So, if you were to ask me,
one of the most notable and interesting aspects
regarding the fandom for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
it's all of the various memes or inside jokes that have popped up throughout the years.
From ancient demotivational poster images made in 2011
all the way up to... ...whatever modern-day memes are,
the My Little Pony fandom has always loved to make jokes regarding not only the show,
but also stuff that's been going on in the fandom in and of itself.
Who could ever forget such classics like Rainbow Dash saying "20% cooler",
basically the entire character of Derpy Hooves
or, if you want a more recent example,
how about this photo of a mop that got popular last year
because some people noticed it had a striking resemblance to Fluttershy?
If you were to ask me, however,
one of the most fascinating memes to ever come out of the MLP fandom
is one that originated from a certain fan-made abridged series
that you may or may not have heard of:
My Little Pony: Friendship is Witchcraft.
There's a lot of stuff that I could say about it,
but all you need to know is that due to the series' popularity withing the general MLP community
there were actually several different pony memes that got popular in the fandom solely because of it.
And the one that I'm gonna be taking a look at today is called Sweetie Bot.
This meme is easily one of the most intriguing phenomena
to ever come out of the MLP fandom,
primarily because of all the content regarding it that has been made by MLP fans...
...very devoted to the joke.
So today I'm going to be taking a quick retroactive look back
at the history of Sweetie Bot,
the MLP fandom's most interesting meme.
So,
before I actually talk more about Sweetie Bot herself,
I should probably give more context as to where she actually originated from in the first place.
For those that may not know,
My Little Pony: Friendship is Witchcraft was a comedic, fan-made abridged series
which started in June 2011
that parodied the actual original show by taking clips from specific episodes
and doing stuff like changing the dialogue spoken by the characters
or by also altering the narratives,
which often resulted in downright bizarre or absurd storylines
that were...
...very different from their source material to say the least.
The series in and of itself was created by a duo named Sherclop Pones
which was comprised of a guy named Griffin Lewis,
who primarily wrote the dialogue and also composed all of the original songs for the series,
and Jenny Nicholson
(yeah, the same Jenny Nicholson who has a big YouTube channel nowadays)
who did the majority of the voice acting/singing in the series
and also helped write it.
Now, truthfully, there are a few aspects of the series
that haven't exactly aged the best...
But nevertheless, from its beginning in 2011 to its eventual official end later in January 2016,
MLP:FiW was insanely popular among the MLP/Brony fandom.
There are a variety of reasons that I could list here
to explain why it was so widespread back then,
but, honestly, most of them basically just boil down to the series,
for a significant number of people back then at least,
being an all-around legitimately funny and entertaining parody of MLP:FiM.
However,
one of the most notable parts of Friendship is Witchcraft
were all of the miscellaneous inside jokes or memes
that popped up within in the MLP fandom because of it,
which then now brings me to the main topic of this video:
Sweetie Bot.
Now, if you haven't actually watched Friendship is Witchcraft itself,
without spoiling too much stuff,
the context here is basically that, within the series,
the pony named Sweetie Belle is actually a robot,
hence the name "Sweetie Bot".
The main joke here is pretty much that, despite very clearly not being an actual pony,
like, she even has a robotic voice which was done by Griffin Lewis
through a voice changer,
[Sweetie Bot]: The fun levels will be at maximum efficiency!
I shall acquire my yo-yo, hammer, and other objects of fuuun!
literally no other character seems to care or are aware that she's a robot at all.
She first appears in the fourth episode of the series
"Cute from the Hip"
and makes a variety of appearances until the last main episode
"Seed No Evil".
There are a fair amount of memorable jokes or scenes from FiW containing Sweetie Bot
that I could tell you about,
but my personal favourite would probably be this sequence in the fifth episode
where an entire original song featuring her appropriately named "Sweetie's Big Race"
is played.
And, honestly,
considering that the voice singing the lyrics here quite literally sounds like a robot,
it surprisingly sounds pretty decent and is fun to listen to, if you ask me.
With that said, after Sweetie Bot first appeared in Friendship is Witchcraft,
she quickly became one of the most popular gags to ever come out of the series
with her starting to become somewhat of a phenomenon within the MLP fandom:
people where making stuff like memes or image macros about her
and she even eventually appeared on some MLP merch made by WeLoveFine.
In the process of all this though,
some fans of FiW also of course began making other stuff
like fan art, animations, and even stuff like original fan music
all of which were about Sweetie Bot.
And the most interesting thing regarding all of this
people weren't just making fan content about Sweetie Bot in 2012 or 2013,
sure, that time period was when the meme was at its general peak of popularity,
but ever since then there's always been a somewhat slow but steady influx
of new stuff featuring her being made.
Even after literal years Friendship is Witchcraft itself concluded
and even still up to the present day of 2023.
Now, there is a bunch of cool, fan-made content regarding Sweetie Bot
that I could probably mention here,
however I'll just quickly highlight the ones
that I believe to be the most notable or simply entertaining.
There are a number of short animations about Sweetie Bot out there,
but the most popular ones include these two videos
which are basically scenes from FiW, just reanimated.
Aside from those, though,
there's also other stuff like this animation by a channel called BronyVids,
of her informing us of an incoming...
...
...Uuh...
...tactical nuke...
...and also this other animation made in Source FilmMaker
by a channel called Optimus97 featuring Sweetie Bot's eyes.
In terms of something like music, however,
there's actually a surprising amount of original My Little Pony fan songs
all about Sweetie Bot.
The genres of these songs do vary a fair bit,
some of them lean into more of that early 2010s dubstep or EDM sound,
while others go for a more general chill/laid-back feel.
However, my all-time favorite pieces of music relating to Sweetie Bot
is definitely the Destabilizedquadrilogy,
which was made by an MLP fan musician named PrinceWhatever.
The Destabilize series of songs is split up into four separate parts,
with the first one having been released all the way back in November 2013
and the fourth and latest part being released just earlier this year in April of 2023.
I won't spoil too much about them,
but I will say that I think all four installments in this series are very good
and you'll probably like them too, especially if you're a metalhead,
or just into rock music in general.
With that said,
all these different fan works about Sweetie Bot
are definitely very cool and impressive in their on ways,
however,
there is one more type of fan content regarding Sweetie Bot
that I haven't mentioned yet, so...
...well, here it is.
And if you're wondering,
no, your eyes are currently *not* deceiving you,
you are looking at an actual, real-life physical Sweetie Bot robot.
So, yeah.
A select few people within the MLP fandom are so dedicated to the meme
that they are willing to try to engineer an actual pony robot based around Sweetie Bot.
So, for some extra context,
back in 2014 a small team of Russian bronies, who just so happened to be also engineers,
decided to start the appropriately named Sweetie Bot project
with the ultimate goal of creating a fully functioning pony robot of Sweetie Bot.
So, later in March 2016, they started to release some videos
giving occasional updates on the progress
and things seemed to be going pretty well.
By 2017, the team behind it even started showing off some prototypes of the robot
at various My Little Pony conventions.
I won't lie,
there's definitely technical stuff here that I don't fully understand,
I'm not an engineer specialized in robotics, whatever,
but a lot of what they were showing off nevertheless looked very impressive.
As 2019 came around, though,
it seems as though progress updates regarding the Sweetie Bot project
did start to slowly become a bit more infrequent.
The last video they ever uploaded to their YouTube channel
was in September of 2019,
this clip of a cat being slightly concerned over the robot's presence.
However, despite the team being less active online,
it seems like they've never truly stopped,
because, despite a while of silence,
they resumed giving some updates earlier in May of 2023.
So, it looks like the project is still doing fine nowadays.
And also, believe it or not,
but there was actually a second real-life Sweetie Bot project
which was also first revealed earlier this year.
And, as you can see, it is quite different from the other project started in 2014
both in terms of its actual functionality and visual appearance,
but it nonetheless looks pretty impressive.
It'll definitely be interesting to see what happens
with both of these projects in the future,
and so, I wish them luck,
because what they're doing is certainly not easy to say the least.
So, with all that now said,
you might be wondering what should be the main takeaway
from all of this stuff about Sweetie Bot.
Uhm...
Truthfully, I don't know.
Don't mess with MLP fans, we are clinically insane,
and we'll build
irl
functioning
pony robots, I guess.
Jokes aside though,
I think the actual takeaway from all of this
should be that everything made regarding Sweetie Bot
throughout the years since 2012
is pretty fascinating to look back on,
both for the sake of nostalgia and also for what it means nowadays.
Considering that there was new content regarding this over decade-old meme
still being occasionally made and shown off,
I would say it is a very good example of a fandom in general
being passionate about something and continuing to be so for quite a long time.
So, because of that,
I believe Sweetie Bot is a relatively small but nevertheless very interesting part
of My Little Pony history.
I could say a lot of things about it,
but I think the most important aspect is that it really goes to show the dedication and love
that MLP fans have not only to something like Friendship is Witchcraft,
but also of course to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic as a whole,
and, honestly, I think that's great.
Especially even more so now that it's been several years
since the actual show itself has ended.
So, with everything about that now being said,
that has been this retroactive look back at Sweetie Bot.
Thanks for watching.
Anyways however,
if you have any cool memories or general thoughts regarding the Sweetie Bot meme
then you go ahead and put them down in the comments below,
I would definitely love to hear what you guys have to say.
Anyway, this video was a bit shorter than what I usually make
but that's mainly because I've been working on some other stuff as of late
so, yeah.
With that said, this is pretty much the end of the video now.
So, if you liked it then consider doing all of the normal stuff
leaving a like and/or sharing it with your friends are some of the best ways to support me
so it is of course always very appreciated.
Well, I don't think I have anything else notable enough to say here now,
so...
...I will see you...
...whenever I see you.
[Subtitles by Mister Pino]