Pinkie Pie
| Pinkie Pie | |
|---|---|
| My Little Pony character | |
 Pinkie Pie as she appears in "Three's a Crowd" | |
| First appearance | "Friendship Is Magic – Part 1" (2010) |
| Created by | Lauren Faust |
| Based on | Surprise from the My Little Pony toyline's first incarnation |
| Voiced by |
|
| In-universe information | |
| Full name | Pinkamena Diane Pie |
| Species | Earth Pony |
| Title | Element of Laughter |
| Occupation |
|
| Affiliation | Mane Six |
| Family |
|
| My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic |
|---|
 |
Pinkamena "Pinkie" Diane Pie[1] is a fictional character who appears in the fourth incarnation of Hasbro's My Little Pony toyline and media franchise, beginning with My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (2010–2019). She is a close friend of Twilight Sparkle, serving as a core member of the group of main characters collectively known as the Mane Six. She is voiced by Andrea Libman,[2] who also voices Fluttershy, and her singing voice is provided by Shannon Chan-Kent.[3]
Pinkie Pie is depicted as an energetic, enthusiastic, and eccentric anthropomorphic earth pony with a talent for baking, party planning, and bringing joy to others.[4][5] She works as a baker at Sugarcube Corner in Ponyville and is known for her seemingly random behavior, fourth wall breaks, and tendency to burst into song. Pinkie Pie represents the Element of Laughter in the Elements of Harmony. She lives in the apartment above Sugarcube Corner with her pet alligator, Gummy.[6]
Appearances
[edit]Fourth My Little Pony incarnation (2010–2021)
[edit]My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
[edit]Pinkie Pie is introduced in the series premiere as an energetic earth pony who loves to throw parties and make others smile. When Twilight first arrives in Ponyville, Pinkie gasps dramatically and runs off, later throwing a surprise welcome party for her. In the episode "Party of One", Pinkie's friends appear to be avoiding her latest party invitation, causing her to become paranoid and temporarily develop a split personality, conversing with inanimate objects. Her backstory is explored in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", which reveals she grew up on a rock farm with her family, where life was dreary and colorless until she witnessed her first rainbow, created by Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom. The joy she felt inspired her to throw her first party for her family, earning her cutie mark of three balloons.
My Little Pony: The Movie
[edit]Pinkie Pie has been described as the co-lead and moral compass of the movie.[7] She helps Twilight prepare for the Friendship Festival in Canterlot before the city is attacked by the Storm King's forces. During their journey beyond Equestria, Pinkie accompanies her friends to find help in defeating the Storm King and rescuing their home. Despite a disagreement between Twilight and the group, Pinkie remains loyal and eventually reunites with Twilight. She participates in the final battle against the Storm King in Canterlot, using her party cannon as a weapon, and helps restore harmony to Equestria through the power of friendship.
My Little Pony: Pony Life
[edit]Pinkie Pie is a main character in the spin-off series My Little Pony: Pony Life which is primarily set at Sugarcube Corner, where she often hosts the other members of the Mane Six when they hang out at the bakery. Her three sisters in Friendship Is Magic are replaced by a single brother, Octavio Pie who is also her rival.
Equestria Girls alternate version
[edit]Pinkie Pie's human counterpart is a main character in the Equestria Girls spin-off franchise. She is an eccentric student at Canterlot High School and is introduced in the first film as the head of the school's party planning committee. Beginning with the second film, she is the drummer of her friends' band, The Rainbooms, and gains the power to make sugary objects explosive as her geode power in the fourth film.
Development
[edit]Pinkie Pie is basically... a frenetic sugar rush!
In her initial concept for the character, series creator Lauren Faust based Pinkie Pie on a white pegasus pony from her childhood collection named Surprise, rather than on a pink pony. According to Faust in an episode of the documentary series The Toys That Made Us, she had envisioned Pinkie Pie as "the perky excited one." The original Surprise toy featured a white pegasus body with bright yellow mane and tail. Faust acknowledged this inspiration on social media, posting an image of her original white pegasus toy with the caption: "SURPRISE!!! A Pegasus inspired Pinkie Pie."[3] In addition, Pinkie Pie's name, all-pink appearance and three-balloon cutie mark were taken from a Generation 3 pony first introduced in 2003.
Reception and analysis
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Critics and fans have noted Pinkie Pie's unique status as a fourth wall breaking character who follows her own cartoon physics, setting her apart from other characters in the series.[8][9] Scholars have analyzed her character's emotional complexity, particularly noting the contrast between her typically exuberant personality and her occasional depressive episodes, especially when she fears rejection from friends.[10] Pinkie Pie has been described as the comic relief of Friendship Is Magic.[11][12]
Pinkie Pie's speech patterns have been the subject of linguistic analysis. A 2016 study from the University of Vaasa identified five key elements in her speech: wordplay (punning), neologisms, alliteration, rhyming, and regularized superlative formations (such as bestest). The research found that these linguistic features were preserved to varying degrees when translated into other languages, with the Norwegian dub retaining 69% of these speech elements compared to 49% in the Swedish dub and 51% in the Finnish version.[13]
In 2016, researchers from the University of Warsaw conducted a study in which they used an eye tracker to analyze how adult men and women watch animated content, specifically examining viewing patterns while watching scenes from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Gender differences in viewing behavior were revealed by the study—women tended to fixate on cartoon characters more frequently with shorter glances, while men had fewer but longer fixations and often focused on the interaction space between characters rather than the characters themselves. In particularly, the study revealed particularly strong statistical differences in how participants viewed Pinkie Pie while she was on screen, with women fixating on her significantly more compared to men.[14]
In 2021, researchers from Universitas Trisakti examining visual character design in My Little Pony: The Movie found that visual elements such as color choice directly correspond to character traits. Their analysis claims that Pinkie Pie's predominantly pink coloration reinforces her femininity, gentle nature, and caring personality, while her curly mane and energetic expressions visually communicate her playful and hyperactive character traits. The researchers concluded that these deliberate visual design choices help viewers, particularly children, more easily understand character personalities and emotional states.[15]
A 2022 research study by Rarity, Leitao, and Rutchick examining fan identification with My Little Pony characters found specific correlations between character preferences and personality traits. Identification with Pinkie Pie was the strongest predictor of need for humor (β = .329), accounting for 9.7% of explained variance. Identification with Rarity best predicted generosity (β = .202), explaining 5.1% of variance. Rainbow Dash identification predicted loyalty (β = .139), accounting for 2.4% of variance. Fluttershy identification most strongly predicted kindness (β = .284), explaining 8.6% of variance. For friendship, both Pinkie Pie (β = .200) and Fluttershy (β = .148) were significant predictors, with Pinkie Pie accounting for 3.7% of variance. Honesty was predicted by identification with both Applejack (β = .082) and Fluttershy (β = .098), with Fluttershy explaining 1.1% of variance.[16]
In popular culture
[edit]In 2012, a teenage hacker known by the pseudonym "Pinkie Pie" won a $60,000 reward from Google for discovering security vulnerabilities in the Google Chrome web browser during the Pwnium 2 contest at the Hack in the Box conference in Kuala Lumpur. This was his second such win, having previously earned the same amount for a Chrome exploit at the CanSecWest conference in March of that year. Google's security team later implemented fixes for the vulnerabilities and publicly thanked "Pinkie Pie" for his contributions to improving Chrome's security.[17] In 2013, the same hacker won $50,000 during the annual Pwn2Own contest at the Information Security Conference PacSec 2013 in Tokyo.[18]
Pinkie Pie is a popular character in merchandise and collectibles, with items like the Kotobukiya Bishoujo statue series featuring humanized versions of her character.[19] In September 2023, she was one of the four Friendship Is Magic characters included in the Magic: The Gathering charity Secret Lair collection "Ponies: The Galloping 2", alongside Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash. This special card collection benefited the Extra Life charity program, with half of the proceeds going to the Seattle Children's Autism Center.[20]
According to a July 2015 report in Bustle magazine, Pinkie Pie was the third most popular character in clop on Pornhub, after Rainbow Dash and Rarity.[21]
Pinkie Pie is the main character in an infamous My Little Pony fanfiction titled Cupcakes, in which she is depicted as a serial killer who murders Rainbow Dash.[22]
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ Libman provides Pinkie Pie's singing voice for some songs.
References
[edit]- ^ Kachel, Brendan (2014-06-17). "Review: 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' Pinkie Pie Party DVD (with bonus Season 2 DVD review)". flayrah.
- ^ "Pinkie Pie Voices (My Little Pony)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved 2025-04-06.
- ^ a b Mastrangelo, Fiama (2021-11-07). "The truth about My Little Pony's Mane 6". The List. Retrieved 2025-04-09.
- ^ a b Begin, Mary Jane (2015). My Little Pony : the Art of Equestria. Abrams Books. pp. 71–74. ISBN 978-1-4197-1577-8. OCLC 924369325.
- ^ Olsen, Carly (2020-01-08). "My Little Pony: 10 Things You Never Knew About The Ponies". Screen Rant. Archived from the original on 2024-12-07. Retrieved 2025-04-05.
- ^ Berrow, G. M. (2013). Pinkie Pie and the Rockin' Ponypalooza Party!. United States: Little, Brown.
- ^ "The World of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Gets Epic". SF Weekly. 2017-10-04.
- ^ Searle, Tyler B. (2025-01-01). "The 10 Best Characters From 'My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic,' Ranked". Collider. Retrieved 2025-04-06.
- ^ Connelly, S. (2017). Ponyville Confidential: The History and Culture of My Little Pony, 1981-2016. McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. pp. 179–180. ISBN 9781476662091. LCCN 2016044897.
- ^ Tselentis, Kleanthi (2020). Queen of Equestria: A Study of the Career of Lauren Faust and Her Impact on Contemporary Animation (Master's thesis). University.
- ^ Gwen Athene Tarbox; Michelle Ann Abate, eds. (2017). Graphic Novels for Children and Young Adults: A Collection of Critical Essays. University Press of Mississippi. p. 114. ISBN 9781496811684.
- ^ Catherine Dale; Rosemary Overell, eds. (2018). Orienting Feminism: Media, Activism and Cultural Representation. Springer International Publishing. p. 36. ISBN 9783319706603.
- ^ Smeds, Mikaela (2016). "Don't y'all care about nothin' other than prettifyin'?": Idiolects in three dubs of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Master's thesis). Vaasa, Finland: University of Vaasa. pp. 41–54.
- ^ Gackowski, Tomasz; Brylska, Karolina (2016). ""My Little Pony" in adults' eyes. How do men and women watch cartoons? An eye-tracking experiment". 2016 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI). IEEE: 442–448. ISBN 978-1-5090-1728-7.
- ^ Adzani, Fachrina; Murwonugroho, Wegig (January 2021). "Pentingnya Kesesuaian Visual Karakter Tokoh dalam Film Animasi "My Little Pony: The Movie"". Jurnal Penelitian dan Karya Ilmiah Lembaga Penelitian Universitas Trisakti. 6 (1): 68–84. doi:10.25105/pdk.v6i1.8630. eISSN 2541-4275. ISSN 0853-7720.
- ^ Rarity, Erica C.; Leitão, Matthew R.; Rutchick, Abraham M. (2022). "Identification With Characters in Parasocial Relationships Predicts Sharing Their Personality Traits". Psychology of Popular Media. 11 (2): 111–116. doi:10.1037/ppm0000389.
- ^ Weitzenkorn, Ben (October 10, 2012). "Pinkie Pie Wins $60K Again for Hacking Chrome". NBC News. Retrieved 2025-04-06.
- ^ Kumar, Mohit (2013-11-14). "Hacker 'Pinkie Pie' successfully compromised Chrome on Nexus 4 and Samsung Galaxy S4". The Hacker News.
- ^ Roberts, Tyler (2020-07-20). "My Little Pony Pinkie Pie Comes to Life with New Kotobukiya Variant". Bleeding Cool. Retrieved 2025-04-06.
- ^ Carter, Chase (2023-09-20). "My Little Pony's return to Magic: The Gathering brings Rainbow Dash, Applejack and more to a charity drop". Dicebreaker. Retrieved 2025-04-07.
- ^ Fellizar, Kristine (24 July 2015). "Millennials Are Masturbating To 'My Little Pony' Porn, Says New Survey, And Rainbow Dash Is The Fan Favorite". Bustle. Bustle Digital Group. Archived from the original on 2021-11-09. Retrieved 2022-01-06.
- ^ Palmer, Zachary (2019). Gender in Equestria: an examination of reconstituted forms of masculinity and their consequences for gender relations in the brony community (PhD thesis). Purdue University.
