Ever seen My Little Pony? Just a fun, cute cartoon for kids. However, if you paid attention to the news in the mid-2000s to the early 2010s, you’re probably aware of a group of people who call themselves Bronies. Bronies are adult members of the My Little Pony fandom, and they’ve gotten a bad rap for creating gory or sexual works of the kids cartoon. Growing up on YouTube, a lot of us My Little Pony fans saw some works of the Bronies. One specifically that all of us remember is a video called Smile HD. This video features Pinkie Pie singing a song while she brutally murders all of her friends, Happy Tree Friends-style.
However, recently, teens and young adults on TikTok have been creating their own My Little Pony gore. This second wave of gore was most likely inspired by our memories of what we used to watch on YouTube. These current TikTok videos have been categorized as “My Little Pony Infection AUs”. These videos seem to be spreading farther than the normal My Little Pony fandom. Trends tend to last only a few days on TikTok, but this one has been going strong for over a month.
The first known video that most likely started this trend was about Starlight Glimmer getting infected with something called Pestraobia, a flesh and mind eating disease started by nuclear waste. This leads to her body becoming shriveled and eventually losing the skin on her body. Many of these infections lead to ponies being left with terrifying, impossible deformities. Unlike most of the other series, this one starts well after the infection has started and shows the ponies living in a world where it is normal and they are doing their best to fight against it. Princess Celestia, the ruler of Equestria, is so far along in being infected that she is mostly a skeleton, with her sister, Luna, having to take care of her. One of the infected ponies had their head chopped off, but the body was still able to move and sustain itself, showing how strong the parasite is.
Another one is called the “Smile Virus”, forcing infected ponies to smile. This series made the trend start to gain traction. Twilight Sparkle was the first infected in this series. Pinkie Pie, at the beginning, is said to have gone missing. However, many videos later, she comes back and finds Nurse Redheart. Pinkie explains that she is immune, and sacrifices her life so the nurse can find a cure.
Probably the most popular infection AU is called My Little Worms. This series of videos is practically a whole show at this point with how many videos it has. However, the original is in Russian and has not yet been completely translated.
What I, and many people, believe to be the best of these AUs is by @etc.etcetera on TikTok. The art for all of the infection AUs are terrifying and amazing, but I think this one has the best art. This series has its main focus on the royal ponies. This is one of the few infections where the final stage turns the ponies into spores or plants. Stage 5 of this infection causes the ponies to be slow or immobile, and they start growing roots that dig into the ground. Stage 6, the final stage, is when they are almost trees but can infect others who come in contact with them. The infection for this series is based on Divine Swamp Fever, a fictional disease that is briefly mentioned in My Little Pony a few times.
Oftentimes, these AUs feature Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie as being the first ponies getting infected. As a My Little Pony fan, I don’t think Pinkie would be infected first because she has something called ‘Pinkie Senses’, which warn her of oncoming danger, even if it’s on the other side of Ponyville. However, Twilight often overexerts herself, which would make her weak and easy to succumb to a virus. Multiple video series have decided to make the virus come through a portal from the My Little Pony’s alternate human universe, My Little Pony: Equestria Girls.
As a My Little Pony fan, I was very happy to see something related to it become so popular. The fandom has not been this active in a long time, and it’s great to see the amount of insane creativity that has come out of this trend.
