(Image: Derp-Am t-shirt now on sale at the NeatoShop)
We bronies have been gradually building up our resources and mobilizing discreetly. We wanted to get a bit further along in the master plan before revealing our true intentions to the world. But American Public Radio has now exposed the economic dominance that My Little Pony fans have seized this Christmas season.
In short: we now control a large portion of retail markets and are in a position to shut those markets down. As Muad’Dib said in Dune, “The power to destroy a thing is absolute control over it.” And that’s what bronies can do. American Public Radio reports:
“Stores were accumulating a lot of goods to sell, but people weren’t buying them,” says Julia Coronado, chief North American economist at BNP Paribas.
You can see this at Big Fun Toy Store, a Cleveland shop specializing in collectibles. Owner Steve Presser says unexpectedly low third quarter numbers had him feeling as blue as the many Smurf toys lining his shelves.
“What we try to do, of course, is sell through our inventory,” Presser explains. “But if we buy too much in any given month, in this case it was September, I was a little concerned because we were hoping to have a strong summer going into the fall in the final quarter.”
Presser sells My Little Ponies too, but not enough bronies are buying them, an alarming development as his store enters its critical time.
“If I’m a retailer going into the holiday season, I’m very concerned right now,” says Hamilton College economics professor Ann Owen, who is talking about more than just tightwad Pony fans, of course. “Consumer confidence is low. The unemployment rate is still relatively high, and all of that impacts consumers’ decisions about making purchases.”
-via The Geek Twins