How Did You Start Getting Into Other Gens?

[Mewtwofan1]

I grew up with g3. Never watched the cartoons, but I did have a fluttershy and sparkleworks. Then I grew older, ponies were no longer cool for my highly grown up seven year old mind. And then friendship is magic came out, didn't watch it because it was for small children. Then I was looking in the build a bear catalog as I often do (I LOVE build a bear!) and found princess twilight sparkle. From the few bits and snippets of the show I did see, I knew the purple one wasn't a princess with wings. She was a smart unicorn who lived in a tree with a fire breathing lizard. I'm sure that would have been a safety hazard. So, I investigated. And got sucked in. Before I could say chimmy cherry changa, I was buying the toys and watching the show. Then I saw how the characters were based of g1, watched a bit and started my all gen herd. Still need at least one g2 to really be all gens though...

[DazzleKitty]

I had a mentality of "collect anything MLP" so I collect/ed all gens. I realize now, I don't have enough room for all of them. I am thinking of either sell my G4 or putting them in storage. Not sure yet.

[mlly]

I didn't grow up with MLP. I never saw the cartoons as a kid and my parents never bought me any ponies.
I first got into MLP because of G4/FiM.
Then I also saw pics of the toys from previous Generations on the internet and was convinced that I needed to have them too.
I've scourged through a lot of 2nd hand shops online, now most of my collection is G1 and G3.
Haven't been able to get into G2 since I rarely ever find them in the 2nd hand shops and since I don't care much for their 'skinny' look. I only have 2 G2s so far.

[Wardah]

I didn't grow up with MLP. I never saw the cartoons as a kid and my parents never bought me any ponies.
I first got into MLP because of G4/FiM.
Then I also saw pics of the toys from previous Generations on the internet and was convinced that I needed to have them too.
I've scourged through a lot of 2nd hand shops online, now most of my collection is G1 and G3.
Haven't been able to get into G2 since I rarely ever find them in the 2nd hand shops and since I don't care much for their 'skinny' look. I only have 2 G2s so far.

I also didn't grow up with MLP, my first toy love was G1 LPS. I discovered G2 LPS and through them discovered G3 in the stores and fell in love with those. Through collecting G3 I discovered the Arena and then I fell in love with earlier gens and then when newer gens came along I got into those too.

[goddessofpeep]

I grew up with G1. They were my favorite toy for pretty much my entire childhood.  I took a break from the whole pony thing in high school in favor of Star Trek and video games.  Then when I got to college in 1996, I discovered the wonders of the internet.  I found the early pony community within months, and I never left. 

I've been in the pony community for G2-current.  The only generation I didn't collect hard core as soon as they hit the stores was G2.  That one took a while for me to get into. I didn't like them at first, but a friend went to Europe for 2 months and started to send them to me.  She sent me a bunch of babies, and I was hooked.  A year later I was in Paris, and I managed to find the local TRU, and I went nuts!

[invaderhorizongreen]

For me it was finding a gen 3 pinkie pie in one of the snow piles at work. Only her head and tail were poking out, and I thought that was all that was left of her. Dug her out, and nope perfectly fine, except for a few scrapes here and there.  That was one dirty pony though, and I still have them, and to this day I collect gen 3.

[StarSwirl05]

G3 was the first gen I got into and it was all thanks to the Cotton Candy Cafe commercial. That jingle is so catchy. FiM I got into later with the show. G1 I just decided to watch the show one day given how many people like it. I ended up liking it too.

[Shy Violet]

G1 was my childhood gen. My sister and I had quite a lot of ponies growing up and my mom likes to save everything. Fast forward to high school, I don't remember exactly why but I somehow got back into 80's toys, mostly care bears and mlp. It was a time where you could find them for 10 cents each at garage sales and flea markets so I loved pony hunting on weekends. I had no idea thrift stores were a thing so I never looked there but wish I had. So my G1 collection became a serious collection at that point. When G2 came out I didn't love them like I loved G1 but I bought Ivy at Toys R Us for nostalgia's sake and she was the only G2 in my collection until last year. I moved out of home and all my collections went into storage for the next 15 years. When my niece was born in 2004 I started buying her G3's. I loved the look of them, they reminded me of G1. I even bought a few to keep in case I ever had a daughter. Then my daughter was born in 2007 and by 2011 at 4 years old she was just the perfect age for ponies and probably around when we got Netflix so I really pushed ponies on her since they were such a big part of my childhood. So collecting G4's for my daughter piqued my interest and I started buying the odd one here and there for myself. Then I brought my G1's out of storage for her to play with. After a few months I decided that I wasn't done with collecting and went through them and pulled out all my favorite ponies and any rare ponies (thank you younger self for hunting down rare ponies) including some nirvanas. Then my niece outgrows toys and passes all her G3's to my daughter. Then I decide to try pony hunting in thrift stores and got totally sucked into buying every pony I could find. I'm more selective now. So my daughter and I share a ton of ponies. She's outgrowing them now and has given them all to me for my collection but she is still welcome to play with them when she wants. So that is how I accumulated so many ponies over the years and became an active collector again about 5 years ago. I'm still not big into G2 but I buy them if I find them because I worry that I'll want them some day and regret leaving them behind.

[northstar3184]

I grew up with G1 and had ~20 ponies as a kid. I'd sold them all by around age 12, and a decade or so later I regretted it. At first, it was my petite ponies that I'd regretted selling and I began buying replacements. At the same time, I began looking at G3 ponies and found a few I really liked. I especially fell in love with Autumn Skye. After hesitating for a few years, I began buying those G3s. Initially I only wanted a few, but a few became over 50. Then I started buying G1s, replacing some missed childhood ponies and adding some I'd never had or known about as a child.

[babypowder]

I was also seven when FiM came out, and I was happy and content with my G3 Minty toy. Then I saw Twilight Sparkle, the smarty-pants purple unicorn who had magic powers, and, well, Minty became second place in my affections. I watched every new episode exactly when it came out, and was devastated when Twilight became a princess. After a year or so, I watched season 4, liked it but didn't love it, and was sucked back into the pony whirpool on the advent of Starlight Glimmer.

I found out about G1 when I was eleven. I thought about nothing besides them. Finally, my parents put a stop to my obsession, and only recently have I rediscovered my love for G1'S. My herd of them has went from 0 to 15 very quickly.

G2 I actually don't know much about.

[Taffeta]

How Did You Start Getting Into Other Gens?

When you start collecting MLP in 1983 it's not hard to fall into what comes after.

Don't think that really count as getting into other genes. It's more like I was in MLP before there were other generations.

Very concise explanation. You kinda just dabble in everything that comes after.

This rolls for me as well. I had MLP from 1984 and never really stopped. I was aged 2-almost 3 so the guilty party in my corruption was my mother, buying me first Windy and then baby Blossom for my third birthday. I was lured as a child into the way of rainbowness by my loving parents.

 I got buying G2 because I missed G1. I bought G3 because they looked more like G1 and I wanted Rainbow Dash to graduate with as she was a rainbow pony. (One of the reasons I'm conflicted about G4 Dash, I guess). And G4...I just started buying them when on trips places. I found Applejack, Rarity and the purple pegasus whose name I always forget with yellow hair in a toy store in Porvoo, Finland, and that was the start of it.

But in a sense I didn't get into the later generations. I was already here and they just happened to come out.

I am selective with later gens, though. I have those for fun - I only really collect G1 seriously.

[MJNSEIFER]

For all intense and purposes, G4 was my first true generation; I saw some of G1 when I was a kid, and in hindsight was interested in what I saw, but I didn't grow up with it (though I wish I had done).

So, with G4 as my "first generation", here is I got into the other generations; first of all, I became aware of them from an actually not that hateful pre-FiM mockery video series (it was clips of the G3.5 My Little Pony opening theme repeated again and again, with the G4 ponies "reacting" to it - e.g. "Rainbow Dash, always dresses with style" was repeated to a clip G4 Rainbow Dash's anxiety moment in "Sonic Rainboom") it basically reminded me that an "Old My Little Pony" existed, even though at the time I didn't realise there was more than one "old version".  However, I got curious about the older version (I remember thinking that the bronies were being unfair, so I thought I'd at least check pre-FiM out before I made my own mind up about it - I'm not sure if I knew that Lauren Faust was in some way inspired by old MLP by then or not, but it didn't take me long to find out).

The way I got into each individual generation was:

Generation 1: By this point I had found that Lauren was inspired by Generation 1 (though I would later find out it was the toyline, not that there aren't some similarities between her vision and the G1 cartoon), and I found out which ponies had inspired her/who the Concept Six were, and I remembered my small exposure to My Little Pony as a kid, and started to recall a scene I loved, where several ponies where being captured, and this was one pony was being told to come back, because whatever she wanted to do was "too dangerous", and the more I looked at this one pony in the Concept Six, the more I was convinced it was her.  I checked out Rescue From Midnight Castle and obviously, it did turn out to be that pony, who was, of course, Firefly, who to this day has the title of "The First Pony I Ever Liked", because even as a child there was just something about her, in my opinion.

I basically kept watching G1 after that, and even moved on from only caring about the Concept Six pretty quickly.  My love for My Little Pony Tales was discovered separately.  I had already gotten into G3, and I repeated the statement that G2 Never had a show, but I saw someone mention "That one where they had cars and went to school" as being G2, but I thought nothing of it, until my computer's speakers broke, and I was forced to watch My Little Pony on YouTube via my TiVo, and I found an episode of My Little Pony Tales, which I am forced to admit confused me at first, because I was sure that G2 didn't get a show, but I later realised that it wasn't G2, it was the "new" G1, but I was glad to see another pony show either way.

Generation 2: I can't officially say I'm into this, as I haven't collected any toys, and don't have a TV series to at least watch (I know MLP is a toyline first, but I got introduced via the shows), but I will say that I like the G2's designs, and would happily own them, even though my main goal is to own some G1s and G3s.

Generation 3: For being my favorite generation, I'm not 100% sure when I got into this one, partly because I made the mistake of thinking it was the same as Generation 3.5.  I know that I saw a DeviantArt drawing of "the best G3 ponies" (in that artists opinion), and asked if anyone knew any good G3 episodes that included those ponies, and I checked out the episodes/movies I was given.  I also made a friend (separately to this event) who's favorite generation is G3, and even though I was already respectful to pre-FiM at this point, the fact that I knew he loved it made look at it more, and realise that it was closer to G4 than I thought.

Generation 3.5: I checked this out when I was trying out G3 (see above) and while I felt that there was less to it, I still loved it.

[preciousstar]

i really grew up with g3. my aunts, having grown up with g1 (sadly my grandma threw all of their toys away), were eager to get me into mlp as well. i had a Sparkleworks, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Peri Winkle. i still have Sparkleworks and Peri Winkle, but unfortunately the other two were sold at a garage sale. even though i got these ponies, they didn't really get me into collecting. i loved Peri Winkle because she had blue hair and I liked anything blue at that age, but i really wasn't into mlp. not until, years later, a friend at camp gave me a McDonald's Rarity. having this kind of pushed me to watch the show on Netflix, and amazed at how good it was, i naturally decided to go out and buy myself my first g4.
buying my first g4 was kind of struggle with my mother because she told me that i was way too old to be buying a pony, and i insisted that it was my own money i would spend at that it was a birthday gift for myself. she grudgingly agreed to let me buy it in the end. it was the first wave Fashion Style Fluttershy  (and by Christmas, my mom was already buying me ponies!)
browsing online and hearing it from my aunts is what really brought g1 into my attention, and i kind of just fell in love with it. now, g1 is the main focus of my collection however, to this day i still haven't been able to get myself into g3, haha!

[Prince Primbrose]

Didn't get to grow up with ponies myself. I first got into G4 about 5 years ago as a teen, and then one day a friend sent me Princess Primrose in a care package... That's how my original collection started, until I sold it all off a couple years ago.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

How Did You Start Getting Into Other Gens?

When you start collecting MLP in 1983 it's not hard to fall into what comes after.

Don't think that really count as getting into other genes. It's more like I was in MLP before there were other generations.

Yeah... pretty much this.  They showed up on shelves, that was my introduction to them...