# Pony Re Imaginings > 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[4]. The trend spread across DeviantArt, Tumblr, Reddit, and YouTube, spawning dozens of sub-memes that became a defining feature of brony fan culture. ## Origin 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[5]. 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[5]. 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 reclassified[4]. 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[4]. Fans noted the darker twist that gelatin in factory-made marshmallows comes from processed horse hooves[4]. "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[4]. Fluttershy then says she'd actually like to be a tree, and fan art depicting her as one followed immediately[4]. - **Platform:** DeviantArt, Tumblr, Reddit (fan community spread) - **Creator:** Unknown (community-created from *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic*) - **Date:** 2011 ## 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[4]. 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[2]. 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[4]. Some re-imaginings are gentle and cute. Others get dark fast. ## 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[3]. 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[2]. The "Dear Princess Celestia" letter format spread through forum threads and comment sections[4]. 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[4]. 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[4]. A physics presentation uploaded to YouTube on May 20, 2011 gave the fandom another re-imagining framework[4]. 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[6]. 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"[1]. The "Rariquest" or "Travelling Rarity" exploitable emerged from Episode 23, "The Cutie Mark Chronicles"[4]. 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[4]. 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[7]. Commenters on the original post noted the trend was "getting out of hand" while simultaneously declaring sock-wearing ponies "the cutest thing ever"[7]. The meme walked a line between wholesome cute content and something weirder, with fans debating whether it was "just adorable" or a "fetish thing"[7]. ## How to Use 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]. 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[4]. 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[4]. ## 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"[5]. The show became one of the highest-rated productions in The Hub's history[5]. 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[4]. 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[1]. ## 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[4]. - The marshmallow comparison for Rarity has an unexpectedly dark layer: real marshmallows use gelatin made from animal hooves, including horses[4]. - 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"[1]. - The AskMLCblobs Tumblr blog ran for over three years, and its creator Raikissu credited the blog with shaping their development as an artist[2]. - 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"[7]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Pony Re-Imaginings? Pony Re-Imaginings is a collection of fan-created memes that humorously alter, redesign, or reinterpret characters from *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic*, most commonly by comparing them to objects they visually resemble[4]. ### Where did Pony Re-Imaginings come from? The trend emerged from the brony fandom in 2011, with the earliest examples drawing on specific episode moments from *Friendship is Magic*, which premiered on The Hub in October 2010[5]. ### What does Pony Re-Imaginings mean? The memes take throwaway jokes, visual quirks, or dialogue from the show and interpret them literally, turning characters into chickens, marshmallows, trees, and other objects through fan art and photoshops[4]. ### How do you use Pony Re-Imaginings? Common approaches include drawing characters as objects they resemble, writing parody "Dear Princess Celestia" letters, or photoshopping character images into real-world settings like the Rariquest exploitable[4]. ### Is Pony Re-Imaginings still popular? The trend peaked during the brony fandom's height in 2011–2014. With *Friendship is Magic* ending in 2019[5], the sub-memes are less active but still recognized within MLP fan communities. ### What is 'Scootaloo is a Chicken'? It's the earliest and most iconic Pony Re-Imagining, based on a moment in Episode 17, "The Stare Master," where another character calls Scootaloo a chicken. Fans began drawing her as a literal chicken[4]. ### Why is Rarity called a marshmallow? Rarity's pure white coloring combined with the show's rounded art style makes her look like a marshmallow. The comparison picked up a dark twist when fans noted that factory marshmallows use gelatin from horse hooves[4]. ### What is the 'Dear Princess Celestia' meme? In the show, Twilight Sparkle writes friendship lessons to Princess Celestia at the end of each episode. Fans created parody versions with absurd or inappropriate lessons, using the format's recognizable opening and closing lines[4]. ### Did Hasbro acknowledge any Pony Re-Imaginings? Possibly. In the October 22, 2011 "Nightmare Night" episode, background character Colgate appeared dressed as what looked like a dentist, which fans interpreted as a nod to the toothpaste meme surrounding her character[4]. ### What is the 'dark matter' pony explanation? A high school student uploaded a YouTube video on May 20, 2011 analyzing impossible physics in the show, concluding the ponies must be made of dark matter. This became a catch-all explanation for any broken physics in the series[4]. ## References 1. [A Wizard Did It - TV Tropes]() 2. [AskMLCblob blog]() 3. [Ponies-In-Vehicles | DeviantArt]() 4. [Pony Re-Imaginings - Know Your Meme]() 5. [My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]() 6. [Dark matter]() 7. [Taldigi - Hobbyist, Digital Artist | DeviantArt]() 8. [Equestria Daily - MLP Stuff!: Drawfriend Stuff: Ponies in Socks Edition]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/pony-re-imaginings Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library