What was YOUR reaction when you first saw My Little Pony?

My older sister introduced the show to me. When I first heard that there was a MLP show that was good, I rolled my eyes. But I decided to give it a chance. The result, probably one of the greatest decisions of my life.

After I watched both parts of the pilot I was like, "I'm surprised. This show isn't that bad."

After Ticket Master "OMG. I don't want this show to be so good."

After I completed Season one "This is probably the best cartoon in recent years."

So I basically got hooked after Ticket Master.

Then I discovered the forums. My life has been a lot better since I'm meed my bronies!

This show has saved me from depression.

 

Well, I responded pretty well to the FiM series, as it wasn't as bad as the previous one XD
I enjoyed it pretty much right from the start, as I tried to be optimistic about it
But I really didn't like the previous series...
But I remember when I was little, me and my friends would take toys like dolls, or the previous generation MLP toys and the sort and... *CENSOR*
I'm afraid what I did may come of as Grimdark in an abusive way. At least the MLP toys' heads were meant to come off so no harm done there.
But my sisters got so mad! At least they were okay with the dolls part. (btw, all my siblings are bronies now, I converted them... so expect my younger sister to join, if I can convince her)
But I also used markers... I hope everypony can forgive me T_T

 

Naturally, I'm old enough to remember the original show, back in 1984 or so. That was terrible. Art work - bleh! Story - what story?! Flash forward twenty-seven years. I start seeing these funny horses, unicorns, and pegasus memes. Then, while looking at "Know your Meme" to see what they are, I'm shocked to see they're My Little Pony. I watch a couple of videos, and I start to think, "If I watch this show, I think I'm going to like it." After a week of considering it, I watch the first episode, and the second.

It. Was. AMAZING.

@Snowy - No wonder you're so kind to all of us! Don't worry, none of us hold it against you!

 

Being 23, I remember the second iteration of the cartoon on TV. My mom used to do daycare and we had a girl who had to watch the show. I was only about 4 or 5 at the time but I remember that being the first time I wanted to shove forks in my eye sockets. FiM was quite different for me. I knew Faust was on it and even though I didn't watch at first, I supported the show.

 

Wow, guess I was late for this one.
Anyway, the first time I saw this, it was the similar reaction with most people here. "Why am I watching this and enjoying it?" The first episode I watched was The Ticket Master and I was laughing all the way through. After that, I was hooked like a fish. The animation, the comedy, it all fit together in this awesome show. I thought it was awesome

 

I personally to this day can't believe that a show about ponies can be THIS good.

 

[TABLE]|TL;DR WARNING: I know this post is much more verbose than intended. I seemed to have answered the question, plus added my self-conversion story. OOPS! Instead of deleting the extra, I figured I'll keep it here for anyone that's interested.
[/TABLE]

For the short versions...

Spoiler: Answer to the question

To my surprise, I actually liked the show relatively quickly. The animation caught my attention first because it wasn't what I had originally imagined it to be. Even the early characters, such as Twilight, caught my interest because I was able to relate to her in some ways. I found the other characters interesting as well from the start, especially Fluttershy. I enjoyed the storyline introduced and was interested in how the conflict would be resolved. After the pilot ended, I was curious to see if the following episodes would be as good. Turns out they were even better.

Spoiler: tl;dr

Basically I figured that any adult men had to be crazy to watch this show. When I heard "MLP" I immediately pictured the 80's cartoon. However, after a while of seeing pony images and reading a thread on a message board I used to visit, I gave it the chance. To my surprise, I liked it relatively quickly. After watching all of Season 1, I wanted more. That's when I found Everypony and EPR, and after about 3 weeks of lurking, I finally joined and accepted my bronydom.

Well, I'll start with before I watched it. When I first heard that there were adult men that liked watching "My Little Pony," I must admit my feelings were very non-brony:

• "How the hell can any guys like that show?" (When I heard "My Little Pony" I automatically thought of the show from the 80's)
• "'Bronies'? Are you freakin' serious?" (I thought the word was silly)
• "Just when you thought the Internet couldn't get any weirder." (Self-explanatory)

Stuff like that. Yeah, not very nice of me. I never trolled bronies though, because I'm not a troll. I just figured "Well, whatever. If they like it, fine, it isn't affecting me. So why should I care?" I think I first learned about it sometime in early May 2011. I saw some image macros of ponies. I believe the first one I saw was Trixie. I didn't think much of it at the time. I never really kept up with memes, so I had no idea what was going on.

Over time, by late May/early June I saw a thread show up on a forum I used to visit. I just happened to check back on it to see if anything interesting was going on and lo and behold, an MLP:FiM thread. I never logged in or anything to reply to it, but I was reading it. Some people were saying to the OP, "No! Not you! and "You're a brony now too?" That's when I saw the word 'brony' again and thought, "What's with this 'brony' thing? Is it really becoming a big deal? I don't get it." After reading the thread responses I saw some things like "welcome to the herd" and first came across the term "brohoof" then someone mentioned the episodes.

At this point I was becoming curious. I was thinking "Hmmm... this fandom seems to have a pretty big following. There has got to be some reason why these guys, some my age or older, are watching and enjoying this. Just for ****s and giggles I'll watch it. I bet I won't like it though." I figured I'd give YouTube a shot. I didn't expect to find any episodes because of the whole copyright thing, but, of course, to my great surprise, all the episodes were there! Full episodes! High quality! I was shocked. So, I naturally began my journey into bronydom with episode 1.

The bad thing is when I encountered the theme song, that was the first big hurdle, because I was like, "Oh my God, what the f---? Muting that s---!" After the title passed, I unmuted and watched. The first thing that caught my eye was the animation. It was nothing like I had imagined the show to be so far, and it didn't even get into really introducing the characters or the story yet. I already liked Twilight Sparkle from the start because she was kinda like me— social recluse, not many friends, and although I'm not into reading books like she is, I'm kinda nerdy, so I can at least relate to part of that. Also, for some reason, I liked Spike from the start too. The show had barely even been on for 5 minutes or so and I'm already starting to like the characters just by their design and interactions with each other.

Then when I got a feel for the conflict of the episode, that caught my interest, and the introduction of a villain caught my interest too because I like villains. Then they were introducing the other characters, Pinkie Pie being the first one, but at the time, after her huge gasp, I thought "what the heck was that?" Little did I know that that pony would become my favorite. The next character to catch my eye was Fluttershy. I fell in love with her character almost immediately because of her shyness since I can totally relate to that and I thought it was adorable. At this point I was thinking, "What is wrong with me? Am I really enjoying this?" Then when we met Pinkie Pie for the second time, I knew this was another character I'd like. I found her funny almost from the start. Actually, at this point I already was interested in all six of the main characters introduced, but at this point Spike, Twilight and Fluttershy were my favorites. They still are, but Pinkie Pie is now #1. She earned that spot a lot later.

So, after episode 1 ended with the cliffhanger— Nightmare moon's return, I had to watch the next episode to see what happens. I was in dismay. I was thinking, "I don't believe it! They sucked me in already with this cliffhanger. I want to know what happens next." I enjoyed the second episode a lot because that gave me somewhat of a better idea of how the characters are. Although, admittedly, I didn't really care for Pinkie Pie breaking out in song at first. I learned to like that later on. Overall, I enjoyed that and the ending. Then I was slightly disappointed, but curious at the end. Why? I was disappointed that the antagonist was gone and it doesn't have that sense of conflict anymore, but I was curious as to how the story would continue. They got me! At this point I was thinking, "Okay, the pilot is over, I doubt the next episodes will be as good now that there's no more villain."

Boy was I wrong about that! They were actually better! "The Ticket Master" had a really interesting conflict. I was interested to see how Twilight would be able to satisfy all her friends, or if she'd really be willing to disappoint some. Personally, I thought Applejack had the best reason to go to the Gala. Pretty much at this point, after each episode had ended, I wanted more. I couldn't get enough. I was in complete shock, "I am a 25 year old guy, watching MLP, and I'm freakin' enjoying it and I want more?! NOW I GET IT! I UNDERSTAND WHY THEY LIKE IT! THIS SHOW IS AWESOME!" I felt kinda bad for thinking those negative feelings earlier.

As I kept watching episode after episode, I kept getting more into it. A part of me was trying to resist it though. I mentioned part of that in the 5 Stages of Brony Development thread. A part of me, despite admitting the awesomeness, was still saying, "You know this is wrong, right? Men don't watch MLP. You shouldn't be doing this. STOP! GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN! DON'T GET SUCKED INTO IT!" It was a psychological conflict of sorts. After I was done watching all of season one (I think this took about 3 days), I felt sad that I had watched it all. I wanted more.

At this point I think it was early June, and that's when on that faithful day, I decided to google pony-terms. One of them was the word "everypony." What was the first result? This place! When I clicked the link, I noticed a link directing me to Everypony Radio. Then my curiosity got the better of me once again, "Pony music? Pfft, there can't be that many songs, right?" That's when I learned rather quickly that the fandom was extremely creative. There wasn't as much as there is now, but still a lot more than I originally thought. I found myself lurking in the chat. I didn't have a username or anything yet. I just listened to the music. A part of my brain still bugged me, "Now you're listening to pony music? You've really gone off the deep end..." but I just ignored it. I started viewing the threads on here as a guest and in a relatively short time I found out that the brony community really is a kind and welcoming one.

I lurked for about 3 weeks on the forum. 2 of those 3 weeks I lurked on EPR as well, but then I got the balls to actually create a username, "ePONYmous." I explained why I decided on this name already. I chatted in EPR just a little. The only thing I really did was answer questions about the name of a song. After a week of this, I finally gave in. Despite ALL of what I said so far, at this point I wasn't comfortable with the word "brony." I tried thinking, "I'm a brony," but all I thought was, "I'm a br... NO! I'M NOT! I WILL NEVER BE ONE OF YOU!" It's as if despite all this, a part of me was still thinking it was sorta a bad thing.

So, I just bit the bullet and joined on July 10th and introduced myself. I figured, "I like this show, despite how I feel about it. I have to accept the fact that I'm enjoying it. I hope the community will welcome me." And you guys certainly did. I never saw so many replies to an introductory thread. You welcomed me to the herd. After that, I tried thinking, "I'm a brony." And guess what? My mind accepted it. I felt no shame in it anymore. Sure, I may not admit it in public yet, but maybe, in due time, that too will change. I think if someone asked me, I'd admit it, but that opportunity has never presented itself yet.

I'm glad that I took the chance to watch it and I'm glad I googled "everypony" that day. I never would've thought that 2 decisions, which seemed really minor at the time, would've introduced me to a great community such as this.

 

After hearing from a friend that the average viewer of My Little Pony; Friendship is Magic was a 24 year old man I was like "NO WAY! What self-respecting guy watches a show like that?" After about a week the very thought of it ate away at me, and so I broke down and said, "Ok....ONE episode, just to see what all the fuss is about." But since I can't leave anything at a cliffhanger ever I also watched the second episode. Without even realizing it I was watching episode three in no time, and without noticing that several hours had passed I was shocked to see that I was on episode ten!

I quit for the day saying, "Why did I just watch all those ponies?" To be honest, I was disgusted with myself for wasting almost a whole day on ponies...but the very next day I went back AGAIN and was surprised to find myself actually LAUGHING and enjoying myself while watching the ponies. I think the most shocked I was about the seconds days response was when I watched 'A Dog and Pony Show' and there was a point where I did one of my crazy fist-pumps and said out-loud, "I freakin' love Rarity!" After that point, I didn't care that I was watching a children's show meant for 7-year-old-girls...to quote Rainbow Dash "I LIKED it...a lot!"

About a week later I was still a closet pega-sister and my little bro was hanging out in my room playing video games, which is pretty normal, and I was thinking, "I REALLY wanna watch some ponies right now." So I did anyway. To my surprise my little bro actually watched the whole episode with me, he pretended not to like it the whole time but nothing was stopping him from not watching...

And that is the whole and true story of how I came to love ponies.

 

Me then: WTF? Why would anyone watch this show??



Me now: I will never stop watching this amazing show!

 

I forced myself to watch it after discovering that Lauren Faust was the mastermind. I have enjoyed cartoons from her husband, so I figured she would do an awesome job. It didn't take me long to get hooked on the show. All my concerns dissipated after watching the two pilots, and thoroughly enjoying every second of it. It's been a while since a cartoon has made me crack up so much.

 

Well, I never had much problems enjoying a cartoon as long as it was funny and well written, so when pony pictures started popping up in another forum, I wanted to see what it was all about. Okay, so the intro made me feel a bit strange, but I soon warmed up to the characters, I liked the story and overall design and the gags were genuinely funny, so I kept watching and, apparantly like many others, was hooked after the third episode.

 

I first watched my little pony when I was around 4/5 years old back then the ponys were still running round with that girl Meygan lol. I first saw friendhsip is magic I was instanly hooked, I went from the double episode straight to I think it was number 19 or something like that X3

 

Before watching the show I was kinda skeptical because I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't watch any clips on YouTube, maybe only a few, but I was quite curious as to why so many liked it. So I finally decided to sit down and watch the Pilot and I instantly loved it. It has quickly become one of my favorite cartoons and I'm putting MLP:FIM wallpapers on my computer and phone and I am just enthralling myself in ponies.

 

I had zero interest in any previous generation of the show, and still don't.

But a guy on another forum suggested I might give FiM a shot, and gave me the links to a few recommended episodes.


I like animation. I always have. I like a good storyline, strong character development, and a good sense of humor.


I saw the first recommended episode and knew I'd be totally hooked in two more episodes. So I watched two more episodes,
and then all the rest of them.

I didn't need any prodding.

The five stages of becoming a brony? I bypassed the first four and went straight to the fifth. No problem. Why should I worry about what anyone else thinks?


I'm not the demonstrative type. I'm neither secretive about liking the show nor am I running around saying, "Hey, check this out!", either. Although I do leave
subtle hints about the show that only other bronies would pick up on. Like finding ways to incorporate the phrase "20 percent cooler" into my conversations, in
a contextually appropriate manner.

 

Let's just say, I was beyond happy.

I had loved Ponies since I was 5 years old, and seeing it re-made was the best thing ever.

 

My reaction was somewhat... abnormal compared to the rest of what I've heard.
Most people go "This has to be ironic, or some kind of joke"

I however just sat there and went, "Well if they say it's good, even ironically, there's gotta be something there"

 

I remember sitting there with Season 1 Episode 1 open on youtube (remember that dude's channel? we all remember it) and I was giggling to myself to try and nullify the gravity of what I was doing, but then at the end of Episode 2 I was giggling because I never thought I'd truly like it. And as the season went by I kept on laughing because it was just better than the invention of the lightbulb.

 

I had only ever heard about My Little Pony before discovering Friendship is Magic, and even then it was just the toys. I don't recall hearing anyone speak of the cartoons.

When I first started seeing fanart and stuff, I just shrugged it off. I see fanart of stuff I've never seen and it never bothers me. However, there was so much of it, not to mention so much of the fanart was awesome! Curious, I decided to check the show out. I liked it from the very first episode. The characters are all amusing and likeable, the art style and animation was neat, the writing was pretty good, and the jokes were funny.

About halfway through Season 1, I had to stop. Not because I wanted to, but because I had made the mistake of waiting until the middle of the day to start watching and it was pretty late. I actually discovered EPR and was enjoying the EPR chat so much for a while that I took a while to watch the rest of the season! Of course I smartened up and got on with it, just in case someone started talking about an episode I hadn't seen yet!

That's pretty much it. I went into it with an open mind, and the show won me over.