I Wish I Could Talk to Ponies

About

I Wish I Could Talk to Ponies is an exploitable 4-panel webcomic featuring a young girl who wishes that she could speak to a pony, but upon its fulfillment, the talking animal blurts out a blunt or insensitive statement that leaves her disappointed and upset.

Origin

On February 21st, 2014, illustrator Jim Benton^[7] posted an original comic on Reddit in which a young girl is granted the power to speak with ponies by a magical fairy. In the final panel, a pony is shown tormenting the girl by asking her “why are you so ugly all the time” (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gained over 2,000 votes (95% upvoted) on the /r/funny^[1] subreddit.

On November 8th, Redditor CloudCollapse posted an Imgur gallery featuring an exploitable template of the comic (shown below) along with several customized examples, purportedly collected from the /b/ (random) board on 4chan. In two months, the post accumulated upwards of 1,600 votes (90% upvoted) and 40 comments on the /4/chan^[4] subreddit.

Spread

The same day, Redditor Sir-SmokesALot submitted a version of the webcomic titled “Things a pony would say,” in which the horse informs the girl that “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” in reference to an argument made by conspiracy theorists who claim that the September 11th, 2001 attacks were orchestrated by the United States government (shown below, left).^[2] On November 16th, Redditor Corruptacy posted a version in which the pony says “Hitler did bring up some pretty valid points” (shown below, right).^[3] In two months, the posts gathered more than 4,400 votes (92% upvoted) and 1,200 votes (82% upvoted) on /r/funny respectively.

On July 27th, Redditor Nodebunny posted another version in an /r/funny^[6] post titled “Be Careful What You Wish For” (shown below, left). On December 13th, IGN Forums^[5] member SkywardNord submitted a comic in which the pony says the Islamic Arabic expression “Allahu Akbar” (shown below, right).