Sauce

I certainly don't mean to generalize, but as a whole, you could say the fandom is horrendous. Every time you turn an internet corner you can find pornography, creepy behavior, endless spam, and even the seemingly mildest of "bronies" can be seen commonly acting out. Simply being obnoxious or overplaying their love of a cartoon. Sometimes in public. However the reason these stereotypes can be made so easily is because of any fanbase out there (with the possible exceptions of very general things like "Anime" and video games) the pony fanbase is monumentally huge. The biggest. Spanning over millions worldwide. Its not going unnoticed either. Ive seen commercials encouraging fans to be "Whovians", "Grimmsters", "Psych-Os", etc. A reason why such behaviors can be seen so often is just because of how accepting pony fans can be. "Oh, you like rainbow dash in a sexual manner, and have been known to sing pony songs with the windows down n the Mcdonalds drive thru?....okay..." So there is little fear of rejection. Until a little later that is, when people thought what the pony fan community needed was a few more assholes in the mix. Its a shame that a fun little cartoon has to come with this excess baggage, but some people would simply rather avoid it entirely because of the fans. The community is just that big and in-your-face.

Me and my friends are hyper-critical of the show, in spite of its cute ponies and such, but I will say that RD has gotten better as a character by leaps and bounds in season 3.