Is this the MLP of the 20s?

This is millennial erasure. Fandom these days is split between millennial !horsefrickers who never left and younger zoomers who got curious what all the creepy bronyism was all about and joined recently (after being unironic childhood fans and stepping away for 5–10 years)

>Aesop like good messages in cartoon are pretty much universal. The fact of the matter is, cute horses are cute

That, you right! And ultimately, as weird and even cringe Bluey and bronies may be...I would still much rather have my (theoretical) child watch these shows over shit like CoCoMelon lmao

Sorry to ping !horsefrickers once again...but this really does spark my curiosity regarding...uh...brony lore

It might be a bit of stretch, but when I think about it, the FiM has a lot of similarities to how popular Pokémon got back in the day.

Both seemed to be franchises that looks like it's only to sell shit to kids. Yet, however, be it surprisingly decent storytelling in a girl's horse show, or an in-depth system where you can catch and battle funny little virtual creatures, it somehow managed to catch on - and before you know it, everybody was into it!

But for FiM, it seemed as if most of the attention and popularity started to wind down after Seasons 4-5 - which is, if I recall, when Equestria Girls/Twilight Alicorn started to show up. Did the previous fans start to grow up? Or did they just latch on to another pop culture trend (like, say, Undertale or anime)? I suppose that Lauren Faust stepping down from being a showrunner - along with Hasbro getting more and more involved in the show's production - played a major role; of course, a cartoon designed to sell toys to kids that is cleverly written and gives plenty of winks and nods towards an unintended fandom is still a cartoon meant to sell toys to kids, but even then, I suppose that whatever unorthodox spark that early FiM had was running out by this time. At least that's what I think - after all, that was equivalent to the time I was starting to move on from my "Brony phase", and /mlp/ was in great turmoil over recent changes to the show (and also the board but I don't remember that shit all that well lol).

So yeah, I suppose it's like how Pokemania came and went - a basic IP became huge due to surprising complexity and slavish interest from fans beyond intended demographic groups, popularity ballooned to levels worthy of both praise and contempt, but then the bubble eventually burst, and most people moved on from following the trend - leaving behind a smaller amount of more dedicated fans and degenerates, while still remaining relatively popular (if not at their previous peak)...

That's all I got to say, but before I go, I've one more addendum - I still believe in MA Larson!

itsa good show!