Despite the target demographic of young girls and their mothers,[58] My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has become an Internet phenomenon, with many male fans between 14 and 35.[64] The response from the Internet has been traced to cartoon and animation fans on the Internet board 4chan,[58] responding to Amidi's negative essay on the show and on current trends in animation.[63][65][66] Before they had seen the show, members of the cartoon board of 4chan noticed the alarmist nature of the essay, began watching the show, and quickly warmed to the series for its plot, characters, and animation style.[65][67] This reaction soon spread to the other boards of 4chan, where elements of the show quickly caught on as recurring jokes and memes on the site.[65] The number of Friendship Is Magic posts, so unlike the usual attitudes and image of 4chan, caused a large stir on the site. Fans of the show were unrelenting in their defense against various trolling attacks from other 4chan boards. This led to a temporary ban on anything related to ponies, although it was soon overturned.[67][68] Christopher Poole, the founder of 4chan, briefly acknowledged the popularity of the show on the site at the 2011 South by Southwest festival.[67][69]
An attendee at the 2011 Anime Expo, cosplaying as the character Rainbow Dash
Though the discussion of the show would continue at 4chan, many fans created other venues to discuss it, leading to its spread onto other forums and the rest of the Internet.[67] Sites such as "Equestria Daily" and "Ponychan" were created to share artwork, stories, and news about the show. They receive more than 500,000 visits a day,[70][71] and many artists use sites like deviantArt to display fan art based on existing and fan-created characters.[64] Fans have also started series of local meet-ups and small conventions, such as BroNYCon held in New York City, which featured the show's supervising director Thiessen as a guest at its first gathering.[58][67] BronNYCon's numbers have since grown; the first convention posted an attendance of 100 people, but the third, held in January 2012, was attended by 800, and the fourth, where Lauren Faust will be a special guest, has expanded to a two-day event at a higher-capacity location.[72] Most of these fans are themselves surprised by their fondness for the show. Shaun Scotellaro, operator of Equestria Daily, one of the main fan websites for the show, said, "Honestly, if someone were to have told me I’d be writing a pony blog seven months ago, I would have called them insane."[64] He speculates that the spread among adult fans was accelerated by its presence in online gaming, which sparked further interest.[73] Another avenue for popularity for the show came from the furry community, whose ranks include a large number of animation fans.[74]
The adult interest in the show is comparable to similar shows such as The Powerpuff Girls, Animaniacs, Yo Gabba Gabba!, Rocko's Modern Life, Phineas and Ferb, and SpongeBob SquarePants: a combination of jokes aimed at adult viewers and a sense of nostalgia for older cartoons.[75][76][77] Many of the aforementioned shows had attracted college-aged fans who, when Friendship Is Magic was airing, would be raising children of their own.[77] The show has made references to works that older viewers would recognize, such as I Love Lucy, The Benny Hill Show, X-Men, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Diamond Dogs, and The Big Lebowski.[10][76][78][79] Two episodes, "Suited for Success" and "The Best Night Ever", feature lengthy musical numbers inspired by Stephen Sondheim, including the song "Putting it Together" from the musical Sunday in the Park with George,[80][81] and another episode paid homage to the song "Ya Got Trouble" from Meredith Willson's musical, The Music Man.[82] With the interest of the older demographic, the show's viewership increased from 1.4 million per month on its premiere to 4 million per month by the end of the first season,[73] making it the highest-rated of any Hasbro offering at the time.[61] Advertising Age reports that the viewership doubled between the first and the second season.[78] The Hub reported that "Hearts and Hooves Day", an episode on the theme of Valentine's Day, which aired on February 11, 2012, in the middle of the second season, was the show's most-viewed episode ever, and the second highest of any program of the Hub network; its viewership exceeded 150% of that of the previous year.[83]
