Friendship Isn't Magic

This is not an obituary for the show that has given me so much joy these past four years. Its death is not final, the heart is still warm, there are still lingering breaths, but the point of recovery has come and gone. Death is not a moment in time, it is a process that can be, under many circumstances, dragged out beyond the point where the quality of life declines precipitously. That moment has come and gone and all that lies ahead is the long decline.

This began in season four, when I noticed an obvious and ominous shift in focus away from a children's show that adults can enjoy, to an adult show that children can enjoy. Gone are the letters to Celestia, the friendship lessons, the childlike innocence, now there are references to people who are "horse famous" and stupid Internet "memes" that turn "tweens" into murderers. The characters had abandoned any sense of being real persons and were instead reduced to caricatures of themselves, with all depth removed and all the goofy aspects exaggerated. Any lessons that had been learned in earlier episodes had been forgotten and whole plots were reused unapologetically.

There have always been episodes that fall flat, episodes that were just average, but with season four about half the episodes I thought had failed. A few episodes hit it out of the park, but for the most part I was not looking forward to the next week's episode with anything approaching the same degree of enthusiasm I had before.

Season five has seen a worsening of the trend started in season four. The overuse of lens flare was toned down dramatically, but the stupidity has been ratcheted up. It's gotten so bad that I'm no longer not just unenthusiastic about new episodes, I don't want to watch them anymore. I have my first three seasons, that's enough for me.

This is no longer Friendship is Magic, this is Random Silliness, and the target audience was adult trendies with deep pockets and six self-diagnosed illnesses who like to giggle and clap at mindless "fun" and can't stand to have their little bubbles intruded upon by dissent in any form. They are the most vile, vitriolic, villainous group of pathetic, narcissistic losers on the planet. They constantly make recourse to the "just for kids" excuse whenever anyone opines that the show should return to its former quality, in so doing they are embracing mediocrity. FiM used to be of such high caliber that it created an unexpected adult fanbase. That quality is gone, many of the early people who put in a lot of effort and created a lot of amazing art and analysis have left, and the result is an even more vociferous praising of mediocrity from the fandumb. They are glad that the people who think are gone, because thinking is too hard, it gets in the way of "fun".

In early 2011 I remember having in-depth discussions with people about the show, the characters and themes, the amazing quality of the show's artwork. We picked it apart and admired how it was a refreshing departure from the standard fare in children's animation over the past decade. We discussed the real world implications of FiM. Those people are gone, off chasing something new, while I've been hanging back, hoping for a revival. It's been a good ride, but I think it's time to admit my optimism was misplaced. There isn't going to be a revival, just an escalating death spiral to Sponge Bob and all the other mass-market shit the networks have always produced for kids.