The definition of "mainstream"...

[Taffeta]

So this has always been a bugbear of mine, but most recently in a flurry of polls which haven't included ponies from my childhood here in the UK...it struck me again that we have an issue with the concept of mainstream.

I know that nobody making a poll ever excludes a pony on purpose. It's more about not considering those ponies as mainstream. Equally, they're not Nirvana ponies. So where do they belong?

For me, I feel sad when I see them not included in things like polls, because it makes it harder to vote according to my childhood memories. It's obviously not a conspiracy but a hangover from the early days of MLP, when the idea of non-US ponies was new, and they got filtered off into their own 'international' section.

I've said it before but 'international' does not mean non-US, it means worldwide. It makes sense to me that there are US/Canada ponies, UK/Europe ponies etc, and then there are international ponies which were sold worldwide. Majesty is an international pony. Rapunzel is a US/Canada pony. Snowflake is a European/UK pony. Etc.

Obviously there's also this big whole thing called Nirvana now as well, which has encompassed all the variant ponies from different places of manufacture. Because that happened, though, the ones that fit into the middle - the ones that aren't regulation US release but aren't Nirvana - kind of lost their place a bit. They're still tagged with negative terms like "non-" as though they are sub-species of an existing other set, rather than with the names of their actual set. People also talk about UK variant of a pony (eg Confetti) but they don't mean variant, because she's not a Nirvana pony - they mean version.

Apologies if this is incoherent, because it's early in the morning, I've been writing an article and my brain is a bit fried. But I'd like to ask people what they think about mainstream, what their view of it is, whether that is influenced by where they grew up, whether they think it matters, and most importantly, what can be done to make sure that ponies like Gypsy or CP Bow Tie don't get forgotten in future polls and discussions.

I'd like to make mainstream considered more to be all ponies that are not Nirvana, not just US/Canada release ones. I'd also like the term international to apply to globally sold ponies, rather than non-US ponies. It's actually still the case that a common UK/European exclusive pony sells for more than a moderately common US exclusive pony, because most of the time the seller of the latter doesn't know they're selling an exclusive. That somehow doesn't seem fair now that we have a much more balanced community in terms of location and availability.

Opinions?

[Juliepants]

Yes, I agree. For example, ponies that are called "non-so-soft", but to me I never even knew of the existence of so-soft ponies until as an adult I found this and other sites. So to me, my childhood Posey is not "non-so-soft", she is the only way I knew a Posey could be!!
I like the idea of "International" being used to describe ponies that were sold everywhere.

Jules x

[Taffeta]

Yes, I agree. For example, ponies that are called "non-so-soft", but to me I never even knew of the existence of so-soft ponies until as an adult I found this and other sites. So to me, my childhood Posey is not "non-so-soft", she is the only way I knew a Posey could be!!
I like the idea of "International" being used to describe ponies that were sold everywhere.

Jules x

The NSS term has grated on me more and more really with time, I think. In the beginning it was a useful term because everyone in 1997ish was still super confused about ponies and what versions existed where. But it's the fact that we now know what ponies like Shady etc are that makes me annoyed that the non-terms still exist.

Like you said, it makes no sense to identify something from your childhood as a non-version of something you didn't know existed as a child.

Also, I think with NBBE, the BBE term itself wasn't really used in the UK. Baby Cuddles had "Lullabye" Eyes. So again the Play and Care Set babies are labelled as being non-term-that-didn't-exist-in-the-UK even though their box, the insert and even the Argos Catalogue listings says 'Play and Care Set' in BIG letters...

It makes as much sense as calling the Big Brother ponies Non-Freckly Mountain Boys...

[Ponyfan]

I think I am influenced by the ponies I had/knew of as a child and it can be easy to exclude other ponies that we didn't see here in the US accidently. I only have 1 or 2 Europe exclusive ponies in my collection so I am guilty of not always considering them when making topics although I will try to do better about that in the future.   Just because I never had a Mountain Boy or a Gypsy doesn't mean they are  any less of a pony than  Baby Tiddlewinks or Cotton Candy.

It wasn't until I started collecting as an adult that I found out about the European exclusive ponies like the Mountain Boys, the pearly Starlgiht Babies and the Tales character ponies. I think they Tales ponies  are easier to remember that they are exclusives since the US had the cartoons but none of the Tales toys. The same thing with the Princess ponies dragons since we only got Bushwoolies over in the US.

I had Beddy Bye Eyes Gusty growing up and I remember having a lot of fun playing with her, my other baby ponies and the Lullabye Nursery. I didn't even know there was a different version until I started collecting as an adult and found out about the Love and Care version 


Ponyfan

[LadyMoondancer]

Well, ultimately it's always going to be subjective.  If someone grew up in Brazil and owned yellow, rainbow-haired Heart Throb and Baby-Gusty-Without-a-Horn, wouldn't they consider those ponies mainstream?  What would make them "not mainstream" compared to other ponies that had a limited market release?  I don't think any of us are surprised when Baby Gusty is left off 'who's your favorite baby earth pony' polls.   But that doesn't mean that anyone here doubts the legitimacy of earth pony Baby Gusty as a MLP.  It's just daunting to list every pony (and polls are supposed to be fun, not research projects), so people list the ones they are familiar with which usually happen to be the US ponies due to the US being the largest market for MLPs in the 80s.

[Carrehz]

Well, ultimately it's always going to be subjective.  If someone grew up in Brazil and owned yellow, rainbow-haired Heart Throb and Baby-Gusty-Without-a-Horn, wouldn't they consider those ponies mainstream?  What would make them "not mainstream" compared to other ponies that had a limited market release?  I don't think any of us are surprised when Baby Gusty is left off 'who's your favorite baby earth pony' polls.   But that doesn't mean that anyone here doubts the legitimacy of earth pony Baby Gusty as a MLP.  It's just daunting to list every pony (and polls are supposed to be fun, not research projects), so people list the ones they are familiar with which usually happen to be the US ponies due to the US being the largest market for MLPs in the 80s.

[Al-1701]

Hasbro makes it an incredibly murky subject.  There were ponies only released in a certain country or countries.  There are the Nirvana ponies which I never understood the logic behind (even if there are spectacular ponies).  It does depend on your country of origin it seems.

I want to say only ponies released internationally (as in all or most major markets) are "mainstream" but that excludes the first two sets of unicorns and pegasi which for some reason were not released in much of Europe.  Yet they are defining ponies of early G1 with appearances in book and comic media even in places they never hit shelves.

I honestly don't know what the definitive answer is or if there even is one.

[Taffeta]

@LM - Brazilian ponies fit under the Nirvana umbrella, where there is a separate forum dedicated to them. I agree that for Brazilian people they are mainstream ponies, but they are at least recognised for what they are.

I think you're missing the point, though.

The point is that these ponies are being omitted not because of any great conspiracy to leave them out but just because nobody really knows where to put them. We're still clinging to twenty year old values from a time when the community was basically North America plus about six Europeans. The world and the community has changed since then. Back then European/UK ponies were given more of a "Nirvana-esque" status, but that's not the case now.

The argument is that if a pony is not Nirvana, they must be mainstream. Nobody would argue with a Brazilian baby Gusty being a Nirvana pony. So you wouldn't expect to see her in a Corral poll unless someone wanted to poll all the versions of Baby Gusty in some way. But the ponies I'm talking about don't belong in the Nirvana section. So where do they belong, if not in the polls here?

I think it's easy for someone from a US background to not see a problem with this, because the polls in question all speak to your childhood and your background. Some UK people won't care and others will, but the point is more about where these ponies fit in.

And how do we determine this mainstream identity if it's not simply all ponies that are not Nirvana? Is it the number of countries a pony is sold in? But if so, the Mountain Boys were sold in more locations than Tux & Tails, so that can't be the case. Is it to do with the type of release? But again, those Mountain Boys are store sold ponies, whereas Tux is a Mail Order. The same could be said for other sets - there are a lot of European ponies who were sold in more countries and locations than their US equivalents, but they're not really acknowledged as such. I think the Starlight Babies, for example, have a wider international distribution in terms of countries than the Sparkle ones, but they're seen as 'variants' of the Sparkle babies all the same. And the US fancy pants babies are made in Thailand, which ought to make them Nirvana, but the European Chinese ones are the ones considered 'variants' - which is a term generally associated with the Nirvana forum. There are a lot of inconsistencies like this.

The problem isn't about UK vs US ponies or UK vs US collectors, although I think that the polls are probably more fun for people whose childhoods are fully represented in them. It's more about wanting to know where we put those ponies and why we can't now consider them mainstream because they are not Nirvana. The resistance to doing so really confuses me, because it's not like calling CP Bow Tie mainstream makes Y2 or Y3 Bow Tie any less mainstream. It just adds variety to the family.

The use vs meaning of the word international has always bothered me. I don't think it matters any more that the US market is the biggest market, because there are easily enough known non-US mainstream ponies out there to balance with the US exclusive equivalents now. As I said before, a lot of US collectors don't know which ponies are US exclusives, either, which only adds to the problem. There's still a misconception in some areas that every US pony was also sold worldwide, which absolutely isn't the case. I think that US sellers still get ripped off because of this, but apparently nobody in the US minds if they pay 2x as much for a pony sold in 2x as many countries than the one they are selling...

 I think we know enough as a community now to recognise all ponies which are not Nirvana as being mainstream. We all know what makes a Nirvana pony, but this is the Corral. Mainstream ponies belong in the Corral.

And I guess it would just be nice for me for once to feel like a poll attempted to include my childhood, not just the childhood of people across the pond. Four US only polls in a short space of time is a lot...I actually can't name the last time there was a poll where ponies not sold in the US were included alongside ones who were, so that kind of illustrates the point. Again, I know this is not a deliberate conspiracy. But I think there is more to be done as regards the 'mainstream'.

[Carrehz]

Taffeta, calm down already. It's a fun poll, it's really not as big a deal as you're making it out to be. I understand UK ponies are important to you and that's fine, but instead of kicking up a fuss every time one is left out of a poll, maybe just make a poll yourself including the UK ponies?

[lovesbabysquirmy]

If only we had production numbers!!!!  Oh Hasbro why couldn't you keep SOMETHING to answer our burning questions, 34 years later?  

[LadyMoondancer]

Well, personally I think the "nirvana" label is silly and I don't use it.  No offense to those who do, but to me it makes no sense at all.  Some of the "nirvanas" are common (Italian Peachy), some are rare. So rarity alone is not a determining factor. Raindrop and Nightlight were made in Hong Kong (or China, can't remember) and are supposedly still nirvanas because they were only released in a few countries.  But none of the US-exclusive Hong Kong / China ponies like Hollywood are considered nirvanas, because . . . ?  Then the Thailand Fancy Pants Babies are NOT counted as nirvanas, but the Thailand Mountain Boys are--because one is common and the other isn't?  But Italian Peachy is common too, lol.  Yeah, I will never call any of my ponies 'nirvanas.'

[Taffeta]

Well, personally I think the "nirvana" label is silly and I don't use it.  No offense to those who do, but to me it makes no sense at all.  Some of the "nirvanas" are common (Italian Peachy), some are rare. So rarity alone is not a determining factor. Raindrop and Nightlight were made in Hong Kong (or China, can't remember) and are supposedly still nirvanas because they were only released in a few countries.  But none of the US-exclusive Hong Kong / China ponies like Hollywood are considered nirvanas, because . . . ?  Then the Thailand Fancy Pants Babies are NOT counted as nirvanas, but the Thailand Mountain Boys are--because one is common and the other isn't?  But Italian Peachy is common too, lol.  Yeah, I will never call any of my ponies 'nirvanas.'

See, this is more the kind of discussion that I wanted to have in this thread. The way we classify ponies, and so on. And yeah, you make a really good point about Raindrop and company, who sit on a very uncomfortable line between European release and Nirvana for no really logical reason. That's also a symptom of the lines drawn 20 years ago, and it's also interesting how that hasn't changed either.

I always preferred the word 'variant' for ponies made in other countries than Hong Kong and China. The Thai fancy pants babies bother me on a lot of levels, as does NC Sundance, because they are almost mainstream Nirvana in a weird kind of a way. And then I suppose if you look at this from a European perspective, Italian ponies are so widespread on the continent that maybe they shouldn't really be Nirvana at all any more...although some are so rare that obviously they are. So you are right, there is a problem in this classification pool as well.

Taffeta, calm down already. It's a fun poll, it's really not as big a deal as you're making it out to be. I understand UK ponies are important to you and that's fine, but instead of kicking up a fuss every time one is left out of a poll, maybe just make a poll yourself including the UK ponies?

I respect you a lot and your opinions, even when we don't agree, but I think that was a little offensive. Maybe I wasn't clear, but the polls are symptomatic of what I'm talking about. I;m not having a little tantrum in my room about the fact Gypsy wasn't included in the unicorn poll. I actually didn't notice until someone mentioned in the CP poll that Bow Tie was left out, so I think you're blowing this out of proportion. Last time this came up as a topic I was told to make a thread about it in the Corral to discuss it, so I did so. That's all

My interest in this spans 20 years and the rationale for it isn't just about wanting UK ponies in everything. I ended up doing the UK thing because nobody else did, and then nobody else has ever wanted to. I love the UK ponies and their history, of course, but I am not about to go out in the streets of London with a placard demanding equal rights from the American Embassy. It's not like that at all.

I think it is an issue, though, that we're still using clunky terms and ideas from 20 years ago. The reason this is an ongoing problem for me (and the reason I don't just shut up but ask questions like this) is because I remember that there can be really big problems associated with the lack of proper information. It's not just all about marginalised UK pony childhoods - though I admit, I would like to see more inclusion of them. It's more the underlying issue as to why people don't think of those and the fact there's a kind of invisible way of categorising them that means they're not Nirvana but also not mainstream. And so they vanish.

Someone else a while back commented on how there are a lot of details that we used to know quite widely as a community but that now people tend to know more about the "Nirvana" ponies than they do the ones in the middle and that knowledge has been lost with people leaving and then coming in to the community fresh. People learn about US ponies and Nirvana ponies, but the other stuff is a bit more vague to a lot of people. I am constantly surprised at the questions that get asked about UK ponies, because most of the answers to those questions have been in community circulation for years. On the contrary, some of these same people are exceptional in their knowledge of variant ponies from other countries. This is also about personal preference. In that sense it is not a huge problem unless it impacts on trading and selling, although on a human level it does make me think there is less space now for UK ponies than there was in the past. (And, on that level, all the different pony releases across Europe because there are a lot and they aren't all the same as each other, or as the UK).

It has always bothered me that US collectors aren't able to sell or trade their exclusives at equal currency to the UK or European ones. The fact Hopscotch is worth more than Firefly is nuts to me. I also have experience dealing with that first hand. I went to war with someone some years back who was trying to convince a US person to trade their TAF baby for a Kiss Curl, as UK ponies were so rare and special that was all she was worth. I also remember the struggle to stamp out the rumours that a white haired UK posey existed and a lot of people lost money on that scam because they were persuaded that it was a real UK variation. This is why on every single pony on my site with fading pink hair I mention that the hair fades and this is not a variation, so that can't happen again. Even so I have seen people rumouring the existence of a pink haired Love Token within the last several years, and that's an OLD myth that had died a death but apparently not completely.

 Of course, there was also the reverse Gusty custom scam. All of those issues were created by and perpetuated by people in the UK, but they were also facilitated by a murky information network among US collectors as well. These are only some examples. I haven't even begun with the scams of people claiming to have the "UK exclusive pony friend dolls" for sale because DV said they were UK exclusives and so everyone believed them, even though they didn't exist. I am a pretty tactless individual but it literally broke my heart seeing UK ponies and UK stuff being used as a way to scam people. There was also a backlash against UK people for "telling lies" that led to people being scammed or for "inventing ponies" that weren't on DV yet. So I made my website.  And that's been my driving force behind getting the information out there and right for the last twenty years. Me making polls would achieve nothing as everyone knows how I classify ponies. It's a different problem of which the polls are a symptom, and the thing that made me think of it once again. I know none of the poll makers did anything wrong. It's a bigger thing than the choice of one person. It's addressing that group of ponies we no longer know how to classify.

I'm sorry for the longwinded explanation, but I want you to understand I'm not just an insane UK pony fangirl. I'm an insane UK pony fangirl too, but this isn't about making UK ponies shiny and top of the pile. It's about bringing them back into the awareness range so that those of us who remember them can share about them, and those of us who don't can know about them and not be taken for a ride. It's better for everyone if we stop looking back and start looking forward.

I think that is a big deal, but if you don't, that's also fine. Just I'd like to discuss the points raised more constructively if possible. Twenty years is a long time. I am pretty sure that I'll probably comment on this again in the future, but if we discuss the issues maybe at some point things will change for the better.

And yes, I admit, I have a pedantic hatred for the non-terms. We all have our geekish weaknesses. But for the record, I love Glory more than Gypsy and always will. Even though she wasn't available on shelves here .

[Safflower]

Wow, you really explained this issue well Taffeta. I agree, the U.K. ponies should be represented and not classified as nirvana. To me, the term nirvana means a pony not manufactured and designed by Hasbro but still licensed and real. The fact that we are excluding the UK ponies from the tittle of mainstream isn't ok. If you had UK ponies in your childhood, I think you would want them to be represented as mainstream and would be bothered by the fact that they aren't exactly considered that way. I think the ways to help this issue would be to use terms other than NSS, NBBE, etc and to change our mindsets. I feel like people aren't really taking this seriously. There is an issue a member is trying to talk about because it's bothering them, and we should listen.

[Taffeta]

Wow, you really explained this issue well Taffeta. I agree, the U.K. ponies should be represented and not classified as nirvana. To me, the term nirvana means a pony not manufactured and designed by Hasbro but still licensed and real. The fact that we are excluding the UK ponies from the tittle of mainstream isn't ok. If you had UK ponies in your childhood, I think you would want them to be represented as mainstream and would be bothered by the fact that they aren't exactly considered that way. I think the ways to help this issue would be to use terms other than NSS, NBBE, etc and to change our mindsets. I feel like people aren't really taking this seriously. There is an issue a member is trying to talk about because it's bothering them, and we should listen.

Thank you <3 And cookies for being brave enough to read my post. I know it's a wall of text >.>.

[Leave a Whisper]

Well, personally I think the "nirvana" label is silly and I don't use it.  No offense to those who do, but to me it makes no sense at all.  Some of the "nirvanas" are common (Italian Peachy), some are rare. So rarity alone is not a determining factor. Raindrop and Nightlight were made in Hong Kong (or China, can't remember) and are supposedly still nirvanas because they were only released in a few countries.  But none of the US-exclusive Hong Kong / China ponies like Hollywood are considered nirvanas, because . . . ?  Then the Thailand Fancy Pants Babies are NOT counted as nirvanas, but the Thailand Mountain Boys are--because one is common and the other isn't?  But Italian Peachy is common too, lol.  Yeah, I will never call any of my ponies 'nirvanas.'

Someone told me they were called nirvanas, because it was heavenly to own them.