Last night, I wrote a message to Amy Keating Rogers, the writer of “The Last Roundup” who made a statement last night about the changes to the episode uploaded to iTunes.
I wrote to her to thank her for the statement, and for considering the perspective of those who had found issue with the character. Like her, I am caring for a mentally disabled family member, and I told her my personal experience with how ableism has affected their life, and how they were bothered by the portrayal. I also told her how I was introduced to the issue via my mentally disabled friends, whose posts I reblogged on the subject.)
I also linked her to just a sampling of the harassment and death threats I have recieved from people who seem to think I’m personally responsible for the changes. I think she should know what sort of fans she was pressured into pandering to.
Let me repeat this one last time: I never started any petitions, or sent letters to writers, artists, or heads of Hasbro or iTunes. I merely made a handful of posts on my personal blog. Both Amy Keating Rogers and the MLP animator Kreoss can attest to this.
Here was Ms. Keating’s response to me:
"Hi Elena,
I totally understand your perspective. I think my daughter is going to be a lot like you—speaking up for the disabled—when she grows up. At 11, she calls out her classmates when they say “retarded.”
I’m sorry that you were given grief for expressing your opinion. That’s really lousy. But hopefully, for both our sakes, this will all die down soon!
Best,
Amy”
screencap of the email
You shouldn’t apologize on behalf of other people, but the sentiment is appreciated.
What it boils down to is that most of the people attacking me were basing all their hate on hearsay (based on their responses, most of them obviously have no idea who I am, or even what I’ve said, or how many months it’s been since I ever mentioned the subject. They’re just jumping on a witch hunt bandwagon.)
Another common accusation is that I have been ignoring what the disabled community has to say, when actually I was just reblogging what disabled users who I follow (including friends of mine) had been posting, and agreeing with them. If anyone is ignoring the voices of the disabled community, it’s the people who try to harass them into silence and drown them out- exactly what the so called loving and tolerant “bronies” trying to do to me.
What’s strange is that they try to make me out to be a hypocrite for doing exactly what I’ve always done- been supportive of my family and friends. But at this point, they just want excuses to hate me. If I suddenly started agreeing with them, they’d call me a hypocrite. If I kept doing what I’ve always done, I’m a hypocrite. If I suddenly shut up and never speak on it again, they’ll call me a hypocrite. I couldn’t care less what they think, there’s no pleasing them.
What they don’t realize is that throughout this ordeal, their attempts to defame me backfired. I actually have gained a lot of new followers and supporters (many of whom are disabled people who were ALSO speaking up about this) and have been thanked for not backing down. I feel unworthy, since I haven’t really been the most vocal person on the subject- just the most high-profile. But I don’t have any regrets or plans to be harassed into silence any time soon. If anything, this experience has proven how important freedom of speech is.
(cont’d) Also it took a while but just thinking over some opinions you’ve posted a lot over I dunno, months, actually gradually changed my viewpoint. And I also think that as a person you seem like you are overall very cool and interesting! I think you both look and sound cool and I enjoy your art and shenanigans. So definitely thank you for sharing your opinions on various things and doing so in a way that is respectful and challenges me to think over my own opinions.
Thank you very much, Anon. I’m really glad there are folks like you who can be civil and openminded about multiple perspectives. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, but if I can at least challenge people’s perspectives and get them to consider things they never would have, that in itself is a positive thing. I wish there were more folks like you. =)
privileged people win again, proving that death and rape threats are totally a-ok to get what you want. and of course having a petition totally undercuts any real arguments that lots of disabled people have put forward, because we’re just “too sensitive” and we’re just “a few trolls” and this is all one big popularity contest— because running a popularity contest is of course going to turn out well for a minority group, right?
Hasbro started removing Derpy-related things, but now they are back after a loud majority group who doesn’t give a shit proved that ableism is economically viable. Yup! Making fun of disabled people— it pays in gold bars.
at this point i’m pretty sick of MLP and anything associated with it. it’s disappointing seeing all of these fans of a show about love and acceptance basically turn around completely ignore the feelings of a ton of people.
i don’t know if i’m done with MLP forever, but right now I don’t want to hear about it. at all.
A perfect summary of how I feel about this whole situation.
From One Survivor to Another: There is this child part of me that is really hurting right now.
MLP was a part of my healing. It was about going back to this child that never got to express themselves and letting her escape. It was about surviving how I wanted to. I wouldn’t have stuck with this mess for so long if it didn’t mean something to me.
Survivors don’t have a lot to begin with….
[Trigger Warning: Ableism, bullying, apologists, unsafe spaces]
Reblogging as a reminder to myself and others. MLP has been a big part of my healing as well. I was more than skeptical about MLP:FIM to begin with, with good reason. I ended up caving when a fellow survivor told me how healing and wonderful the show was for her. I was watching the first season a week later. Although some episodes rubbed me the wrong way, overall I could see how important it was for survivors and how it gave them safety.
I was waiting for season two to finish before watching it so I could have a special MLP day or something when I heard about the Ditzy Doo drama (see how much this pisses me off? I refuse to even call her the other name).
I know people haven’t listened and I doubt they will change their mind but I’m just going to say this in one last hope that somebody will get it. Being a safe space for survivors is NOT about you or what you think is survivors or people affected by the issue being too sensitive. Taking one survivor’s opinion over another’s just because it reinforces what you want to believe is wrong and selfish. If you’re another survivor insulting someone who takes offense to this, shame on you, you should fucking know better. As for the MLP:FIM community as a whole, congratulations on quickly giving yourself the reputation of some of the most dreaded fandoms on the internet. I hope you’re happy for being hypocrites and not getting the original intent of the show you worship blindly.
And if you still think this isn’t a fucking big deal? Fuck you. I finally watched that clip that caused this whole thing (which I’d been avoiding out of dread) and I immediately had flashbacks of people insulting and bullying my BABY BROTHER for his learning disabilities or them berating him on being useless when he was only trying to help. Because of that, he refused to talk to anyone or do anything for years. I watched that damn clip with tears streaming down my face, hating rainbow dash and the other ponies. That clip pretty much ruined MLP:FIM for me. And anyone who wants to tell me I’m wrong, overreacting, or too sensitive? FUCK YOU.
I had to get that out before I exploded…thank you for this.
Worth a read.
- “It’s ableist to say that people with different faces are disabled” — Um, no, no one ever said this was about ALL people with disabilities, or that people with different faces are somehow automatically disabled. What’s ableist is not acknowledging that some people with “derp faces” do exist.
- “We should all just stop back off and stop fighting, give peace a chance, blah blah” — The majority of what I’ve seen has been people spouting off ableist shit. I’ve seen people who criticized Derpy threatened with rape and death, harassed multiple times, etc, but I have yet to see a person who thinks “derp” is okay call out their fellow Bronies on said behavior. I’ve gotten some shit myself but I haven’t posted it. So no. When someone is being a racist dick, and they refuse to acknowledge it, you don’t say, “hey let’s be friends!” This is not about moral relativism. It’s either ableist or it’s not.
- “It’s just a cartoon! You’re taking this too seriously!” — Cartoon characters can send political and social messages to people as much as real people. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but MLP has a lesson about friendship in every episode. If it can do this, why couldn’t it also be ableist? And also, this is really funny given how some people have responded with threats, harassment, etc. I guess it’s only serious if the word is some pretty little meme that matters to you, right?
- “The creators of the show didn’t mean for it to be ableist!” — Intent is not magic. The end. If a little kid says X expletive about People of Color, they are still being racist even if they didn’t mean to. It is very possible to say or do offensive things without meaning to.
- “People will always find something to be offended by, blah blah” or “it’s just the internet, it won’t change!” — No. Actually, people get offended when they encounter something that demeans their existence or their identity. It is incredibly possible to be funny without hurting people through ableism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Go look up Mitch Hedberg, he’s a standup comedian who is incredibly funny without being offensive. This kind of response reeks of self-interested, self-convenient fatalism. Maybe if you actually took on some responsibility and acknowledged what’s going on, you could change something.
- “Derp just means ‘awkward’ or ‘silly’” — Okay, then don’t use faces and images that make fun of people with disabilities. And there are plenty of other words that mean “awkward” or “silly”, without being ableist…such as…”awkward” or “silly”. Or potatoes. Or jujubes. It’s not hard.
- “Someone who is disabled told me it doesn’t bother them” — Okay, and it bothers other people with disabilities. Your point? No one elected some grand representative of all of the disabled people to speak on our behalf. It’s not some popularity contest. It’s about actually figuring out if this is a problem or not.
- “It’s not ableist, you’re wrong, you’re being too sensitive” — Cool story. I guess the people with disabilities who are telling you it’s a problem don’t matter as much, right? Oh wait, that’s ableist.
if anyone can refute these, I’d love to see it. I haven’t yet.
Thank you. This is the perfect response to 99% of the reblogs I’ve been getting.
FYI: Lauren Faust is no longer working on the show. We should be showing this letter to the director of the show and perhaps some Hasbro producers, they are the ones with the power to make changes now. (But I have sent her a link to this anyway.)
Dear Lauren,
Today I discovered that on your deviantART page, you confirmed that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is going to adopt the “Derpy Hooves” fandom character for future episodes.
I am not exactly sure how much you know about what “derp” means— it is a word from a movie by the creators of South Park in 1998. It has only recently become an internet meme, however. Today, its use is generally to denote “stupidity” or “awkwardness”.
The problem with this is simple: “derp” is ableist. The “derp face” especially so. Some people with disabilities such as Down’s Syndrome, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, and even certain forms of social anxiety have trouble controlling their facial expressions. Some people with disabilities also have difficulty verbalizing clearly because they are not able to control the muscles in their face like other people.
If you search for images of “derp” on google, you’ll find people with their eyes rolling opposite ways, and videos of people saying things like “hurr hurr, derp derp”.These portrayals, whether intentionally malicious or not, contribute to the image that people with disabilities are “abnormal” or “wrong” in some way. I doubt that these images are a simple coincidence— stupidity, lack of intelligence, and other similar ideas have always been cast on people with disabilities.
I don’t often tell people this, but I’ve dealt with crippling social anxiety and depression my entire life. I can’t count the number of times I have been made to feel different or wrong because my anxiety literally affected my body’s ability to relax, to make “normal” facial expressions or even speak coherently. Regardless of intention, there is this social expectation of normalcy that a lot of people like me have to navigate. It is not a minor inconvenience or a simple annoyance; it is often downright terrifying. And every day, there are people out there who are beaten, sexually abused, or driven to depression and suicide because they look and sound “different”.
With the meme itself— I have seen people being bullied for having a “derp face”, back before it had a name. I have heard of people with disabilities being harassed, in public, on multiple occasions, with the “derp” meme (or similar “sounds”). I’m sure that we’ve all seen it happen, long before the meme labeled it— the obviously disabled kid in high school whom everyone picked on for how their face looked or how they spoke. It wasn’t okay then, and it’s not okay now, not even under a different name.
I’ve seen some fans excuse the character by saying that “derpy” means “socially awkward”, but that is only one interpretation. It may not be offensive or hurtful to some people, but it certainly is to a lot of others. The “you’re too sensitive” argument doesn’t apply here when, as I’ve said, the word’s basic use is itself steeped in this idea that looking different and speaking differently is somehow wrong (and, as I’ve noted, there’s plenty of real life examples one could find of this). Making fun of people for not being able to interact and express themselves in the same way as the rest of us is ableist and extremely hurtful for those of us who deal with it every day. It doesn’t matter if it came from South Park or started out in some innocent way— what matters is how it is actually used now.
If Hasbro and the other people in charge of My Little Pony go ahead with this, I will have to stop watching the show. I’d really like to not have to do that— this show has meant a lot to me as a survivor of sexual abuse, and it would hurt to have something that has been a source of healing and acceptance suddenly turn into a source of hatred and exclusion. There haven’t been many things in my life that I can rely on as genuinely safe and loving; the creation of this character would definitely make the show not safe for myself, or for other people with disabilities. It would also be a betrayal of everything that Friendship is Magic stands for if those in charge refused to listen to those of us who experience ableism and struggle with being different on a daily basis.
This word is not some holy grail. It is not going to hurt anyone to stop using it— we can always make up another way to describe things. People are creative and language changes; to think that the loss of “derp” would somehow be a huge blow to human culture is just silly.
It’s really not hard to laugh at life, or yourself, or your awkwardness, without hurting others. All you need is a little imagination— something that My Little Pony has done a great job of so far without needing to be ableist.
I hope that this is enough to convince you.
I would love to discuss this further if you want. I can be contacted on my tumblr here.
Best wishes,
Chungyen Chang
It’s unfortunately not a minority of the fanbase. Lauren herself said that “Derpy” might be assigned to a “less than intelligent pony” named “Ditzy Doo.” In other words, Lauren has accepted the fandom’s decision on “Derpy” being “unintelligent.” And the wall-eyed expression fandom always draws her with is usually associated with mental disfunction, “crazyness,” etc.
And I have seen more fanarts LIKE THIS that I care to show: http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=§ion=&global=1&q=derpy#/d3bsrce
That, as well as fanfics written in “Derpy’s” voice where fandom often portrays her with broken, childish speech. You really can’t argue that fandom sees her as a non-mentally handicapped character. Her “stupidity” and wall-eyes are seen as a hilarious inside joke. Like this tumblr you yourself are following?
I really encourage you to reconsider why you find this character so amusing.

