Pony Re Imaginings

2011Fan art / exploitable / image macro / catchphrasesemi-active

Also known as: MLP Re-Imaginings · Pony Object Comparisons

Pony Re Imaginings is a 2011 brony fan-art meme transforming My Little Pony characters into unexpected objects, turning Scootaloo into a chicken, Rarity into a marshmallow, and Fluttershy into a tree.

Pony Re-Imaginings is a broad collection of fan-created memes in which characters from *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic* are humorously altered, reinterpreted, or compared to objects they resemble. Originating alongside the brony fandom explosion in 2011, these memes take throwaway lines and visual quirks from the show and run with them, turning Scootaloo into a chicken, Rarity into a marshmallow, and Fluttershy into a tree4. The trend spread across DeviantArt, Tumblr, Reddit, and YouTube, spawning dozens of sub-memes that became a defining feature of brony fan culture.

mlp memesfan art memesearly 2010s memesfandom discourse memeschildrens media memes

Overview

Pony Re-Imaginings covers a wide family of memes where *Friendship is Magic* characters get redrawn, photoshopped, or conceptually swapped into something else entirely4. The most common form takes a visual or verbal joke from the show and treats it with dead-serious literalism. A character gets called a chicken once? Now she's permanently a chicken in fan art. A pony looks vaguely like a marshmallow? Fan artists will draw her melting over a campfire.

The memes exist primarily as fan art, exploitable image templates, and Tumblr ask blogs2. What ties them together is the shared impulse to take a canonical detail from *Friendship is Magic* and warp it into something the show's creators never intended4. Some re-imaginings are gentle and cute. Others get dark fast.

The trend traces back to the early brony fandom of 2011, when *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic* was attracting its unexpected audience of adult fans5. Lauren Faust's show, which premiered on The Hub on October 10, 2010, had deeper characterization than previous MLP incarnations, giving fans rich material to riff on5.

The earliest and most recognizable Pony Re-Imagining is "Scootaloo is a Chicken," which comes from Season 1, Episode 17, "The Stare Master"4. In the episode, one of the young fillies calls Scootaloo a chicken. Fans grabbed that single line and ran with it, producing art that depicted Scootaloo as a literal chicken. When "The Return of Harmony, Part 1" later called Scootaloo a dodo, the fandom split into factions debating whether she was still a chicken or had been officially reclassified4.

Other re-imaginings followed quickly. "Rarity is a Marshmallow" grew out of a scene in Episode 19, "A Dog and Pony Show," where Rarity's pure white coloring and the show's rounded art style made her look like a marshmallow4. Fans noted the darker twist that gelatin in factory-made marshmallows comes from processed horse hooves4.

"Fluttershy is a Tree" originated in Episode 21, "Over a Barrel," when Pinkie Pie mistakes Rainbow Dash's sarcasm about Fluttershy being a tree for a serious statement4. Fluttershy then says she'd actually like to be a tree, and fan art depicting her as one followed immediately4.

Origin & Background

Platform
DeviantArt, Tumblr, Reddit (fan community spread)
Creator
Unknown
Date
2011

The trend traces back to the early brony fandom of 2011, when *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic* was attracting its unexpected audience of adult fans. Lauren Faust's show, which premiered on The Hub on October 10, 2010, had deeper characterization than previous MLP incarnations, giving fans rich material to riff on.

The earliest and most recognizable Pony Re-Imagining is "Scootaloo is a Chicken," which comes from Season 1, Episode 17, "The Stare Master". In the episode, one of the young fillies calls Scootaloo a chicken. Fans grabbed that single line and ran with it, producing art that depicted Scootaloo as a literal chicken. When "The Return of Harmony, Part 1" later called Scootaloo a dodo, the fandom split into factions debating whether she was still a chicken or had been officially reclassified.

Other re-imaginings followed quickly. "Rarity is a Marshmallow" grew out of a scene in Episode 19, "A Dog and Pony Show," where Rarity's pure white coloring and the show's rounded art style made her look like a marshmallow. Fans noted the darker twist that gelatin in factory-made marshmallows comes from processed horse hooves.

"Fluttershy is a Tree" originated in Episode 21, "Over a Barrel," when Pinkie Pie mistakes Rainbow Dash's sarcasm about Fluttershy being a tree for a serious statement. Fluttershy then says she'd actually like to be a tree, and fan art depicting her as one followed immediately.

How It Spread

The memes spread rapidly across the platforms where bronies gathered in 2011 and 2012. DeviantArt hosted much of the fan art, with dedicated groups like Ponies-In-Vehicles collecting niche re-imaginings of MLP characters with cars, tanks, and planes. Tumblr became home to ask blogs where fans could submit questions to re-imagined versions of the characters. AskMLCblobs, which ran from October 2011 to January 2015, featured "chubby" blob versions of the cast and built a substantial following over its three-year run.

The "Dear Princess Celestia" letter format spread through forum threads and comment sections. In the show, Twilight Sparkle ends nearly every episode by writing a friendship lesson to Princess Celestia. Fans began writing their own absurd or darkly comedic versions, swapping out the lesson for jokes. The format's recognizable opening line made it easy to deploy anywhere.

Background character Colgate picked up her own sub-meme when fans noticed her mane looked like toothpaste. She became associated with dental objects in fan art and got paired with the "brushie brushie brushie" catchphrase. Hasbro may have acknowledged this in the "Nightmare Night" Halloween episode on October 22, 2011, when Colgate appeared dressed as what looked like a dentist.

A physics presentation uploaded to YouTube on May 20, 2011 gave the fandom another re-imagining framework. A high school student analyzed three physically impossible scenes from the show using Newtonian physics, concluding that the ponies involved must be made of dark matter to explain their behavior. The concept became a general-purpose handwave for any physical law broken in the show, similar to how other fandoms use the phrase "a wizard did it".

The "Rariquest" or "Travelling Rarity" exploitable emerged from Episode 23, "The Cutie Mark Chronicles". A scene showed filly Rarity being dragged by her horn toward her destiny. The first photoshopped image appeared on Reddit on August 22, and the format spread through Ponibooru, with fans placing Rarity in locations around the world. A dedicated Tumblr blog collected submissions of Rarity's forced travels.

The "Ponies in Socks" sub-meme, documented in a July 2011 Equestria Daily post, turned into one of the fandom's most prolific visual trends. Commenters on the original post noted the trend was "getting out of hand" while simultaneously declaring sock-wearing ponies "the cutest thing ever". The meme walked a line between wholesome cute content and something weirder, with fans debating whether it was "just adorable" or a "fetish thing".

How to Use This Meme

Pony Re-Imaginings follow a few common patterns:

1

Object comparison: Take a character's visual design and find a real-world object it resembles. Draw the character as that object or the object with the character's features. Rarity as a marshmallow and Colgate as toothpaste are the templates here.

2

Literal interpretation: Find a line of dialogue where a character is jokingly called something. Depict them as that thing with complete sincerity. Scootaloo as a chicken is the classic example.

3

Letter format: Write a fake "Dear Princess Celestia" letter with an absurd or inappropriate lesson learned. The format typically opens with "Dear Princess Celestia" and closes with "Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle".

4

Exploitable photoshop: Take a character in a distinctive pose (like Rarity being dragged by her horn) and place them into real-world photographs or other media.

5

Physics/science explanation: Apply real-world scientific principles to explain impossible show moments, often concluding that the characters must be made of exotic matter.

Cultural Impact

The re-imagining trend was part of the larger brony cultural moment that peaked between 2011 and 2014. *Friendship is Magic* attracted an unexpectedly large following of older viewers, mainly adult men, who became known as "bronies". The show became one of the highest-rated productions in The Hub's history.

Hasbro's possible acknowledgment of the Colgate-as-dentist meme in the October 2011 "Nightmare Night" episode suggested the show's creators were aware of and responsive to fan culture. This kind of feedback loop between official content and fan re-imaginings was unusual for children's programming at the time.

The re-imaginings also fed into broader internet humor patterns. The "dark matter" explanation for impossible physics became a fandom-specific version of the "a wizard did it" trope documented on TV Tropes, where impossible events get hand-waved away with a catch-all explanation.

Fun Facts

The Scootaloo chicken/dodo debate became a genuine point of fandom contention when "The Return of Harmony, Part 1" introduced the dodo comparison, with fans arguing over which bird classification was now canonical.

The marshmallow comparison for Rarity has an unexpectedly dark layer: real marshmallows use gelatin made from animal hooves, including horses.

One high school student's physics class presentation became the basis for an entire sub-meme, with his dark matter explanation becoming the brony fandom's version of "a wizard did it".

The AskMLCblobs Tumblr blog ran for over three years, and its creator Raikissu credited the blog with shaping their development as an artist.

Fans in the Ponies in Socks thread debated whether the trend was "a sub-meme in the making" while a commenter who identified as a TF2 player admitted to letting out "manly squees".

Derivatives & Variations

Scootaloo is a Chicken

— The original and most widely recognized Pony Re-Imagining, depicting Scootaloo as a literal chicken based on a single line of dialogue[4].

Rarity is a Marshmallow

— Fan art depicting the white unicorn as a marshmallow, sometimes with dark humor about gelatin and horse hooves[4].

Fluttershy is a Tree

— Based on Fluttershy's canonical statement that she'd like to be a tree, spawning art of her as various tree species[4].

Colgate / Brushie Brushie

— Background pony with toothpaste-colored hair paired with dental imagery and the "brushie brushie brushie" catchphrase[4].

Dear Princess Celestia letters

— Parody letters using the show's closing format with absurd or dark friendship lessons[4].

Rariquest / Travelling Rarity

— Exploitable photoshop template of filly Rarity being dragged to various world locations, with a dedicated Tumblr blog[4].

Ponies in Socks

— Fan art trend of MLP characters wearing socks, documented on Equestria Daily in July 2011[7].

Ponies in Vehicles

— DeviantArt group dedicated to MLP characters with cars, trucks, and other vehicles[3].

AskMLCblobs

— Tumblr ask blog (2011–2015) featuring blob-shaped "chubby" versions of the cast, run by artist Raikissu[2].

Dark Matter Ponies

— Pseudo-scientific fan explanation for impossible show physics, originating from a 2011 YouTube physics class presentation[4].

Frequently Asked Questions

Pony Re Imaginings

2011Fan art / exploitable / image macro / catchphrasesemi-active

Also known as: MLP Re-Imaginings · Pony Object Comparisons

Pony Re Imaginings is a 2011 brony fan-art meme transforming My Little Pony characters into unexpected objects, turning Scootaloo into a chicken, Rarity into a marshmallow, and Fluttershy into a tree.

Pony Re-Imaginings is a broad collection of fan-created memes in which characters from *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic* are humorously altered, reinterpreted, or compared to objects they resemble. Originating alongside the brony fandom explosion in 2011, these memes take throwaway lines and visual quirks from the show and run with them, turning Scootaloo into a chicken, Rarity into a marshmallow, and Fluttershy into a tree. The trend spread across DeviantArt, Tumblr, Reddit, and YouTube, spawning dozens of sub-memes that became a defining feature of brony fan culture.

mlp memes fan art memes early 2010s memes fandom discourse memes childrens media memes

Overview

Pony Re-Imaginings covers a wide family of memes where *Friendship is Magic* characters get redrawn, photoshopped, or conceptually swapped into something else entirely. The most common form takes a visual or verbal joke from the show and treats it with dead-serious literalism. A character gets called a chicken once? Now she's permanently a chicken in fan art. A pony looks vaguely like a marshmallow? Fan artists will draw her melting over a campfire.

The memes exist primarily as fan art, exploitable image templates, and Tumblr ask blogs. What ties them together is the shared impulse to take a canonical detail from *Friendship is Magic* and warp it into something the show's creators never intended. Some re-imaginings are gentle and cute. Others get dark fast.

The trend traces back to the early brony fandom of 2011, when *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic* was attracting its unexpected audience of adult fans. Lauren Faust's show, which premiered on The Hub on October 10, 2010, had deeper characterization than previous MLP incarnations, giving fans rich material to riff on.

The earliest and most recognizable Pony Re-Imagining is "Scootaloo is a Chicken," which comes from Season 1, Episode 17, "The Stare Master". In the episode, one of the young fillies calls Scootaloo a chicken. Fans grabbed that single line and ran with it, producing art that depicted Scootaloo as a literal chicken. When "The Return of Harmony, Part 1" later called Scootaloo a dodo, the fandom split into factions debating whether she was still a chicken or had been officially reclassified.

Other re-imaginings followed quickly. "Rarity is a Marshmallow" grew out of a scene in Episode 19, "A Dog and Pony Show," where Rarity's pure white coloring and the show's rounded art style made her look like a marshmallow. Fans noted the darker twist that gelatin in factory-made marshmallows comes from processed horse hooves.

"Fluttershy is a Tree" originated in Episode 21, "Over a Barrel," when Pinkie Pie mistakes Rainbow Dash's sarcasm about Fluttershy being a tree for a serious statement. Fluttershy then says she'd actually like to be a tree, and fan art depicting her as one followed immediately.

Origin & Background

Platform
DeviantArt, Tumblr, Reddit (fan community spread)
Creator
Unknown
Date
2011

The trend traces back to the early brony fandom of 2011, when *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic* was attracting its unexpected audience of adult fans. Lauren Faust's show, which premiered on The Hub on October 10, 2010, had deeper characterization than previous MLP incarnations, giving fans rich material to riff on.

The earliest and most recognizable Pony Re-Imagining is "Scootaloo is a Chicken," which comes from Season 1, Episode 17, "The Stare Master". In the episode, one of the young fillies calls Scootaloo a chicken. Fans grabbed that single line and ran with it, producing art that depicted Scootaloo as a literal chicken. When "The Return of Harmony, Part 1" later called Scootaloo a dodo, the fandom split into factions debating whether she was still a chicken or had been officially reclassified.

Other re-imaginings followed quickly. "Rarity is a Marshmallow" grew out of a scene in Episode 19, "A Dog and Pony Show," where Rarity's pure white coloring and the show's rounded art style made her look like a marshmallow. Fans noted the darker twist that gelatin in factory-made marshmallows comes from processed horse hooves.

"Fluttershy is a Tree" originated in Episode 21, "Over a Barrel," when Pinkie Pie mistakes Rainbow Dash's sarcasm about Fluttershy being a tree for a serious statement. Fluttershy then says she'd actually like to be a tree, and fan art depicting her as one followed immediately.

How It Spread

The memes spread rapidly across the platforms where bronies gathered in 2011 and 2012. DeviantArt hosted much of the fan art, with dedicated groups like Ponies-In-Vehicles collecting niche re-imaginings of MLP characters with cars, tanks, and planes. Tumblr became home to ask blogs where fans could submit questions to re-imagined versions of the characters. AskMLCblobs, which ran from October 2011 to January 2015, featured "chubby" blob versions of the cast and built a substantial following over its three-year run.

The "Dear Princess Celestia" letter format spread through forum threads and comment sections. In the show, Twilight Sparkle ends nearly every episode by writing a friendship lesson to Princess Celestia. Fans began writing their own absurd or darkly comedic versions, swapping out the lesson for jokes. The format's recognizable opening line made it easy to deploy anywhere.

Background character Colgate picked up her own sub-meme when fans noticed her mane looked like toothpaste. She became associated with dental objects in fan art and got paired with the "brushie brushie brushie" catchphrase. Hasbro may have acknowledged this in the "Nightmare Night" Halloween episode on October 22, 2011, when Colgate appeared dressed as what looked like a dentist.

A physics presentation uploaded to YouTube on May 20, 2011 gave the fandom another re-imagining framework. A high school student analyzed three physically impossible scenes from the show using Newtonian physics, concluding that the ponies involved must be made of dark matter to explain their behavior. The concept became a general-purpose handwave for any physical law broken in the show, similar to how other fandoms use the phrase "a wizard did it".

The "Rariquest" or "Travelling Rarity" exploitable emerged from Episode 23, "The Cutie Mark Chronicles". A scene showed filly Rarity being dragged by her horn toward her destiny. The first photoshopped image appeared on Reddit on August 22, and the format spread through Ponibooru, with fans placing Rarity in locations around the world. A dedicated Tumblr blog collected submissions of Rarity's forced travels.

The "Ponies in Socks" sub-meme, documented in a July 2011 Equestria Daily post, turned into one of the fandom's most prolific visual trends. Commenters on the original post noted the trend was "getting out of hand" while simultaneously declaring sock-wearing ponies "the cutest thing ever". The meme walked a line between wholesome cute content and something weirder, with fans debating whether it was "just adorable" or a "fetish thing".

How to Use This Meme

Pony Re-Imaginings follow a few common patterns:

1

Object comparison: Take a character's visual design and find a real-world object it resembles. Draw the character as that object or the object with the character's features. Rarity as a marshmallow and Colgate as toothpaste are the templates here.

2

Literal interpretation: Find a line of dialogue where a character is jokingly called something. Depict them as that thing with complete sincerity. Scootaloo as a chicken is the classic example.

3

Letter format: Write a fake "Dear Princess Celestia" letter with an absurd or inappropriate lesson learned. The format typically opens with "Dear Princess Celestia" and closes with "Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle".

4

Exploitable photoshop: Take a character in a distinctive pose (like Rarity being dragged by her horn) and place them into real-world photographs or other media.

5

Physics/science explanation: Apply real-world scientific principles to explain impossible show moments, often concluding that the characters must be made of exotic matter.

Cultural Impact

The re-imagining trend was part of the larger brony cultural moment that peaked between 2011 and 2014. *Friendship is Magic* attracted an unexpectedly large following of older viewers, mainly adult men, who became known as "bronies". The show became one of the highest-rated productions in The Hub's history.

Hasbro's possible acknowledgment of the Colgate-as-dentist meme in the October 2011 "Nightmare Night" episode suggested the show's creators were aware of and responsive to fan culture. This kind of feedback loop between official content and fan re-imaginings was unusual for children's programming at the time.

The re-imaginings also fed into broader internet humor patterns. The "dark matter" explanation for impossible physics became a fandom-specific version of the "a wizard did it" trope documented on TV Tropes, where impossible events get hand-waved away with a catch-all explanation.

Fun Facts

The Scootaloo chicken/dodo debate became a genuine point of fandom contention when "The Return of Harmony, Part 1" introduced the dodo comparison, with fans arguing over which bird classification was now canonical.

The marshmallow comparison for Rarity has an unexpectedly dark layer: real marshmallows use gelatin made from animal hooves, including horses.

One high school student's physics class presentation became the basis for an entire sub-meme, with his dark matter explanation becoming the brony fandom's version of "a wizard did it".

The AskMLCblobs Tumblr blog ran for over three years, and its creator Raikissu credited the blog with shaping their development as an artist.

Fans in the Ponies in Socks thread debated whether the trend was "a sub-meme in the making" while a commenter who identified as a TF2 player admitted to letting out "manly squees".

Derivatives & Variations

Scootaloo is a Chicken

— The original and most widely recognized Pony Re-Imagining, depicting Scootaloo as a literal chicken based on a single line of dialogue[4].

Rarity is a Marshmallow

— Fan art depicting the white unicorn as a marshmallow, sometimes with dark humor about gelatin and horse hooves[4].

Fluttershy is a Tree

— Based on Fluttershy's canonical statement that she'd like to be a tree, spawning art of her as various tree species[4].

Colgate / Brushie Brushie

— Background pony with toothpaste-colored hair paired with dental imagery and the "brushie brushie brushie" catchphrase[4].

Dear Princess Celestia letters

— Parody letters using the show's closing format with absurd or dark friendship lessons[4].

Rariquest / Travelling Rarity

— Exploitable photoshop template of filly Rarity being dragged to various world locations, with a dedicated Tumblr blog[4].

Ponies in Socks

— Fan art trend of MLP characters wearing socks, documented on Equestria Daily in July 2011[7].

Ponies in Vehicles

— DeviantArt group dedicated to MLP characters with cars, trucks, and other vehicles[3].

AskMLCblobs

— Tumblr ask blog (2011–2015) featuring blob-shaped "chubby" versions of the cast, run by artist Raikissu[2].

Dark Matter Ponies

— Pseudo-scientific fan explanation for impossible show physics, originating from a 2011 YouTube physics class presentation[4].

Frequently Asked Questions