The adult fandom of '' My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' (commonly known as ''bronies'') has generated an extensive collection of

fan art Fan art or fanart is artwork created by Fan (person), fans of a work of fiction or celebrity depicting events, Character (arts), character, or other aspect of the work. As fan labor, fan art refers to artworks that are not created, commissione ...

since the animated series debuted in 2010. This artistic production encompasses various styles and media, with

digital art Digital art, or the digital arts, is artistic work that uses Digital electronics, digital technology as part of the creative or presentational process. It can also refer to computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960 ...

being most dominant, though traditional media works remain popular. The show's colorful aesthetic and distinct character designs have made it particularly adaptable to various artistic interpretations. According to a 2018 study on the brony fandom, 12% of respondents reported that they ''frequently'' created fan artwork of ''My Little Pony''. Fan art creation began shortly after the show's premiere in October 2010, initially appearing on platforms like

4chan 4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from video games and television to literature, cooking, weapons, mu ...

's /co/ (

comics a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

and

cartoons A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently Animation, animated, in an realism (arts), unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or s ...

) board before rapidly spreading to other online communities. As the brony community grew in prominence by early 2011, fan art production increased dramatically across multiple platforms. Several distinct art styles and themes emerged within the fandom, including "humanized" versions of pony characters, crossovers with other franchises, and

original character An original character (OC) typically refers to a type fictional character created by someone that is not affiliated with a company, or by a member of a fandom. They are a non-canonical character created by the author of fan fiction, a fan artist ...

(OC) creations known as ''

ponysonas A ponysona (a portmanteau of ''pony'' and ''persona'') is a personalized pony character created by fans of the animated television series '' My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic'' as an alter ego of its creator. Similar to fursonas in the furry ...

''. Ponification is a popular artistic practice within the brony fandom, where artists transform non-pony characters, people, or objects into pony form. The show itself is not the only source of inspiration for fan art; some fan works of ''My Little Pony'', like the acclaimed

fan fiction Fan fiction or fanfiction, also known as fan fic, fanfic, fic or FF, is fiction typically written in an amateur capacity by fans as a form of fan labor, unauthorized by, but based on, an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted ...

'' Fallout: Equestria'', have inspired fan art drawn by other artists. Artists frequently sell physical prints, custom

plushies A stuffed toy is a toy with an outer fabric sewn from a textile and stuffed with flexible material. They are known by many names, such as plush toys, plushies, lovies and stuffies; in Britain and Australia, they may also be called soft toys ...

, and pony-themed merchandise at ''My Little Pony'' fan conventions like

Everfree Northwest Everfree Northwest (often abbreviated Everfree NW or EFNW) is an annual brony convention held in Bellevue, Washington organized for the fandom of the animated television series ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'', whose adult fans are common ...

and

Ponyville Ciderfest Ponyville Ciderfest (abbreviated PVCF) is an annual brony convention held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin organized for the fandom of the animated television series ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'', whose adult fans are commonly referred to as '' ...

at their vendor halls. The primary platforms hosting ''My Little Pony'' fan art include Derpibooru, the largest dedicated

imageboard An imageboard is a type of Internet forum that focuses on the posting of images, often alongside text and discussion. The first imageboards were created in Japan as an extension of the textboard concept. These sites later inspired the creation of ...

founded in 2012;

DeviantArt DeviantArt (formerly styled as deviantART and thus abbreviated as dA) is an American online community that features artwork, videography, photography, and literature, launched on August 7, 2000, by Mathew Stephens, Scott Jarkoff and Angelo Sotir ...

, which attracts a large community organized around themed groups; and

/mlp/ /mlp/ is a board on the English-language imageboard website 4chan dedicated to discussion of the animated television series '' My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic''. The board serves as the gathering place on 4chan for adult fans of the series, ...

, the ''My Little Pony'' board of

. Owing to its 4chan roots, the brony fandom has experienced controversies, including the presence of

extremist Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied shar ...

imagery and conflicts over racist content during the

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests, riots, and demonstrations against police brutality that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. The protests and civil unrest began in Minneapolis as Reactions to the mu ...

in 2020. The fandom continues to produce new content even after the conclusion of the television series in 2019. , Derpibooru has over 500,000 users and over 3.1 million non-deleted images in its database (excluding duplicates). The abundance of ''My Little Pony'' fan artwork has led to its use in training

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

models. Beginning with the

AI boom The AI boom is an ongoing period of rapid Progress in artificial intelligence, progress in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) that started in the late 2010s before gaining international prominence in the early 2020s. Examples include lar ...

in the early 2020s, the ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' fandom has emerged as a leading community in art created by artificial intelligence. Projects such as "Pony Diffusion," a specialized

diffusion model In machine learning, diffusion models, also known as diffusion-based generative models or score-based generative models, are a class of latent variable model, latent variable generative model, generative models. A diffusion model consists of two ...

trained on pony art, is one of the most popular base models for generating cartoon-style images using AI, and has been cited in multiple publications and preprints.

Fan works

Videos and animations

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. 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. This video was later featured on the Comedy Central show ''

Tosh.0 ''Tosh.0'' ( ) is an American comedy television series that aired on Comedy Central from June 4, 2009, to November 24, 2020. The series was hosted and produced by comedian Daniel Tosh, who provided satirical commentary on online viral video clips ...

''. Remixed versions of professional works using ''Friendship Is Magic'' clips have been noticed by their original creators. Filmmaker

Edgar Wright Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English filmmaker. He is known for his fast-paced and kinetic, satirical Film genre, genre films, which feature extensive utilisation of expressive popular music, Steadicam tracking shots, dolly zo ...

acknowledged ''My Little Pony'' versions of trailers for his films '' Scott Pilgrim vs. the World'' and ''

Hot Fuzz ''Hot Fuzz'' is a 2007 buddy cop action comedy film directed by Edgar Wright, who co-wrote the film with Simon Pegg. Pegg stars as Nicholas Angel, an elite London police officer, whose proficiency makes the rest of his team look bad, causing hi ...

''. The UK blog team and magazine of ''

Top Gear Top Gear may refer to: * "Top gear", the highest gear available in a vehicle's manual transmission Television * ''Top Gear'' (1977 TV series), a British motoring magazine programme * ''Top Gear'' (2002 TV series), a relaunched version of the ori ...

'' also recognized a video using clips of their show featuring pony characters. A fan-created pony version of South Korean rapper

Psy Park Jae-sang (; born December 31, 1977), better known by his stage name Psy ( ; ), is a South Korean rapper and singer-songwriter, known domestically for his humorous music videos and stage performances and internationally for his hit singl ...

's "

Gangnam Style "Gangnam Style" () is a K-pop song by South Korean singer Psy, released on July 15, 2012, by YG Entertainment as the lead single of his sixth studio album, ''Psy 6 (Six Rules), Part 1'' (''Ssai Yukgap Part 1''). The term "Gangnam Style" is a n ...

" was highlighted by media outlets as one of the best adaptations of the viral video. In 2013, fan Zachary Rich created a full-length Flash-based fan film titled "Double Rainboom" as part of his coursework at the

Savannah College of Art and Design Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a private art school with locations in Savannah, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; and Lacoste, France. It was founded in 1978 to provide degrees in programs not yet offered in the southeast of the United ...

. Pony-based parodies of

"Weird Al" Yankovic Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic ( ; born October 23, 1959) is an American comedy musician, writer, and actor. He is best known for writing and performing Comedy music, comedy songs that often Parody music, parody specific songs by contempo ...

's songs that Yankovic highlighted on Twitter eventually led to discussions between the musician and the show's directors, resulting in guest appearances by Yankovic in the fourth season episode " Pinkie Pride" and the ninth season episode "The Last Laugh". Fans have developed various video games based on ''Friendship Is Magic'', including the

fighting game The fighting game video game genre, genre involves combat between multiple characters, often (but not limited to) one-on-one battles. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as Blocking (martial arts), blocking, grappling, counter- ...

''My Little Pony: Fighting Is Magic'' which eventually became ''

Them's Fightin' Herds ''Them's Fightin' Herds'' is an indie fighting game developed by Mane6 and published by Modus Games. It features a cast of ungulate characters fighting each other to find a champion worthy of gaining a magical key that will protect their worl ...

''. Other fan works include modifications of existing games such as ''

Team Fortress 2 ''Team Fortress 2'' (''TF2'') is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve Corporation in 2007. It is the sequel to the 1996 ''Team Fortress'' Mod (video gaming), mod for ''Quake (video g ...

'' and '' The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim''. Fans have also created crossover content between ''My Little Pony'' and other franchises, including video game settings. A notable example is "Turnabout Storm," a crossover with the ''

Ace Attorney ''Ace Attorney'' is a visual novel franchise developed by Capcom. With storytelling fashioned after legal dramas, the first entry in the series, '' Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney'', was released in 2001; since then five further main series game ...

'' series. Flash-based applications have been developed that allow fans to create their own pony

original characters In fiction, a character is a person or being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, in which case the distinction of ...

in the artistic style of the show, contributing to the popularity of fan-created

s. These pony character creators have helped standardize the visual style of fan-created content and facilitate the creation of ''

ponysona A ponysona (a portmanteau of ''pony'' and ''persona'') is a personalized pony character created by fans of the animated television series '' My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic'' as an alter ego of its creator. Similar to fursonas in the furry ...

s'' within the community.

Ponification

''Ponification'' is a distinctive artistic practice within the ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' fandom where artists transform non-pony characters, people, objects, or events into pony form. 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." Ponifications often appear in fan videos, crossover content, and physical merchandise at conventions. A

is a ponification of one's self.

Physical merchandise

Merchandise of ''My Little Pony'' fan art (colloquially called brony swag) is sold at vendor halls at

brony conventions A fan convention (also called a brony convention, or brony con or pony con) is a fan convention organized for the fandom of the animated television series ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'', whose adult fans are commonly referred to as '' ...

. 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

figurine A figurine (a diminutive form of the word ''figure'') or statuette is a small, three-dimensional sculpture that represents a human, deity or animal, or, in practice, a pair or small group of them. Figurines have been made in many media, with cla ...

, accessories like

mousepad A mousepad or mousemat is a surface for placing and moving a computer mouse. A mousepad enhances the usability of the mouse compared to using a mouse directly on a table by providing a surface to allow it to measure movement accurately and with ...

s and

glassware upTypical drinkware. This list of glassware includes drinking vessels (drinkware), tableware used to set a table for eating a meal and generally glass items such as vases, and glasses used in the catering industry. It does not include laboratory ...

lunchbox A lunch box (or lunchbox) is a hand-held container used to transport food, usually to work or to school. It is commonly made of metal or plastic, is reasonably airtight and often has a handle for carrying. In the United States In the Unit ...

es,

sticker A sticker is a type of label: a piece of printed paper, plastic, vinyl, or other material with temporary or permanent pressure sensitive adhesive on one side. It can be used for decoration or for functional purposes, depending on the situation. ...

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

s, and games. Ownership of pony-themed merchandise is an important and visibly recognizable aspect of the brony fandom. Patrick Edwards, the author of the book ''Meet the Bronies'' and the founder of the brony study project, stated this is not surprising given that the ''My Little Pony'' franchise was originally designed to sell toys to children. According to Edwards, this pattern is not unique to bronies: ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and Cultural impact of Star Wars, quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop cu ...

'' fans are often depicted wearing stormtrooper costumes and carrying plastic lightsabers, while ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...

'' fans commonly show off items featuring the

TARDIS The TARDIS (; acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space") is a fictional hybrid of a time machine and spacecraft that appears in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'' and its various spin-offs. While a TARDI ...

. According to Edwards, the ownership and display of pony merchandise functions as a form of ritual practice; the visibly recognizable nature of merchandise allows bronies to identify fellow community members in public spaces, creating opportunities for social connection and solidarity.

Artificial intelligence art

Luna pony praising the sun as Solaire from dark souls

With the emergence of AI art generation in the early 2020s, the ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' fandom has become a major contributor to and adopter of this technology. The fandom's extensive collection of existing artwork has provided valuable training data for specialized AI models. A notable example is "Pony Diffusion," a specialized

created by PurpleSmart.ai. Originally designed to generate pony-style artwork, the model has gained widespread popularity beyond its intended use case. Based on Stable Diffusion XL, Pony Diffusion has become one of the most popular models for generating cartoon-style images using AI, with applications extending to realistic imagery as well. Pony Diffusion has been cited in academic publications and preprints related to AI image generation. The relationship between Pony Diffusion's developers and larger AI companies has occasionally been contentious; for example, there were disagreements between PurpleSmart.ai and Stability AI regarding licensing terms for newer models like Stable Diffusion 3.

Platforms

Derpibooru

Founded in 2012, Derpibooru (a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

Derpy Hooves Derpy Hooves (officially called Muffins; also known as Bubbles and Ditzy Doo) is a fictional character who appears in the My Little Pony (2010 toyline), fourth incarnation of Hasbro's ''My Little Pony'' toyline and media franchise, beginning wit ...

and the suffix
-booru
', a reborrowing from Japanese ''bōru'', meaning "board") is an

dedicated to hosting and archiving visual fan art from the ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' fandom. It is the largest and most popular ''My Little Pony'' imageboard on the Internet. Derpibooru offers a minimalist interface with relatively limited social features, drawing inspiration from established imageboards like

. The site allows anonymous posting and commenting, and serves as a repository for fan artwork, including pieces previously published on other platforms. The site employs a user-driven tagging system characteristic of folksonomies, allowing for

categorization Classification is the activity of assigning objects to some pre-existing classes or categories. This is distinct from the task of establishing the classes themselves (for example through cluster analysis). Examples include diagnostic tests, identi ...

and content searching. Derpibooru maintains a content rating system with four primary categories: ''safe'', ''suggestive'', ''questionable'', and ''explicit''. The ''safe'' designation indicates content entirely free of sexual themes, while the other three categories contain varying degrees of mature content, including so-called

Clop (erotic fan art) Clop is Erotic art, erotic or Pornography, pornographic fan art, fan fiction, fan films, fan games, and other fan labor based on ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'', ''My Little Pony: Equestria Girls'', and further generations of the ''My Lit ...

. The enforcement of this rating system is largely community-driven rather than strictly administered. Statistical data from the site suggests that while non-mature artwork constitutes the numerical majority of submissions, content with mature themes often receives higher engagement rates based on the site's rating systems.

DeviantArt

Since 2011,

has served as one of the platforms for ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' fan artists, attracting a large community of bronies. By June 2012, DeviantArt hosted more than 500,000 pieces of ''Friendship Is Magic'' artwork. The website allows users to publish various media including visual art (drawings, animations, photographs) and literature. Its strong social features enable users to rate and comment on others' work, follow activity, exchange gifts, and join user-created groups. The brony fandom on DeviantArt organizes around themed groups, with the largest containing 30,000 members. These groups perform

content curation Content curation is the process of gathering information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest, usually with the intention of adding value through the process of selecting, organizing, and looking after the items in a collection or ...

and categorization, which helps users navigate through over 1.7 million results for ''My Little Pony''-related searches. By joining specific groups, fans can filter content based on format, theme, quality, and maturity level. DeviantArt maintains restrictive policies regarding mature content, prohibiting explicitly pornographic imagery and literature with detailed definitions of prohibited material in its terms of service. The platform employs a "mature content" tagging system for milder suggestive content.

/mlp/

As an imageboard, /mlp/—the ''My Little Pony'' board of

—also hosts fan art.

Popularity and statistics

According to a 2018 study of 221 bronies, fans possessed an average of approximately $1,050 worth of merchandise, ranging from clothing and commissioned artwork to figures and media—an investment of a few hundred dollars annually for long-term fans. The study also documented frequency of engagement with fan-created content: 73% of participants reported watching brony-made videos almost daily, 70% listened to brony-themed music almost daily, 39% read brony fanfiction almost daily, and 42% frequently watched reruns between seasons. In addition, 12% of bronies reported that they ''frequently'' created fan art of ''Friendship Is Magic'', and 5% reported that they ''frequently'' created fan collectibles. Notably, bronies consume fan-created content and fandom news with greater frequency than they watch the show itself. As of the study's publication, Derpibooru contained more than 1.6 million unique images. By April 2025, this number had grown to over 3.1 million non-deleted images (excluding duplicates).

Controversies

Nazi imagery and racist content

Some segments of the brony fandom have produced fan art featuring

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

imagery, including a fan-created character named ''Aryanne'', (a pun on ''

Aryan ''Aryan'' (), or ''Arya'' (borrowed from Sanskrit ''ārya''), Oxford English Dictionary Online 2024, s.v. ''Aryan'' (adj. & n.); ''Arya'' (n.)''.'' is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It stood ...

'') a pony with a pink

swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍, ) is a symbol used in various Eurasian religions and cultures, as well as a few Indigenous peoples of Africa, African and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American cultures. In the Western world, it is widely rec ...

on her hip. This character emerged from the more edgy elements of the fandom that originated on anonymous imageboards. While most bronies are not associated with extremist views, the presence of such content has created tension within the community. In June 2020, during the

, ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

'' reported that the ''My Little Pony'' fandom was experiencing an "all-out civil war" regarding racist content. The article noted that some /mlp/ users mocked the protests with racist art, many of which was posted to Derpibooru—the fandom's primary

repository. On Derpibooru, artwork mocking the protests received substantial upvotes while pro-

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a Decentralization, decentralized political and social movement that aims to highlight racism, discrimination and Racial inequality in the United States, racial inequality experienced by black people, and to pro ...

artwork was heavily downvoted. This conflict led to the site's first significant moderation policy change, with administrators banning images "created for no reason other than to incite controversy" and temporarily removing content mocking the protests. One controversial image described in ''The Atlantic'' article was a modified version of a

white nationalist White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a Race (human categorization), raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara ...

meme A meme (; ) is an idea, behavior, or style that Mimesis, spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying c ...

that juxtaposed

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

astronauts with Black Lives Matter protesters. In this adaptation posted on /mlp/, the artist replaced the Black protesters with cartoon

zebra Zebras (, ) (subgenus ''Hippotigris'') are African equines with distinctive black-and-white striped coats. There are three living species: Grévy's zebra (''Equus grevyi''), the plains zebra (''E. quagga''), and the mountain zebra (''E. ...

s—characters that have African-coded representation in the ''Friendship Is Magic'' universe. The article noted that these zebra characters are commonly referred to on /mlp/ using the word ''zigger''—a