Is pony growing into pop culture?

[gLItcHyGeAR 11]

Okay so, I've been thinking a lot on this and want to know others' opinions.

 

Firstly, let me preface this with - I know many people perceive the fandom to be dying. They have since season 1, and we're all still here; there are plenty threads for that discussion, and it's wholly irrelevant to the topic at hand. ^^''

 

Long story short, we, the pony crowd, are getting referenced all over the place lately. Robot Chicken, Deadpool, that awkward Christmas movie The Night Before's Trailer #1, lots of cartoons like Gravity Falls, Power Puff Girls and Teen Titans Go, etc, etc, etc. In addition it's made headline news when a celeb like Will Shatner "comes out" as one of us, even though almost none of the celebrities themselves seem to think it matters much.

 

So my question here is, has pony become a niche little piece of the wider pop culture or not? Is it in the middle of that? How would the 2017 movie affect that? Any evidence to add for or against my little theory?

[Mesme Rize 15,685]

Pony has been referenced a number of times in the last few years, in movies like Transformers, or in games like Watch Dogs and Borderlands, so this is barely anything new.

 

This fandom isn't dying. The hype around it has just vanished.

[gLItcHyGeAR 11]

Pony has been referenced a number of times in the last few years, in movies like Transformers, or in games like Watch Dogs and Borderlands, so this is barely anything new.

I know it's becoming "normal". That's actually exactly what I'm talking about. If pony references are becoming normal, if there's ever more with time, does that logically mean pony is becoming a part of pop culture? I guess I'm less looking for a firm "this is absolutely pop culture" and more "does anyone else think it's pop culture", because I've never seen anyone else bring something like this up. I did tag this with "curiosity", after all! ^^''

 

(I don't think the fandom is dying myself either, I actually argued against such logic on another thread, I just said that either way it's irrelevant to what's happening outside of the fandom.)

[cmarston1 5,959]

If you mean to the extent that something like Star Wars has, then the answer is no.

But being referenced in other shows a bit more frequently than yes.

It has become a bit more mainstream than it was back in 2010, and I guess it has grown into some forms of pop culture, but I can't say that it is much more than a cult hit fanbase. (In terms of popularity)

Edited April 24, 2016 by cmarston1

[Overlord0909 479]

Before I got into the fandom, in high school, I saw a kid who was showing a video of the clipped scene where Fluttershy "breaks" the bear's neck... Then we got into a discussion about a guy who was a brony.

Bronies are somewhat misrepresented to most others, who may use the mainstream view of bronies to not even think of watching the show. But that may not relate to this topic... See, I believe if more people had an open mind, this show would be a whole lot more popular, but people are pretty fixed with certain labels, and don't want to go outside their comfort zone.

I was never going to watch the show, because I thought bronies were weird, so I wasn't going to do their acts. I then watched the show (still finding a lot of bronies to be weird *a-hem* shipping) and found that I enjoyed the show. I didn't know why, but I do now (not getting into that).

 

Point I'm trying to make is that, perhaps the show isn't heavy in pop culture because people don't have an open mind to things... So, it may be there slightly, but no. I don't think pony is growing in pop culture; it just has yet to be discovered.

[HoovesOnIce 74]

Sometimes people think that the show is being referenced a whole lot but a bunch of times it's not a reference at all. The creator of Gravity falls, Alex hirsh stated that the unicorn was based more on mythology and not as much by MLP.  So many times we just assume a unicorn, alicorn, or colorful horse is a reference when it was just simply a basic mythological character like Bigfoot, Zombies, Aliens, and other things.

[TheSqueelyOne 157]

I think it is indeed a niche piece of pop culture. It may not have the biggest fanbase in the world, but ponies would probably be recognized by most.

[EverEverOn 346]

I wouldn't say FiM is becoming pop culture, but rather the entire franchise. I still see shirts with generation 1 ponies. It's really just MLP in general.

[Luminance 2,186]

MLP as a show/toy franchise was always popular with its intended target demographic. It wasn't until FiM, which broke the notion of MLP= girly things, finally show that a great tv show shouldn't only be catered to young girls but to everybody. The fandom indeed was a surprise to bring out from FiM and popular culture grew onto the fandom.