Bizarro Post Mental Health Bureau- Today on the Internet, a grown man typed dozens of paragraphs defending adult viewers of the children's cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
On the AV Club review of a recent movie adaptation of the show, user "Noelle" breathlessly defended his unreasonable feelings towards a cartoon intended for the Female 5-10 demographic. When someone rightfully pointed out that being a fan of the program as an adult male strongly suggested the presence of an untreated mental illness, Noelle never failed to arrive and pontificate. Our resident psychological pathologist, Dr. Fredrick Lloyd, weighs in on this fascinating specimen.
Noelle: And most American males wants to fuck equally fictional, arguably non-human, possibly factory-farmed Maxim models. Hey. At least pony fetishists care about the characters they're fantasizing about.
Dr, Lloyd: What we have here is a classic example of false equivocation, used to rationalize a belief that the individual knows to be irrational. At the same time, Noelle seeks to portray attraction to touched-up magazine models as abnormal because they artificially accentuate desirable physical traits. An ethical argument could certainly be made against this practice, but reactions to an attractive person in an ad are in no way equivalent to attraction to a children's cartoon character.
Also troubling is the notion that fictional cartoon horses are a surrogate for positive human interaction. The implications for this person's health are not good.
Noelle: You brought sex into it, not me -- inserting the "creepily" was so cleverly strawmannish of you! -- and I assure you, sir, my knickers are perfectly orthogonal. You're the one who complained about somebody else's tastes in media--you even brought in an inflammatory non-sequitur to do it. I believe that meets the diagnostic standard for Knicker Torsion Syndrome, my friend!
Dr. Lloyd: Here the subject attempts to establish dominance in the conversation by using stilted language. Noelle may very well know what all of these words mean without consulting a thesaurus, but this deliberate attempt to prove his intelligence suggests that he is aware people do not use these words in casual conversation.
He also makes a reference to the "strawman" logical fallacy. This is ironic, since he is attempting to establish himself as an authority by using large words. Argument by authority is another common logical fallacy.
Noelle: Just spend a few minutes looking at the interplay between Lauren Faust and the MLP fandom on Twitter -- the creators of the show, like most animators these days, are quite aware they have a crossover adult/child fandom and explicitly write the show to appeal to both.
Dr. Lloyd: Noelle deliberately confuses marketing strategy with the original intent of the show, which was to draw the attention of children. Consider Sharknado. Originally, it was supposed to be a legitimate horror movie; albeit a low budget one. After it became famous for its outrageous premise, the marketing strategy was retooled to target fans of goofy horror movie violence. And it wasn't because SyFy suddenly fell head-over-heels for hipsters. It was because they saw an opportunity to take a product that began with relatively low earning potential and turn it into a golden goose.
Noelle: Oh, god, unicorns at 22!? Doesn't she know she should already be out drinking herself to oblivion, watching Desperate Housewives, and getting into loveless sexual relationships at that age?! It sounds like she doesn't even understand what maturity really means: status-based, age-appropriate expressions of consumerism. *grin*
Dr. Lloyd: Noelle attempts to endear himself to the social community that has begun to grow weary of his constant defense of his man-child lifestyle. On top of that, he sneers at activities that neurotypical individuals often experience in their early 20's. His bitterness at having been denied the same opportunities has been converted into pride over being "different" and going against the grain. While being unique can easily be a positive quality, Noell's personality traits will likely lead to isolation and the continued decay of his emotional well-being.
Immediately after the above message, someone replied calling Noelle "crazy" for his unhinged defense of My Little Pony. Noelle responds with no less than three paragraphs.
Noelle: I figure if you were really that much less crazy than I am, you wouldn't be here giving people crap about Being Wrong On The Internet... or worse, Liking Ponies On The Internet. (shudder) I figure all the hypothetical sane people are out there at... I dunno, Mostly Mozart concerts or finance seminars or whatever it is these very serious adult people do with their time. It has nothing to do with me or, clearly, with you!
Sorry, but I've never really met an Internet troll who, upon closer examination of how they live their lives, made me feel really bad about myself. Ever. They don't exactly tend to be suave international playboys, themselves. And FWIW... your comment history seems to consist entirely of snarky one-liners and references to beer. If you're making a major contribution to society, it sure ain't on the AVClub. Have a nice day and thank you for playing. I think you and I can agree on one thing: we live in a really fucked-up society. We just differ on which one of us is the problem. ^__^
Incidentally, if at any point any of you want to stop dicking around and actually have a mature conversation about the moral taboos around adults watching "girly" cartoons, I'm still game. It's what I came here for, not to wade through pages of 4chan-quality hindbrain snark, watching arrested 13-year-olds make fun of what they think are arrested 5-year-olds. I think it's hilarious that you're clearly not interested in any such thing as a mature discussion, but I'm supposed to be the crazy, juvenile one here. You're so damn cute!
Dr. Lloyd: Feigning disinterest in arguments is the last refuge of a man who has completely failed to defend his position. In this case, it may never have been defensible at all. Noelle also directly contradicts himself by replying to a single sentence insulting him with a three-part rebuttal.
Noelle also accidentally reveals a number of important clues that we can use to understand his perspective of the world and society. All of this discussion took place on Labor Day, yet it appears as though Noelle has no idea what it is normal human adults do with their day off. He suggests that in order to be an adult he would have to listen to classical music, or attend personal finance classes. User D_Boons_Ghost says that he actually plans to attend a barbecue with friends. This apparently mystifies Noelle, as he moves on to another thread.
Once again, Noelle dismisses the notion that this conversation is making him angry and proceeds to contradict himself by going through his adversary's entire post history looking for leverage. Unfortunately, all he can find are one-liners and talking about beer, which is entirely normal for the AV Club. Something is motivating this man to waste his time, and I doubt that it's happiness. Noelle, knowing in some distant, subconscious way that he looks like a fool, endears himself to D_Boons_Ghost by pointing out an (assumed) point of agreement. His suggestion that liking or not liking a children's cartoon is the basis of all societal ills demonstrates distorted reasoning and a dependence on persecution as a substitute for being an interesting person.
My conclusion is that Noelle is an incubator for a seething resentment for all neurotypical individuals, and should not be permitted to own a firearm under any circumstances.
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