Do you think FiM would gain same popularity if it were show with humans?

[Vefka 1,492]

What if mlp had the same story, lore, characters, fantasy-ish world, etc but without ponies (like EqG)? Would it gain the same fandom with grown up men like in 2013? Personally, I see such show as an ordinary cartoon for little girls and I wouldn't be interested in it. Besides, without brony fanbase I don't think it would evolve from season 1. It gives me an idea that mysterious charm of this show comes from ponies themselves, like even adult men have something to do with cute little horses.

Tell me what you think

[EpicEnergy 21,450]

I don't know about everyone else, but for me I wouldn't have watched FiM if it wasn't about ponies.

[TotallyNotNyx 15,549]

7 minutes ago, Ooredelen said:

What if mlp had the same story, lore, characters, fantasy-ish world, etc but without ponies (like EqG)? Would it gain the same fandom with grown up men like in 2013? Personally, I see such show as an ordinary cartoon for little girls and I wouldn't be interested in it. Besides, without brony fanbase I don't think it would evolve from season 1. It gives me an idea that mysterious charm of this show comes from ponies themselves, like even adult men have something to do with cute little horses.

Tell me what you think

I think that it would have been a bit too similar to other children programs then, so there would be a lot less fans, since most people would just dismiss the show as being generic to other children programs. And yeah, I do feel that the mysterious charm of the show does come from the ponies itself. Imagining another world, populated by different civilised species is a really interesting concept and for many, it was a way of escaping the human world (figuratively speaking). Plus Hasbro could sell a lot more pony toys than human figures , since there weren't many other pony toys on the market compared to the huge swathe of human figures. 

[SharpWit 2,311]

Given the fact that Equestria Girls was never able to take off and become a show of it's own despite movie successes, I think not.

[Adachi 771]

I probably would not really give it enough of a chance to end up liking it, not as much as I do anyway. There are already a lot of good cartoons with human characters, ponies was what got me hooked. I feel a big part of why I love FiM is the same reason I love Animal Crossing. The characters are cute. I just connect more with animals than with people.

[Odyssey 5,685]

It'd probably gain more popularity through people in general. Cause people can relate to fictional humans best and prefer something that has some realistic element to it, I guess. Though when people think of MLP, they're going to think of the ponies themselves, so it's 50/50

[Dark Qiviut 21,613]

There are a lot of cartoons regardless of quality centered around humans. The lack of human surrogate here is part of the charm. With ponies leading the show and living in a unique home, DHX was able to build its own world without "real world" restrictions.

[Metemponychosis 1,189]

I used to think that part of what gave MLP it's charm was all the 'horsey things' in earlier seasons, but its popularity only grew with later seasons and this became difficult to defend.

So, I can't say that it wouldn't.

[Goat-kun 2,421]

Its art style is everything. If ponies didn't look like they do it would still fail. Non-human niche may be relatively deserted when it comes to older audience, but it's already been populated as far as kid shows are concerned. So while the pony part is important to Bronies, it doesn't really matter in regard to targeted audience of MLP.

[Sepul-Coloratura 748]

If the Transformers weren't about robots and cars....

[The Wife of Law 18,772]

On 4/10/2020 at 12:33 PM, EpicEnergy said:

I don't know about everyone else, but for me I wouldn't have watched FiM if it wasn't about ponies.

Agreed. Sometimes, I’d much rather watch anthropomorphic animals than humans.

[AppleButt 8,663]

The #1 appeal to the show for me was the adorable ponies.  I liked watching their antics in the shows above all else. 

I would not have watched it if it were about humans.  In fact I like to pretend Equestria Girls never happened. 
 

I don’t know about everyone else though. 

[Pentium100 1,939]

I probably would have watched the show with humans if I liked the art style. For example, I do not particularly like the art style of EG, but if the show as more anime-like I probably would have watched it. I like slice-of-life type shows, for example, Lucky Star.

[Winter Storm 61]

I wouldn't be interested if they weren't ponies either. For some reason I just found the G4 characters and their design irresistible.