My Little Pony XLVIII: I say Ol' Chap, how about those Equestrians?

[Nameless]

<------ New avatar!
Yeah, yeah, it's not a pony, but I should blend in well enough.

Anyways, the reason I stopping by the ponythread today, is a little something I've been curious about. How exactly did the MLP fanbase get it's beginnings? I remember reading somewhere that it all started, of all places, on 4chan, but I'm really not sure if I can believe that.

When the show came out, it got a lot of negative criticism, one article in particular "The end Of The Creative Drive Era in TV Animation" used MLP as one of it's main examples to argue it case. Another article claimed the show was racist and homophobic. These sparked an interest in some cartoon and animation enthusiasts. They went and watched the show for themselves to find out what all the hoo-haa was about. Ironically, many of them liked it. Discussions spread across 4Chan. As the fandom started to grow, an obligatory hatedom followed. To cut a a very long story short, BIG EPIC SPAM WAR ON 4CHAN, Bronies later went ahead and created Ponychan.
The fandom's beginnings had a lot to do with response to the initial criticism. Whilst many users on the /c/ boards liked the show for the artwork and the ironic side of it, many /b/ users genuinely loved the show itself. /b/ + Ponies = "Bronies".

EDIT:

It got started on 4chan. I was there. It was terrifying.

All these threads filled with people being nice and helpful and supportive. On 4chan. It was unnatural.

I lurked 4chan pony threads for three weeks before watching an episode.

If you're talking about the FIM fanbase, it did get started on 4chan. Basically, shortly after the show started airing a pair of articles came out attacking the show, one in October 2010 and the other in December. This got /co/, the section of 4chan dedicated to comics and cartooning curious, and they started to watch the show, finding it wasn't nearly as bad as the articles claimed it was. It started to spread to other sections of 4chan (/b/ was where the term "bronies" was born I believe), and soon to other sections of the Web. The show didn't really start to become a hit until 2011 though, during the spring/summer when the first season was finishing up.

EDIT: Thanqol'd.

Pfft, like, whatever guys.