Im in a depressing state rn about the brony fandom never being popular again

[TwilightSparkleAndAJ 85]

just seriously stop when ever any of you say the show is ending you make me feel very ill inside depressed how would you like it if a show that helps you get through your high school year with bullying threats and other things that have happaned was coming to an end think about that before you say something because what you say effect my health and my attitude and everything else. so if you dont have something positive to say as my teacher used to tell me dont say anything at all

[Luminance 2,186]

I was feeling the same way too, in that I was "too late" to join but I'm glad that it's still here even in 2017. Currently popular or not, there's countless fans who still supports MLP:FiM above and beyond what the show can do and in that alone, would allow it to remain. We made our marks in history for the fandom and nothing can take that away. I would like to help by saying, enjoy your time here and let the past go because what's been done already is done. Look at the current fandom with certainty, joy and ambition to not only help the community but to you as well.

[Scootaloo Is Best Filly 578]

Unfortunately everything has to end at some point. Think about this I don't think the producers thought it would go past THREE seasons much less seven. I know it sucks, but there were two options.

 

1. Leave on a high note and pave a gen. 4.5 that could be good too.

 

2. Go the simpsons/ South Park/ spongebob route.

 

Frankly I would prefer option one.

 

It's very easy to look back on the show and think about the things you missed out on. But, its harder to look and think about all you didn't miss out on. Like your friends you met on here, or this fandom, or the wonderful music and videos that were created.

 

I don't think this fandom will die. The show may be gone but we have wonderful artists and musicians who dedicated all their time and energy into making something incredible. And just because the show is done doesn't mean they will stop.

 

If anything after the show ends there might be more fan projects and such. And there will still be meetups and conventions for a while. And even if the next gen isn't as good as FIM, we can look back fondly that we were able to be a part of this awesome series.

 

That's my two cents. XD

[digit112 89]

The fandom is definitely not dying, it lost a lot of people, but not because everybody left. When the media hype died down, the amount of advertising dropped greatly. This meant that the number coming in went way down, but the number leaving stayed the same. When the fandom numbers dropped like they did, it looked like we were dying, but we were just dropping to the numbers that we could sustain without all the free advertising. We are flatlining, and based on this, bronycon 2017 should get about 7-8000 attendees

 

When you get right down to it, there will be fans of MLP for as long as there is MLP, because it's a good show.

[Le Trotteur Sauvage 13,050]

I've discover MLP a long time ago but I've become a brony only in january 2016, and I've also said to myself that I've miss all the energie of the first season where the internet was full of pony, it was like a flood on some website !
When I joined the fandom, the good old days were already dead but I continu being a brony anyway. Because even if it's dying, I'm not going anywhere and I'll probably still be a fan when the fandom will officialy die.
But don't worry, in 10 or 20 years, there'll be a nex genereation and your children (if you have some) will re-discover MLP and its older generation.

We are the last of our kind friend, we must remain "welded".

[-Nobody- 519]

The "good old days" may be gone, but that doesn't mean the fandom is going to be bad now. A lot of fans and some big names left, but there's still a good number of people left here in the fandom. And who knows what will happen after the movie? It might spark the fandom to the mainstream.

[Stolen OC 12]

You have three threads on this topic so I'm just going to reply to this one:

 

We can gripe and hypothesize, or we can use SCIENCE! Take a look at this graph (if you didn't participate in the BronyStudy, you're a bad brony):

 

 

So, if the amount of incoming fans was consistent, you would expect the curve to be flat, with the same number of people joining one year ago as five years ago. But we don't see that here. In a healthy fandom, you might expect there to be more recent converts than old fans, because we expect people get bored and drop out over time. Instead we see the opposite: there is a fairly linear decline in new members since season 2. So in a certain sense, the fandom is dying. But in another sense, it isn't: this graph only represents people joining the fandom. People leaving the fandom is an unknowable quantity because ex-bronies don't participate in polls. So it is possible that the number of people in the fandom has actually remained somewhat static. 

 

This is what I see: compared to 2013, we have fewer fanfics, fewer people wearing MLP t-shirts, fewer ask-blogs, and WAY fewer animations. But illustrations and music have hardly declined at all. As an ass-pull statistic, I think that overall the number hardcore MLP-fans has declined by maybe 30%, partially because if boredom and partially because of show mismanagement. I think that the number of show watchers (not fans) has declined somewhat more than that, because there was a fad element to MLP back in 2013. I think the decline in parody we see is because artists get overworked and stop. We all can think of great artists which stopped producing some years ago. Go look them up: many did not move on to new fandoms or interests. They just stopped producing. MLP was a unique experience for them, but eventually they got burned out. The greatest artist also tend to get cease-and-desisted.

 

So I'd say that you shouldn't feel too bad. There's still so much stuff being created that I can barely keep up with it. And yeah, adult fans of MLP may no longer be shocking enough to warrant documentaries, but I still get raised eyebrows when I tell people I'm a fan. Also there's a chance that some attention will once again be shone upon the community when the movie comes out, so we can hope for that. Finally, as a wise man once said: be the change you want to see in the world. You want the fandom to be more active? Get active! Write a fanfic, learn to draw, tell your friends, etc. 

 

Anything but wallow in self-pity.

Edited January 9, 2017 by Stolen OC

[trademark2 485]

yea thats a good graph. 2016 was a down year, but having a down year means its easier to go up!

[Stolen OC 12]

yea thats a good graph. 2016 was a down year, but having a down year means its easier to go up!

 

Well that's an optimistic way of looking at it. Personally I would guess that the drop-off at <1 year is because it's less than one year so it's gonna have less than a year's worth of respondents, and also because some people probably got confused and/or rounded up.

[Regent 77]

Please help im in need of assistance i have been apart of this fandom since 2011 but there are some issues i did not get to do everything i wanted when it was popular i miss those days and it bothers me so much inside to know our fandom will never be a trend or popular again i liked when i could goto the store and see my little pony all the time here are my regrets and they bother me so much 1. Telling My Family i was a brony sooner 2. Telling my school 3. Buying merch when it was. Popular and being more envolved sorry it just really bothers me i goto sleep everynight just thinking about how much i missed all because i let fear get the better of me just please somepony help me thanks i really need it (\

 

O_O

 

Here's a solution: become a cartoon fan, and not merely a pony fan. There's other stuff out there, and I bet if you've made friends here you might be able to bring them with you.

 

Alternative: stick around. Pony had a lot of iterations, just as Transformers did. Things will change, and not everybody likes that, but honestly it's not really going anywhere.

 

Alternative for the creative types: Nurture your cartoon IP, even if you created it here, you don't have to leave them behind. When MLP dies, my characters will leave this universe and become something different, while retaining their looks and personality. There's precedent for this: Old cartoonists and animators (notably Osamu Tezuka and Leiji Matsumoto) were known to have recurring cartoon "actors" show up in different works just as real actors do for films. We can do that too.

Edited January 9, 2017 by Regent

[Stolen OC 12]

Here's a solution: become a cartoon fan, and not merely a pony fan. There's other stuff out there, and I bet if you've made friends here you might be able to bring them with you.

 

Yeah this is a good idea. If you like MLP you will almost certainly like Star vs. The Forces of Evil and Steven Universe, and you might also like Adventure Time and We Bare Bears.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPjt-J0hh9o&list=LLZUJjPFJwlWvjPyjzUib5Kg&index=56

Edited January 9, 2017 by Stolen OC

[Flutter's lover <3 8,205]

There really isn't much to say...

 

you wasted a time that you will never ever get back.

the "good old days' are gone, and it will only get worse with time... the fandom is dying.

2017 will be the last year where its still somewhat popular, because like 80%-90% of the ppl will leave it after the movie.

 

On the bright side, it was nice while it lasted.

 

 

If people "leave" after the movie then they were never truly fans of the show.

 

True fans will stick around for years to come. Look at other fandoms...Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr. Who....they've all gone years without new episodes but have survived.

 

If anything the movie will attract more people to it.

[BloodDrops 762]

 

 

The fandom is not dying. Ugh its so sad that a doom and gloom pony got the first post in this thread.

 

Nope. I've not killed it yet.

 

There really isn't much to say...

 

you wasted a time that you will never ever get back.

the "good old days' are gone, and it will only get worse with time... the fandom is dying.

2017 will be the last year where its still somewhat popular, because like 80%-90% of the ppl will leave it after the movie.

 

On the bright side, it was nice while it lasted.

 

Dat Post, kicking some pony when they are down. You should be ashamed, not even a zombie does that 

 

 

 

It comes and goes like most fandoms, lots of the original folks are long gone at this point but there's always new ones coming into it. From my own experience it seems to be a bit more toxic over the past year but I'm sure that'll fade.

 

Who? Who has left to not be returned?

 

Most of the original artists are still around, you just need to know where to find them 

 

I feel that this thread is going towards the apocalypse of the fandom, which considering me being a zombie

 

I quite like

[Twiggy 2,966]

 

 

How about yal that wanna say the fandom is ending keep it to yourself pls thiis show means alot to me it helped me get through the bad times in high school so yeah dont tell me to move on this show is meant to be here forever it teaches life lessons that even jesus himself would love to see more of in this world no other fandom of show teaches those values in friendship

Self proclaimed brony historian here. The fandom isn't going to come close to ending until the show itself ends. And even after the show does end, the fandom will continue on for a very VERY long time. Even before the new movies, the Star Trek fandom was still thriving, and their shows hadn't been running for some 10 years since then.

 

It only seems like that because there is much less drama now. there are a few factors to consider here.

1. When the show was new, it was cool to hate on bronies for likeing a cartoon for little girls.
2. A bunch of people were rapidly coming to horse fame, and quite a few of them were rather toxic sperglords.
3. Trolls, both brony and anti-brony, collectively crawled out of the woodwork to do their thing.

To say that the first season of MLP:FiM was really popular is a gross understatement. It was like a thermonuclear warhead blew up the internet. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing horses. It eventually got on a lot of people's nerves, and they started flame wars wherever they saw pony content. It was almost on par with the Great Meme War of 2016. Shit was bad. This caused a lot more people to look into the show which grew the fandom even further. Meanwhile, in-fandom drama by people with horse fame caused a lot of MLP news sites like EqD to spring up, which helped to solidify the fandom as a big serious thing.

 

Don't get me wrong. The MLP fandom is massive, but it's not quite as massive as it seemed earlier what with all the drama going on. The show is still going on, and the fandom is still growing tbh. We've not even really hit the peak yet. There are still plenty of thriving brony communities like /mlp/, Ponychan, and our very own MLPForums. There's even a brony dating site for God's sake. It's shit, but it exists.

 

If size is an indicator of the longevity of a fandom, like my Star Trek example earlier, then the fandom will press on for decades to come. Hell, there will probably be a new generation of MLP before the fandom comes close to dying out. If there's one thing that Hasbro loves, it's milking a cash cow. Don't trip over it m8.

[Nebula 28]

just seriously stop when ever any of you say the show is ending you make me feel very ill inside depressed how would you like it if a show that helps you get through your high school year with bullying threats and other things that have happaned was coming to an end think about that before you say something because what you say effect my health and my attitude and everything else. so if you dont have something positive to say as my teacher used to tell me dont say anything at all

As someone who gets obsessed with certain things and has trouble finding new interests I know how you feel when people tell you something you love and have become emotionally attached (MLP:FiM for example) to is going to die soon. But even if the fandom dies off a bit we still have the show, the real concern I have is whether it can maintain a high quality after all these years. Don't worry about the fandom,it isn't dead yet.

 

I would recommend you find other interests to get your mind off the fandom for a bit, it may help your mental state. 

Edited January 21, 2017 by Nebula

[Velcorn 279]

To be honest, MLP is just a TV show. It's nice that something like this can serve as a mean to cope with real life issues, but it will come to an end, like everything else. You will find something else to hang on to, or maybe one day realize that there is no need to rely on such things, because you'll discover mental stability from within.

 

"When the time has come to let something go - let it go."

[FlootahBabby 265]

Well, hey, at least you found a cool show that you can still watch and enjoy.

Edited January 21, 2017 by FlootahBabby

[ManaMinori 4,145]

I just looked at the welcoming palace, and people who say that the fandom is dying kinda have a point. If you look at the last page, there are about 2 to 3 people joining every day, but if you look as page 100 there were about 7 to 10 people joining daily, and all the people from the last page are pretty much from the same day. I wouldn't really say that it's dying, but it's clearly going in the underground slowly, where the a bit more hardcore fans will remain. 

But I really don't think that's a reason to be depressed, this fandom probably looks to a lof of people like the only thing they could ever enjoy, but the truth is that if you got into that, you also will get into other things in the future and enjoy them just as much, there is much more in this world than this fandom <3

there's a lot of factors to take into account, though

not everyone in the fandom is on this site

not everyone feels the NEED to join forums, what with instant messaging, Snapchat, etc. 

School is in session, which means less personal time for hanging out on forums and such

the movie hasn't come out yet, which means not so much revitalizing the fandom and newcomers

FiM hasn't really had anything to draw in new fans for a while. With new seasons including SG, anyone new would have to start from the very beginning, to know where she came from (and the op doesn't help, as it shows Twilight both with wings, and without)

[Br O N Y Kitty 107]

there's a lot of factors to take into account, though

not everyone in the fandom is on this site

not everyone feels the NEED to join forums, what with instant messaging, Snapchat, etc. 

School is in session, which means less personal time for hanging out on forums and such

the movie hasn't come out yet, which means not so much revitalizing the fandom and newcomers

FiM hasn't really had anything to draw in new fans for a while. With new seasons including SG, anyone new would have to start from the very beginning, to know where she came from (and the op doesn't help, as it shows Twilight both with wings, and without)

I know that not every person on this planet who watches MLP is on this forum, but you can still take it as an indicator, because most likely the numbers on other forums are also going down. It's not dying, but it's decreasing. 

But I think there is another problem here, the person who made this topic is a 20 year old guy, and at this age you should be able to get over something like this. If you think that the MLP Fandom is the only thing you will ever like, you seem kinda narrow minded to me. I would rather encourage that guy to also look out for other things. I know the feeling when you joined something too late and missed out on it kinda sucks, but there will be other things. They won't be the same of course, maybe they will even be completely different, but they will be equally exciting as this, just in another way.

[M'gann M'orzz 745]

Jesus you guys can get so overdramatic, is the fandom as CRAZY ACTIVE as it was in 2012-2013? no. Is it REMOTELY dead? no. Seriously this is a fandom that has like 20 freaking conventions in ONE COUNTRY, and more all over the world, that's literally the least dead a fandom can be. VERY FEW Fandoms can substain even ONE entirely dedicated convention. 

[Lil Pip 775]

Maybe the movie will make it more popular, but the trenders left and the people who loved it even after the newness and attention wore off stayed. It'd be hard to reinvite such popularity, when it was half unintentional in the first place. Its possible.

[Tropico 225]

The fandom's not dying. 

 

It's true that the mainstream popularty is gone, and imo is so much better like this without the mass media releasing horrible articles about bronies and tumblr hating on us 24/7. 

 

Also, even if the show/EG ends, it doesnt mean that the fandom is gonna die.

Im a Xenite (Xena Warrior Princess fan) and the show ended 16 years ago but they're still making official cons every year! with the main and supporting actors/actresses and so. Plus tumblr has lots of Xenites and we have comunities online. 16 YEARS LATER! And there's new fans that join the Xena fandom, starting watching the episodes just now.

 

So yeah, maybe there will be less fans, but the fandom will never die.

 

 

Must to say that i never experiencied that MLP boom (aside the brony hate online) basically cause there's no big fandom and merch in spain. I heard we had some cons but were so small and nobody knew about them. basically like a party with friends xD So im not that affected since I enjoyed my brony things alone without interacting with the fandom that much till some days ago that i registrered in this forum xDDD  so as somepony said before, not every MLP fan joins forums so there's more than you initially though

Edited February 3, 2017 by Tropico

[Sun Ray 333]

On 1/6/2017 at 10:35 AM, Bats said:

There really isn't much to say...

 

you wasted a time that you will never ever get back.

the "good old days' are gone, and it will only get worse with time... the fandom is dying.

2017 will be the last year where its still somewhat popular, because like 80%-90% of the ppl will leave it after the movie.

 

On the bright side, it was nice while it lasted.

I honestly think a new generation of mlp will take place after the movie.  I meen look at the animation in the trailer.  If anything it will boost the fandom and if we keep being negative about it it will get you nowhere.  Learn somethin from pinkie will ya.  This post is depressing.  sorry if this is offensive it's ment to be tough love.

[AlbaTross 1,586]

On 2017-01-07 at 0:57 PM, TwilightSparkleAndAJ said:

How about yal that wanna say the fandom is ending keep it to yourself pls thiis show means alot to me it helped me get through the bad times in high school so yeah dont tell me to move on this show is meant to be here forever it teaches life lessons that even jesus himself would love to see more of in this world no other fandom of show teaches those values in friendship

Actually, one of the reasons why I was ok with letting myself fall down the rabbit hole and join this fandom is that the show is consistent with my Christian values, and so is the fandom to an extent.

I do think you're making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill though.  The days of the MLP fandom surprising everyone by how big it became are over...and now it's just another fandom like so many out there, but that's not so bad.  There's still a fandom here, afterall, and a pretty sizeable one at that.  It doesn't have to be the current fad to be worth being a part of.  Yeah, merch like the Funko figures have been discontinued, but there's still a lot of official and fan merch to be had, especially if you go to a con.  If that's not possible where you live, Pony merch lives and breathes on the internet, so I'm sure you can still find stuff you would like to have.  

It's also worth noting that there's a movie coming up which could help boost the fandom a bit, and we have an 8th season confirmed, so there's still plenty of show to enjoy going forward.  As far as I know, the comics and G.M. Berrow and Perdita Finn books are still going strong, and we just got another excellent companion book in the form of The Elements of Harmony Guidbook Vol. II.  Heck, the spinoff media is going wild over the film with artbooks, prequels and adaptations galore.  MLP is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon, so don't fret.  Would a company that's planning on pulling the plug on a show spend an inordinate sum of money to fund an in-universe film and even spring for celebrity guest stars like Sia?  

 

 

 

 

[Tiny Hoofs 200]

Meh, I don't care. Every fad has a peak. A lot (but not all) of the activity towards the beginning was comprised of bandwagoners who were trying to catch onto the latest pony craze. They most likely moved onto other crazes when they appeared, like Undertale and Pokemon Go and Overwatch. It's sort of natural for things to plateau after a while when all of the hype dies down.

I was actually around in 2011-2013, but left after my life got really busy and I disliked some of the changes within the show. I recently started watching the show again this year and tried to get involved with the fandom. The show is still doing well and there's a lot of healthy and active interest in it. So I don't think the fandom is virtually dead. I personally prefer smaller and more closer-nit communities anyway. But that's just my preference.

Even if the fandom did ultimately 'die' one day, I'd still probably watch the show now and then. But that probably wouldn't be until long after the show ended.