What were the controversial moments in MLP: FIM over the show's nine year run?

Weswater

Computer geek
I tried looking online for controversial moments in G4 of My Little Pony and I can’t find them anywhere!  
So, I want to ask you bronies and pegisisters a question, what were the most controversial moments in my little pony: friendship is magic that made headlines? (Either from a major news site or channel or equestria daily.)
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Silly Pony - Celebrated the 13th anniversary of MLP:FIM, and 40 years of MLP!
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
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@Weswater  
If we are taking about stuff that made actual major headlines (and going by just stuff from the show), then the two biggest ones i can remember are of course Derpy-gate, and then a bunch of foreign countries and Alabama getting upset that Scootaloo’s aunts were implied to be gay.
 
As for ones within the fandom…
 
Oh boy there are a lot XD
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@Dustcan  
Well, this thread said MLP:FiM, not MLP in general, gotta be more specific, but I also like to point out that after FiM, lots of controversies happened than before.
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Solar Supporter - Fought against the New Lunar Republic rebellion on the side of the Solar Deity (April Fools 2023).
Non-Fungible Trixie -
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Derpygate and Scootaloo’s aunts are obvious ones(relatively speaking), though I’m hard pressed to find one as the result of the show’s production(though there was that one article about the slender designs “looking like strippers”). There was also plenty of people complaining RD was a gay stereotype. If we’re taking EQD into consideration, I remember the reaction to MMDW was so bad that EQD had to make an entire post telling people to cool it
 
Though in regards to the show’s staff there was one animator in the animation crew who was caught as a pedophile. And I guess you can count Chris Savino too, though that was found out long after he left the show
 
The fandom itself is a whole can of worms
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Discord and then Cozy Glow (no issues with them, just saw a lots of controversies around them)
Ring Team
Silly Pony - Celebrated the 13th anniversary of MLP:FIM, and 40 years of MLP!
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).
Ten years of changes - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of MLP:FiM!
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To be honest, I’m not as aware of the controversies as many other fans in those 9 years of the show. The only real one I knew was Derpy Hooves, but at least I still have the original episode with the original voice actress.
 
I could mention Starlight because she’s the most divisive character I’ve seen in the show, but by the time I watched seasons 5, the season 6 and stopped watching the show for some years, I wasn’t as active as I wanted.
 
However, I will say this: I’m very glad I’m not the only one who sees problems in Starlight’s character arc.
 
full
 
I think Starlight is a prime example of what happens when a group of writers from an animation studio embraces the idea of a character with some redeeming value and decides to make an arbitrary unrepentant negligent character who doesn’t want to change or redeem herself, a negation that practically invalidates Cutie re-mark and Starlight’s intentions to be better. She’s an evil git with no redeeming qualities. Nothing has been learned, nothing changes.
 
What’s sad about this is that there’s no excuse for it.
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@Ring Team  
It’s offical, you hate Starlight, I bet Chrysalis has the mutual hate as you to now, you’ll talk to her even better more.
 
Sure she isn’t perfect, so is Discord and other redeemeds. I personally like her the way she is, so is Discord and the way he is too.
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Solar Guardian - Refused to surrender in the face of the Lunar rebellion and showed utmost loyalty to the Solar Empire (April Fools 2023).
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Magical Inkwell - Wrote MLP fanfiction consisting of at least around 1.5k words, and has a verified link to the platform of their choice

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@Ring Team  
Starlight’s arc is one of the most prominent examples of what happens when you lack a series-wide continuity editor. Each separate writer had a different pace they wanted to move through her story at and others simply wanted to give her the idiot ball to create dramatic tension for an episode.
CORDZ2000
Solar Hero - Went above and beyond for the Solar Deity, drawing from the power of the sun itself to bring balance to the fight against the Lunar Insurrection (April Fools 2023).

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@PUBLIQclopAccountant  
I feel like instead of starlight getting more of the idiot ball, I feel like she was more having the show worship her or making characters act more jerk like to make her look better. I still do like starlight a lot actually but its nice to see people founding it ok to criticize parts of her character to which the rest of the fandom will often jump on u for something anything against her.
Background Pony #56F0
@Ring Team
 
@CORDZ2000  
I mean, I see, but Hasbro exists to sell toys, at the time, they wanted to promote Starlight even at the cost of the Mane 6’s popularity, the curse of being in Capitalist America still affects Hasbro repeatedly. Starlight, who in the show, started as even a communist, she even became Hasbro’s target of toy milking at the time, while Discord never suffered from being milked for toys unlike Starlight, due to Discord being a male, Starlight is a female, a female character are more of the toy targets.
CORDZ2000
Solar Hero - Went above and beyond for the Solar Deity, drawing from the power of the sun itself to bring balance to the fight against the Lunar Insurrection (April Fools 2023).

Draconequues Lover zcord
@Background Pony #56F0  
Discord is also not a pony and we know how the fandom loves ponies, that being said discord has plenty merchandise himself and id honestly argue besides s6-7 the writers give both him and star equal importance in s8-9 which sadly are discords most controversial seasons. And therefore starlight ended up greatly overgrowing him in popularity, that being said tho discord is still popular if ofc also pretty controversial and a lot of people love him who are outside the hardcore mlp fanbase i feel.
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@CORDZ2000  
both him and star equal importance in s8-9 which sadly are discords most controversial seasons
 
most controversial seasons
 
Well, he.. is an embodiment of chaos, but back then I also never thought the show writers would put his chaos effect into the real life fandom as well.
Background Pony #28B8
Above everything:Equestria Girls for which I’ll never run out of venom to spit at. Equestria Girls in its entirety is the all-time low point of the show and I suspect it’s only sticked around because of foot fetishists and pervert and because Hasbro wanted a Monster High of their own. Equestria Girls, above Cadance and Twilicorn whom at the end of the day were minors bump, is a burden that held the show down and prevented it from reaching more mainstream acceptance Equestrian Girls for which reportedly Faust had very vocal disdain for. Equestria Girls is what the layman expect when he hear the words “toy show for girls” when we all know it can do better than that. Equestrian Girls is lazy and confortable in its garish ordinary vulgarity of a vision of feminine adolescence preoccupied with malls and cellphone and prom balls (okay, that last line is a bit salty now that I re-read my text, there’s absolutely a place for medium like High School Musical, but you don’t arbitrarily shove it in a setting like FIM) For the life of me, I can’t find any redeeming quality in any of this, in the first movie alone, it shat on everything Lauren Faust helped to do to clean the name of the franchise, you know, the one where the previously astute Twilight got wobbly knees over the first sight of a leather-clad variation of an obvious Ken expy from Barbie that wasn’t even from her species THEN still made goo goo eyes to the clueless pony counterpart that is clearly established as a totally different person who had no clue about what happened in Monster High Land. That’s just one example on the top of my head but really the mere existence of Equestria Girls is both an ugly Canon breaking malignous growth on FIM otherwise more than honorable record and a constant reminder of the callousness of Hasbro as a media creator. I don’t ask and will never ask for MLP or Transformers to be as crafted and elaborate as, I don’t know, The Handmaid Tales but, asshole, the bare minimum is to not go on a 7 shitty made for TV specials tangent where the fairy tale setting is arbitrarily pushed aside for High School Musical. You know even McCarthy didn’t believed in the basic premise of the spin off where she tried to compare it to Alice Through The Looking Glass because as you know Alice left her dreary contemporary world for a wacky fairy tale land, not the other way around
Background Pony #56F0
@Background Pony #28B8  
Ah yes, I agree with you, EQG at its debut was the lowest point of this fandom, from Flash to Spike the Dog (insulting both Twilight and Spike badly, and the mane five and the franchise as a whole).
 
Redeeming Qualities (only 2 I think it exists so far):  
  • Some character designs can be cute to look, but that’s a very few, like Fluttershy.  
  • Sunset’s character development, but only in later ones. She spawned numerous memes, not as much as Starlight.
     
    But still, Season 9 drama (2019) wasn’t as bad as EQG’s debut (2013). Cozy Glow, Starlight, they are not as drama inducing compared to the infamous Flash or Spike the Dog.
Background Pony #56F0
@Background Pony #28B8
 
@Background Pony #56F0  
And Hasbro learned lessons big time after all those war with the fandom back in EQG 2013 gate.  
Good thing I wasn’t there when the war happens.  
It showed how Hasbro can fall into a victim of thoughts around American’s capitalism. Although they redeemed after the drama, but still carries over some remained drama-inducing qualities (see Cozy Glow for example, but not as bad as EQG).
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