated community of all time, but I personally haven't received any hate.
 

Torrasque

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Aug 6, 2010
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Zhadramekel said:
1) Why do you like the show?
2) How and why did you start watching?
3) What kind of backlash / hate (if any) have you received - either online or offline?

Thanks very much for helping me, I really appreciate it.
1. I like the show because the characters are entertaining and make my day feel better.
2. I started watching the show because I had seen many clips shared by friends and people I knew online, as well as the amount of controversy the show was attracting. I felt that I should watch the show for myself to see which side of the argument I would align with. I started watching the show by watching episodes that other fans of the show would post on youtube.
3. I have received very little backlash/hate online or offline, partially because I don't care what people I don't know say about things I enjoy, but mostly because I just don't get much backlash/hate about liking MLP:FiM at all. I get the occasional comment, but its rarely a serious "Eww, you watch THAT show? Whats wrong with you?".
 

SkullKing84

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Feb 10, 2011
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Zhadramekel said:
1) Why do you like the show?
I like the humor, the animation and some episodes are well written. Hell, even better writing then some of the shows i watch with my wife. Plus all the characters are likeable and adorable.

Zhadramekel said:
2) How and why did you start watching?
Netflix streaming. I was looking for something to watch with my son and accidentally clicked on MLP.



Zhadramekel said:
3) What kind of backlash / hate (if any) have you received - either online or offline?
Online none. Offline none.
 

s0p0g

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Aug 24, 2009
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1) Why do you like the show?
-no particular order: nice vector graphics, bright colours, an overall friendly tone (especially in the first season), likeable characters with awesome voice-acting, the general positive outlook on everything (A Canterlot Weeding - do not like; it's too gritty for MLP FiM) - it allows thinking of a "better world", if you will, for ~20 minutes, and is really motivating to "make it so!"
also: Pinkie Pie (who is best pony, hooves down) and Applejack (very close second, or tied - i am still not sure about that) - the world needs more Pinkie Pies and Applejacks!
and bronies.

2) How and why did you start watching?
-more and more pics with captions popped up all over this fine site's forums; as most (i believe), first i thought: what the hell? then i thought: alright, give it a try - i can spare 20 minutes (that was somewhere halfway through season one). a couple of hours later i had watched every episode released so far, and was completely and utterly hooked.

3) What kind of backlash / hate (if any) have you received - either online or offline?
-no real hate at all; of course some of my friends do give a rather sceptical look, and joke about it a little, but that's all in good fun (yes, i know nice people. nice people > not nice people :p ). the rest are bronies, too - i am a zealous preacher of the Pony! :D

oh, and at some point, why don't you give us some more details on your work? that'd sure be nice. and interesting. i hope ;)
 

secretkeeper12

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Jun 14, 2012
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Zhadramekel said:
1) Why do you like the show?
It has good characterization, and does an excellent job of showing, not telling. Plus some of the jokes are gut-bustingly hilarious (Mild west! Ha!)
Zhadramekel said:
2) How and why did you start watching?
It all started way back in the distant time of last August. As you might recall, this is when the Mann vs. Machine update for TF2 was officially announced. I watched the trailer, and happened to notice a related video with ponies in the thumbnail. It's title was something like "Mann vs. Machine (TF2 Pony Style)" and I found it to be brilliantly entertaining. Unfortunately I can't seem to find it, though I know it was by the same person who made this charming video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANotC5GYMgI] (if anyone knows what I'm talking about, I'd be grateful if you could provide a link to where it's currently found), but I digress. That, combined with the brony fandom I'd heard about on here and other sites, lead me to watch the actual show. The first 3 episodes were meh, but "Applebuck Season"....just "Applebuck Season".
Zhadramekel said:
3) What kind of backlash / hate (if any) have you received - either online or offline?
Well, I once made a SPUF thread where I threw in a little refernce (20% cooler for the curious). While most kept to the topic, a few decided to rage and ended up getting it deleted (to be fair, I might've added some fuel to the flames ;)).

GB-1025 said:
2. I would notice a few pony avatars on various forums and websites. I thought to myself, "Hmm, that's interesting." It was ultimately a youtuber named Bhaalspawn who created a couple of videos on 'Brony Culture' that made me realize that this was much bigger than I had realized. So I sat down and watched the show on youtube. A week later I had seen every episode up until that point (the season 2 finale was only a few weeks away) and I had become completely absorbed in brony culture.
Bhaalspawn actually has an account here on the Escapist by the same name if you didn't know. Why not say hi to him?
 

Zeckt

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Nov 10, 2010
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1) Why do you like the show?

It cheers me up if I'm in a bad mood. No matter how bad my day's been, it brightens my mood.

2) How and why did you start watching?

I saw pony avatar's plastered everywhere with people constantly talking about it, so I took the plunge and immediately loved it.

3) What kind of backlash / hate (if any) have you received - either online or offline?

Absolutely none in real life, my sister now watches it regularly too. If anyone decided to judge me negatively for watching it chances are they are not really worth befriending to begin with.
 

Extra-Ordinary

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Mar 17, 2010
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1. I could go into explanation about how the animation is great, the voice-acting is great, Lauren Faust is a great writer, this, that, blah blah bleh blah. Those are all the contributing factors of course but to me the whole really is greater than the sum of it's parts, I just like it is all. When it's on I can't help but enjoy it.

2. I saw it around here first with avatars changing to ponies left right and center. That led me to do some more-or-less research, figure out what the show was (and by that I mean G4), learn who made it, what the fascination was, etc. I must have watched fifty of those less-than-10-second clips of a character saying a single line, you know, like this?


It was watching a marathon of those that I realized "I should probably just try the show by now." And I did. First episode was Lesson Zero. To be honest, I wasn't hooked immediately like most people were. But I stuck it out and it grew on me more over time. Now I absolutely LOVE it.

3. The closest I've come to any real hate is just my friends messing with me, they don't REALLY care all that much. I've never received any direct online hate but I've see it. And the way I see it, there's 3 ways we react to it.
From most likely to least likely:
Respond violently
Ignore it (which I fall into)
Respond friendly-like, which works one out of every ten times but hey, real props to the times that it works.
 

Proeliator

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Aug 22, 2012
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1) Why do you like the show?
I don't know why. Oh God, I don't know WHY! At the end of the day, its executed well (for the most part), it can make me chuckle, and even make me go "dawww." Some times it pulls off the impossible, and I feel [small][small]emotions[/small][/small].

2) How and why did you start watching?
A friend had suggested it to me, claiming it was "as good as the 90's batman cartoon." 4 months later while watching Gundam Wing on a nostalgia trip, I saw MLP:FIM on the recently added sidebar, and decided to see what all the fuss was about. I'll stop here since I don't want the post to go on for too long.


3) What kind of backlash / hate (if any) have you received - either online or offline?
I've kept my fanaticism on the down low, so very few if any, personally. Though I've heard it happen to people. I usually get: "What's this on the DVR? Oh, as long as it's supposed to be there." or "Oh, one of those people? Don't talk to me about that." Sometimes I wish someone would challenge me, just so I could diffuse them like a champ.


An in-depth personal analysis of my decent into brony-dom is available upon request.
 

Tahaneira

Social Justice Rogue
Feb 1, 2011
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1. It's a good show in general. The art, animation, writing, and acting are all at least above-average, if not amazing. Sometimes it crosses the line into saccharine, but not often, and it usually pokes fun at itself when it does. It's well put together, often hilarious, and actually gets me to care about the characters and their problems. If only most live-action shows could do the same.

2. My roommate became a fan of the show first, and since we live in a fairly small apartment, we usually wind up watching the same things at least in part. Fortunately we tend to enjoy the same things. When he first told me to sit down and watch it, I was a bit incredulous; but I sat down and watched it. I had to kinda force myself through the pilot episodes, but I eventually realized I was enjoying myself. And so I continued to watch and enjoy.

3. Hate? Nope. The most I've gotten is pretty much the same reaction I had when I was asked to start watching it: a moment of stunned silence and a reply of, "Seriously?" They come to accept that I enjoy it, and don't question that I should be able to. They just have doubts that they could. It doesn't quite fit into their worldview, but not to the point of hatred. Then again, I don't really talk about it on the internet that much.
 

DarthFennec

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May 27, 2010
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Zhadramekel said:
1) Why do you like the show?
The same reason I like any show. The characters are all interesting and likable and easy to identify and empathize with. The stories are entertaining and well-written. The animation and music and voice acting are top notch. It's just a very well-put-together show.

Zhadramekel said:
2) How and why did you start watching?
I had just saw Nostalgia Chick's review of the original G1 MLP movie, and I was looking up random MLP stuff online. I saw there was a new show, so I decided to check it out. I think only the first or second episodes of season 1 was out by then ... but anyway, I immediately fell in love with it.

Zhadramekel said:
3) What kind of backlash / hate (if any) have you received - either online or offline?
Mostly it's just been people getting annoyed about it on the Escapist. I've seen a tiny bit of hate on Youtube as well, but not very much. Other than that, nothing at all.
 

GodzillaGuy92

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Jul 10, 2012
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1) In a broad sense, the show's strongest point is its writing, which encompasses its stories, dialogue, humor, characters, and song lyrics. Though the show executes all of these masterfully, the specific component that stands above the rest is the characters, who are easily among the most layered and endearing I've ever come across, animated or otherwise. Along with the aforementioned elements, there's the incredibly smooth animation, great art design, music (both background music and that which accompanies the songs), the most pitch-perfect voice acting I've ever heard in televised animation, and the general tone of sincerity and optimism that permeates the show and has subsequently made me a happier person in general since I started watching it (though unlike a few others who have praised it for avoiding all cynicism or irony, I've found that it's present in doses just large enough to give its stories proper weight, context, and thematic depth; the first episode, which is basically a deconstruction of the entirety of the preceding My Little Pony franchise, is a great example, especially since it's what validates the reconstruction that takes place in the following episode). There are also a few external factors, such as what is by far the most friendly and welcoming fandom I've ever seen (not to mention the huge amounts of creative talent to be found in its writers, animators, musicians, and artists, which serve to "extend" the life of the show, in a way), its memetic appeal, and admittedly a bit of subversive charm to be had in deriving such enjoyment from a show that should by all rights be unwatchable.

2) The first time I heard about the show and "bronies" was in passing some time in the summer of 2011, and I thought little of it, assuming it to be some sort of ironic thing directed at the toys. It wasn't until October of that year that a deviantART user whom I follow (who now does work for IDW's Godzilla and Transformers comics) posted a sketch of the main characters along with a brief description of each of them and the reason the show has a large adult following. Probably the largest contributing factor was the fact that he included a link to this video in the description - which was admittedly something I would rather not have had spoiled for me before I even knew who the character was, but it did more or less leave me thinking, "Okay, I've gotta check this out." After a bit of additional research on Wikipedia and Youtube, I looked up the pilot episode (again, on YouTube) and was immediately hooked; since I was on Fall Break, there was nothing stopping me from spending the next two days doing nothing but archive bingeing my way through the show's whole length, which at the time was the first season and the Season 2 premiere. It's been my primary beacon of artistic inspiration ever since.

3) Offline, very little. There were a couple of people who expressed a level of bewilderment that I can't help but be a little depressed by (particularly since they were all female, whom you would think would be precisely the ones that wouldn't need to have it explained to them that the quality of a work isn't dependent on what gender it's targeted toward), but they all proved understanding once I outlines it for them - one of them, my younger sister, is even a casual fan now. (And it's always nice when the exact opposite happens, where you see someone wearing a Derpy hat or something, or you get a compliment on a pony-related shirt.) Online, of course, the number of people willing to devote the effort to logical thought drops sharply, so as many others have said, there's a lot of general, ignorance-driven hate floating around. Most of it is simply knee-jerk, reactionary stuff, whether it's profanity-spewing YouTubers humiliating themselves in the comment sections of pony videos or outcries that ponies are taking over/ruining the internet whenever a fan has the gall to so much as mention the show's name. What little backlash has been personally directed at me (basically, a handful of YouTube comments) was all just extensions of that sort of behavior.
 

TephlonPrice

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Dec 24, 2011
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1. Because it's entertaining & I like it. And because compared to Criminal Minds, the dark moments don't get excessively dark.

2. Originally linked to a PMV (Shame on a Pony) on another forum I frequent. I went to a friend's house to hang out & eventually I watched a bit of an episode & left, partially because it's ponies. Ironically: I went home & watched small pony clips, PMVs & eventually full blown episodes.

3. None that I know of. Namely because I'm a linebacker looking black man who will put them hands to good use, and I don't go around flaunting my pony love.

BTW, how long is your paper expected to be? Because you're definitely gonna need A LOT of information for it to work.
 

Aaron Sylvester

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Jul 1, 2012
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1) Why do you like the show?
Adorable characters, great light-hearted humor, did I mention adorable characters? Their facial expressions, actions, reactions, etc are of such nuclear radiation-levels-of-cuteness that it's enough to make people's hearts explode. Often you'll see reactions like "HNNNNNNNNGGGG" to MLP related stuff from the fans (or even non-fans).
Huge and varying color palette, looks excellent at 1080p, just really pleasing on the eyes. Smooth animation, one of the smoothest I have seen around. The plot is entertaining, character development is great, healthy usage of songs/musicals, and finally the occasional reference/parody thrown to the brony/adult fans of the show.

2) How and why did you start watching?
Saw people around the internet changing their avatars and signatures to pony-related things, also started seeing a lot of pony-meme's (esp. reaction meme's) getting tossed around. I correctly guessed that this was yet another thing-of-the-month to rise out of 4Chan's bottomless maw, but I had no idea that it was actually something so nice and pleasant and something that was about to become so HUGE.

I watched the first episode on Youtube out of sheer curiosity of why it had such a huge following, got hooked since then.

3) What kind of backlash / hate (if any) have you received - either online or offline?
I personally haven't received any backlash.

Backlash/hate against the MLP community is like trying to evaporate the ocean by throwing a lit match into it, it's of complete and utter insignificance...and the best part is, the trolls (or haters) don't even get any satisfaction out of doing it, because usually they fail to make bronies angry/mad at them (it's all about tolerance <3) thus defeating the entire purpose of hating/trolling in the first place.
 

Valkrex

Elder Dragon
Jan 6, 2013
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Zhadramekel said:
Haters, please steer clear of this thread. I need the responses for university work.

Bronies and pegasisters, I need your help. I'm writing a dissertation/thesis on my fandom of My Little Pony and it would really, really help me out if you could respond to just a couple of questions.

1) Why do you like the show?
2) How and why did you start watching?
3) What kind of backlash / hate (if any) have you received - either online or offline?

Thanks very much for helping me, I really appreciate it.
1.

The animation, stories, characters, villains, music, and world are all fantastic. I love fantasy of all kinds, and the set up for the land of Equestria was surprisingly well done, and the villain shown for the early part of the show was genuinely interesting. Every now and again a new villain will appear to threaten Equestria, and they are all very well done, and (with the exception of Sombre) all very fleshed out, charismatic, and genuinely threatening. One of them, Discord the Lord of Chaos, is actually voiced by THE John De Lancie, other wise known as Q from Star Trek while the character Discord is actually VERY similar to Q in terms of power and personality. Each character has a very distinct personality, and they all react to the situation differently. Each of the mane (horrible pun) ponies are rather deep for a cartoon, and show growth and change as the series goes on as they learn more about each other, and learn from their mistakes.

The musical sections are FANTASTIC. They are very well written and choreographed and can range from one character doing a solo song, to a full on 20+ person choir that sounds simply amazing. Along with the instrumentals behind the singing being incredibly catchy, the lyrics are as well. Usually when a show brings out the singing, I run for cover and pray it doesn't last half the episode. Here though, I actively enjoy the musical numbers, sing along to them at times, and even have a few on my MP3 player.

The show is also genuinely funny. I've had moments where I literally fell out of my chair laughing at something that had happened, and there are tons of references to adult shows such as multiple uses of Benny Hill style chase scenes, and even a Sherlock Holmes style episode complete with the hat and pipe.

I'm also a fan of bad puns, and this show as a LOT of bad puns. Instead of every body or everyone, they say "everypony". The city and country names are rather punny as well with shining examples such as Manehattan, Canterlot, Fillydelphia, Las Pegasus, Saddle Arabia, Appleoosa, and so on. I know there are more examples of this, but I can't think of any at the moment.

The lessons taught in this show are surprisingly smart as well considering the target audience. A lot of the morals and lessons shown should be common sense, but a lot of people could really learn from some of the advice given at the end of each episode. The lessons range from not taking on more work than you can handle, tolerating differences in your friends and siblings, the importance of keeping calm in a trying situation, avoiding catastrophising and debilitating anxiety over small issues, and many more. There's even an episode that deals with racism and xenophobia believe it or not.

Also, its a "feel good" show. Not quite sure how else to phrase that, but it really helps cheer me up if I'm in a bad mood, or make a good mood that much better. It also has that childhood innocence about it that I desperately need every now and then. The real world can be a dark, scary, and cynical place, and MLP's innocence really helps brighten things up, keep me in a good mood, and make the world easier to deal with.

2.

I was actually in a skype call with a friend of mine and she made a reference to the show that I didn't get, but they thought I did. So I googled it, and she sent me a link to the first episode on youtube. I was curious at this point, and she asked me to at least give an episode a try before judging. . The next thing I knew eight episodes when by and I was completely in love with the characters and the world.

3.

I haven't really gotten any offline, just the occasionally person that is confused about the whole thing and doesn't like it themselves, but they don't care that I do.

Online its just the usual youtube comment, so nothing major.

So yea I hope this helps, and good luck on that paper :D