We all know the story of the modern my little pony fanbase. An unexpected and once monumental fanbase that dominated the internet during 2012 and 2013 respectively. The fanbase known for a huge amount of 13-30 year old males has seemingly disappeared from the mainstream and is now but a memory of a very strange time. I was one of those people who used to love it. At the age of 13 in 2012 I watched an episode and the rest is history. Up until 2015 I loved MLP. But during season 5 I lost interest and started to look elsewhere. For the longest time I could never figure this out. In my search for answers the first one I came to was that the fanbase had ruined it for me. Then over time I came to the conclusion that it was never good to begin with and that I and everyone else involved were getting in on a trend and deluded ourselves to believe it was good. My actual problem couldn't be further from the truth.

MY PROBLEM

My actual problem was that the show I liked had simply ended. A youtuber talked about this in depth and explained that seasons 1-4 was pretty much it's own separate show from seasons 5 and onward. Seasons 1 through 4 were dedicated to the development of the main characters established in season 1. By season 4 this process (with the exception of the CMC) was over. Season 5 and onward has been about these new characters that I simply do not care about. Truth of the matter is that MLP seasons 1-4 was actually a pretty good television programme that was loved for good reason.

MY EXPERIENCE 

The reason I adopted the "it was a fad" idea was simply down to the shame I felt due to watching it. Internally my defence for it lasted all throughout my interest in it. I started to feel shame once I had been away from it for some time. And let me tell you, the judgement from other people was awful. I could take a little bit of teasing about it (hell I'd even joke about it myself a little). But that doesn't excuse how other people acted over it. I lost two friends to this hobby. Two people actively rejected me due to liking MLP. To add to that my family weren't exactly nice about it either. I recently came to the realisation that my mother had actually attempted to stop me watching it on one occasion. Since I let go of this interest we haven't talked about it since. Hell there have been occasions where I've mentioned my little pony and they quickly like to change the subject (most likely due to shame of having a son/brother who was into that). I won't claim we needed a rights movement or anything but some very socially conservative people genuinely would hate you for watching it. I wanted to buy merch but now you can see why I never had the guts to do it. On a lighter note having re-watched the earlier episodes I feel completely ok about what I did. I liked my little pony: friendship is magic... and that was ok.

THE FUTURE

It has come to my attention that a generation 5 of MLP is in development. Without spoiling anything I will say I am digging the ideas brought up and do believe it could make MLP a trend again. Maybe not to quite the extent as in 2012/13 but it could get close. In the run up to it's launch and when more official info comes out I may well become active around here again. If you still remember me I hope you all know that I do not hold anything against you people and your hobby and want to thank you for letting me be involved. And I hope that in the near future I may be involved again.