Unrestricted internet access from a young age is frequently noted as a bad thing for several obvious reasons. Notably, people tend to make kid’s media into something genuinely frightening, especially for a kid. Thankfully, that seems to have died down.

Until recently, on TikTok, there has been a massive wave of My Little Pony “infection” alternate universes (more commonly referred to as AUs online). These sound like simple zombie apocalypse ideas, but in practice, they’re very disturbing.

Oftentimes, these AUs will turn the ponies that a lot of young girls grew up with into genuinely terrifying monsters. These are often accompanied with disturbing music and a bleak plot. 

This may sound neat to the average horror nerd out there, especially with the concepts tackled, but these are more often than not not labeled as body horror or gore. With the show being a children’s show, who knows how many children have come across these on their TikTok My Little Pony splurges?

This does not affect just children. Some people may just be prone to getting scared by media that is scary — that is its purpose, after all. But this sort of thing could genuinely cause a panic attack or even a paranoia episode if shown without a warning. 

This phenomena isn’t limited to My Little Pony, of course; many other pieces of media have been targeted as well, but they’re usually media that’s for kids. For example, Project Sekai and Cookie Run have both fallen victim to this many times. 

As mentioned previously, this phenomena had been very popular around the early 2010s, with many videos that illustrate Pinkie Pie hurting her friends, for example. These, similarly, have no warning, and many children fell victim to this. I hate to see a repeat event, especially one that many note as somewhat traumatizing.