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An Editorial Opinion by Lady Minty |
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Note: This editorial is solely the opinion of Lady Minty, and does not necessarily reflect the exact position of Support Pony Acceptance
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Fellow My Little Pony collectors, we have a responsibility which some of you may not before have considered. We have an obligation to the little plastic ponies we love so much, an obligation which has begun to be ignored by some collectors. The original pony line, which flourished in the 1980s (and helped to define that decade for many of us), will always live on in our hearts. As a retail product, however, that line is gone. We'll always remember the magic it brought us, but the line itself has long since disappeared from toy store shelves. No matter how the MLP line was (or is in the future) resurrected, there will always be a difference between the new and the old. People, we cannot return to the 1980s; that decade is over. What remains of the original My Little Pony line? Hasbro long ago discontinued production. The cartoons are no longer run on any channel I know of. Many of the toys themselves have been trashed, broken, ruined, and thrown away. So what remains of our beloved ponies? There are the toys lucky enough to still have owners who adore them and/or are fortunate enough to be salvaged from thrift stores and flea markets... And there is us. The collectors who remember MLPs, who love MLPs. We hold the very idea of My Little Pony in our hooves. We have a tool which was unavailable back when ponies were in stores -- we have the Internet. We can distribute information about ponies all over the world through our websites, mailing lists, message boards, and newsgroups. We can literally shape the opinions of those who are unfamiliar with our beloved toy line through the words and images we choose. What sort of image do we want for MLP? That's the question we have to be asking ourselves. Do we want to continue the peace, love, acceptance, and friendship that the ponies were originally created to encourage? Or do we want to change our dear childhood friends into a herd of hateful horses, unaccepting of those who are different? This is the question that always pops into my mind when I come across another example of "Pony Hate" online. This strong emotion always seems to be toward the new edition of My Little Ponies which was released in the late 1990s. Apparently, some collectors saw this new line as a threat to the perfection of the 1980s line. But as I've said before, there is simply no such thing as the MLPs of the 80s in the toy industry anymore. So what's the harm in hating the new ones, besides the fact that we're creating a negative attitude for the ponies we love? The answer is simple -- we are forgetting (or perhaps disregarding) a new generation of little girls, some of whom are pony collectors just like we are/were. The only difference is that those children collect the new editions. To them, there are no "old" ponies and no "new" ponies -- there are only Lightheart, Sundance and Berry Bright, and their other friends from Friendship Gardens. Those children are out there. They are just as passionate as their ponies as we are about ours. And they are visiting our websites. And on some sites they are encountering hateful words and graphics directed toward their ponies. Is that right? Is that how we want our 80s ponies to be remembered?? I know I don't. The fact that some collectors use the old ponies to spread hatred of the new makes me very uncomfortable. Yes, the Internet allows us the freedom to voice any opinions we choose. But just because we can do something doesn't always mean we should.
In closing, fellow MLP collectors, remember this: we are the only ones left to speak for
the My Little Pony line. So let us choose our words and our ideas carefully, with the
ponies and the new generation of young collectors in mind.
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