Question of the day: How were you introduced to My Little Pony?

[DiscordPerson 45]

I like this question. I got introduced to MLP because it was on Netflix. How were you introduced?

[Brony Number 42 10,069]

My friend showed me the spoof Friendship Is Witchcraft. Then he showed me the Smile song clip and it changed me.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,466]

In 2011 I stumbled upon various videos related to FiM, namely a YTP and a YTP collab video. Following that I checked out some clips here and there for basically a year before joining the fandom in 2012. Found this site two days later. 

[jacibobsthebrony 115]

YTP channels I'd subscribed to in 2009/10 started uploading pony videos in 2011. The songs and character designs were cute, but I refrained from joining the fandom until early 2012. Never did I think ponies would define my life for nearly 3 years thereafter, but there you go.

[SharpWit 2,647]

Didn't know G4 existed, hadn't even seen any memes, but midway through the second season, two friends of mine, back in the 8th grade, said I should check it out. They were part of the Fandom for a few years but moved on to other things and places. Another friend of mine briefly got into it since he's a fan of animation in general, as did another. I'm the only one I know who's stuck it out, and I'm way behind!

[KPackratt 278]

Some time around late-2011 or early-2012, I started noticing people using MLP avatars on the websites I visited (mainly YouTube and a few forums that I don't remember), I also saw a clip from the show used in an AVGN YTP. I didn't watch a full episode until 2013 when someone was talking about it non-stop on a forum I used to visit, I also thought the MLP character designs looked cute, which was one of the main reasons why I got into the cartoons.

[Rafa Stary 2,991]

In 2012 I saw the boom of ponies on the internet so several videos I watched at the time (mainly YTPs) had Ponies and this made me obsessed with the characters and watching several MLP videos including horror gameplays, but I never watched the TV series itself, then I forgot about it and was only reintroduced to it in June 2023, when in the same week some posts with ponies started appearing on my Facebook and that made me remember how obsessed I was with MLP in 2012, at the same time I was searching for a "girl-ish" series to watch and I was a fan of DBZ and had a friend who was a fan of Sonic and Love Live, so I decided to start watching FiM and here I am

[Envy 6,162]

Technically, when I was super young, as I played with G1s. However, I didn't really continue playing with them as I got older and kinda forgot about them until the mid 2000s when I joined a forum with a member who had a G3 MLP for her username and avatar.

G4/FiM I was introduced to in early 2011 because I was on some general cartoon forums that began talking about the show.

[Sparklefan1234 170,613]

How I became a fan of My Little Pony

I watched a "Epic Meal Time" parody video I'd rather not link to which, featured characters from Friendship is Magic that I thought was funny. 

I was intrigued because I thought the real FiM was going to be more like The Simpsons and less like Winnie the Pooh and I went on a quest to find

the first episode to see if these ponies were some kind of weird subversive show that made fun of tropes in kids shows.

After a lot of searching I watched "Friendship is Magic"'s pilot and while I thought it was just "okay" I couldn't stop thinking about it after

I'd watched them.

It took me a week to catch up with my first episode as a true member of the fandom being Season 3's "Just For Sideckicks" in January 2013

which, was perfect because I was only a couple of weeks away from the Season 3 finale! 

Fast forward a few years when I finally got the courage to try and make friends with the like-minded pony fans on MLP Forums and the rest is history. 

[Fluttershutter 2,455]

It was near the end of season one that I started hearing about a My Little Pony show that a lot of guys liked. I assumed it was a joke but I checked it out and fell in love with it!

[Luna the Great of all the Russias 2,984]

I was first aware of it possibly May 2011 at the earliest, but more likely in June or early July. I noticed many users at the time praising the show, and changing their avatars to characters from it (coincidentally, @Fluttershutter, your current avatar (image below for reference for future users for the case when Fluttershutter inevitably changes avatars)

 

) happens to be among the very first MLPFIM images I have seen, albeit in someone's signature). For quite a long time, I thought it was a troll meme where people trick others into watching the show by praising it so much. However, even with that suspicion in mind, the show's art style did strike me as being appealing. I possibly watched the show for the very first time in early or middle of July, season 1 episode 1:

"Once upon a time, in the magical lands of Equestria..."

I closed the video. For some reason, I decided to try again sometime around 25 July, then finished season 1 two days later.

[Mirage 24,766]

I used to work with someone who had the smallest, cutest voice over the phone. A total cartoon voice. I wanted to send her a meme about it, and found some MLP stuff in the search. I thought, huh, they're super cute! So then I watched YouTube clips, then I watched episodes, then the rest is history. 

[Casey Pones 87]

I think it happened shortly after the first Equestria Girls film came out. As I recall I was browsing Youtube and came across a short film made by some pony fans, crossing FIM with Poke'mon. It might have also been a clip from CollegeHumour, making fun of bronies.

I had heard of the show in a very vague way, it popping up rarely in other media I frequented and I didn't think much of it. But out of curiosity I looked it up on Youtube and saw the barn building song. At first it seemed to me to me to be a show for little kids, teaching them how to count. But something compelled me to start watching the show from the beginning. Although at first it seemed a typical and predicable kid's show, something about it spoke to me. 

The scathing way bronies were portrayed by CollegeHumour disgusted me so much I was worried what people would think of me if they found out. But I rose above it and I've been a proud brony ever since.

Edited March 28 by Casey Pones

[Dreambiscuit 9,691]

I was surfing through the TV channels one very boring night and saw MLP in the line-up. I’d always ignored it before but I was getting desperate, so I tuned in and saw all but the first few minutes of Lesson Zero. I was immediately hooked and a pony fan ever since. Lesson Zero still remains one of my favorite eps, so I guess I tuned in at the right moment. It was meant to be.