spoiler Newbie Dash kind of surprising?

[cider float 2,539]

 

 

 

It's time to talk about the elephant in the room. I was surprised on how Newbie Dash progressed. I know that police academies, armies and fraternities have this sort of initiation done on rookies and if you're not tough enough to endure it you won't be able to mix with the rest. But to have that be put in a show like MLP was surprising because so far MLP has been near cringe feel good fluff. Especially in a generation where cyberbullying is considered one of the worst things, they would make an episode that justifies bullying the freshmen? If everyone was bullied as a newbie... then it's okay...?

 

Is the political views for some of the writers shifting?

 

 

 

[Unlikeable Pony 2,699]

No, its just bad, bad writing.

Newbie dash is... not well liked.

[Jeric 46,867]

I enjoyed the episode just fine, though it did lack the event-esque feel that I had wanted from the episode. The one thing I did not have a problem with is the name-calling ... not even a little bit. Had Dash voiced her disapproval to them which was ignored, stated that she doesn't care about the tradition she is having none of it, or if they moved to a more insidious hazing ... I would have had a problem. I don't see this is a shift from political views. It is also most certainly not the same Psychology of a cyberbully.

 

I don't do this nearly enough, but I will start. pseudo MLA Format no less. These influenced my opinion.

 

Boden, J. M., S. Van Stockum, L. J. Horwood, and D. M. Fergusson. "Bullying Victimization in Adolescence and Psychotic Symptomatology in Adulthood: Evidence from a 35-year Study." Psychological Medicine Psychol. Med. 46.06 (2016): 1311-320. EBSCO. Web.

This is one of the longest running studies on bullying in general, and served as a good baseline for comparison on any possible changes in victim response between direct interactions and online interactions. The flaw is that it doesn’t delve into online bullying as it may have altered the results of the research.

 

 

Forssell, R. "Exploring Cyberbullying and Face-to-face Bullying in Working Life – Prevalence, Targets and Expressions." Computers in Human Behavior 58 (2016): 454-60. EBSCO.

This paper explores adult bullying and compares face to face bullying. There are several explorations of theories counter to prevailing views that aggression originates from people in positions of authority by suggesting that Supervisors are victimized more that those in a subordinate position.

 

 

McQuade, Samuel C., James P. Colt, and Nancy B. B. Meyer. Cyber Bullying: Protecting Kids and Adults from Online Bullies. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.

This book approaches online and cyber bullying through an parental context with several chapters focusing on the legal implications.

[dekutree64 713]

I would have been sort of ok with it if it had been an isolated incident, and fully ok if it ended with Dash telling them her story and them apologizing for accidentally stepping on an old wound. But all previous Wonderbolt episodes have shown them to be jerks, so I kind of doubt they'd be remorseful, and may actually be glad to have discovered such an effective way to punish Rainbow anytime she makes a mistake.

 

This thread https://mlpforums.com/topic/151938-why-starlight-glimmer-and-villain-reform-is-genius-a-criminal-justice-view/ is a great example of what I like about MLP. It's a fairly realistic take on the utopia concept. The world is far from perfect, but the prevailing attitude of forgiveness and empathy goes a long way toward making it better than the real world. And that's something that we can each change within ourselves to influence the real world toward that direction. Rather than exacting revenge on criminals, try to understand why they did what they did and either help them understand why it was wrong, or help them get back on their feet so they can make amends if they did it out of necessity.

 

And in the case of Newbie Dash, Rainbow should have helped the Wonderbolts understand the concept of "two wrongs don't make a right". Just because they all have mean nicknames to call eachother doesn't make it ok.

[Thrond 3,263]

I see any resemblance between the Wonderbolts' name-calling and actual bullying as being an unfortunate coincidence. I do not think "Newbie Dash" was written to be about bullying in any way. Most of the issue, to me, comes from elements which were skimmed over, not from the actual themes of the episode. The episode isn't really about bullying in any meaningful way, from how I see it. 

 

I enjoyed the episode just fine, though it did lack the event-esque feel that I had wanted from the episode. The one thing I did not have a problem with is the name-calling ... not even a little bit. Had Dash voiced her disapproval to them which was ignored, stated that she doesn't care about the tradition she is having none of it, or if they moved to a more insidious hazing ... I would have had a problem. I don't see this is a shift from political views. It is also most certainly not the same Psychology of a cyberbully.

I don't do this nearly enough, but I will start. pseudo MLA Format no less. These influenced my opinion.

Basically this. 

[Splashee 28,577]

On 5/18/2016 at 5:31 AM, cider float said:

Especially in a generation where cyberbullying is considered one of the worst things, they would make an episode that justifies bullying the freshmen?

Yea, good spin on it.

Bullying is bad m'kay. But when it is Rainbow Dash being bullied, people notice it Not because she gets bullied, but because they hurt her, and we hate to see that!

[Megas 27,858]

The episode was bullshit and the leaks showed the staff was fully aware of the bullying/hazing implications and didn't care, even worse when you know what they had originally planned before and especially to cap off a 5 year character arc. There was no deeper meaning behind the episode, either the staff was really incompetent or they were just huge jerks, neither of which are exactly enviable positions, and given they regularly and actively made Dash's episodes worse in during production, I'm more inclined to believe the latter