My ongoing morbid obsession with My Little Pony and its bizarre brony fandom has recently led me to a very interesting conclusion: I believe My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is using a form of psychological conditioning and effectively functioning as a piece of propaganda.
Allow me to explain. I'm not some whack job who believes that there are cryptic racist/sexist/whatever messages encoded in mlp. I think the show's morals and messages are harmless; It's the technique by which it spreads those messages which scares me. The show has proven to be extremely effective in instilling modes of behavior in its audience. My evidence is the brony community at large. MLP was able to take a selection from /b/, the bleeding sphincter of the internet, and transform it into a population of people who talk about "Love and tolerence for everypony." Pavlov was only able to get the dog to drool.
How does this happen? Like everyone, most proto-bronies cringe when first hearing the pony puns and cliche moral messages in the show, but they keep watching for the good jokes and decent stories. Over time however, the brain starts to absorb all the other stuff as well. You begin to associate your affections for the jokes and stories with the sayings and messages with which they are communicated, and soon enough you're going on about friendship and magic as well. You've been conditioned.
Do I think this is a bad thing? Well, there will always be something kind of underhanded about getting someone to behave in a certain way not through reasoned argument, but through some form of coercion. That being said, you can do a hell of a lot worse than what My Little Pony has to say. I do think however that those watching the show should be aware of this conditioning. Don't be fooled by the pretty multi-colored ponies into thinking it's all harmless kid's stuff. Like all elements of culture, MLP will have some influence on your thinking, and nothing should be allowed entrance into that most sacred space of the mind without first passing through a fine mesh of skepticism.
tl;dr: My Little Pony brainwashes people into being kind and tolerant people. It's like the nega-Hitler!
Allow me to explain. I'm not some whack job who believes that there are cryptic racist/sexist/whatever messages encoded in mlp. I think the show's morals and messages are harmless; It's the technique by which it spreads those messages which scares me. The show has proven to be extremely effective in instilling modes of behavior in its audience. My evidence is the brony community at large. MLP was able to take a selection from /b/, the bleeding sphincter of the internet, and transform it into a population of people who talk about "Love and tolerence for everypony." Pavlov was only able to get the dog to drool.
How does this happen? Like everyone, most proto-bronies cringe when first hearing the pony puns and cliche moral messages in the show, but they keep watching for the good jokes and decent stories. Over time however, the brain starts to absorb all the other stuff as well. You begin to associate your affections for the jokes and stories with the sayings and messages with which they are communicated, and soon enough you're going on about friendship and magic as well. You've been conditioned.
Do I think this is a bad thing? Well, there will always be something kind of underhanded about getting someone to behave in a certain way not through reasoned argument, but through some form of coercion. That being said, you can do a hell of a lot worse than what My Little Pony has to say. I do think however that those watching the show should be aware of this conditioning. Don't be fooled by the pretty multi-colored ponies into thinking it's all harmless kid's stuff. Like all elements of culture, MLP will have some influence on your thinking, and nothing should be allowed entrance into that most sacred space of the mind without first passing through a fine mesh of skepticism.
tl;dr: My Little Pony brainwashes people into being kind and tolerant people. It's like the nega-Hitler!
