Art of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fandom

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Fan artwork by viwrastupr (2017), a digital tribute to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic that required over 1,000 hours of work. Tribute collage to MLPFIM.png
Fan artwork by viwrastupr (2017), a digital tribute to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic that required over 1,000 hours of work.

The My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom (also known as the brony fandom) has generated a vast body of fan work, including fan art. [1] Fans began creating fan art of Friendship Is Magic shortly after the show's premiere. As the brony community grew in prominence in the early 2010s, fan art production increased dramatically. Various art styles and themes emerged within the fandom, such as "humanized" versions of pony characters, [2] crossovers with other franchises, [3] and original character (OC) creations known as ponysonas . [4] A practice known as ponification, where artists transform non-pony characters, people, or objects into pony form, is popular among fan artists. [5] [6] The show itself is not the only source of inspiration for fan art; many brony fan works have also subsequently inspired fan art. [4] [7] [8] Physical prints, custom plushies, art commissions, stickers, keychains, T-shirts, and other pony-themed merchandise are frequently sold at My Little Pony fan conventions. [6]

Contents

Despite the conclusion of the television series in 2019, the fandom continues to produce new content. As of September 2025, Derpibooru the largest and most popular My Little Pony imageboard [9] hosts over 3.2 million images (excluding deleted and duplicate images) and over 520,000 registered users. [10]

Fan works

Fan films, fan animations, and fan games

Fan-made videos incorporating footage from the show are regularly posted on YouTube, including music videos, parodies, and remakes of movie and video game trailers. [11] [12] One notable early video that attracted media attention was created by high school student Stephen Thomas, who used scientific principles to analyze physical impossibilities in the show as part of a class presentation in 2011. [13] [14] This video was later featured on the Comedy Central show Tosh.0 . [11] [15]

In 2011, filmmaker Edgar Wright featured pony versions of the trailers for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Hot Fuzz on his blog. [12] Top Gear also recognized a video using clips of their show that featured pony characters. [16] In 2012, a fan-created pony version of "Gangnam Style" was featured as a "must-see video" on The Wall Street Journal . [17] [18] In 2013, fan Zachary Rich created a full-length fan film titled "Double Rainboom" for his college coursework. [19] Pony-based parodies of "Weird Al" Yankovic's songs that Yankovic featured on his Twitter account led to discussions between him and the show's directors, and resulted in guest appearances by Yankovic in the fourth season episode "Pinkie Pride" and the ninth season episode "The Last Laugh". [20] Fans have developed fan games based on Friendship Is Magic, such as the fighting game My Little Pony: Fighting Is Magic, which was eventually renamed to Them's Fightin' Herds after a cease and desist notice from Hasbro. [4] Other fan works include mods of existing games such as Team Fortress 2 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim . [21] [22] Fans have also created crossovers between My Little Pony and other franchises, [23] such as "Turnabout Storm," a crossover with the Ace Attorney series. [24] [25] Some web applications allow fans to create their own pony original characters [26] known as ponysonas . [8]

Ponification

Fan art of a ponification of the United States Star Spangler The AMERICAN Pony.png
Fan art of a ponification of the United States

Ponification is the practice of transforming non-pony characters, people, objects, or events into pony form. [2] The term was officially recognized in the open-source Webster dictionary in 2017, defined as "bestowing the harmonious qualities relating to the magic of friendship upon a person, creature, fictional figure, or inanimate object by converting into the likeness of an animated My Little Pony character." [5] [27] A ponysona is a ponification of one's self. [8]

Physical merchandise

The vendor hall of BronyCon 2014 at the Baltimore Convention Center. BronyCon 2014 (14662187680).jpg
The vendor hall of BronyCon 2014 at the Baltimore Convention Center.

Merchandise of My Little Pony fan art (colloquially called brony swag) is sold at vendor halls at brony conventions like Everfree Northwest or Ponyville Ciderfest. [28] [29] Types of commonly purchased merchandise include clothing items like T-shirts, socks, and backpacks, as well as commissioned artwork, physical prints, and posters. Other common merchandise forms include figurines, plushies, accessories like mousepads and glassware, lunchboxes, stickers, DVDs, and games. [6]

Artificial intelligence art

An AI-generated image of a My Little Pony character. Luna pony praising the sun as Solaire from dark souls.jpg
An AI-generated image of a My Little Pony character.

My Little Pony fan art has been used in the development of AI art. Pony Diffusion is a specialized diffusion model based on Stable Diffusion XL that is popular for generating cartoon-style images. [30] [31] Pony Diffusion has been cited in academic publications and preprints. [32] [33]

Platforms

Derpibooru

Derpibooru (a portmanteau of Derpy Hooves and the suffix -booru , a reborrowing from Japanese bōru, meaning "board") is an imageboard dedicated to hosting and archiving visual fan art created by the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fandom. It is the largest and most popular My Little Pony imageboard. [9] [34] [35]

DeviantArt

DeviantArt has attracted a large community of bronies. [11] By June 2012, DeviantArt hosted more than 500,000 pieces of Friendship Is Magic artwork. [36] The website is used to publish fan art and fan fiction, rate and comment on others' work, follow exchange gifts with artists, and join user-created groups. [37] [35]

Popularity

According to a 2018 study, bronies owned approximately $1,050 worth of pony merchandise on average; 73% of bronies reported watching My Little Pony fan videos almost daily, 12% reported that they frequently created fan art of the show, and 5% reported that they frequently created fan collectible merchandise. The study found that bronies tend to consume fan-created content and fandom news more than they watch the show itself. [6]

As of September 2025, Derpibooru hosts over 3.2 million images (excluding deleted and duplicate images) and over 520,000 registered users. [10]

Controversies

Some fan content has been deemed racist, such as a white pony original character named Aryanne who has a swastika for a cutie mark. [34] [38] [39] During the George Floyd protests, The Atlantic reported that some /mlp/ users mocked the protests by upvoting racist fan art on Derpibooru and downvoting pro-Black Lives Matter artwork. This led to Derpibooru's first major policy change that permitted moderators to ban images uploaded solely to incite controversy. [34] [9]

See also

References

  1. Kirkland, Ewan (2015). "My Little Pony: A transcultural phenomenon". The Journal of Popular Television. 3 (1). doi:10.1386/jptv.3.1.93_7.
  2. 1 2 Ellis, Bill (2015). "What Bronies See When They Brohoof: Queering Animation on the Dark and Evil Internet". Journal of American Folklore. 128 (509): 298–314. doi:10.5406/jamerfolk.128.509.0298.
  3. "Metal Gear Pony". Konami . 2016-03-22. Retrieved 2025-04-16.
  4. 1 2 3 Connelly, Sherilyn (2017-03-21). Ponyville Confidential: The History and Culture of My Little Pony, 1981-2016. McFarland. ISBN   978-1-4766-2686-4.
  5. 1 2 Pickett, Daniel (2017-07-08). "My Little Pony Word 'Ponify' Added to Open Source Webster Dictionary". Action Figure Insider. Retrieved 2025-04-21.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Edwards, Patrick; Chadborn, Daniel P.; Plante, Courtney N.; Reysen, Stephen; Redden, Marsha Howze (September 11, 2019). Meet the Bronies: The Psychology of the Adult My Little Pony Fandom. United States: McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. p. 291. ISBN   9781476663715.
  7. Leppänen, Sirpa; Tapionkaski, Sanna (2021). "Doing Gender and Sexuality Intersectionally in Multimodal Social Media Practices". In Angouri, Jo; Baxter, Judith (eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality. Routledge.
  8. 1 2 3 Kosnáč, Pavol (2016). Fiction, Invention and Hyper-reality: From Popular Culture to Religion. Taylor & Francis. pp. 79–97. ISBN   9781317135494.
  9. 1 2 3 Alter, Rebecca (2020-06-23). "The Largest My Little Pony Fan Site Bans Your Horse-Crap Racist Fan Art". Vulture . Retrieved 2025-09-27.
  10. 1 2 "Statistics". Derpibooru. Retrieved 2025-08-01.
  11. 1 2 3 Watchcutter, Angela (2011-06-09). "My Little Pony Corrals Unlikely Fanboys Known as 'Bronies'". Wired . Retrieved 2011-06-09.
  12. 1 2 Funk, John (2011-05-09). "In the Grim Darkness of the Future, There Are Only Ponies". The Escapist . Archived from the original on March 14, 2012. Retrieved 2011-10-07.
  13. GrrlScientist (2011-06-02). "Physical impossibilities in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic". The Guardian . London. Retrieved 2011-06-10.
  14. Doctorow, Cory (2011-05-25). "Impossible physics: Why My Little Pony can't really fly". Boing Boing . Retrieved 2011-06-10.
  15. Stanley, T.L. (2012-04-19). "A Brony gathering: SoCal men let their 'My Little Pony' flag fly". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2012-04-19.
  16. "My Little Pony does Top Gear". Top Gear . BBC Worldwide Ltd. September 2011. ASIN   B00CCV5R4O.
  17. "5 Must-See 'Gangnam Style' Response Videos". The Wall Street Journal . 2012-08-22. Retrieved 2012-08-24.
  18. "Pony Dances 'Gangnam Style' Too". KPopStarz. 2012-08-23. Retrieved 2012-08-24.
  19. Busis, Hiliary (2013-01-31). "'My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic': A Brony explains why fans say 'neigh' to Princess Twilight". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved 2013-05-30.
  20. Matheson, Whitney (2014-01-15). "Exclusive: 'Weird Al' Yankovic graces 'My Little Pony'". USA Today . Retrieved 2014-01-15.
  21. Ченцов, Илья (July 28, 2011). Большие Безобразия маленьких пони [Big Hijinks of Little Ponies](PDF). Страна Игр (in Russian) (324). Russia: Gameland: 62–70. EAN-13 4607157100056. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 6, 2012.
  22. Phillips, Tom (2012-01-19). "Skyrim mod replaces dragons with My Little Pony". Eurogamer . Retrieved 2012-01-19.
  23. Fahey, Mike (2012-03-12). "Video Game Character or My Little Pony? Yes". Kotaku . Retrieved 2012-03-12.
  24. DigiKate (2023-07-19). "Let's Talk About: The My Little Pony Ace Attorney Crossover Turnabout Storm - Review". Equestria Daily. Retrieved 2023-07-19.
  25. The Bizarre World of Ace Attorney Crossovers. Barbieronpa. July 1, 2024. Retrieved July 1, 2024 via YouTube.
  26. Wattercutter, Angela (2012-01-06). "Make Your Own Little Pony (Because the Intenet Needs More Ponies)". Wired . Retrieved 2012-01-06.
  27. "Ponify - Open Dictionary". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 2025-04-21.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  28. Ponyville Ciderfest 2023 Con Book (PDF). 2023.
  29. Everfree Northwest 2024 (PDF). 2024.
  30. Park, J; Owens, A (2024). "Community Forensics: Using Thousands of Generators to Train Fake Image Detectors". arXiv: 2411.04125 [cs.CV].
  31. Kiyoshi, Arata (2024-07-15). "危機的状況の画像生成AI「Stable Diffusion 3」立て直しへ" . Retrieved 2025-04-18.
  32. Yang, Z; Lyu, L; Chang, X; He, D; Li, YU (2025). "SWA-LDM: Toward Stealthy Watermarks for Latent Diffusion Models". arXiv: 2502.10495 [cs.CR].
  33. Passananti, J; Wu, S; Shan, S; Zheng, H (2024). "Disrupting style mimicry attacks on video imagery". arXiv: 2405.06865 [cs.CV].
  34. 1 2 3 Tiffany, Kaitlyn (2020-06-23). "'My Little Pony' Fans Are Ready to Admit They Have a Nazi Problem". The Atlantic . Retrieved 2025-09-27.
  35. 1 2 Bajor, Jan (2017). "Erotyka i pornografia w fandomie internetowym - przypadek społeczności My Little Pony" [Eroticism and Pornography in Internet Fandom - The Case of the My Little Pony Community](PDF). Media i Społeczeństwo (in Polish). 7 (1): 257–274.
  36. Wennemer, Rob (2012-06-29). "Pittsburgh guys profess love for My Little Pony". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Retrieved 2012-06-29.
  37. Bajor, Jan (June 2015). Między bajką a perwersją – pornografia i erotyka fanowska w środowisku internetowym na przykładzie fandomu My Little Pony: Przyjaźń to Magia[Between fairy tale and perversion - fan pornography and erotica in the internet environment using the example of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom]. Institute of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology (Master's thesis) (in Polish). Warsaw: University of Warsaw.
  38. Dickson, EJ (2021-04-19). "Do Bronies Have a 'Nazi Problem'? FedEx Shooting Shines Light on Faction of Subculture". Rolling Stone . Retrieved 2025-04-16.
  39. Dellinger, A. J. (June 23, 2020). "An online battle is raging between Nazis and 'My Little Pony' fans". Mic. Retrieved 2021-06-04.