My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a Canadian/American flash cartoon series, produced by Studio B Productions, based on the My Little Pony universe. It was developed for television by Lauren Faust, who also did major work on both The Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. Since its on-air debut in October 2010, the series became a popular subject of threads, reaction images and image macros on 4chan.
Fans outside the show’s demographic, especially teen and adult male fans, have come to be known as “bronies”, and occasionally use ponies to derail threads. Although fans are generally known as bronies all across the internet, on 4chan, bronies who post ponies mainly on /co/ have been called “colts”. Also, female fans of the show have been referred to as “pegasisters” on occasion, though this isn’t as popular as the term brony.
Origin
On October 10, 2010, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was aired as part of the debut of the new television network, The Hub, which replaced Discovery Kids. On October 19, 2010, Cartoon Brew[1] wrote an article about the show titled “The End of the Creator-Driven Era in TV Animation”, which had an oddly alarmist tone to it. Threads on 4chan’s comic and cartoon board, /co/, attacked and made fun of the article for this reason. The article and the threads generated /co/’s initial interest in the show, causing several members to go and watch the first episode. After the second episode aired on October 22nd, threads about the ponies started to boom even more, gaining the show fans outside of its target demographic.
The Plot
From Wikipedia:
The series stars a unicorn pony named Twilight Sparkle, who has been known to be a pupil of the world’s ruler, Princess Celestia. Seeing the young pony buried in books, the princess gives her the task of making friends, sending her, and a young dragon named Spike, to Ponyville. There, they meet some interesting ponies, including tomboyish Rainbow Dash, glamorous Rarity, hard-working Applejack, timid Fluttershy, and hyperactive Pinkie Pie. Together, they explore the ins and outs of the town, solve various problems, and make even more friends. Every day is a lesson for Twilight, but none as important as the magic of friendship. At the end of each episode, Twilight relays a report to her mentor Celestia, telling her what friendship has taught her.
Spread
4chan’s /co/
From October 2010 to February 2011, single-topic blog Equestria Daily[2] monitored the census & frequency of Pony-related posts on 4chan’s /co/ (cartoon) board, publishing a series of statistical graphs showing the growing trend of My Little Pony on 4chan.
