The "No Applejack ever!" is a lie

[ManaMinori 4,145]

For a long time, too long- in fact, there have been fans crying foul, fans raising pitchforks, and torches, and Rarity whining about how Applejack is  a background pony; that there are never any toys of her made, that she'd virtually ignored by Hasbro. And to that, I say, horsespit. Has anyone bothered to do any semblance of research- even the barest minimum, they would've seen that there are Applejack toys, plushies, human dolls, and more- out the wazoo! MLPmerch.com has everything listed. EVERYTHING. Whether she's with her hat or without it- as she is, more often than not, but toys out there of her with her had have been produced a few times, which kills the argument of fans who bring up the issue....AJ is a very big part of merchandise sales, and I know that there will continue to be more things with her face on it in the near future.

 

 

 

[Guest]

Actually apparently while there ARE products of her, she remains very unpopular overall, so much so that 

Spoiler

She was potentially on the chopping block for G5, and now she is being majorly revamped potentially to make her more likeable.

So it's not hard to see why people feel she is lacking in merchandise, and also I have noticed a lot of products that get the other characters often leave her out at times, or make far less stock of her. I remember the EQG minis, a lot of AJs are harder to find.

[ManaMinori 4,145]

2 minutes ago, Key Sharkz said:

Actually apparently while there ARE products of her, she remains very unpopular overall, so much so that 

  Hide contents

She was potentially on the chopping block for G5, and now she is being majorly revamped potentially to make her more likeable.

So it's not hard to see why people feel she is lacking in merchandise, and also I have noticed a lot of products that get the other characters often leave her out at times, or make far less stock of her. I remember the EQG minis, a lot of AJs are harder to find.

if she was truly so unlikeable, then Hasbro would've killed her off in season 2. But lo and behold, merch still continues to be made of her to this day, which means that she's popular enough to keep being made and sold.

[Thorgir the Mighty 736]

I’d say more Rarity. I Would rather see more AJ,and Rarity

theres so much twilight,I’d say I’m in the twilight zone!

theres so much Rainbow,that I’d do a Rainbow-Nuke!

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Nightmare Muffin said:

if she was truly so unlikeable, then Hasbro would've killed her off in season 2. But lo and behold, merch still continues to be made of her to this day, which means that she's popular enough to keep being made and sold.

That's... Not exactly an accurate assessment. It's not really that simple to just kill her off. She remains successful enough to justify having her, but that doesn't mean she's doing as well as the other characters. Your assessment of the situation is... incredibly simplistic to say the least.

[SharpWit 2,638]

There's plenty of Applejack merch and there are definately fans of her within the Brony community, but when it comes down to it, a country girl type character simply isn't that marketable to most of the viewers. I don't have the numbers, but if you were to look at sales for toys revolving around the mane 6, Applejack easilly has the lowest numbers.

[Thorgir the Mighty 736]

So...... the Mane 5?    

[Concerned Bystander 2,902]

1 hour ago, SharpWit said:

There's plenty of Applejack merch and there are definately fans of her within the Brony community, but when it comes down to it, a country girl type character simply isn't that marketable to most of the viewers. I don't have the numbers, but if you were to look at sales for toys revolving around the mane 6, Applejack easilly has the lowest numbers.

I would agree with this.  Each of the mane 6 was intended to represent a certain 'archetype' of girl, with the intent of showing that there are many ways to be a girl and that none of them are wrong.  In an increasingly urbanised society the country girl is probably the hardest for most people to relate with.  She will always have her niche but may never be as popular as the fashionista, the tomboy, the shy animal lover, the hyperactive chatterbox or the bookworm.

Even if her popularity is somewhat limited I'm sure she will continue to make it into future iterations of the franchise as a matter of principle if nothing else, being one of the very few (if not the only) characters that has always been there since the franchise began.

[Jeric 46,851]

1 hour ago, Nightmare Muffin said:

if she was truly so unlikeable, then Hasbro would've killed her off in season 2. But lo and behold, merch still continues to be made of her to this day, which means that she's popular enough to keep being made and sold.

He said unpopular and MORE likeable not UNlikeable.  Totally different things man. 

 

Also ... is there really a numerous horde of people screaming for Applejack to be eliminated? I'd figure there are probably more apathetic people who just aren't fans of her than those that have an unhealthy obsession with wanting her gone. 

It may be more healthy if you don't manage your emotions to the outliers of the fandom. Focus your energies on the bigger issues.

[Ganondorf8 11,297]

Perhaps Hasbro doesn't see Applejack as the kind of character who can provide them with toy sales--which of course leads into money--so they choose not to release as much merchandise of her? If so then this is clearly a business decision as financial gain is one of Hasbro's main directives.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Jeric said:

He said unpopular and MORE likeable not UNlikeable.  Totally different things man. 

 

Also ... is there really a numerous horde of people screaming for Applejack to be eliminated? I'd figure there are probably more apathetic people who just aren't fans of her than those that have an unhealthy obsession with wanting her gone. 

It may be more healthy if you don't manage your emotions to the outliers of the fandom. Focus your energies on the bigger issues.

The emails within the recent leaks kind of make it clear that she's not even popular within the studio and that they clearly have plans to eliminate her or modify her heavily. The wordings of the emails made it quite clear that enough people are unhappy with Applejack to warrant such a drastic change as none of the other characters were brought up for such a heavy revision. This was further supported by illustrations of prototypes of possible redesigns for the characters where Applejack's saw the heaviest revisions and didn't even resemble her original form in almost every single design.

I would say while exact numbers are hard to pinpoint, it's fairly clear that Applejack isn't as popular as they need her to be.

[Steve Piranha 29,421]

Another thing I've observed in AJ, is that in other merchandise, she tends to appear even less. Most of them show Twi, Dashie, and Pinks; but you can seldom find Rarity and Fluttershy. Hell, she was absent the last time McDonald's launched a Happy Meals line of ponies, where Starlight took her place.... AND SHE WASN'T REFORMED YET .

On 5/20/2018 at 4:34 PM, Concerned Bystander said:

I would agree with this.  Each of the mane 6 was intended to represent a certain 'archetype' of girl, with the intent of showing that there are many ways to be a girl and that none of them are wrong.  In an increasingly urbanised society the country girl is probably the hardest for most people to relate with.  She will always have her niche but may never be as popular as the fashionista, the tomboy, the shy animal lover, the hyperactive chatterbox or the bookworm.

.

Now that you mention that detail, I've noticed human AJ doesn't suffer that lack of marketing as much, if at all. Maybe that, despite still being a country girl and has a fashion sense of such, it's still far more urban than her pony counterpart.

On 5/20/2018 at 7:09 PM, Key Sharkz said:

The emails within the recent leaks kind of make it clear that she's not even popular within the studio and that they clearly have plans to eliminate her or modify her heavily. The wordings of the emails made it quite clear that enough people are unhappy with Applejack to warrant such a drastic change as none of the other characters were brought up for such a heavy revision. This was further supported by illustrations of prototypes of possible redesigns for the characters where Applejack's saw the heaviest revisions and didn't even resemble her original form in almost every single design.

 

And it shows in FIM as well. What can be expected from an Applejack episode? Family, and farm life. It has been shown that Applejack lacks flexibility character wise, and can hardly stand an episode on her own

[Khoufu 43]

I see as much AJ as any other mane 6 toy, but it's her representation on merchandise that is lacking. For example, what merchandise includes AJ but leaves out another Mane 6? I have seen her left out on bouncy balls and plastic bowls, a friendship bracelet set I saw looked neat but only 1 or 2 of the 12 pony charms had AJ, and most of them had 2-3 characters on them. Twilight was on half of them, naturally. 

[Patty Thundersnow 4,163]

1 hour ago, Khoufu said:

I see as much AJ as any other mane 6 toy, but it's her representation on merchandise that is lacking. For example, what merchandise includes AJ but leaves out another Mane 6? I have seen her left out on bouncy balls and plastic bowls, a friendship bracelet set I saw looked neat but only 1 or 2 of the 12 pony charms had AJ, and most of them had 2-3 characters on them. Twilight was on half of them, naturally. 

It's frustrating that AJ is not represented nearly as much she deserves to be. Each character in the Mane 6 deserve to have equal representation. I understand that Twilight's the main focus of the show, but she's not the only character.

[Dawnchaser 🌄 8,088]

The MLP clothing that my daughter has had, which features more than one pony, normally features Twilight, Pinkie and Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash.

She hasnt had anything with Rarity or Applejack :/

[CypherHoof 26,483]

got some small figures made of rubber that omitted rarity and AJ. Also have some bouncy balls, but they are paired (each ball has two characters, on a disc though the middle; Rarity is paired with Dashie and AJ with Twi....)