Good morning everypony,
I thought I would do an analysis of the con this morning. (I went on Saturday.) When thinking about the overall vibe of the con in terms of pony, I think back to the show. When the first pony cons appeared, they were based off of whatever pony content was already available, with the first pony content being Season 1 of MLP: Friendship is Magic (or in pony terms, just “Season 1.” Although G1 did come before this, and it had several good episodes (the most popular being “Escape from Catrina” [Edit: “Rescue at Midnight Castle,” although I think “Escape from Catrina” was somewhat popular, as well] (and there was even a pony con — not for G1 specifically — but for G3 (and I assume G1) — “My Little Pony Fair,” it was still mostly just a convention for classical girls who liked My Little Pony. Although I have never been to a pre-MLP: FiM convention, when I think of what it might have been like, I think of the G3 “The World’s Biggest Tea Party” movie. I imagine there would be a lot of suspension of disbelief as well as a suspension of belief in gender nuance involved in order to be able to enjoy it. (Sadly — or maybe not sadly, depending on your perspective, I just looked up the con again, and apparently the last “My Little Pony Fair” was in 2022. And after asking ChatGPT about other G3 (and earlier generation) cons, it returned no results.) Overall, it seems like the earlier generations of pony (and I would need to visit other conventions to be sure) have coalesced into an amalgam of all the generations of pony, with G4 still at its core.
The amalgamation is especially, I think, noticeable at TrotCon (although I would need to visit other cons for a more accurate view). AnthrOhio (previously called Morphicon, which I still think is a better name, if for no other reason that it doesn’t have the word “Ohio” in it) — I think has become somewhat related to — or friends with TrotCon, so some of their attendees come to TrotCon now (and probably vice-versa) (I know for sure that I attended their con once when it was Morphicon). As an aside, it’s also interesting to note why ponies change con names. In this instance, I think it may have been changed from “Morph” at the beginning to “Anthro,” because when the con first started, probably no one knew what anthro was. Now that many more ponies know what anthro is, however, having “morph” in the name probably made it seem less interesting. At any rate, getting back on topic, the vendor hall was very — eh, — interesting this year. It seemed like there was a lot more content, although that may have been partly because I didn’t visit it in the last 15 minutes before they closed this time. The items available were myriad, cross-ponygeneration, as well as including aspects of other fandoms. In terms of the cross-ponygeneration content, there were a lot more pastel ponies involved; I also noticed the superfluousness of G5 making its way into a lot of the artwork and content, such as ponyswag of ponies with hearts in their eyes, for example. This was pretty much unheard of in 2014 — although it was something that was always fun to see (in moderation). As has been the case since 2014, despite all the ponyitems in the vendor hall, there were only a handful of items that I felt truly captured the essence of pony — even if pony. While I haven’t watched much G4 mini-clip content and such, with the few clips that I did watch (and of course, with G5), I get the impression that Hasbro has figured out what the best iconic moments and aspects of G4 was and is condensing them down into an ultra-refined pony product to make more bits. …which is of course the case, because that’s how corporations work. –“You Can’t Fight City Hall,” Rocko’s Modern Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLh51eXbqvY.
Anyways, if pony fans just blindly accepted whatever Hasbro produced for them, the result must necessarily be corporate enslavement of some form or another. In a perfect world where Lauren Faust had been given complete control over the series and had been able to bring her ponyvision to life, ponies would certainly be better, as MLP:FiM would have been under the control of a benevolent ruler (or, certainly, at least more benevolent than Hasbro). As a result of this lack of beneficence, however, those interested in ponies have to find a way to make it all ok. Indeed, if Hasbro had the self-awareness and accumulated magical karma [as it were] of Twilight Sparkle, they might sing something like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0xAn-kK1jY
–“I’ve Got To Find a Way” uploaded by Letupita725HD. …and become an alicorn pony princess when they were done — hence, original content and combining other shows and video games into pony. (There’s an article about this here: https://epochemagazine.org/51/mantriatic-reality-and-living-after-postmodernity/.) I might also note that many of the episodes in MLP: FiM (especially Season 1 and most of Season 2, Season 4, and some of Season 5, of particular note), seem to act as a blank slate for — I’m not sure that creativity is necessarily the word, but for creating a spark of some friendshippy variety, perhaps. So, these episodes are so well-written, pointing to something intrinsic about ponynature, that ponies all across Equestria can look at them and be inspired — project onto them something that they can’t with other shows because with other shows, the characters and details of the story always somehow seem to get in the way. (I think that, with a little consideration, it can be seen how this may also have to do with the anatomical structure of the equine ponyform.)
As for the future of pony in the world, it’s possible that, as with other corporate perfections that likely (needs research, but I can assume) drew power from creatives (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7HrijDkfHc)
–“Captain Hook the Biker Gorilla” by Dawn Somewhere. …before zombifying their work (such as Pokemon, Reese’s cups, and the Coca-Cola/Pepsi dichotomy — that Lauren Faust perfected the pony concept in G4 of MLP. There may never be a singular person, such as another [pony like] Lauren Faust, who comes along and creates anything like MLP:FiM ever again. But maybe there doesn’t need to be.