This article was taken from the September 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, the cartoon reboot of Hasbro's pastel-shaded preteen toy line, has recently stampeded into the hearts of a rather improbable demographic. "My initial reaction was: 'Why am I watching this?'" admits "Seth" (real name withheld), a 23-year-old American and avowed "brony" (a portmanteau of bro and pony). "But I ended up going back -- purely in the interests of science, of course! After two episodes, I was hooked." Seth's Equestria Daily news site, which covers the show, now gets 300,000 page views on a busy day.
Along with solid scripts, attractive animation and nods to an older audience -- one episode features a musical tribute to Stephen Sondheim -- the show owes its adult following to 21st- century twists on word of mouth. /b/, the unstoppable meme-forge of 4chan.org's message boards, was temporarily brought to its knees -- or possibly its hocks -- by clashes between fans and critics. Then there's showrunner Lauren Faust's sketches of ponies on her DeviantArt page, which garnered adult devotees (she raised $15,000 for relief efforts in Japan by auctioning four of them). And, critically, whole episodes were uploaded to YouTube - with the show's owners opting for a soft line on takedowns. "You develop the best show you can, and hope the humour will translate to a broader audience," says Linda Steiner, Hasbro Studios SVP for the current series. "But I've been in the business for 25 years and I've never seen anything like this."
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is currently showing on Cartoon Network's Boomerang channel boomerangtv.co.uk
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
