Friday, June 26, 2015

Positv* (for Positiv*)

Are you a Brony? Are you positive? Do you like music, memes, animation, fanfic, and things outside your "target demographic"? Do you like ponies who are punny? Can you say the words "cutie marks" without gagging? The cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (animator and writer Lauren Faust also worked on the critically acclaimed Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends) has been gathering admirers for almost five years now and is currently humming along at quite a clip. (Or should I say clop? One might even say—and it seems that one is almost required to, in fact—prancing, trotting, cantering, or galloping at one.) Originally posited for little girls, this program about equine princesses and their many pals has a serious fan base of males between the ages of 18 and 35. Surprisingly enough, however, most insist they watch it "un-ironically" and non-pervertedly (albeit, one might note, with an occasional dash of hipster dust and vague oppression). This wide-eyed love for these wide-eyed ponies (female Bronies are sometimes known as "Pegasisters") is representative of the soi-disant "New Sincerity." Generating waves of online positivity and digital creativity, MLP-based iconography has been compared to Japanese anime and other forms of pop-cultural derivation. Summon the spirit of Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville's own librarian, and rein in today's runaway typo, spotted six times in OhioLINK and 572 times in WorldCat.

(Twilight Sparkle READ poster.)

Carol Reid

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