She's interesting... that name can't help but remind me of certain late night dating site ads though

I understand why they exist, but not why they're suddenly a fad among people who don't need them. Especially since I didn't see them around before, even in contexts where they'd actually be relevant. I have a tendency to fiddle with whatever's near me, and when I realized that the only way to get that under control would be to get items specifically for that purpose, I looked at a few blogs specifically about fidget toys so I'd know what's available. I saw pretty much no spinners there. And now they're suddenly everywhere? It's weird.

I have one lying around somewhere but I'll probably never use it. I prefer Tangles and Fash'ems (which are pretty much silent).

It makes me sad to think that there were people who grew up without any ponies at all. Kittywhiskers, your story is heart rending. I can just picture this poor little one yearning for ponies to play with; it must have been so hard and I am so sorry.

When I said I liked ponies as a kid, I just meant the actual animal (and I just went back and edited my post to make this more clear). I was barely aware of My Little Pony at the time - my dad's insisting that the fakies were MLP was actually the main reason I even knew about the franchise at all before I started seeing ads for some oddball G3s like Sweet Steps when I was 9 or 10. The ones I saw in the ads weren't that appealing, but I had the vague feeling there were probably other ones out there that I'd like.

Wow Kittywhiskers that's so sad.  I hope you are making up for lost pony time now.

Pretty much, yeah. Now I have probably over 100 ponies from all generations (though I don't really keep track of the number), and I've checked out the shows that went with each generation. I've also tried whatever video games I've been able to get, though they tend not to be any good. My family's fine with my collection, complete with the DVDs from various eras that I have in the living room with the rest of our DVDs (the "pink section", which grows from time to time).

When I was a kid, I really liked ponies - as in the actual animal. However, I didn't have any actual My Little Ponies. I barely knew those existed. I grew up with money troubles and a dad who had a massive irrational hatred of all things MLP up until I eventually introduced him to Friendship is Magic and he managed to finally accept that My Little Pony is not inherently terrible. (He's a nice person, but sometimes he gets these weird ideas into his head that he refuses to let go of and it's really just easier to pretend to agree with him.)

The closest I got to actual MLP was a pair of fakies I got at the Royal Adelaide Show the one time I went there (which my dad hated from the moment he first saw them. He also insisted they were MLP even though 4-year-old me could tell they weren't. He didn't believe me until a decade later. Gah).

The first generation I was able to get into (thanks dad...) was G4.

Not really, but I understand where you're coming from. They re-release the same characters too much, often with odd gimmicks in the hopes that will somehow make up for the fact it's still the millionth Pinkie Pie this week, and have a lot of weird-but-fun spinoff lines (buildable ponies, action figures, etc) going on at once.

Night Glider and Dutch Baby Cat! The one time I saw Night Glider for under 80$, I slept through the auction!  And the one time I found a Dutch Baby Cat that didn't cost a downright insane amount, there was just enough question about what might happen to the economy at the time that I was advised to save my money.

They're cute, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get them.