AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Kids don't just make fun of the actual 'mental disorder' group, either. When I was in 5th and 6th grade I was in the GATE program at my school; the name stood for 'Gifted and Talented' or something like that. It was for kids who were smarter than average at their grade level.

Just being in that 'special' program warranted kids to mock me for being a 'special ed' case. Children are cruel little beasts.

And that's why I never want any.

The next episode of MLP is going to be about Spike. He's going to hant out with teenage dragons, as he "struggles to find his way", according to the TV guide.

What are your thoughts? I'm glad to see another Spike episode.

An episode idea I've had in my head for a while is that Twilight and the gang meet a pony that was raised by dragons. The lesson could be "home is where people (boners) care about you, not where you have things in common with them" what do you guys think?

i was also in a similar position to both Nacha and Cori. On the one hand i had behavioral issues at times and was very much teased for being "retarded". And on the other hand, i was signed up for after-school Gifted programs that taught things like high-school level chemistry(and i was in early elementary school) and how to play chess properly by real award winning ches-masters. And if it weren't for the fact that one of the Cool Kids was also in the gifted program with me, i'd have been made fun of for that too.

but honestly when i was in kindergarten if you had anything "weird" about yourself, especially if it was something physical like, say, cross-eyes, then you had to expect to be the subject of ridicule for many years.

And on the subject of "but other shows do this stuff too so why is it a problem with MLP?" Most of the example shows are, as Sheila said, from the 90s or older. To be frank, changing them doesn't matter. Their damage is already done. And back then, not enough people cared/noticed. And the reason its more of an issue with MLP now than other shows? Because the people in charge of the daisies thing like to act proud of themselves for having a show thats ~different~ and they seem to have the GOAL of having a more politically correct show, although its mostly aimed at feminism. But the thing is, you can't claim to be progressive when you only make an attempt to be unoffensive in a single aspect, and then go and do shit like the derpy thing and the whole "other races are obviously an entire different species from the normal white folk" thing which HAS been used extensively as a "reason" to strip PoCs of their human rights for centuries in the past.

And it frustrates me how many heretics refuse to awknowledge this shit and that, yes, the show has PROBLEMS.

Also I stated before i'd let my sister watch it, but then i was thinking. I've met a LOT of heretics, more off this site, and the large majority of them seem to be racist, transphobic, and somehow even sexist. There's something about this show, above all others, that attract a lot of the most disgusting men on the internet, and im not sure why that is. Subliminal messaging? Some sort of mostly unhearable sound that we only hear subconsciously, like a reverse Lavender Town Tone? Either way i love my sister and i feel uncomfortable with the idea of her watching something that is evidently such a grossness magnet. She can keep watching carebears instead.

Oracle, I believe I can now understand your position. I seem to have completely missed those guys, lucky me.
I love watching the show, but it might say something when Batman has his own folder on my computer and FiM only has a couple backgrounds and bookmarked songs.
Some stuff older shows got away with was amazing, I'm not saying I want it back like it was, (The Mask Cartoon had a stripper in one episode! A kid's show!) but I don't care for overly zealous political correctness. Well, at least that Derpy edit is confined to iTunes, so I'll just stick to youtube and stuff. Derpy hasn't gone anywhere and will continue to appear, just in the background like she usually is. Sheesh, people can overreact!

It kind of seems more like those are the types of fans you see because they're so crazy and out there. It doesn't necessarily mean the majority of the fanbase is like that

I mean shit, there's probably nuts out there who watch Carebears and write essays on why it proves that there needs to be an Aryan nation or something

I'm not going to discuss the personal stories, because I don't feel like they really have much of a place in a general discussion about the show.

While I didn't have anything to say against the rest of your argument, I can't agree with this. "Racist, transphobic, sexist" - those are terms I can apply to many fans in any fandom. And honestly, to use an example I know you love, I've seen it often enough in the Homestuck fandom. That doesn't mean every fan is like that. I don't believe every troll fan goes around spitting Faygo into a bucket. I don't believe every fan will physically assault a person cosplaying a Homestuck character they dislike. They're just the oddballs, and while I am not interested in Homestuck, these extreme fans would not cause me to dissuade someone from trying to read Homestuck.

There are many adult MLP fans, both male and female, who don't identify with the "heretic" label, and there are "heretics" who are quite socially sound, just, well, very fanboyish. Can't generalize.

Can we, umm, please start talking about the show again?
What do you guys think about tomorrow's episode?

we were discussing the show. a discussion about something isn't always strictly positive. sometimes people want to critique something.

I would like to discuss the show, it's characters, and its episodes. I do not think that discussing the fandom and the people that make it up is very constructive.

Okay just a quick point here:

You can't force people to stop talking about stuff you don't want to talk about.

However, nothing stops you from talking about something else in the same thread as long as it's on topic.

Basically, people are free to talk about whatever they want as long as it's on topic and doesn't get out of hand. But if you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to.

yeah, thanks to the magic of text and stuff it is possible to have a couple conversations in a thread at a time. Also, as this thread is specifically for MLP, I vouch for it to cover all things MLP related. Including fan base.

Yes, critique is always good.

I guess I actually haven't really seen too much of the fandom if it's as bad as you say, Oracle.
Probably influenced somewhat by my tendency to carve myself a little fandom cave and stay there.

I have noticed a slight double standard in that there are so many F/F pairings it's ridiculous, but there are very few M/M stories and they're mostly ignored.
(This probably has something to do with the dearth of named male characters, but still.)

But I still don't think that Oracle's generalizations of the fandom of the show constitutes a constructive discussion about the show.

Well, neither did I, and that's why I posted a rebuttal stating what I thought regarding her commentary on the fandom. It's fine if you disagree with someone, but you should explain why - it gives you more validity than just saying "I don't like you talking like this" without anything else to back up your statement.

If you don't feel like involving yourself in a discussion, then just ignore any posts related to it. There are more than enough fans here who will gladly participate in discussion on the show itself.