"Collect Her"

Central Avenue

Or, as I like to call it, "Brony: The Cartoon" Funny enough on its own, but even better when you realize that many of the writers/crew behind The Powerpuff Girls went on to work on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Naas_Human

I get a "video no longer available" thing.

This is the episode with the creepy merch-obsessed fanboy, right? IIRC, they tortured him by opening his stuff. Are bronies that obsessed with Mint In Sealed Box condition? (which reminds me of the time in Dexter's Lab when characters disguised themselves using action figure packaging or something)

InsanityAddict

Never seen this sentiment, they're more obsessed with spunking their figures.  

glennmagusharvey

Centie, can you please summarize the contents of the video, since it got taken down?

Zennistrad

@InsanityAddict:

Only on 4chan's /mlp/ board. The rest of us usually don't like to talk about them.

Central Avenue

It was less the "mint new in box" thing and more the "obsessively fawning over a children's franchise to the exclusion of the children it's intended for" aspect, which Lenny takes to its literal extreme by kidnapping the Powerpuff Girls (thus preventing anyone from enjoying what they do).

Naas_Human

I thought Transformers fans had been doing that since like... a long time, and probably other fandoms which I don't know much about. So it comes off as less uh, "clairvoyant" or funny in hindsight, but more of a commentary on something that was already around back then.

On another note, that Dexter's Lab episode I mentioned ("Star Check Unconventional") apparently premiered in 1997. I guess making fun of fandoms has been a thing for a long time.

@glennmagusharvey: "Collect Her" is the title of a Powerpuff Girls episode.

InsanityAddict

In a clash between the monomanics who believe the cartoon is actually too good for its target audience and the tumblrites who believe bronies are a part of the patriarchy appropriating little girls' safe spaces, only the peanut gallery wins.  

Zennistrad

Maybe I'm not hanging around the right places, but I don't think I've ever seen someone say MLP is "too good" for it's target audience.

InsanityAddict

I can fish for a few screencaps with the worst spergs actually proclaiming it, but there's a much larger undercurrent in the bitching about EqG/Season 3 that they've stopped caring about quality because little girls will lap up anything. 

Zennistrad

There's a pretty massive difference between criticizing a show's perceived drop in quality and demanding that it pander to a periphery demographic. The entire point of MLP being popular among young adult men is that the show doesn't fall into the pitfalls that most "girl" shows have done and can be enjoyed by anyone. People don't want the show to become yet another sparkly, vapid distraction. That's not the same as saying it's too good for little girls; it clearly isn't since they still watch it.

InsanityAddict

If the former was standalone, then yes, it can be a valid criticism, but if one then goes on in blaming the main demographic as the reason why, it falls squarely into the ridiculous.

Central Avenue

So it comes off as less uh, "clairvoyant" or funny in hindsight, but more of a commentary on something that was already around back then.

Of course. But it's a rather hilarious commentary, IMO, and the fact that it happens to jive so well with the MLP fandom a few years later just makes it funnier to me.

Anonus

TV shows making fun of fandoms goes back as far as the Comic Book Guy, who debuted in 1991...

(Also, this is probably well-known, but remember that Dexter's Lab and PPG had much of the same creative team)

Zennistrad

I don't think I've ever met a brony IRL that plays with the toys, actually. All things considered, they're pretty awful.