Do you miss your early time being in the fandom?

Do you miss the first time watching mlp fim and finding the fandom, if so what do you miss?
 
For me I just miss the magical experience of feeling excited and happy like when I was 5, now a day’s I find it hard too enjoy myself really with anything and the sad part is I’m not even that old and I feel like I’m 51 but that’s probably because of other thing’s as well.
 
Also I miss that new feel I had, like when I first got my Nintendo 64 as a young kid, yeah those were the time’s. (Now a days I don’t hardly even play games anymore and I’m just laying down talking on here all day, one of which is because there are not many fun games anymore but that’s a different story for a different thread)

I miss my naivity.

No, not really.  
Early in the fandom was a time for me to experiment with where I fit in and make mistakes. Now film night has given me my specific little niche that I love.

@Princess♠Molestia  
Lol your what?

@Number1pegasus
 
I miss being ignorant of the drama and the idiots that lurk beneath the surface.

@Princess♠Molestia  
Me too. In the beginning, I felt a lot more optimistic (not that I’m totally cynical now or anything). It probably wasn’t quite as idyllic as it felt for a newcomer, but it was definitely a lot more lighthearted overall than it is now.

It certainly felt a lot less cynical back then.

@Princess♠Molestia  
Oh yeah I agree with that, Jee so much drama lately you would forget the show even existed and think that bronys were just another Government party or something.

@Itsthinking  
Oh yes truly, you know it’s sad when you cant hardly look forward to the next season of your favorite show because you know some bunch of idiot’s are gonna complain about something fucking stupid like “OOOOHHH NOOO Mlp Fim is ruined, they gave fluttershy more screen time then Pinkie pie in this season” Or “Twilight is a princess now so I’m gonna talk shit about this show and degrade all the twilight princess lovers” or even after the shows done “this blog is offensive too me let’s torture this popular artist and tell him to die” AGHGHBBF! people now a days man I swear. :/
 
 
Well let’s just remember that well we do have season 4 coming out, so maybe this will just be only a few shitstarters this year :)………OH WHO AM I KIDDING!?

@Number1pegasus  
The downside of having a large following.

Not really. The only thing I can say I miss is the times I’d wake up extremely excited for a new episode. Now, it almost feels like the fandom drains out my energy, and I think “Jesus, are the bronies going to sexualize this one scene to hell and back? Oh no, a fleur-de-lis cutie mark on a purple horse’s flank, hordes of people are gonna say he’s a Saint’s Row reference (think that’s the game).” I know I shouldn’t care, but I somehow do.

I kind of miss making Shitty Youtube Videos of ponies. I just took a scene from an episode and mute it. then just put random metal music, the one where they scream incoherent words, over the audio for the scene.
 
I really do miss being excited for episodes and not hearig bit hin and complaining about the things that shouldn’t be a big problem in the first place.

No.

The novelty does feel like it’s worn off some. I find myself grinning like a mad man while watching something inhumanly sweet and sappy less than I did.
 
The fan content has only improved though.
 
Overall, I don’t find myself pining for days past. So no.

Yes, sometimes I miss the early days. I spent several weeks without practically nothing else but pony 24/7 (the timing was perfect, I had only days earlier finished all school work for that semester, so I didn’t have to be anywhere else). Everything was new and exciting and the little fandom was nice. It had already produced some excellent videos (the original Equestrial Girls, Ponies The Anthology, etc.) and fanfics (whose names escape me now), all in such a short time (around 7 months). Ponibooru was gold and Ponychan was a friendly place for all kinds of pony discussion, even serious discussion. Every time the crew included a little shout-out for us we cheered.
 
Now… things have changed. I see drama. Drama and fighting. Every name calling is “pandering”. “DERPYGATE! SOMBRA SUCKS! TWILICORN! EQUESTRIA GIRLS! HASDRONE! DOWN WITH <X>!” and so on.
 
Strangely, I’m not tired of the ponies despite the daily exposure to them for almost 2.5 years. I’m just tired of the drama, and I’m afraid we haven’t seen the worst yet.
 
I wish season 4 would start soon. I wish people would just watch the show and laugh. Like we used to.
 
Addendum: and yes, I am still pissed off that I procrastinated for so long and did not go check out that “new pony fad” back in February 2011. I missed out months of the early fandom because I was lazy.

The only part I miss is going onto Ponibooru to find out everything I could regarding the nuances of the fandom.

I’ve only been a follower of this FIM stuff for just barely less than a year, and an actual fan for only about 3 or 4 months. All that in-between time was adjusting to the initial awkwardness of colorful ponies, and before that I simply hated this fandom because it was simply not possible to avoid.
 
Now (even though I apparently jumped in at a time full of drama and whatnot?) is probably my best time in this fandom, because I’ve recently been able to enjoy so much of the artwork and watching the show with a friend.
 
In summary, no.

@JP  
I agree with you 100% I will never get tired of Pony’s as it’s one of my most enjoyable things too watch and draw, but the fandom it self is really starting to bug me I mean seriously all the “Drama” and such is really getting to the point of stupid to ungodly dumb, For a fact just yesterday I found out /MLP/ and others are bashing on Rina-Chan the fan voice actor for Twilight and I have no idea why?
 
All in All the fandom still has it’s good sides the art the actual people that are sane and the fan animations plus for me I have friends to talk too.
 
But the rest of it just seems to now be an excuse for people too yell at each other for the sake of starting shit and that’s not why me and a lot of other people are here for, we’re here for the show the fan support and the Pony’s not for the bullshit of “Oh look at all the pandering!” or “Fuck you bro I do what I want” or last but not least “Down with” and I’ll leave it there, shit like that’s dumb and I even wonder to myself why would you still watch the show if your just gonna find something else to start shit about?
 
 
All I can say is I hope Season 4 will finally shut people the fuck up, Or at least piss people off so bad they literally leave.
 

 
 
@Guy98  
I can also agree with that, It’s nice to see some people still able to enjoy them self’s like you, let’s me know we can still have fun despite the stupidity of other’s not saying I don’t have fun hanging around here all day I mean dude I love some of the people here so fucking hilarious!

@Number1pegasus  

Of course! Any given fandom and/or folks outside of it if it’s big enough will have its “ducks”; you just gotta do what I do and look past / don’t get caught up in those people and their antics. I think it best to avoid letting their anti-fun campaigns (Down with Molestia, DA stamps, etc) or other forms of ridiculousness eat up one’s own ability to enjoy things. Sure, there may be crap going on within the fandom here and there, but why not instead train your focus on the good happy stuff? There’s still plenty of that out there. At least this is the way that I like to look at it.
 
Sorry if I got off the topic there, but I felt my response was relative enough to yours to make a post. I hope this was alright.

@Guy98  
Of course! anything to make people feel better. :) also I agree it’s really optional if you want to be apart of drama and so really we should just stay away from those thing’s, it will save you from being frustrated.

Eh, not really it’s been a tradeoff really. We have more shitstorms, but people are less at each other’s throats for fringe stuff. Like not to make this thread nsfw, but back in the early days of the fandom there was a lot of push to try and keep the fandom pure of clop, fanfics(as in how fanon says lyra is obsessed with humans or other stuff not canon) and other stuff not canon to the show.
 
In the end it’s really a neutral trade off. We have more cool content being pumped out, but we have to deal with loonies more.

I’m not even a fan anyone, But I do like the interaction I’ve been having with the fanbase now

I miss the feeling of discovering the show and the fan content for sure.
 
I remember it all very clearly. First being vaguely annoyed by the pony stuff popping up everywhere, then seeing lots of people raving about how great the show is, the feeling of watching the first episode, then the second, then the third, and then every last goddamn one of them because holy shit i actually like this cartoon about colourful ponies what the fuck is going on

Do i miss them? Definitely.
 
My outlook on the fandom changed considerably during the first half of 2011, and discovering all those old meme pics and crazy videos is something I’ll miss, as well as having to wait 9 hours for season 1 episodes to be uploaded on YT. Meeting other fans (many of which I haven’t lost contact with at all since) and heatedly discussing all the old grim-dark and shipfics we read would probably be the thing I miss most. I haven’t done anything like that in months.
 
I’ve also wondered how things would have developed if I decided to watch it at the end of 2010, instead of spending 3 months wondering why there were so many equine reaction images cropping up, or waiting for it to spread to my home forum before burning through the first 20 episodes.

I dont look to the past, distracts from the now.  
|| actually it’s more out of a bizarre fixation on my immediate surroundings than anything||