For those of you who got into ponies with G4...

[prancingstag]

I think I was born at the right time to be in a "dead zone" of MLP and so I never noticed the franchise at all until G4. I was born in 1991 so G1 had ended and G2 had gone into the wilds of Europe by the time I was mentally functioning and starting to ask for things I saw advertised on TV (96-98). Barbies were my poison up until 2001-2002 when I grew out of toys and started asking for video games, just by happenstance I never went into the toy aisles while G3 was running either! It took all the way up until G4 was hitting the internet to catch my interest. I saw it being discussed as "not actually that bad for a little girl's show" and went in to see, got hooked... Waited impatiently for the toys to turn up in late 2010. Seems like such a long time ago now! Ponies combined with Tangled dolls and their lovely hair struck my tactile senses and made themselves a must-have.

Then via other discussions in the early days I found that Faust had based them on G1s and saw her G4 artwork of the original characters (Sparkler, Posey) and got directed to pictures of the actual toys. I thought "hmm, this pony looks a bit fat and clumsy compared to G4" but they still had their own distinct charm. I decided to find out how many G1 ponies there were and if I liked any of them... What a mistake! I expected a few, not near-on a thousand of the little darlings! Once I found a few favourites it was all downhill and I've come around to appreciating nearly every single one. I like the more realistic proportions, especially the horse-head with the broad forehead and long nose.

I also saw comparisons between the first two episodes of G4 and Rescue at Midnight Castle (which was bragged about as being totally awesome and badass) so I went and watched RaMC and absolutely adored it. I spent a few years just appreciating G1 but not buying any because G4 was readily available on shelf and still interesting... After 2012 G4 has really started winding down and when I got bored I decided to try G1. Tex and then Firefly were my first buys, and as soon as I had their big chunky bodies and thick, silky manes and tails in my hands, they very much turned into my number one MLP generation and are pretty much the focus of my attention now. I do like the aesthetics of G2 and G3 but certain factors also turn me off (G2's posable legs and changeable hair don't interest me and the function often makes the pony delicate and they turn up damaged second-hand, G3 is wonderful but I'm not keen on the tinsel and there's almost too much variety to choose from so I haven't bothered physically collecting them).

[Iris Patch]

I got into MLP with G4. It was a slippery slope for me, heh, fueled by the fact I have local collector friends who have shown me their amazing collections. I kept seeing more and more older gen ponies I liked, so I just ran with it and here I am. xD I like G1, G3, and G4 the most. I like the G1 toy line more than G4 presently.

[Salli]

I was born horse-crazy, which is odd, because I've always lived in the suburbs and never really had a ton of contact with horses. Anyway, my parents got me the My Pretty Pony in 1981 and I was hooked. I had about 30 ponies when my herd was the biggest. My little sisters trashed some of them while I was gone at school during the day and eventually my herd passed onto them. I'm assuming they gave them away at some point. I did collect a few model horses starting at age 12 and always kept them on display throughout my adulthood. I never even noticed g2 or g3 when it came out.

Fast forward to 2001. Married and I had 2 boys who I love but they just aren't into figurines of any kind, let alone ponies so I never really thought about it. I'm an artist and saw some custom ponies online randomly and thought "I wanna try that!"So did my sister and a friend. So we dug out some supplies and made our first ponies. I LOVED it. So I looked online for tutorials which led me here I swore I was never going to collect (worried that I would get addicted and it would be expensive).

Then I started watching FiM with my husband and kids. We ALL loved it. So I grabbed some brushables for kicks and thus began the obsession... I tried setting limits: Only small brushables (ha!), No plushies (ha!), No G1s (double ha!!). My OCD tendencies force me to complete collections. Then my inner child still longed for those ponies I had always wanted, especially the big brothers. So I rediscovered my love for them and am slowly working my way through the years. I try to grab TLC ponies to restore because I love restoring and I want to save ponies from future death. 

Aren't G1s amazing though? I love their personality and diversity. I love their sculpts, colors and so much hair!

[MJNSEIFER]

While for all intense and purposes, I got into My Little Pony with FIM, I had watched (some of?) "Rescue at Midnight Castle" as kid, but I was really young, and never saw anymore than that.  I loved what I saw at the time, but had forgotten it as I got older.

Once I was a fan of FIM, I at some point became reminded that there was an "Old MLP" (didn't know there was more than one at that point), and I'm not 100% sure when I first became aware of pre-FIM, but I remember seeing a YouTube series where the G4 ponies would react to their Core 7 selves, (which wasn't that bad, and I thought what I could hair of the themesong in the clips sounded pretty good), and I also remember a comment saying that Twilight Sparkle's mother looked like "G1 Twilight", which I gathered meant "Twilight from the old MLP", though I had no idea that "G" meant "Generation" back then - I was pretty slow.

When I found out that Lauren was inspired by G1, and saw the ponies she was planning to use originally, something caught my eye about one of them; I remembered how I had watched  My Little Pony as a kid, and I remembered how much I loved one of the ponies back then, even in what little I saw of the actual show, or even that movie/episode - I remembered how I found that one pony to be really "awesome", and "heroic", and just really liking her.  While examining Lauren's original ideas for the Mane Six - I began to wonder if Firefly was that same pony, that I had found to be so awesome when I was young...

I managed to find "Rescue at Midnight Castle" on YouTube, and I loved it, and realized that FIM wasn't the only awesome MLP in the world (and Firefly was that "awesome pony" by the way...)  I decided that I would try out all the generations, and I made a promise that even if I hated even one of them, I would simply not watch it - I would not be a jerk about it, or insult the fans.

However, I ended up loving every single one of them - my favorite generations are G3 and G4*, but I love each one of them in their own way.

*By "G4" I mostly mean season 1 and 2, with later episodes that are "close to the Season 1 and 2 standard".

[hathorcat]

So cool to read so many different ways people came to MLP and the older gens.

My only assurance re any G4 dislike you may come across is that other than G1, every generation gets a mild mauling on here sometimes In a nice way of course but there are always those who simply dislike different generations and to be honest if we weren't all different it would be kinda boring around here.

[Leave a Whisper]

So cool to read so many different ways people came to MLP and the older gens.

My only assurance re any G4 dislike you may come across is that other than G1, every generation gets a mild mauling on here sometimes In a nice way of course but there are always those who simply dislike different generations and to be honest if we weren't all different it would be kinda boring around here.

well said

[Rainbowrific Renia]

So cool to read so many different ways people came to MLP and the older gens.

My only assurance re any G4 dislike you may come across is that other than G1, every generation gets a mild mauling on here sometimes In a nice way of course but there are always those who simply dislike different generations and to be honest if we weren't all different it would be kinda boring around here.

I agree!  I'm all for embracing differences, I was just pointing out something I noticed. I know I wasn't a fan of anything pre-G4 until last year, but now I can accept and appreciate each generation, even the ones I don't collect.  I love seeing that I'm not the only one!

[HoustonCollector72]

MLP FIM brought me here I was collecting only G4 and I was only collecting the basic ponies,but then I went into all the FS G4 as well after catching up with all the released g4 ponies I went after the Fashion size and shortly after Funko came out with the Vinyl Line
I remember I wanted to display the loose FS G4s in a Castle, so I inquired here about them fitting in the G3 Dream Castle and they did fit and that is where they live since then
That Castle came with a dozen of G3's and It gave me the idea of giving them a spa ,they were very well played with ,hair was a mess LOL ,anyway It got me wanting the mane 6 in their G3 versions
So I added them ,then I added few more I liked like some pegasus, I fell in love with Star Catcher and I went for an army , wanting all the versions of them it got me into searching for the Styling Size and then I added the other ones of the Styling Fashion size
so I got Rarity,Cheerilee,RD and Pinkie Styling Fashion size
after a while I went after the unicorns and Super long hair of the G3's and then the pegasus , I'm still missing one of the  SLH and maybe 3  Pegasus
I later added the Celebration Castle and it came with a baby g3 , i went to add more g3 babies  after that:)

 I also added the Dream Castle G1 and the G1 mane 6 predecesors plus a couple more that I liked : Princess Tiffany and Bowtie CP
a couple of SS ponies that came with some G2s as well, I only have a dozen of G1s

I wanted to add few G2s as well, that could kinda relate to the  G4 mane 6 ,Sky Skimmer ,Ivy and few other came in small lots at first ,I started to look for more information on them and I came across a handful of  French TV Ads on youtube, I saw a lot of the European Exclusives and I just went after them , The Royal Castle is one of my favorite mlp Castles  after 3 years collecting them I now have a complete collection of them loose and have all of the play sets ,I also started collecting them Moc since the begining , from the 188 Released ponies I'm missing less than 20 Mocs now ,I still hunt for upgrades ,so the collecting goals kinda change along the way  

[aquamarinemolly]

For me, it was Ponycon NYC. I heard about the bronies, watched the doc on Netflix...and then started watching the G4 cartoons and listening to Living Tombstone I decided I wanted to get more involved in this awesome community, and found a performance group to join for the convention. This was my first experience with cosplay, conventions, fandoms, etc. Because Ponycon is such a wonderfully inter-generational event Bonnie Zacherle was one of the convention guests. My love for G1 was cemented when I got her to sign the only childhood pony I was able to grab during a quick visit to my parent's house. Here she is:

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[PrincessGlitterBloom]

I will admit, at first I sort of followed the herd.
I joined with G4s, I grew up thinking whatever gen I saw on the shelves were horrific, super baby girly horse things. And therefore equated that all past gens were bad. Not to mention all the brony hate... again I kind of just followed the crowd. Old ponies with their high small eyes and actual horse resemblance were sort of a turn off for me.

Then I started watching Friendship is Witchcraft which had a lot of older gen references.
Then I started following spiderjewel on tumblr because she's the main voice for FiW.
And found out she loves and collects older gens. So I started becoming more open minded to that.
She mentioned the arena one time in one of her blog posts, and I decided to check it out, knowing a head of time it was a very vintage oriented group.
Was suddenly introduced to this world of cataloging and pony cancer and pony fairs and communities of pony love. And well it seemed a bit nicer here than some of the modern forums for ponies, so I stayed!

I liked drawing ponies, so looking at older gen characters were fun for me, not to mention SGAP music like SpacePony referenced a lot of ponies of old.
The S4 finale announced it was going to have a returning villian and that it was probably Tirek, so I finally plopped my ass down in a Rescue at Midnight Castle stream(which also introduced me to the hilarity that is Life in the Dreamhouse but that's off topic).

Beside spiderjewel pointing me in the Arena's direction, it was also caused by my love of ponies surmounting so much that I started collecting(brushables and in general). And when I started a new hobby like that I needed to find a forum to support said hobby. Though most of ya'll talk more about older pones than my new girls that's still fine. 

Really though! I probably would collect more older ponies if I had access to them. But my thrift stores are more junk than treasure, and I've never gone to a festival/fair/ponymeet. Ponies do tend to be more impulse buys than the thought I put into buying online.

I only actually own a SINGLE G1: Baby Stockings.
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I even drew her fanart!
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She reminded me of knitting and Christmas, both of which I love~
I lost an auction on ebay, and then realized how badly I wanted her, so bought another later after weeks of pining.

I do admit though! If I do get around to collecting more G1s. They would all have to be what you'd classify as "babies". I love their head design much more than any gen or type besides G4s. What can I say? I'm a sucker for those big dopey doe eyes.

[ladybastilla]

Baby Stockings is so adorable. Your art looks great, too.

[egyptiondragon]

well it stared with G4 and my ex collecting things and pushing me to collect something so I started collecting ponies, and then as I was looking up who all was out and especially looking for G4 pets I came across the arena and same as you G1s and others didn't appeal to me and I only considered getting characters that matched up to g4s such as posey firefly etc in the process I saw a few other ones I had have barnacle sunrise song and moondancer all made me drool boy was I in for a slippy slope! now I love and appreciate all gens G1 and 2 especially!

[shimmlight]

I got into the G4 cartoon and bought the Mane 6. Then I liked buying them, so I bought all the other characters available at the time. Then I had them all and still wanted to buy more. I found a G3 in a charity shop and for a while debated whether I actually wanted it. I ended up giving it to my sister, but after a couple of months I decided I'd like it back. So I got it back, and searched for ponies on eBay. I found G3 Precious Gem, and thought she looked lovely. So I begged my mum to let me buy her, and she did (I was too young to buy ponies by myself at the time xD). After Precious Gem arriving, and finding another G3 at a market, I decided I'd really like a G1. There was something about them that drew me in. I've always liked old things so it was probably that. Searched eBay, and found a Moonstone. She was perfect! I (again) begged my mum to let me buy her and she did. I waited for days for her to arrive, I was so excited. When she arrived I couldn't stop touching her and smelling her. I couldn't believe I had her! And then, yeah, I just ended up buying tonnes after that xD

[PrincessGlitterBloom]

Baby Stockings is so adorable. Your art looks great, too.

Thanks! She's making me want other baby ponies.

[Princess Lala]

It wasnt until G4 I really got into ponies, but G1 were around me as a kid! My mom and her little sister, my aunt, are 70s babies and bythe time I was born they let me play with their old toys! Moon Dancer, Sunbeam, Seashell, Bouncy and Medley were my friends! My grandma still has them too!

Itvwasnt until sanandaokami (I forget her exact username!) gave me Surprise on my birthday,at a pony convention that made me want G1s again! I need to buy me some....I have a long long want list of random stuff!

I was a little scared of G3s until I saw one at the thrift store. They grew onto me!