John Funk said:
I'm not quite sure how exactly large swaths of the internet whose tastes generally lean more towards Batman and Mass Effect first fell in love with the new My Little Pony series, Friendship is Magic. Did one of them suddenly watch it on a whim and happen to tell his friends that it was actually pretty awesome? Was there a secret Hasbro plot to infiltrate 4chan and spread the seeds of periphery demographic there? The world may never know.
It has probably been posted three dozen times already but
"On October 10, 2010, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was aired as part of the debut of the new television network, The Hub, which ended up replacing Discovery Kids. On October 19, 2010, Cartoon Brew wrote an article about the show entitled, The End of the Creator-Driven Era in TV Animation, which had an oddly alarmist tone to it. Threads on 4chan?s comic and cartoon board, /co/, attacked and made fun of the article for this reason. The article and the threads generated /co/?s initial interest in the show, causing several members to go and watch the first episode. After the second episode aired on October 22nd, threads about the Ponies started to boom even more, gaining the show fans outside of its target demographic."
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic#.Tcjg5nCZJVU