Some of my earliest memories involve the My Little Pony franchise, which includes TV shows and toys depicting cherubic ponies living the joys of friendship and adventure. My Little Pony has gone through various reboots over the years, the most well-known one referred to as the “fourth generation” (if you speak the pony lingo). This generation brought the ultra-popular show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic to the world, around the time I entered middle school.
Even before middle school, when the toys and screen characters had a completely different look, I was enamored. I remember crouching on my childhood bedroom floor with my friends, constructing now-forgotten plotlines in which my colorful pony dolls traveled into the unknown, fought dragons, and fell in love. Each Christmas brought another pony toy to my lap, while I’m sure my parents were sighing at how spoiled I was. On Saturday nights my family and I would venture to Blockbuster, and every time I would return with a new My Little Pony movie. Rest in peace, Blockbuster – another remnant of my childhood.
Unsurprisingly, I was well known among the neighborhood kids for having an impressive collection of pony dolls. However, throughout elementary school, I always felt that I had to seem like a “big kid.” I made “grown-up” changes, such as forgoing my preferred name, Kiki, for my very-formal-sounding legal name, Mary – a change that I have since reversed – and boxing up all of my ponies. I solemnly put them in my basement, the dank, grimy underbelly of my house, where nothing stays pristine.
Motivated by my strong streak of “not-like-other-girls-ism,” I rejected traditionally girly interests based on outside perception rather than my own tastes, like the color pink, which is near-ubiquitous in the world of My Little Pony. A lot of young girls are aware of sexism and negative perceptions of femininity, but they don’t have the tools or experience to face it, so they give up interests and aesthetics that could bring them joy. I’m still not a particularly feminine person, but it still brings me a twinge of pain that I gave up something so bright and meaningful back then.
Motivated by my strong streak of “not-like-other-girls-ism,” I rejected traditionally girly interests based on outside perception rather than my own tastes
Then middle school hit, and with the onset of puberty, prevalence of bullying, and emergence of the need to form a unique identity, I was overcome with a deep desire to bring my ponies back into the land of the living. I remember being the first of my friends to start my period; I remember stealing my brother’s acne creams and hoping that no one would look at my face too long; I remember stubbornly avoiding conversations about boys at my best friends’ sleepovers. To sum it up: I was not ready for any of it. So I brought my boxes of ponies up and individually washed each one at my kitchen sink, scrubbing off the basement grime as best I could and carefully detangling their manes and tails. Luckily, I had a cohort of friends who were all into the return of the ponies, and we made new stories and also made outfits for them out of whatever we could find. I would watch “Friendship is Magic” before school every morning, leading me to miss the bus a few times. (Sorry, Dad). I saw myself in the nerdy main character Twilight Sparkle; I loved watching the fashion designer pony Rarity, with her endlessly entertaining egoism and exaggerated femininity.
The problem with ignoring the inevitable process of growing up and all of its implications is that it truly cannot be ignored, and My Little Pony, at that time, was changing, too – in ways as unpredictable and uncomfortable as budding breasts and period cramps. My innocent reprieve from middle-school weirdness had been, it seemed, cruelly usurped by a force greater even than puberty: toxic fan subcultures.
The problem with ignoring the inevitable process of growing up and all of its implications is that it truly cannot be ignored
Combine the term “bro” with the word “pony” and you get Brony, a term used to describe male fans, both young and old, who latched onto My Little Pony. This was a widespread, genuine fandom, with fanart, fan music, and fan conventions that would rival Star-Trek conventions, Comic-con, and other anime conventions.
However, as the fandom developed, some older members began drawing sexualized art of the My Little Ponies. If you googled the name of any pony back in the 2010s, provocative fanart – if not outright porn – would show up in the search results before you even scrolled down. I was 12 years old; my idea of sexuality was only beginning to form. I wanted nothing to do with sexuality in general, much less in my favorite cartoon ponies.
I remain grossed out by the way that some people took a little kids’ show and then sexualized it on public platforms, where kids even younger than I was could see it. I so deeply longed for a time before becoming aware of my body, before these social and physical changes, but I couldn’t ignore them, much less the harshness of the world around me. What I was scared of as a tween somehow seeped into and corrupted what I used for comfort. I don’t mean to make out puberty or sexuality as evil – when you’re 12, however, these processes and feelings make you feel like you will never be happy again.
I so deeply longed for a time before becoming aware of my body, before these social and physical changes, but I couldn’t ignore them, much less the harshness of the world around me.
College, of course, is full of reminders of sexuality: hookup culture, serious relationships, vulgar jokes, my own burgeoning exploration of desire and relationships. I don’t think I’ll ever be completely comfortable with any of it – I’m just wired that way. Body image is still a struggle for me, as is my own relationship to femininity (or lack thereof). These journeys don’t seem to have a set end, but I’m also taking the time to appreciate the person I’ve become.
In the meantime, while I no longer look back and grab onto whatever represents “innocence” or idyllic childhood, I also haven’t eschewed the things I’ve always enjoyed, as I once tried to do by locking away my pony toys in the basement. I remember so much that I’ll never have again, but these days I freely belt out the songs from “Friendship is Magic” with my roommate in their car. I sit in my dorm’s lounge watching the newest reboot of the My Little Pony TV show joined by friends even more enthusiastic than I. And each year I bring to UVA one of my original pony toys, where she sits on my bookshelf with all of my class readings. Just for the joy of it.
