Alternative Character Interpretation: Prior to the series' first airing in English-speaking territories (when all there was to go on were trailers that showed the characters to be either flat or just plain awful), 4chan assigned personalities to Pod 4:
Birch is a god-tier weeaboo with acute Special Snowflake Syndrome, along with a foot fetish. (The first two turned out to be the extent of her actual personality.)
Is a Liam a funny, friendly cousin to Birch; or is he a stupid frustrating character who takes advantage of everyone around him?
Is Sandra a Jerk with a Heart of GoldLadette who deep down cares for her friends, or is she a flat out Jerkass who enjoys watching the rest of the Pod tear each other apart?
Is Raffi a Nice Guy who does everything for them, or is he a boring generic character who doesn't really care for Birch?
Cargo Ship: CANON with Mr. Towes and his plant, Vanessa. He was singing a romantic song to it, and began to slow dance before Liam walked into the room. Suffice to say, it's the "fandom"'s One True Pairing.
Cliché Storm: Every single anime "quirk" known to man is crammed in as far is it will go.
Even ignoring that he probably is the only character who's not a Base-Breaking Character, Mr. Towes has become one of epic proportions. He's pretty much universally loved by both the genuine fans AND the series' mass hatedom and there is a mass demand among them that he be given his own show. Even the creator loves him (this being the same person who uses Birch as a sort of Author Avatar), and even she's in support of him getting his own show).
The show first got big in Malaysia, where was where the show first aired. A lot of the early fan-base watched the show unironically, until show got canned for Zig & Sharko reruns on Disney Channel, which lead to a small but noticeable outburst amongst Malaysians (and to a lesser extent, parts of Southeast Asia). It's also the only country to have the show air on three channels. First, Disney Channel, then local channel NTV7, and now on the newly developed Dreamworks Channel. note Dreamworks actually owns the worldwide rights to the series, due to Classic Media, the previous rights holder being bought by said company.
The show also garnered a noticeable fanbase in Germany, where the show was given rather good German dub, combined that Slice of Life stories tend to be better received in the country.
Then in Mexico, actually garnered most of its fandom, combined with being the only channel not to screw it over (Along with KiKA back in Germany, which occasionally re-airs the show, usually near the end of the day during the Summer). Most of the fanart extends to Mexicans as well, especially fanart of Birch; which makes herself also an example of a more popular character in another country, since to many Mexicans, she's a Audience Surrogate, compared to other countries, where she's a Base-Breaking Character at best, and a Scrappy at worst. It helps that she has the voice actress as the Latin American Spanish dub version of Apple Bloom.
Ham and Cheese: Appears to be the case with Mr. Towes, whose antics are considered the saving grace of this show by nearly everyone who has seen it.
Just Here for Godzilla: Much of the reason an ironic fandom exists is due to Mr. Towes and his antics.
Memetic Molester: Mr. Towes, thanks to frequent abuse of the old comic maker.
Mr. Towes' rape-face.◊Explanation From an episode where he suspects the main characters cheated on a test, and subsequently interrogates them.
The show is often labelled "DeviantArt: The Series" (due to its questionable animation, animesque art style, and an Author Avatar main character with a massive ego).
"Let me tell you about HOMESTUCK"Explanation There were common jokes in 2011 comparing the four Homestuck kids, not to mention that people mistakenly thought that Liam's last name was Strider early in the show's life. It got to the point that even Andrew Hussie got in on the jokes on Facebook.
Birch actually could be an interesting look of a main character in high school who's an Occidental Otaku does. Unfortunately, her rather Designated Hero actions make her rather less than endearing.
Uncanny Valley: Good god, they look like marionettes made out of human corpses! (Which is sad, because the character designer has done some decent work in the past.)