From what I have gathered, there are a few main ways people got into this fandom:

1) The first group read that review saying that it was the end of the creator driven era. To see if it was true, they watched the Series Primer. Then they got hooked.

2) Some people were forced to watch with younger siblings and children. They saw the show, and Faust's plan to make the show good for the older siblings/parents forced to view payed off.

3) The third group came after the first two groups. They saw the increasing number of individuals on the web raving over the show and got curious. Or they saw a page with pony stuff on it. They watched, and as the saying goes, curiosity killed the cat (or made the brony).

4) A friend was a brony and drew the new viewer in through nagging, persuasion, betting, or force (like that Youtube video where the guy ties his friend to a chair and forces him to watch).

5) I forgot this one. 895729 pointed out my mistake. Some people simply wanted some innocent entertainment and found ponies.

How did the ponies draw you into the fandom? Which option did you take, or are you here for unmentioned reasons? I am part of group 3.

I was curious and looked at a clip
and saw all these animals talking in it.
began watching and started to laugh
and now I know there's no going back.

I did not write the song. Edge of Everfree wrote it. I just thought it was appropriate for the occasion.

895452 Boredom. It's a good show and there isn't always a sports game on. I find it to be an excellent filler and a fun show to watch.

I'm not going to lie; I used to be a brony hater. Yup. I played the online game Roblox at the time for some random reason.. I quit about two years ago, though. I was about to make a guild that was anti-brony when some part of me wanted to ally with brony guilds. And so, I did, a fellow brony from the guild told me to watch the show, I took their advice, and of course, I loved it. It took me about ten days to comprehend it, but I eventually accepted it.

As of today, I've made five people turn to the herd (All of them are family).

895452 Saw the changelings. read some fics. watched the show. not in any actual order. also, I was a fan of Dr. Who and Star Trek: TNG. the three shows are symbiotic, you love one, you end up liking the other two.

895452 Some furries were talking it up, I checked it out.

cs188

....

Yeah.

895452
I actually came across the show by random on YouTube. I believe the episode was "Sonic Rainboom."

I accidentally got it from Netflix and just watched it anyway since I've overheard people saying how it was better than most people thought it was.

option 3.

there was a massive argument on another forum that I'm on, where the vast majority of people just wanted the two sides to shut up.
I was part of that side, and one day when I was bored, I went "pfft, Let's go see what the big deal is."

I then ended up watching the first six episodes in a row, and enjoyed it.

Hmm... a question I have often wondered myself. I joined this fandom purely through curiosity. I was saw a name on a forum post, Scootaloo, and since the name was sort of unusual I decided to Google it. I was greeted by hundred of cute pictures of her. After scrolling through a few pages of cute photo's, I saw photo's of Scootaloo with other ponies, so I found out the other pony names and googled them. Then after surfing through around 150 pages of cute pony picture, I decided to search it into YouTube. To see if I could find any episodes, and I did. Then almost a year later her I am, I've only just decided to do something in the brony community, as I always fell that I might do something wrong, and sort of be shunned. But maybe that's just me being weird.

Now because that was a wall of text, take this:

A friend of mine came up to me one morning while we were waiting for classes to start and told me I should start watching a show that he had found. Rather, he kept going on about something he was watching and I asked him what it was. When he said it was My Little Pony, my skepticism was larger than my head at the time, so it was obvious I found it a bit odd.

He said, "Yeah, I know, but go home after school and just watch an episode or two for me. The season one opener isn't even like a girl's show at all."

After having justified it like that, a weak explanation but I trusted him none-the-less, I went home and- after making sure no one was home- popped open youtube to begin watching the Season one opener.

I didn't even realize I kept hitting the next video until episode five. I realized by then it was too late.

And I loved it. Even the opening theme song didn't bother me that much. It's definitely an acquired taste...

I saw the captioned screencaps from the show, and liked the art style. I suffered through Celestia's narration of the opening of the first episode, but the rest was magic.

I think my Brony genes laid dormant for many a year. I used to watch the G1 show with my little sister when we were both very young. Of course back then I had to watch it. Because after that show; all the cool shows came on.

I actually didn't even hear about the show until season two was over and done with. I heard a bunch of my buddies talking about it while we were playing Rift. I asked what it was; they told me, I paid it no mind. Jump forward a few months and I am playing SWTOR. Once again I hear some of my guild mates talking about it on Team Speak. The first two season then showed up on NetFlix. I was home alone, and I said, "Well, I could watch at least one episode." That was pretty much all it took for the dormant G1 genes hidden deep away to rise to the top, and mutate into G4 genes.

Now I mostly listen to Ponystep, I am almost done writing my very own HiE fanfic, and I have to hide the fact that I am a Brony from my elderly parents, and my dull witted red neck step brother. So pretty basic stuff really. If I ever got a chance to go to a con I would. Though I don't buy Pony swag, it would just be a nice experience to meet other actual Bronies that are much into the fandom, lore and aspects of the show as I am.

Next.

In all honesty, the Pinkie and the Brain video.

I was avoiding it because I had never seen a flash-animated cartoon that I liked. When I saw that the animation was really good, I decided to see how the writing was.

Needless to say...

895452 Group 3. Believe it or not, (I don't think I'm allowed to quote the fic name, so just to be safe) a certain grimdark about baking with drew me in. My friends told me to read the creepiest thing I could find. I found that, and then, well, here I am.

Long story short, it was some Skyrim/MLP crossover vids featuring the cold open to Sonic Rainboom that got me started.

Mine was a variation on 4. She wasn't really a friend, but we were in the same club, and she said the show was good, being the open minded guy I was, I decided to give it a shot. REALLY happy I did.

rabiesbunx86 got me into ponies, primarily his YTPMVs Rock my Pony and Intensive Pony Unit.

Overall, I'd have to say YTPMVs were what got me into ponies.

#4. My college roommate was a Brony and he got me hooked when I went 'eh, let's see what the fuss is about.'

My brother is the Brony. I just really like the fan fiction. I'm more of a fan of the G1 series. Hate second and third generation though.

Came came across it on youtube when my suggestions had some My little pony videos and I got curious.

Part of group three here. I was working in shifts during the summer - ten days on, ten days off. I had heard about the pony phenomenon, but never really paid any attention to it. Eventually I decided to see what the big deal was about during my days off since I had nothing better to do, and checked the first season opener. Enjoying myself, I proceeded to skim through most of season 1 in about two days, watching about ten minutes of each episode unless I enjoyed it, like the Trixie or Gilda episodes. I dunno, but I just enjoy the episodes with antagonists a heck of a lot more.

Then I hit the season two opener, and I just fell in love with Discord.

>"Know Your Meme: Bronies:"
>"Death Battle: Starscream vs. Rainbow Dash"
>"Green Isn't Your Color"
>Seasons 1-2 marathon

I am part of the group that is maybe unique. I had never ever read the article in question. What happened is this. See, I used to visit a troll site to feed on the drama and the hate therethere. One day they had an article about the new station, 'The hub'. I looked at the shows listed and was quite intrigued by the selection: 60's Batman (awesome) Deltora quest ( A great anime), Carmen Sandeigo (excellent show) new Transformers series (as a fan, that appealed to me the most) MIB (yay), and classic Transformers, wich I had never seen before as my main experience with G1 was the awesome movie.

However, there was one little show on there that I had shoved off, "My little pony; Friendship is magic." Now see, eariler in the year the nostalgia chick had a review of the movie and riffed it and I had already written most things of pony off as a bad bad BADDDDDD one note, overly girly, preachy, PSA filled, Piece of drek that was an insult to unicorns and pegasi! Well, it said that that the channel would have a premire on that Saturday and I went to watch it, because It wanted to watch Transformers, Deltora quest, and Carmen. Well...Ponies came on right before Deltora quest, so I did the only thing that a mst fan like myself do in this case...RIFF IT LIKE CRAZY. I even decided to bring in my little brother to do it to.

The big day soon came and I made sure to set the timer to watch it so I can watch Deltora quest and riff FIM. Well I caught the first episode of FIM, right when we meet . I was amazed by the flash animation (always am) and I loved the designs of the two ponies in front of me and I laughed at hearing the 'fluttershy' intro. Well, having a DVR I rewound it back to the beginning, thinking that it couldnt all be good. Then I watched the intro and was amazed. There was an awesome legend about sibling rivalry taking place, a sister forced to banish one she loved forever, a legendary item waiting to be found, a prophecy of deestruction and a hero is needed to save the day. Basically, my cup of tea. I love stories like this, but I also knew that it probably would get ruined by a pathetic protagionist. Nope, wrong there...Twilight was like me, wanting to focus on one goal and not make any friends, but ended up doing so anyway. I fell in love with the characters and the story. I have been a fan ever since. I have only grown that way for a while, at first making jokes that I needed to do manly things to offset the girly to just loving every minute. So yeah, I became a brony...because I wanted to make fun of it.

I listened to Brentalfloss's music, saw a PMV for one of his songs, looked up the show out of curiosity, and BOOM!

So in essence, a PMV got me hooked on the show.

I got bit by a radioactive horse when I was passing by a farm one day.

Actually, I was browsing /co/ one day and ran across this

Been watching it ever since. I don't know if I'd call myself a "brony" though.

Group 4.

A friend of mine became a brony and told me about the show, and I eventually decided to take a look (admittedly, it was to see how "bad" the show was - I was convinced it sucked). I started with the very first episode, and wasn't that enthusiastic about it until the end when Nightmare Moon came in.

My thought process basically went like this once I finished the episode:
"So...this cartoon introduces a villian bent on world domination...in the first episode?"
"Interesting..."
"I think I'll keep going."

So yeah, the reason why I kept watching the show and eventually joined Fimfiction was the Nightmare Moon storyline. Odd, isn't it?

I still don't consider myself a "full" brony, though - the singing is a bit hard to stomach for me

895452
I've always been about acceptance, love, tolerance, understanding, that sort of thing.

I'm a follower of many abridged series' on youtube, the creators of Sonic F, as an April Fool's joke released an abridged episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Dubbed Comraderie is Supernatural, I didn't understand it at first but watched it and fell in love. Even as a parody, you can tell people put effort into this show. Then, I found the music.

Music in this fandom is amazing, listened to so many songs and could not BELIEVE people were making so many amazing works about ponies. Now, I'm trying to make my own works. I love to see female characters written with depth, I hate over the top female characters. Resident Evil movies, not my cup of tea. That pretty much sums it up for me. The moment I heard the word brony, I knew I was one.

My story's a bit wierd:

I'm an avid fan of Sonic the Hedgehog, so when reading some comics on youtube, I sumbled across a Q&A by the uploader, Sasuke419. It was majorly Sonic, but there was a small section at the end on MLP, so I thought, "Eh, what the heck?"

During that segment, he showed 2 clips from Season 2: Angel showing Fluttershy the salad he wants (Putting Your Hoof Down), and Fluttershy crying under the tree (Hurricane Fluttershy).

I was like, "This looks pretty good." So at that moment, I watched the whole series on youtube from Mare In The Moon to A Canterlot Wedding. And that's how I ended up here.

I was watching youtube vids when I saw this vid called "Ballad of the Brony" in my related video's. My reaction to that was, "what the fuck's a brony?" and now I'm here.

My friend told to watch the first episode. I was about to tell my friend that they were crazy for liking such a show, but I watched first episode. I was only going to watch it so my friend would stop telling me to watch it. Also, Youtube kept giving me suggestions of watching MLP videos. But after watching it, I liked it. So I watched the rest of Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3 and that's how I became a brony.

895452
I was really bored one day so I started clicking "related videos" on Youtube about twenty times, not watchin any of them, just to see where it would take me. By the time I was ready to watch one, I had somehow gotten to this:

I had to see what made her cry in more detail. So I searched up the episode and got hooked.
In short, I found the show because Fluttershy cried.

I found out about the show through Forza Motorsport. I've always loved unicorns, so I searched for liveries for cars one day with the tag "unicorn" in the storefront. After a load of normal race liveries for the so called "unicorn cars" (cars that can only be obtained by been gifted them from the game's devs/employees) I stumbled across a "Ferrarity". Intrigued, I had a look. I loved the art style, so I searched the storefront again with the term "My Little Pony". MY GOSH! That game has a massive brony community, and to be honest, I've never seen better looking cars! I myself have since went on to produce two MLP cars in the game: the Chevy SPARKle (Chevrolet Spark with Twilight Sparkle on it. See what I did there?), which for a short time was the highest rated livery for that car in the world, until the haters got to it. I also made a Ford Ka with Applejack on it, the Ford AppleKa.

As for the show itself? LOVE IT! (obviously)

895452 I'm a mix of three and four there, I had friends who were interested in the show... and I couldn't possibly understand how anyone could like a "Little girl's show" ...then, the more I heard about it the more it began to be an inner conflict of trying to keep myself from submitting to the will of the internet. Curiosity then got the better of me and I began to look at a few fan-made art pieces, soon enough... I was hooked.

895452

You forgot one. Those who seeked innocent entertainment to escape from their lives.
There's more of them than you think.

Personally it was during a time where i felt really down. tried everything.
I simply though "f**k it", and started from ep1. fell in love instantly. well made both in therms of stories and animation, but most importantly it was purely for entertainment; no deeper message or hidden comment on modern day society.

Option three for me. I kept seeing all the pictures everywhere on the internet, got really bored one night, and decided to give it a shot. The first two episodes were pretty meh, but I had nothing better to do, so I kept watching...by episode four there was no going back.

Group three.

Well, I saw a bunch of pony stuff on one of the /b/ threads. I thought it was a bit gay that a bunch of guys were watching something that my 6 year old cousins wouldve been into. I really just thought it was supposed to be a joke, so I never actually paid much mind to it.

It ended up going on for a couple more months, so I thought that there is no way that they could've kept the joke up that long. So I decided to see what all the fuss was about, and I'd be lying if I said I wasnt hooked from the first episode. I lied to myself and said "Just on more, just to make sure I like it or not."

Next thing I know it was three in the morning and I had gotten through the entire first season and was highly disappointed I'd have to wait a couple more months to see season 2.

I really wouldnt want to publicly call myself a brony though. A lot of the more open ones I've met havent been all that...well, appealing.

A friend of mine got hooked through option #2. Then he initiated a variation of option #4 on me. It was our junior year of high school. For all of the second semester he would watch the newest episode on his phone at lunch and then read some fanfiction. I (and our other friends) would always ask him what he was doing and the answer would always be ponies. I didn't ridicule him, but when he suggested that I should watch I promptly said something to the effect of "that's not gonna happen. I'm not watching a show called My Little Pony."

Junior year ended and summer was coming to a close. There were two weeks left before my senior year started. And I was incredibly bored. So I remembered how much he had been raving about the show and thought "Y'know, he has to like for a reason, and we usually share the same likes and dislikes, so I might as well give it a try." I got on youtube, found the season 1 premier, watched it, and next thing I knew I was on episode 7 or 8 and knew what I had become. There was no going back.

I actually never did finish season 1. I couldn't marathon all at once since we have a shared desktop at home and I didn't have my own laptop then. The only episodes I haven't seen are from Owlowiscious to the season finale (I think, not sure). This was because season 2 started that September and I began to watch that instead. I held out on fanfiction until June of the next year (2012) and joined as an 18th birthday present to myself, even though I did so a couple days before my birthday. Now, I couldn't be happier, especially since my friend and I were able to another friend of ours become a brony by the end of senior year as well. The inside jokes were amazing.

Well here is my "how i became a brony" story.(i think this falls under option 3)
One day i was really board and decided to browse deviantART for some tardis vs delorean pics. THIS pic at the time was not only the best i could find but also on the first page. however i was really confused on why the Doctor and doc where horses(at the time i had absolutely no knowledge of MLP). So then i googled doctor as a horse and somehow found my way to Pony in a Box's Number 12 audio play. after listening to it i got curious about ponies and found MLP:FiM. went to watch the first episode was didn't even get past the intro before going too girly and left.

However 3 days later the audio play of Number 12 keep popping in my mind on how an awesome Dr Who piece could come from such a girly show. so i gritted my teeth and watched the first episode. Glad i did as the show turned out to be really good(still have to grit my teeth during the opening though). after the 3rd episode i was hooked.

895452

Group 3.

Saw enough memes to go, 'What's with all the ponies?', and decided to look up the show. Best thing I've ever done.

Memebase.cheezburger.net made me curious, I watched the show on you tube, and then I was hooked.

I'm squarely under option 3 there, though with a special nuance: Derpy. This one wall-eyed Pegasus kept popping up on a number of sites I frequent, though I suspect the other ponies were there as well, but that part of me which despises anything pink and girly mentally blocked them out. Somehow Miss Hooves slipped past my internal censors. A bit of digging revealed to me that she wasn't a fan character (though interpretations in fanfic not withstanding) but an animation error that made it to air.

As they say, 'curiousity killed the cat' and I was intrigued. Someone had to not only watch the show, but be engrossed enough to notice one particular error which stood out; I only came to this conclusion because I've seen My Little Pony Tales. The horror... I had decided to watch the show from episode 1 to try and spot this animation error myself, vowing not to become emotionally invested.

...my resolve lasted to the end of Twilight's narration before the opening credits began. I binged on every episode available and made it to Winter Wrap-Up before realizing 'Oh, crap, I forgot about my Pegasus'. So I went back and found her and much joy were had.

-Tricondon

Group three. I'd heard some positive buzz early on, but never felt compelled to check it out. After a while, someone started the ball rolling by linking me to this video:

That caused the first spark of curiosity, but still didn't really hook me. That didn't happen until, as a die-hard Ace Attorney fanatic, I discovered Turnabout Storm. That was the final nail in the 'huh, guess I should see what all the fuss is about' coffin.

So I checked out some episodes of the show on Youtube, and my response to it was, to quote the Nostalgia Critic, "Effort! Actual EFFORT!" It was clear that the people involved were genuinely doing their best to put out a good show, so demographics be damned, I was in.

Right before I was going to head back to college. I had seen My Little Brony and was curious as to what exactly the show was all about. So I put on the first episode and I was hooked as soon as I saw Fluttershy

Two hours and 43 responses later, I am happy to say this:

Ponies Rule!

To defend people on 4chan after watching the first episode

Curosity. I saw a video entitled "Panis meets Pinkie" and from there I eventually was linked to clips of the series. After a while I decided to try it out. My first episode was "Lesson Zero" and I was instantly hooked. Too bad the fandom has since moved on from love and tolerate and started wining.

Number 4.

Group 3, I guess. I'm glad to say I kept an open mind. I already knew how weird the internet can be, so ponies weren't too crazy. I saw too many people talking about and decided to watch the first few episodes, making sure to keep an unbiased opinion.

Needless to say, I am writing this to you, so yeah. The fact that I heard that Lauren was writing it really finished the job. I loved Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends when I was really young. Anyway, I started watching just at the end of season 1, and now I'm writing fanfics and stuff.

Goddamn I love ponies.