Equestria Daily (frequently shortened to EqD or ED) is a

fan site A fansite, fan site, fan blog or fan page is a website created and maintained by a fan of or devotee to a celebrity, thing, or particular cultural phenomenon. Fansites may offer specialized information on the subject (e.g., episode listings, ...

dedicated to news and fan work coverage of the

animated television series An animated series, or a cartoon series, is a set of Animation, animated films with a common title, usually related to one another. These episodes typically share the same main heroes, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series ...

'' My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic,'' and other generations, such as G5. The site is run with a blog-style interface by a dedicated team of several editors, and has been officially recognized by the show's production team as well as

The Hub The Hub may refer to: Places * The Hub, Bronx, an area of the South Bronx, New York, known for its convergence of subway and bus lines * The Hub (Edinburgh), former church in Edinburgh that is now home to the Edinburgh International Festival * T ...

(later Discovery Family), the American children's television network on which the show airs.

History

Jayson Thiessen and Sethisto at BroNYCon Sept

Shaun Scotellaro, a 23-year-old Arizona college student, established the website in January 2011 to collect fan fiction and news specific to ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic''. In order to establish the site, Scotellaro had to cut back on his community-college classes in order to run the site out of his parents' house in

Glendale, Arizona Glendale () is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. Located about nine miles northwest of the state capital Phoenix, Glendale is known for State Farm Stadium, which is the home of the Arizona Cardinals football team. The city al ...

. He has explained that he believed the show needed a unified fan base at the time, as he and many other older males had recently become supporters of the show – known as "

bronies '' My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' is an animated children's television series produced by Hasbro that ran from 2010 to 2019 as part of the ''My Little Pony'' toy franchise. The series tied in with the 2010 relaunch of dolls, play ...

" – and an overarching concern was that

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational corporation, multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment holding company founded on December 6, 1923 by Henry, Hillel and Herma ...

would not be authorizing a second season. Towards the end of 2010, when the fan-following was still in its infancy and confined mostly to the /co/ and /b/ boards of English

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 ...

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 ...

, all pony-related content was banned by a moderator who had enough of the

flame war Flaming, also known as roasting, is the act of posting insults, often including profanity or other offensive language, on the internet. Flaming is distinct from trolling, which is the act of someone causing discord online or in person. Flaming eme ...

that was being waged between those who enjoyed the show and those who did not. Posting a message containing the word "pony" became a bannable offense, and this was the final stimulus that had prompted Scotellaro to launch Equestria Daily. After its creation, the blog began to gain attention from the fan community. Though Scotellaro ran it solely himself to start with, more and more fans began sending news and updates to him, and the workload increased. By the end of June 2011, the site's staff had been expanded to include two more blog editors, an 'interviewer/YouTube organizer', and a corps of pre-readers for fan fiction submissions, all drawn from the user base of dedicated blog followers. By this point, the website was garnering around 300,000 additional page views per day, and with the supplementary editors was managing to post a greater number of updates with increased frequency, though still primarily of fan fiction. ''Equestria Daily'' has also partially branched into other forms of media dissemination, currently possessing a Facebook page, YouTube account and Twitter account, though all updates are still hosted on the originally-established

Blogger A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

site. As of July 2012, the site has boasted over 220 million

hits Hits or H.I.T.S. may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * '' H.I.T.S.'', 1991 album by New Kids on the Block * ''...Hits'' (Phil Collins album), 1998 * ''Hits'' (compilation series), 1984–2006; 2014, a British compilation album s ...

since its creation in January 2011. In an interview with

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

in December 2011, Scotellaro stated that the site was reaching more than 500,000 views per day. The site receives enough pageviews per day that it is able to sustain itself through advertising revenue. The site was designed by Knighty, and the site is maintained by the site's developer Gameleon. In 2014, the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

selected the site to be archived as part of their "Web Cultures Web Archive Collection" by the

American Folklife Center The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. was created by Congress in 1976 "to preserve and present American Folklife". The center includes the Archive of Folk Culture, established at the library in 1928 as a rep ...

. The collection was established for the purpose of "documenting the creation and sharing of emergent cultural traditions on the web". This archive currently covers the website's state from June 2014 to August 2016.

Official response

The ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' production team at

DHX Media Vancouver WildBrain Ltd. is a Canadian media, animation studio, production, and brand licensing company, mostly associated as an entertainment company. The company is known for owning the largest independent library of children's television programmin ...

, as well as the network which broadcasts the show,

, have both acknowledged the existence of the fan community, and have individually sent official material specifically to ''Equestria Daily''. The Hub had a summer advertising campaign for the show based around a parody of

Katy Perry Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television personality. She is one of the List of best-selling music artists, best-selling music artists in hist ...

's "

California Gurls "California Gurls" is a song by American singer Katy Perry from her third studio album, '' Teenage Dream'' (2010). It was released as the album's lead single on May 7, 2010, through Capitol Records. The song features rap verses from Snoop Dog ...

" called "Equestria Girls"; one of the lyrics mentioned "bronies" hanging out with the ponies. An extended promotional version of the song was sent to Scotellaro's blog for "our favorite Pony fans". Hasbro themselves sent a review copy of their interactive

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

storybook " Twilight Sparkle: Teacher for a Day" to ''Equestria Daily'', and several key figures in the production team have done exclusive interviews for the website, including supervising director and current

showrunner A showrunner is the top-level executive producer of a television series. The position outranks other creative and management personnel, including episode directors, in contrast to feature films, in which the director has creative control over th ...

Jayson Thiessen and ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' developer and creative director

Lauren Faust Lauren J. Faust (born July 25, 1974) is an American animator, writer, director, and producer. She is known for developing the animated series '' My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' and '' DC Super Hero Girls''. Faust has collaborated with her ...

. In July 2011, The Hub sent ''Equestria Daily'' the "There's a Pony For That" commercial which includes references to the site. Gameloft's My Little Pony game features a recurring annual event called "Freedom of the Press" which features a shoutout to EqD by naming the in-game news organization after the site. In May 2022, prior to the release of the ''My Little Pony: Make Your Mark'' special on Netflix, Hasbro sent an exclusive clip of the premiere to the site.

References

{{reflist, 2 American entertainment news websites Internet properties established in 2011 My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fandom

History

Official response

See also

References