My Little Pony Artifacts

While studying the Brony subculture I have found the main artifact the subculture revolves around is the TV Series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Part of studying the subculture is analyzing the artifact’s rhetorical situation, how it applies rhetorical appeals and the artifact’s visual elements. By doing so I hope to learn how the subculture relates to the artifact, how the artifacts original purpose relates to the subcultures purpose of the artifact, and how the artifact effects the subculture.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was created to teach young girls that being positive, intelligent, friendly, loving, kind, accepting, honest and determined is more important than being beautiful or rich. It teaches complicated lessons and
Hasbro owns the rights to MLP and hired her to reinvent the MLP franchise to reach a more modern audience. Faust had formerly worked for Cartoon Network on the design and animation team for Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and The Powerpuff Girls. She felt the majority of shows developed for young girls were shallow and portrayed them as weak, dainty, and in need of saving. Faust wanted to design a show that would contradict misogynistic and sexist views society projects onto them. She wanted to create a show that would empower young girls and to teach them values and morals that our culture would not.
The MLP show was created into computer animated cartoons. Lauren Faust followed prescribed methodologies by choosing a set morals and values and uniquely integrating them into the show and subsequently into the subculture. She deviated from the norm byt creating a show that would defy gender roles and expectations both intentionally by targeting the young female demographic and also unintentionally by the Brony subculture accepting it and it becoming a focal point within
MLP gathers its credibility by creating characters that the viewers can relate to. Whether they see themselves or other people around them in the ponies; in some way the audience associates the characters with what is around them. It creates a trust between the viewer and the pony, as if they really know one another. After these relationships are formed between ponies and viewers, the relationships form emotional bonds. The show utilizes this connection to make the audience feel what the characters feel, thus the viewers become emotionally invested in the show. Using logical and relatable story lines that aim to teach and influence, connects facts and logical information to state their point. The plots all have a main point or lesson and each character has to develop throughout the episode to learn said lesson alongside the viewer. They use facts and morals to teach a specific idea that makes sense and is understood by every audience.
After analyzing My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the main artifact to the Brony subculture, I found that it is a very complex yet understandable form of media that connects very easily with the intended audience and the audience within the subculture. I analyzed the rhetorical situation and the use of rhetorical appeals and how they applied to the artifact within the subculture. My Little Pony: Friendship