the current state of the MLP fandom?

[PepperPie 24]

why is it so hard to find a safe space in the My Little pony fandom? I feel like everywhere you look even if it says it's safe or it has precautions to be safe it's just not and people either don't moderate it correctly or people just can't follow basic rules. My little pony is literally a kids show about horses and other animals/creatures. And it seems despite that it's so common to find bad stuff. So its just normalized for everything to be nsfw or gore? If you look on YouTube, even normal sounding stuff is just bad, FIM fic is another issue I have, it has a view mature option so you think it would be good right? No, no one marks anything correctly and you can constantly see nsfw stories suggested, And if you join a group with rules specifically against that out think that would help because that's by others users who read the group rules? No actually there's more, except now it's sending you notifications in the site about the dirty pony content (😕). I've looked everywhere to just find a nice place with no creeps but it seems extremely hard. And even when I went into the fim fic discord, despite their rules literally being against c* and I'm being told that it's okay because it's a cartoon, while a site mod is literally watching and does nothing. why is it so normalized and can I find a safe space?

[S0m3th1ng3ls3 198]

(post removed to protect the identity of the poster)

Edited February 11 by S0m3th1ng3ls3
(post removed to protect the identity of the poster)

[Snow 7,693]

3 hours ago, DebonedAngel said:

The second safest place is right here

Spot on, I love this place for being devoid of all of the nasty stuff, people posting mature content here seems very very rare and the staff is always on top of it quickly which is great, MLPF being as big and as accessible as it is.

I think finding wholesome places is difficult mostly because a lot would be tight knit in order to keep out the no good sorts, you'd likely have to know a member to get in, there is the safe server on Pony Town where one might be able to do some networking, no doubt there are a handful of safe MLP themed Discord servers and the like but as far as major internet sites go I don't know any but here, there are a number of SFW MLP artists on DeviantArt that post lots of beautiful work and the safe mode setting is pretty good though sadly not infallible.

[Crypty Scribbles 5,447]

5 hours ago, DebonedAngel said:

The second safest place is right here.

100% true. The forum is the best "public" place can be found in the internet.

[MidnightFire1222 2,204]

The internet is a very diverse place and unfortunately there will always be...unsavory places on it no matter the fandom. This forum is a very safe place. If something does happen - which is very rare to begin with - the staff are quick to put a stop to it and enforce the rules set forth on the site. They are very good at moderation, unlike some other sites I've been on. Yeah, the mlp forum isn't not as busy as maybe 8-10 years ago, but it's still a great place for fans.

[Finding_Marty 826]

I remember it has always been the case in the fandom. I am not surprised that some people created bad stuff concerning MLP. But why it has become so popular is unclear to me, but it is certainly a curse. But fandom is an open community and everybody can join it. Unfortunatelly, it is what it is...

[abronymouse 6,007]

I know it can be tough to accept, but it is a teen/adult fandom so the gross stuff is gonna be there - and the people that make it are often pretty young themselves (there's nothing edgier than a 13-15 year boy in my experience). And even places like here where moderation is fabulous (maybe overly fabulous ) will slip up on occasion. So, I suggest not getting too het up about it - just like other material that is not to your tastes. Another tip for the gore and such is that a lot of the provocative content is there to provoke so never give these content creators a shocked or upset reaction, because they love to think they're edgy like that.

Report the stuff that breaks the rules by all means but keep a stiff upper lip.

(flehmen's response is freakin adorable)

[Iforgotmybrain 5,890]

MLP does seem to attract an unusual amount of gore and horror fans. I've always attributed that to the shows cutesy and more lighthearted nature. You get this big contrast between the wholesome source material and the more horror oriented fandom created content, and people seem to really like that contrast. Happy Tree Friends (Heavy gore warning, I don't recommend looking it up) is another example of this, except it was specifically made to look like a normal cartoon and be full of gore.

As for the NSFW stuff, yeah, I find any sort of media that gets big enough tends to inevitably have that kind of scene.

Like others said, just be careful about the communities and sites you interact with. There's a surprisingly amount of MLP related places that have little to no policing on what's posted or said unless it's something blatantly illegal. It's a major issue the fandom has always had that's just never really gone away.

Edited November 7, 2024 by Iforgotmybrain
clarify

[Nitobit 1,924]

@PepperPie Your thread has been moved to Sugarcube Corner. 

[HedonismBot 241]

This community may be what you're looking for:

 

[abronymouse 6,007]

36 minutes ago, HedonismBot said:

This community may be what you're looking for:

 

there's also pre-brony communities that are very SFW and wholesome (although they can also be kinda anti-brony sometimes  ) 

[OverTheStars 244]

It's definitely frustrating, but this forum seems pretty chill and cozy even if it isn't as bustling. My guess for the reason why this happened is because a lot of the online g4 fandom in the earlier days was built on an earlier internet where it was unfortunately normalized in some communities to produce shocking and edgy content. While some of the people doing this either left or grew out of it, some other members of the fandom took after these behaviors (especially ones who found this content when they were younger and began emulating it to seem cool or controversial).

My opinion has always been that if you're going to post content like that surrounding kid's shows, you should at least try to mark it as mature to prevent kids from seeing it and not post it on platforms where it can just show up on anyone's fyp regardless of age (I know TikTok has a feature where you can mark things as mature, but it doesn't always work and often nsfw content slips through anyways). 

[Snoopy Fan 2,566]

I feel like when something becomes so big like FiM, it’s going to attract people who are like that. Every fandom has a good side and a bad side. I like this site because it’s a safe place for us to talk.

[Dawnshine Wonder 855]

What got me into MLP FIM in the first place is its lighthearted adventure storytelling, sure, you get action scenes from time to time, but they don't happen very often, only when the situation calls for it, such as Princess Celestia defending herself from Luna when she went berserk as Nightmare Moon, seen in episode Princess Twilight Sparkle, and another action scene with Twilight Sparkle vs Tirek. Most of the time, thankfully, they're solving their problems not by force or magic, but through mercy and understanding, it just adds a sense of realism that sometimes violence as a last resort option becomes necessary, they don't glorify violence, and they don't show gore while doing it, and it's not some edgy story where apocalypse happens because of one slip up from the main characters, of course the heroes of the story win, but it is how they win that matters, it's possible to tell a story like this without making it too predictable who saves the world, even when Twilight Sparkle fought Tirek in season 4 finale she still needed the help of her friends including Discord.

Unfortunately that did not stop fans from making dark fan fictions, if they keep it to themselves or among adults who want to see it, I cannot complain, but the problem is they don't.

MLP was never about horror, I don't come here to see a Mane Six character become corrupt and go on a killing spree or do something else that goes against what the show is about. If I wanted gory horror stories, I'd watch A Nightmare On Elm St or The Shining.

[RafaStaryStory 3,680]

17 minutes ago, Dawnshine Wonder said:

Unfortunately that did not stop fans from making dark fan fictions, if they keep it to themselves or among adults who want to see it, I cannot complain, but the problem is they don't.

MLP was never about horror, I don't come here to see a Mane Six character become corrupt and go on a killing spree or do something else that goes against what the show is about. If I wanted gory horror stories, I'd watch A Nightmare On Elm St or The Shining.

And none of the stories that got a fandom interested in making dark fan fictions about them, that was a common thing in the late 2000's and early 2010s

Red Mist, Dead Bart, The Grieving, Sonic .Exe, Tails Doll's curse, I HATE YOU MARIO, Ben Drowned, Lavender Town Syndrome and many more. There were creepypastas, horror and dark stories about literally everything that was popular at the time. And you can see that all of them are about a cartoon, movie or videogame that is very light hearted, colored, etc, transforming these cute things into horror was the trend at the time, so MLP would never escape from it as G4 came exactly at the time it was bombing.

Nowadays they kinda still exist I believe, just in different format, I think it's the so called "Analog Horror", but I didn't watch any of them to be sure about it, I just know that they now also make stories about media franchises that aren't really "cute", like Godzilla, etc.

[Banananananajack 4,010]

1 hour ago, Rafa Stary said:

And none of the stories that got a fandom interested in making dark fan fictions about them, that was a common thing in the late 2000's and early 2010s

Red Mist, Dead Bart, The Grieving, Sonic .Exe, Tails Doll's curse, I HATE YOU MARIO, Ben Drowned, Lavender Town Syndrome and many more. There were creepypastas, horror and dark stories about literally everything that was popular at the time. And you can see that all of them are about a cartoon, movie or videogame that is very light hearted, colored, etc, transforming these cute things into horror was the trend at the time, so MLP would never escape from it as G4 came exactly at the time it was bombing.

Nowadays they kinda still exist I believe, just in different format, I think it's the so called "Analog Horror", but I didn't watch any of them to be sure about it, I just know that they now also make stories about media franchises that aren't really "cute", like Godzilla, etc.

I LOVE Creepypastas, if I told you how much the Pokemon ones had a CHOKEHOLD on me as a kid, you'd never believe or think I was crazy, even though I still kept my .EXE-ified Red around for a LONGGGGG time after this