2014 Herd Census open

[schnee]

The 2014 Herd Census is open!

A new year is upon us, which means it’s time for all good bronies to stand up and be counted. The 2014 Brony Herd Census is now underway, and this year it’s for SCIENCE! The Herd Census has teamed up with Salem State University, so the results of this year’s census will be available to researchers for peer-reviewed

Comments

[schnee]

Yeah, those questions regarding gender roles and stereotypes were almost a bit disheartening, insofar as that they apparently still have to be asked even today. OTOH, if you want to measure something, you have to ask about it, even or perhaps especially if you already expect the result to very strongly swing in one direction.

And I definitely agree regarding the personality trait question. I just answered it based on my gut feeling, but I'm not a fan of these ranking questions in general. "Most" and "least" neither imply nor are implied by "a lot" and "a little": I still love my least favorite pony. Even when the ends do indeed correspond to the common intuition, the ranking does not have to possess any linearity (i.e., if I really love my most favorite X, and don't like my least favorite X all that much, this doesn't say anything about, say, my second-least-favorite X: I might love it, I might not, you just don't know). All this also makes it pretty much impossible to meaningfully compare different participants' rankings, I think.

goth geeky Luna

Heh, I'm actually surprised you're using those words to describe her. I'd have chosen neither - I know she's sometimes portrayed that way in the fandom, but it always seemed like a poor fit to me.

I think the geekiness in particular (Gamer Luna and all that) is more due to identification and subsequent generalization: "hey, Luna is finding it difficult to fit in - like me!" is soon followed by "I'm like Luna! Hence, Luna is like me! I'm a gamer/geek, so Luna's got to be a gamer/geek, too!" And other people who already identified with Luna and who're also gamers/geeks soak this up, and it spreads.

Personally, though, I don't think it's a good fit. Luna finding it difficult to check in, definitely. I could also see her being prone to mood swings, to enjoy wine and song and so on to a greater degree than Celestia, to be more forceful and impulsive, and so on; but geeky and goth, no, that never seemed like a good fit to me.

But that's just my reception of her, of course, and my headcanon. :)

And Sweetie Belle?? I mean, fill in the blank: 'I am like Sweetie Belle because we share ______ as a personality trait'.

Cuteness, cheerfulness, creativity, excitability.

[ungulata]

To try and pin Princess Luna down, I used how she was after getting transformed by the Elements of Harmony in episode two, how much trouble Nightmare Night gave her as she tried to adapt to modern Ponyville culture, and how dour she was when Celestia was sending Twilight off to help Cadence in the Chrystal Empire. Thus, I got 'goth' from her generally stern, dour and down attitude, and 'geeky' from her great skill with games but very poor social communication (Nightmare Night). I wasn't going for the "gamer-geek" Luna of fan-works, I was just reaching for a term for 'highly skilled but socially inept'. And moody. I thought it was noteworthy when Princess Luna actually smiled as Twilight and her friends approached in the beginning of Equestria Girls. So help me out here, how would you classify or describe Luna's personality? 8^)

Cuteness, cheerfulness, creativity, excitability.

That sounds pretty good... like a toned-down Pinkie. 8^)

[schnee]

generally stern, dour and down attitude [...] great skill with games but very poor social communication [...] 'highly skilled but socially inept'. And moody.

That pretty much matches how I see Luna, myself. As I said above, I also see her as prone to mood swings, willing to indulge and jumping heads over heels into new experiences, and going from aloof to elated to angry to glum and downcast (and back) in short amounts of time: the emotional yang to Celestia's level-headed yin, as shown in Luna Eclipsed. I also tend to extrapolate from that and from her association with the moon and the things it stands for: change, fertility (including plants, hence my thought that Luna would be quite happy to enjoy a good wine), the night, and so on.

That sounds pretty good... like a toned-down Pinkie. 8^)

It does, actually! And they both enjoy singing, too.

[ungulata]

So, d'après toi, Luna in three words or less would be? (You may have noticed, I like to organize and streamline...) 8^D

[schnee]

Complex, misunderstood, beautiful. (And I explicitely mean "beautiful" not just in the physical sense.)

Three words is awfully little to adequately describe any character, though.

[ungulata]

Too true!

[schnee]

What would yours be?

[ungulata]

Oh my. I hadn't put much weight into the mood swings, I thought of them mostly as a sign of insecurity and frustration. I can see your moon-linked mood thing, but that's too close to psychosis for me. Physical attributes (beauty, strength, size) did not occur to me as they aren't things I notice. So, let me try again...

Luna: Frustrated, alone, talented.

There, that should make it easier to compare one's character with that of Princess Luna! Of course, yours works as well. It's all interpretation of the pony ego stacked on the self analysis of one's own ego. A very shaky structure.

[schnee]

Luna: Frustrated, alone, talented.

Mmm, those are good, too.

Regarding moon-linked moods - I didn't mean that it's my headcanon that Luna's mood actually changes with the moon; just that she's moodier than Celestia, and that she's perhaps wearing her heart on her sleeve more as well (Celestia, one imagines, also has her mood swings, but hides them for the sake of her image as a benevolent, wise and kind ruler. Luna is perhaps not so inhibited.)

Pony ego stacked on the self-analysis of one's own - you mean when you're taking a survey and puzzling over which pony's most like yourself?

[ungulata]

Pony ego stacked on the self-analysis of one's own - you mean when you're taking a survey and puzzling over which pony's most like yourself?

Yes, exactly. ^_^

I didn't mean that it's my headcanon that Luna's mood actually changes with the moon

I didn't take it that way, I thought you meant as variable as the moon, as in a form of lunacy. I think the term I'm looking for is idiom, or established, cultural narrative. Namely, Luna's mood as a function of cognitive association with the moon mythos... I'm sure there's a simpler way to put that, but I can't seem to brain. X^p

[schnee]

Heh, lunacy.

I'm not entirely sure I'm following you there, anyway. If you mean that the moon is associated with change, and Luna with the moon, and hence the moon's change associated with Luna as well, manifesting as a volatile mood, then yes, that's about what I meant.

"As variable as the moon" about sums it up, although I don't think that the changes in her mood are necessarily as drastic as the moon's own change when it goes from full to new and back. She may be moody to me, but she's not bipolar.