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I have not been invested in the pony fandom lately, but I do wish to compare it with what knowledge and experience I have of it when I was within the fandom. This was when the episodes were airing.
Anyway, I think the reason there is, according to some people, an alarming amount of NSFW and Grimdark works in the Pony fandom, is because of the message of the show itself. Oftentimes non-fans will find themselves being subjected to the "LOVE AND TOLERANCE" message of the fanbase whenever any ill-will is directed towards them. And when I say that I mean literally. There are people who GIVE things to these rude and off-putting nonfans just to show how loving and tolerating they are. Otherwise they'd simply yell out the overheard phrase as opposed to retaliating to the unkind remark...almost like a counter-troll, or an evolution of the words "you mad" or something, cleverly disguised as something supposedly following the message of the cartoon these fans love.
But well, this reminds me of an episode of South Park, The Death Camp of Tolerance. Mr. Garrison goes through these outrageous stunts of clearly inappropriate behaviour, but everyone else rewards him for being so brave standing up to all the ridicule he receives for being a gay man. Now again, I'm not saying we have to scream at all the people who put human breasts on multicoloured ponies or display in great detail the corpse of a dying, decaying pony for all to see. Like the moral of the episode was supposed to be, tolerating is not meant to be accepting. A site like Equestria Daily is meant to serve everyone, and since everyone equals all fans of MLP, children and adults alike, it should be treated as such. At least that's how I perceive the site and how I always saw it to be. Even if you're not meant to hold an audience like that, if it becomes the mainstream source of all pony information, a child who is a fan of ponies can easily search up for its general phrase on the internet, and EQD would naturally be the first result.
Basically, and especially for a cartoon meant for children, if your site becomes insanely popular and is serving the public with quite a general purpose, it should be appropriate. All the grimdark and sexual works can still exist, they just shouldn't be on the front page of a highly published newspaper, they should be on their own little publication separate and elsewhere for other's to see. Tumblr is unfortunately a social media platform and it is literally impossible to control where content goes, so a blog that has been clean for its entire existence could easily reblog something else that is clearly not meant for the general public to see. Luckily I don't think (I HOPE) children do not use Tumblr, but I wouldn't be surprised considering how kids are raised on the internet these days.
That's why I don't think videos of something like the .MOV series or fanfictions like Cupcakes belong on EQD, but I think both these cases are very old and thus contesting them is fruitless. Because of the so-called high tolerance of the series, people begin to think it's okay to spread their little niche around as widespread as they can, and it allows the mainstream public to get a-hold of it far more easily, leading to an image that can go dour in an instant. With that kind of attitude it will become far harder to convince people that loving ponies, already strange as it is, isn't something completely deviant.
But perhaps the situation is too far gone already for this rant to do anything. People generalize others with their worst already. The media loves eating up negative stories so we can quickly develop a mindset of certain groups of people, be they homosexuals or an entire race without giving the individual a chance.
Anyway, I think the reason there is, according to some people, an alarming amount of NSFW and Grimdark works in the Pony fandom, is because of the message of the show itself. Oftentimes non-fans will find themselves being subjected to the "LOVE AND TOLERANCE" message of the fanbase whenever any ill-will is directed towards them. And when I say that I mean literally. There are people who GIVE things to these rude and off-putting nonfans just to show how loving and tolerating they are. Otherwise they'd simply yell out the overheard phrase as opposed to retaliating to the unkind remark...almost like a counter-troll, or an evolution of the words "you mad" or something, cleverly disguised as something supposedly following the message of the cartoon these fans love.
But well, this reminds me of an episode of South Park, The Death Camp of Tolerance. Mr. Garrison goes through these outrageous stunts of clearly inappropriate behaviour, but everyone else rewards him for being so brave standing up to all the ridicule he receives for being a gay man. Now again, I'm not saying we have to scream at all the people who put human breasts on multicoloured ponies or display in great detail the corpse of a dying, decaying pony for all to see. Like the moral of the episode was supposed to be, tolerating is not meant to be accepting. A site like Equestria Daily is meant to serve everyone, and since everyone equals all fans of MLP, children and adults alike, it should be treated as such. At least that's how I perceive the site and how I always saw it to be. Even if you're not meant to hold an audience like that, if it becomes the mainstream source of all pony information, a child who is a fan of ponies can easily search up for its general phrase on the internet, and EQD would naturally be the first result.
Basically, and especially for a cartoon meant for children, if your site becomes insanely popular and is serving the public with quite a general purpose, it should be appropriate. All the grimdark and sexual works can still exist, they just shouldn't be on the front page of a highly published newspaper, they should be on their own little publication separate and elsewhere for other's to see. Tumblr is unfortunately a social media platform and it is literally impossible to control where content goes, so a blog that has been clean for its entire existence could easily reblog something else that is clearly not meant for the general public to see. Luckily I don't think (I HOPE) children do not use Tumblr, but I wouldn't be surprised considering how kids are raised on the internet these days.
That's why I don't think videos of something like the .MOV series or fanfictions like Cupcakes belong on EQD, but I think both these cases are very old and thus contesting them is fruitless. Because of the so-called high tolerance of the series, people begin to think it's okay to spread their little niche around as widespread as they can, and it allows the mainstream public to get a-hold of it far more easily, leading to an image that can go dour in an instant. With that kind of attitude it will become far harder to convince people that loving ponies, already strange as it is, isn't something completely deviant.
But perhaps the situation is too far gone already for this rant to do anything. People generalize others with their worst already. The media loves eating up negative stories so we can quickly develop a mindset of certain groups of people, be they homosexuals or an entire race without giving the individual a chance.
