Seriously? People are bitching about the latest episode?
 
Is that going to be the thing now, were every new episode gets over analyzed and complained about? Jesusfuck just enjoy it!

All I have to say about the matter is, I have faith in the creators of the show, they have always delivered, and even if they committed a little mistake with Derpy(which personally I don’t think so), I’m sure they would try their best to prevent anything of the sort from happening again.

I wouldn’t call it pandering. I’d say they’re just invested in the fanbase.

@CannonFodder  
I think the claim comes more from the fact that, anytime someone posts human ponies that aren’t white, the pic will always get comments like “Why is Twilight a nigger?” and other ignorant shit like that, and I’d wager that not all of the racists are simple trolls.

I like eating cookies, but sometimes I might want to eat a sandwich, or a potato, or you know, something new.

I say wait until the season is over. This pandering bitching just started over this episode (the 5th). We have 7 eps to go to see how much “pandering” they do.

Here’s the really funny thing about this: people thought the production team have been pandering to the fandom since Season 1, which is ridiculous. All those episodes were written well before the first episode even aired.
 
Season 2 was written before most of the staff was even aware of a fandom.
 
Season 3 was written before the writers really knew of a fandom.
 
I think there’s also a big difference between “subtle nods to a fandom”, like inclusion of a favorite background pony doing something in the background. It’s still entertaining to anyone watching the episode, but it’s a little something extra for the fans. It doesn’t take away from the experience.
 
And honestly, it’s going to become impossible to come up with something we haven’t heard of before, because we’ve made fanfics for almost every possible situation. Our fandom is a bit more…passionate about our love of the show, I think. We’re a highly creative bunch.
 
Something that Jayson Thiessen said awhile back on a Reddit AMA:  
“we take the show into account. it needs to work for the show. we didnt have bronies in mind for season one.. but bronies happened. is like evolution… bronies will adapt to fit the environment.”
 
It seems the show will change of its own accord, and we fans will have to adjust. Not the other way around.

I generally agree with the comments here: fan nods are fun, too much pandering takes away from the show we began to love in the first place.
 
I’d add one thing. I think that if you focus too much on fanon in a show and not breaking it, then characters stay as well-developed as fans make them. Very few background or secondary characters have attributes that aren’t something that the show hasn’t hinted at in the first place. I feel like that makes the universe limited.
 
Characters would only develop as long as it didn’t break fanon. I think that would make the show stale, even with the amazing characters.

I like the original ideas that the creators of the show come up with on their own.
 
Pandering to me seems to be a waste of opportunities for them to do their own thing.

And I learned something new today!
 
People will always, ALWAYS find a problem in something.
 
Though, the pandering thing seems to be less a problem, and more something that people like to politely discuss about. No rage or anything.
 
 
Personally I think that, if they do their job well, they can pander as much as they want. It only has to make sense and be enjoyable.  
It’s not like the makers of the show can isolate themselves perfectly from the fandom.  
And sooner or later they run out of ideas as well! D:>
 
 
I think this season has quite a lot of pandering. But I have that eerie feel, that the next season will have a completely new setting, where pandering will not be used very much.

i pander to my fans but just like mlp i choose the right things.  
i think they’re doing a good job.  
it more than just shameful plugging.  
its a casual nod to the fans  
theres a diff between shameless promotion and well thought out casual eference to fan works.  
i’d say this was intended as a good will thank you to their fans rather than a sorry attempt to maintain their fame.  
i personally approve of it.

@ALIS
 
The problem with new episodes nowadays is: Can we make an original episode without having it look like it was taken from a fanfiction? Given the amount of fanficts written up to this day and the size of the fandom i find this quite difficult to accomplish.

The recent yells of pandering have to do with the Trixie episode that was practically pulled from a fanfiction.
 
Straight truth about pandering.
 
Pros  

If it’s fan pandering, they’re at least doing a good job of it. Visual gags with background characters (like Derpy, or Lyra in the last episode) don’t take anything away from the story, and usually I think they make a scene better even if you don’t know about fanon. And Trixie probably wouldn’t have come back if she wasn’t so popular with fans, but… she had good potential and I like what they did with her.

Haters are just butthurt ‘cause it’s not aimed at them.

Oh and I also meant to say that too much pandering can be annoying but I’d say the show has done pretty well with sprinkling few blatant references among several that may or may not have been intentional.

Sad…

Basically:  
People criticize and want stuff all the time. They may complain about derpy, the show itself, the dialogues, the animation, whatever you want. Now, if the artists did pay that much attention to them then there wouldn’t be any tv show.

Three quick and easy reasons:  
1> It gives fans the feeling of power over things, and makes them shout louder, longer, and harder for things that for one reason or another may be impossible in the context of the show. And then rage about it when they can’t have it.
 
2> It plays with legal constraints. If they take too much input, the chance is that much greater that some one dirtbag will call copyright infringement or idea theft. That could go every badly any number of ways.
 
3> Fans often think they want something that has nothing to do with what they actually want. Changing the show for the sake of pandering could unintentionally destroy the actual underlying reasons such a large, varied body of people watch the show. And if you lose the people you were pandering to in the first place, what good has been done?
 
Extra: The whole dangling-a-carrot-on-a-stick fuel thing disappears when when you feed the carrot away.

Having too much water and you’ll drown.

You can have too much of a good thing…
 
Take for instance, a box of chocolates.  
A taste is nice, but eat the lot and you’ll be sick.

Haters are desperate people.

Im not white or black.  
Heck, Im not even American.  
Im British actually.

@HJSDGCE  
Short version: Non-bronies claim that having zecora in the show makes us racist.  
I had someone claiming that I was racist on the sole premise I’m a brony even though I’m only half white.

>Someone says something racist  
>Therefore he is a racist person  
>Is he part of a fandom? {yes}/no  
>Many people in the fandom say racist stuff? {yes}/no  
>Therefore the FANDOM is RACIST.