How important is MLP for you?

[Ziggy + Angel + Rain 11,301]

Rainbow Angelbabe has, quite honestly, changed my life - and only for the better.  I can't (and don't care to) imagine my life without her.  MLP is very important to me in the sense that it introduced me to her.  The woman I consider my soul mate.  It's not so much about the show itself, though.  This ain't like how I used to watch DBZ religiously; it's something more.

 

Now I go to the "Is the Fandom Dying?" topic. xD

[Steve Piranha 29,411]

MLP.... I think is my life, not in the sense that I eat, drink, breath, etc ponies, but it's because it's the only thing that keeps going 

[DashYoshi 9,565]

I chose MLP as being very important for me. I feel so happy to be involved in such a loving, welcoming community like this. The show and the fans motivate me to try to have friends, be open and social, and try to be happy when I can.

[Confucius 194]

The show is VERY important to me; just like the Spyro fandom was back in the day. Really, I wouldn't be moderating or conversing with fellow members here if it wasn't.

 

This fandom is like a home for me.

I feel the same as you minus the mod part. The community is so accepting here. The fandom is very glad you have you too! Edited March 15, 2015 by SergeantShy

[RarityFan01 2,444]

I'm ashamed to say this, but MLP is very important to me. Without it, I would probably not be here today. (Im not going into detail on that.) I would also have a lot more trouble accepting myself. I would feel like I should be playing sports or watching violent movies, typical guy stuff. I'd probably never accept my feminine nature, and chances are that I would turn sexist and maybe even homophobic. I would be a self loathing person overall. 

 

 

The reason I'm ashamed is because I don't want to look like a kind of person who probably literally cannot live without MLP, but that is the case. 

Edited March 15, 2015 by RarityFan01

[Monsoon 1,662]

It's really important to me i will constantly re watch the show because it cheers me up and just gives me something I can look forward too when I get home from school so it's like a routine too me I can't live without it really

[Splendormane 203]

its something i look forward too on the weekend but it aint something i would jump off of a bridge if  they discontune it XD 

[Tao 7,330]

I like the show and fandom but if it ends,  I have other

fandoms and many a book to read!

[Hypn0ticD 1,213]

RPing as Applejack gets me through the day, and with Season Five around the corner, I can look forward to having something to get up for on the weekends!

 

So all in all, the show is very important to me!

[Shady23 175]

To me it's mostly a show I just really enjoy watching and discussing with the fandom. It does put a smile on my face in rough times and reminds me of simple life lessons that I tend to forget or ignore at time. That being said there are many other things I enjoy so I would be okay if MLP didn't exist.

[Aeros Sine 492]

The show is sort of important to me. I can admit that i would still be harming myself if it wasn't for the kindness the show taught me. The characters spoke to me in a way that no one else could and that is what made me stop.  All of them are so cheerful and colorful that i just couldn't disappoint them like that and continue.Ponies became such a part of my life that i visit this website and other pony related things every day when i can. I love the show and the fandom with it so i owe the creators and the fandom a lot. 

Edited March 16, 2015 by Aeros Sine

[Hocus Pocus 636]

My closest friends and I all love MLP. It's drawn us together as yet another thing we can all share with each other. At this point, it's become more about the lifestyle than the show itself so.... yeah X3 in a way, the show really is my life!

[Mrain901 216]

MLP was the connector for making like... 4 of my friends? Including the guy that introduced it to me, and he is one of my closest friends, so yeah I would say it's pretty important. 

[Sommar 1,289]

MLP:FiM is nothing more than a hobby. I am not as active in the community as I was years ago, but I still partake in forum discussions, browse art ect. Sadly, I used to be really obsessed when I first started out, but now it's something I don't obsess over thankfully. Honestly, there are more important things in life than a cartoon, like family, friends, school, work...

[The Taxman 274]

It is very fun to watch, and it does give me hope for the 2D animation industry, as well as the prospect of 'little girl's shows' being able to break barriers.

 

Other than that, I do write fanfic sometimes, but they're usually to improve myself rather than for the sake of the show, so I'd say so-so.

[Miles 2,512]

Very.

The show, the fandom... and MLPForums, indeed, have collectively changed my outlook on many things in life.

Talk about serendipity...

I can tell you right now, I would not be the same person if not for MLP.  It's more than obvious I'm a country boy, but there's more to it than that.  I come from very traditional-minded parents, whom are Baby Boomer babies.  Yep, my mother and father were born in the early 1950's.  From very small towns in central Illinois.  A culture much more different than many realize is even that different...

*Disclaimer: I promise this gets wrapped back into MLP at the end.  I just have to explain the background first to explain how MLP has changed me.*

When I left home to go to college, I found myself drenched with culture shock.  I was not used to being in a big city at all.  I felt like I was in a different world.  My country hometown is very simple, old-fashioned, and thus, of course, not very modernized in comparison to bigger cities.  But, there's another aspect to the culture shock separate from just location-culture shock... 

I was raised more as if I was a "Gen-X" kid than "Gen-Y," and I've grown to be nearly as traditional-minded as my parents.  Being around people my age in college, I was surprised at how different my mentality was in comparison to others.  Frankly, I wasn't used to such liberal lifestyles.  Albeit my political stance at the time was Republican, when I say here that I was a conservative thinker, I'm not talking in terms of politics - I just mean in general.  I didn't (and don't) have a smart-phone, nor an addiction to cell phones, texting, etc.  My phone is important to me because I see it as a lifeline in case I need to contact someone for something important.  But, cell phones are just one aspect.  It's the whole 9-yards that ultimately threw me for a loop, being around city folk.  People naturally taking things for granted, but not realizing they were really doing so.  Treating property, both of their own and not of their own, with little or no respect.  And I don't just mean a few people, I mean a lot of people.  Here I am though, predisposed to think that everything has an inherent value of its own, which is my preliminary rationale for treating any object, whether its mine or not, with care.  

Add on the aspect of some of the classes themselves that I'm in that did involve politics (which I should have expected, going to a "Liberal Arts and Sciences University").  My freshman year I was in a class based on "Ethics in Advertising" - and of course, I derive my ethics from three collaborative sources: 1. Christianity, 2. My parents/my hometown society's way of life, and, 3. Politics... So, in a course where the teacher was a devil's advocate in leading discussions, (and, inherently [me] being someone to speak up), when discussions were lead with a basis I didn't agree with, I clashed with the majority.  Lol.

Then, the social aspects of college.  Culture indeed comes back into play here.  I wasn't used to seeing, hearing, or being around people with such dissimilar tastes and ideologies.  I found that I wound up subconsciously censoring myself (not talking about swearing).  I didn't want to draw attention to myself.  I wasn't familiar with the social aspects of city folk, and I didn't want to sound weird, stupid, or anything like that... *Sigh* heh, and you want to know the worst bit of it all?  Not only was I censoring what I said in that way... but I was, and still am, censoring my accent when at college.  Why?  Well you see, I took chorus my freshman year, because the instructor for chorus was also one of my teachers in class, and at the beginning of that semester she said "If you join chorus, you get out of writing one of the papers we have at the end of the semester."  In a class with probably over 30 other students, it was only myself and one other girl that jumped right on that.  So anywho, during one of my chorus practices, after we sang something... I kid you not... the instructor came up to me and said "You have harsh R's."  Wow.  Thanks.  That's really fucking nice.  I was embarrassed.  So much.  I couldn't help it; I talk and sing with harsh R's because of where I grew up.     ... Smh.  So now, despite it having been over a year ago when that happened, and despite not being in chorus anymore, I still hide my accent the best I can when I'm at college.  I don't like thinking that I might stick out like a sore thumb, and I don't like unwanted attention... It... really bothers me...  But, when I come home, and get to talking with my parents, or other folks around here, my accent is back to normal.  It's like magic.  

Last thing about college that is directly relevant to the new me... When I first went there and saw posters plastered around, and even emails advertising the "LGBTQ Club," that was another kind of culture shock for me.  Now please, bare in mind, it was something I myself could not help; when I was in high school, the old principal didn't even allow same-sex couples to attend prom - whether or not it was a couple, or just friends - and at the time I didn't think anything of that... I'll wrap back around to this shortly...

---

And then one day, lead by the force of curiosity, I found MLP (because a college friend [whom is now my current roommate] used to occasionally say "ponies" in Skype as an interjection to mean "what's up," and the irony is, he's not a brony - at all.  He never meant for me to even connect his interjection to MLP... but I was curious and once I remembered that I'd once seen a blue pony with rainbow hair pop up in a google image search for something irrelevant one time, my curiosity took a hold of me)... 

It was around the winter of 2013/2014, probably late December 2013...

I found out what My Little Pony was, and at the time I said to myself, "well, shit... if other guys my age are into this, there must be something more than meets the eye.  What do I have to lose."  So, I set forth to give it a chance.  Of course, being OCD about chronological order, I started at the 2 pilot episodes.  And that was all it took!  I was hooked!

For 6 months - that is, January to June of 2014 - I watched the show, alone, hidden.  No contact with any other bronies.  At all.  Finally, I felt that I was going to explode if I didn't find a place online to talk to other bronies, so I searched Google.  Found MLPForums.  It was a Godsend.

As a new member here I hit the ground running.  I'd seen the series through and through multiple times already, lmao.

---

Fast forward to now.

I've changed a lot.  I'm much more positive now.  I've become open-minded.  I've become a Libertarian.  I've become a better person.  And, in doing so, I found that when I used to think parallel to the norms of my hometown, I was inadvertently holding myself back in more ways than one... one of those ways does, though, outshine the others... 

My traditionalist hometown's norms kept me from realizing I was bi.



and I have been together for about 5 months now <3

http://mlpforums.com/topic/105699-official-mlp-forums-couples-20/?p=3215810

---

So, how important is MLP for me?

Let's just say... it has taken me under its wing...

~ Miles

[NuclearBurg (Dawn) 622]

It actually is very important to me as I use it as a boost of happiness during the week. When I get a lot of homework I just watch an episode or two while I work and it takes care of my stress/depression

This sums it up for me as well. I use it to boost my happiness sometimes but other times it'll be just to watch the show. I don't use it with homework though. I has music for that . The fandom itself though is what I love even more.

[Mysterious Grepper 89]

MLP is the only fandom I am a part of, but I do plenty of other things, too.

 

On the other hoof hand, I sometimes do spend a bit of time using this forum and looking at fanart.

I made a self-insert OC, and plan to make other OCs in the future.

Most of the music I have is (MLP) fan music.

 

I voted "kind of".

[DarkSwap7701 16]

Very important indeed, I love discussing it and it gives me something to be excited about.

[Hashi 323]

Its a fun show  I'm mostly here for the fanfictions and PINKIE!!!   

Edited March 21, 2015 by bonamb

[Duster Dawnhorse 248]

I care more about the friends I made through the show than the show itself. The great people I've met are far more valuable than a kid's cartoon.

[Argumedies 1,748]

Ive been a fan of many things from Star Trek to Furs, to just about name it but i have never been in anything as active as this

 

I loved pony since G1 and i was happy finally see a great reboot of this. So i just jumped right in on this.

 

Will it be a sad day for me when it comes to an end? Yes

 

Will i get over it? Yeh, its just a story afterall.

 

But i think that its the most absolute paradox of my life that will bring my journey full circle. And i hope someday, 40 some odd years later that some of you will come to the same conclusion

 

I refuse to live my life like another robot of scoiety. Im going to enjoy this for as long as i can, for i know that at the end of all days i can look back and know that a little pink pony made me smile.

 

(And Rarity is best pony!) ;P

Edited March 21, 2015 by Argumedies

[EchoPone 6]

This fandom means so much to me, and has given me so many amazing friends, memories, and experiences. Some that I wouldn't trade for the world. 

[Tom Snyder 4,112]

I don't obsess over it and not  a big collector of the merch though. The Vids and my friends are the only things that matter to me. 

[[NULL] 906]

I'm just a guy who likes cartoons, and MLP happens to be one of them. My life won't be ruined when the show ends. I'll just watch something else instead.