Forums / Discussion / Meme Research

Last night, on 4chan's /mlp/ board, someone posted a thread that started off with a screencap of a picture tweeted by Lauren Faust of the new Equestria Girls merchandise -- to which she was reacting negatively. This sparked some discussion, including someone posting a drawing of Ms. Faust as The Hulk. She tweeted the picture shortly afterwards, causing people in the thread to realize that she must be lurking there.

A short while later, she posted in the thread revealing that she had in fact been reading it, and the thread became an AMA of sorts; the number of people posting in the thread skyrocketed while a few nor/mlp/eople taught her how to use a tripcode, and had her verify the tripcode via Twitter. Once it was verified, the thread was stickied, and it became more chaotic upon the arrival of several other notable posters: moot (4chan's owner), The Zam (posted the first ever MLP thread on /co/ before the fandom began), Sethisto (owner of Equestria Daily), Purple Tinker (co-founder of Bronycon and controversial community celebrity), MandoPony (brony musician), Eurobeat Brony (brony musician), Saberspark, MegaSweet, and Sergeant Sprinkles (author of the infamous fanfiction Cupcakes).

Though the thread was difficult to keep up with, Lauren Faust answered several questions from people in the thread. It received 4536 replies and 1113 images before it was locked. She left for a while, but later came back and continued with a second thread, which received over 1000 replies before it was locked.
Both threads are now stickied on /mlp/. Here are the links:
https://boards.4chan.org/mlp/res/10902082
https://boards.4chan.org/mlp/res/10913834

Don't bother trying to screencap her posts; it's already been done, and I'll be separately providing those.

/mlp/ is rejoicing for the recognition and the nice things that Faust said about them (she noted that, though the board has many unsettling things posted, she had also seen the most thoughtful critique on /mlp/).

Meanwhile, the event has been met with some backlash in other communities; notably Equestria Daily (in the comments at least), Ponychan, r/mylittlepony, and Round Stable. I've yet to check what the KYM brony community thinks of all this, but anyway: many expressed displeasure that Faust had gone to 4chan instead of to their own communities, some criticizing /mlp/ (and 4chan as a whole) for its controversial place in the fandom, and some even criticized Faust herself for it.


I have screencaps of some of these posts as well and can provide them along with the /mlp/ thread screencaps later on, but this post is all I have time for at the moment.
Anyway, this seemed notable enough to warrant some attention.

Oh, one last thing before I go for a while: while the stickied threads were ongoing, /mlp/'s front page was changed to have a Ron Paul "IT'S HAPPENING" gif on top, and dramatic orchestral music playing.

Also, here's one small screencap from the first thread. I'll have some more complete screencaps for you guys later tonight or maybe tomorrow.

I wouldn't call it particularly event worthy, as it's not really being talked about across the internet (just the pony fandom), but it is rather notable as her first major appearance since /co/ back in in 2011. I don't think this needs a new article, but it might a good idea to add a section to either the My Little Pony and/or Equestria Girls articles detailing the event.

Generally, this kind of thing would be little more than a small event of interest, but the gathering of that many notable people outside of a convention scene does give this a little bit of credit.

Again, though, I don't think it needs it own event page.

This would be a perfect section to add to a Person entry for Lauren Faust. If you wanted to start up a Person entry for her, I'd be glad to help you with any questions you have!

>Lauren Faust (really)
Wow my sides have gone through the parallel universe.

She confirmed her identity through her twitter account. Several people were attempting to imitate her.

One guy succeeded for a short while; he cracked her initial tripcode and made a few troll posts with it. We're pretty sure it wasn't actually her that posted "I like getting raped by horses."
Her first tripcode was apparently quite easy to crack; "tripcode" is as secure of a tripcode as "password" is for a password.

Oh yeah, my thoughts were along similar lines; probably not an article-worthy event, and since it only just happened yesterday it's ambiguous as to how notable it should be considered at all, but I was thinking it might have potential for a subsection on the MLP article. Although that article is getting pretty full now, so maybe the EqG article is a better place for it -- the only reasonable way I could see to put it in the main MLP article is if the section about Faust interacting with /co/ was changed to Faust's interactions with 4chan or with the fandom overall, and this event was added to it.

Although it would be worth adding to the person entry we have of her, I don't believe it needs an entry of its own, as celebrities posting on 4chan and having huge threads is not unheard of nor incredibly uncommon.

I know Anamanaguchi just recently had a huge thread on /mu/, and Deadmau5 has had one before them.

Worth a small note on her person page, though.

I didn't know we had a person entry for her. I'll see if I can put something together for it, and I'll request editorship. Thanks!

Even if this hadn't been notable enough even for that, I thought it was still worth drawing to KYM's attention.

We don't, making one was what Amanda was aiming at. If you want to start it, go ahead.

I just spent over an hour going through those threads.

That's considerably more work. I'll consider it, but I may not have time, and I currently don't know how to structure a Person article; I'd have to read some others to get a better understanding.

If someone else is more ready and willing to start it, they should definitely do so, and I could help them with the section on last night's event.