Is the show made for bronies now?

[Nightfall Veilwing 1,138]

Has anypony noticed that the show has took attention away from friendship and is now more focused on the lore and world-building for quite some time now?

I started to notice this after a few years I became a brony. When I started binge-watching the show from the start to the current episode, the show did start out focusing on personal relationships and social skills. And even though they did add a few new things now and again to further explain the show's universe for either as a plot device or as a way to help with character development, world-building wasn't the primal focus.

But nowadays, world-building and lore is now the central focus on the show and friendship lessons are now in the background.
And if you have watched the Analysis Community's videos, you'll see plenty of them discussing and theorizing about the lore of the show, usually from the latest episode(s).
Even the episode Slice of Life didn't have any story and was just fan service. The episode was literally just the writers jiggling keys in front of a baby (the brony community) to distract it.

This just shows that the brony community is more interested in the lore and the show being our personal sandbox for fan works and headcanons, rather than a story.
And the writers referencing things the brony community had made up supports this, such as Derpie, Dr. Hooves, for example.
As I said, it's these references are just the writers jiggling their keys in front of a toddler because they know that the bronies will eat it up.

And I wouldn't be surprised that the writers has realized that they have our attention, and that we're practically obsessed with lore and world-building of MLP, that they deiced to make the show about just that with friendship lessons as a mere supplement. But in the early seasons, they were about friendship with the lore and world-building as a mere supplement. This reversal was rather sudden.

 

Also, has anypony noticed that show these days is so obsessed with having its School of Friendship, that it has forgotten that it was one in the early seasons?

So, do you think FiM is just a sandbox now or something else?

Edited February 13, 2019 by Millennium Shadow

[FirePuppy 735]

I hope not. Even though the fandom comprises of a lot of us, the show's target audience is still intended to remain the same as it was since Season 1.

Edited February 13, 2019 by FirePuppy

[BastementSparkle 20,328]

No, because the majority of the show is still focused on Friendship lessons and morals. Just because the episode doesn't blatantly spell the lesson out at the end with a letter or a journal entry doesn't mean it's not present. Most episodes still focus on interpersonal relationships and Slice of life. There's definitely more attention being given to world-building and lore recently, but it's still not at all the main focus, still takes a back-seat to the lesson of the day usually. And while the show also has acknowledged the brony fandom and I do think there are shout-out's and a handful of episodes specifically aimed at us, the majority of it is still written aimed at "Everyone" and that just happens to include bronies as well.

 The show is evolved. For it to last this long it's had to change and expand itself to an extent. The show probably wouldn't have lasted this long if it just stuck with every season being like Season 1 and 2. The cast of characters and the world had to expand to help keep things fresh and of course that's going to involve world-building, if everything was just "And here's another town of ponies", that'd be dull.

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,596]

Far from it. 

The show may have moved away from the "Today I learned...." formula, but it still very much retains the same morals, spirit, and audience friendly approach.

[Goat-kun 2,528]

We have lore and wouldbuilding?

 

[Them's Seeing Ponies 282]

I suspect that the main difference the OP is noticing is the shift in the show's focus and priorities over the seasons. The earlier seasons are more focused on the daily pursuits and chemistry between the mane six, yes, but the show isn't necessarily 'made for bronies' as a result of the shift away from this, regardless of the increased volume of fanservice and worldbuilding in the later seasons (S5 is possibly the most similar to a version of FiM adhering to the OP's statement, and its audience reception is far from sour in many cases). It's certainly possible to perceive that the series is more geared towards the bronydom than it was in S1 or 2 owing to the shift in tone and treatment of its material (in particular, S4-8 hold their content in a conspicuously more serious way than the Faust seasons, which can lead to the impression that the show is deliberately pushing its own maturity onto the audience) but declaring that it's devolved into merely a sandbox is somewhat of a generalization, even though the show has changed both in approach and general sprit/disposition since its infancy. 

Edited February 13, 2019 by Them's Seeing Ponies

[Dark Qiviut 22,445]

Not at all. The show isn’t anywhere nearly as simple in story and lore as before, and there may be more references to Bronydom now than before, but the show remains, at its core, a show for families. The characters remain role models for children, and the episodes still educate kids with lessons; regarding the latter, the messages are more complex, gray, and not always spilled out to the audience. It was equally accessible for kids and adults to begin Season 1, and it remains such today.

Edited February 13, 2019 by Dark Qiviut

[Here No Longer 5,276]

I think it's becoming a little less kiddy perhaps, but it's definitely not written for bronies. It's still just as accessible to its original audience as it was back in the earlier seasons.

[RDDash 19,195]

If it was made for bronies then I feel that show would have prioritized lesbian shipping instead of telling cohesive story, which i don't think would have been a good thing.

[Misty Shadow 7,943]

You do not hang out with enough bronies.  Every fandom has an analysis community that 'obsesses' over the lore of what they love because lore is the first thing that any more zealous fan of a franchise goes to to explore new things about what they love that most casual fans would ignore. Not only is Slice of Life an old episode from almost four years ago done for a 100th episode special, meaning that it does not represent what an average episode of the show is like, you are acting like the show's world-building and lore expansion is only done for the bronies. It's not. It's also done for marketing the show's world and the toys for children because kids, like adults, do not invest themselves in cartoon worlds that are void and vacuous, obviously. 

[Nightfall Veilwing 1,138]

7 minutes ago, R.D.Dash said:

If it was made for bronies then I feel that show would have prioritized lesbian shipping instead of telling cohesive story, which i don't think would have been a good thing.

I know that literally every MLP character has been shipped with every other MLP character. 
But why haven't any of the Mane Six and Spike been allowed to have relationships, though? I think that'd be a great opportunity for some characters development for all 7 of them.

[Them's Seeing Ponies 282]

Isn't Hearts and Hooves Day basically an over-the-top satirization/masked explanation behind the lack of relationships for the M6, considering that the episode appears to address the issue of absurd/unrealistically exaggerated romantic relationships in kids' TV of the FiM demographic (note that the CMC, the show's default child characters until S8, were conspicuously included as the catalyst to this plot additionally)? The show has since defied this principle with Big Mac and Sugar Belle's romance (which I find one of the show's more inexplicable developments - how is Big Mac receiving a romantic interest exactly compelling character development?) but it appears to continue to apply to the main cast, presumably because the target audience are below the age to fully understand or relate to such an issue (Big Mac is more a surrogate older brother type, which at least partially justifies the inclusion of the SugarMac relationship). 

[gingerninja666 487]

I disagree and I'm not quite sure where this idea comes from.

The best regarded episodes in season 8 were (generally):

On the Road to Friendship (a straight episode about Trix and Star's relationship)

Hearthswarming Club (gives some information about the other races' holidays, but the core that everyone loves is the character development for Gallus.)

Molt Down (Development for Spike)

The Washouts (development for Scoots and RD)

Horse Play (some lore in the background but mostly about Twilight and Celestia's relationship)

What Lies Beneath (some lore for the tree, but also development for the Student 6 and showing off more of their dynamic)

Rockhoof and a hard place (development for Rockhoof)

Sounds of Silence (I guess it introduced the Kirin, but people specifically loved the character of Autumn. Not just the idea of the Kirin)

Break Up Breakdown (all about relationships and the friendships between Spike, Mac and Discord)

Best Gift Ever (ALL about the relationships of the cast)

 

And back in season 7 what do you have? Perfect Pear and Royal Problem. Episodes that were loved in large part because of their character stuff. Where's this idea that all we care about is lore coming from? Like, from Shadow Play?

Edited February 14, 2019 by gingerninja666

[Sepul-Coloratura 762]

MLP lore sucks. I've been keep thinking that the show's strongest aspects are from daily slice-of-life sitcom based stories around the characters.

There is nothing interesting or unique about MLP lore, if we say it even exists. Also, the show has been more and more inorganic, which means they kept referencing past incidents instead of showing character's growth, they have been putting in very cheap and easy fandom shout-outs and wiping out fandom wish-lists to feed us.

The current trend of the show focusing on epic team up battles and expanding realms, different species are a bad move. Expanding without depth (characters) are a sign of a series going wrong. That's also what I felt about the MLP movie. Hasbro's biggest asset is the characters, and they don't realize it. That's why I prefer EQG shorts. No world building, no lore, just character's daily life.

I totally agree with you except that is for making the fandom's sandbox. I think it's just because of uninspired writing.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Sepul-Coloratura

[Number62 1,258]

I'd say that the creative team makes the show more for themselves than little girls or bronies. There are some many kinds of people who watch the show, so how will the show account for them all? That's practically impossible as various kinds of reactions have shown, so it only makes more sense for the creative team to make the show for themselves.

Sure, there are some acknowledgments to the bronies, and I'd say (or hope) that's more out of gratitude than pandering.

[Narcissus 355]

I thought the world building and the School of Friendship were paving the way for G5 and setting up that world, focusing less on G4 and the original cast where it belongs. They seem like they're trying to find a balance now but for a while it was too much world building and not enough good storytelling.