What is it with My Little Pony?

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I've never seen it, and I'm certainly not putting it down (everybody has their favorite tv shows) but it seems that MLP has a lot of adult followers among those on the spectrum. Why is that? What is it about the show that interests so many adults?

I'm seriously just asking, not putting the show or it's fans down. I've never seen it at all, but I have bought a whole bunch of the ponies for my youngest daughter when she was little.

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I liked watching the cartoon because I liked the art style, the characters and the fact that on the internet, it is a cartoon that's socially acceptable to be obsessed with as an adult.

My obsession with the cartoon has since died down, but I'm still very much into collecting the toys - and not just from the g4 generation either - I will collect ponies from any and all generations.

The writing is, for a kids' cartoon, quite sophisticated at times--it doesn't "talk down" to its audience.

Along those same lines, the characters have real depth, including flaws that have been explored quite thoroughly (there's probably still uncharted territory there, though).

I watched G1 growing up and loved it, btw.

My reasons:

It's packed with references. Horror movies to Tolkien to movies no one in the intended age bracket should even be thinking of watching.

Jokes with double meanings. They can appeal to kids in a simple way, but you think about them a little... there's an entire different layer there. Sometimes they're much more blunt.

The logical implications of some of the actions and characters. The sheer amount of fridge horror when you think about Celestia for example... the poor thing has seen everyone she's ever cared about except her sister die, and she had to put her sister in the MOON for a millennium.

The community. I'm on a bit of a fanfic kick, and MAN some of these people can write. I read one story in particular, The Immortal Game, which is one hell of an awesome story. It's not even finished yet. Equestria: Total War (I tend to gravitate toward the darker side of things) is much the same.

And, like conondrum said, it never talks down to the audience. The writers don't put something as simply as possible, they leave things open to the imagination.

edit:

Oh... the songs. They range from happy (Smile Smile Smile) to downright soul crushing (for me anyway).

If you are interested in why aspies in particular like it, just watch the first episode, you should see how some of the main characters are expecially relatable right after the intro, and again near the end.

What makes someone watch a child's cartoon in the first place? I can see liking it once you have seen it, but why would you turn it on to begin with? Did you start watching it with your kids or a younger sibling, or were you just flipping through the channels and nothing else was on, or had you read here that lots of people liked it and you wanted to see for yourself what was up with it?

Honestly, because I've had to watch cartoons for years and years when mine were little, I'm pretty sick of cartoons in general. South Park, Family Guy and King Of The Hill are the only ones I watch. There were some kids shows that I enjoyed back when my kids were watching them (Little Bear, Gullah Gullah Island, Rocket Power, Hey Arnold!, Doug, and a few others) but I've never watched them since they grew out of it.

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

A friend of mine got me in to it. Linked me to the episode The Last Roundup. Then I started cruising a brony meme site for a while. Then not long ago, I got bored and switched on the pilot. In the next couple of days, I had watched both seasons and found myself eagerly awaiting the next season as I moved on to fanfics.

A fellow WPer mentioned it to me and I got curious. Selected an episode on YouTube ("The Return of Harmony", I think) and that was it.

Speaking for myself, I'm very much like a big kid at times when it comes to my tastes in movies, TV, and such. Though I'm mostly fixated on the stuff I grew up with, like 90's Nickelodeon cartoons and sitcoms, PBS shows from the 70's-early 90's, Disney movies, and the Muppets. Honestly, some of it probably is nostalgia and the comforting familiarity of these shows, but I still think that the kids' stuff I still like to watch is of good quality, and better than a lot of what passes as "adult" entertainment these days.

I haven't seen this new My Little Pony show, but based on what I've heard about it, it might be worth checking out. Even if I didn't like it, I certainly wouldn't judge people for being into it. I know that a lot of my interests are commonly seen as childish or otherwise unusual, so why should I judge other people's tastes?

My take on the matter is this, I may get flamed slightly for my opinion, but yeah.

Basically, guys have their girly side, too. For me, this is expressed in a lot of things I do. A vast majority of the music I listen to is girly pop music, ie, eurobeat, happy hardcore, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUwIv3fuZ0g Like that. I'm guessing my reasoning for liking it is my emotional maturity is probably quite low, and I'm quite alexithymic, I usually don't know how I feel at most times. But songs like that for some reason, I feel I can "connect" much better to.

So with MLP, it's not really a bad show by any means, it's done by the same lady who made the Powerpuff Girls, it's funny at times. But I myself really don't see the big deal. If I watched TV and it was on, I'd not turn it off, but it's not something I'd specifically seek out and watch.

But, what I think it is, it gives guys who wouldn't otherwise have an outlet for their "girly" side an appropriate outlet. How it got appropriate is, probably a few guys who legitimately liked it started posting it on 4chan, Reddit, whatever sites those hip young kids (lololol) post on nowadays, and then out of curiosity, other people watched it, and followed them, got on the bandwagon if you would. So now, many guys who have inclination to watch such things as MLP, but wouldn't because of peer pressure to not do it, now have peers that watch it, so there's solidarity in their group.

That's what I think.

Its on Netflix if you are interested in watching it. I have yet to sit down and watch a whole episode but my daughter likes it a lot and has a basket full of MLP stuff that will prob make some fanboys jealous heh.