Once Upon a Time, there was a young man who, through extraordinary circumstances that probably aren't all that extraordinary, realized
he liked ponies. Liking ponies had become a thing, and this man, Sethisto, thought it would be neat to open a daily news blog about all things pony.
Oh, if he only knew what was in store for him and his little pony blog.Equestria Daily is a fan-run news blog for the ever so popular show
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic that launched on January 19th, 2011 and is run primarily by Shaun "Sethisto" Scotellaro. The blog was created in an attempt to create a more unified fanbase and partly as a response to the banning of ponies on
4chan in early 2011. In addition to posting the latest news pertaining to everyone's favorite show about pastel colored ponies, the site features a lot of high quality fan art, fanfics that get judged by a panel of pre-readers, custom toys, and all kinds of other fan-created content from across the brony fandom.
The blog eventually became one of the pillars of the
My Little Pony fanbase. If it gets posted on
Equestria Daily, chances are most bronies know about it. Hasbro and
The Hub have even sent Equestria Daily exclusive content (the extended "
Equestria Girls
" video being a prime example), and the blog has done exclusive interviews with members of the show's staff including show creator
Lauren Faust herself.
Oh, and even by fandom-unrelated standards, it's absurdly popular. Equestria Daily racked up 100 million hits in a little less than a year. And has managed to double the number in less then half the time.
While Sethisto is the face of the blog, he's picked up some helpers along the way. The full staff & pre-readers list can be seen
here.
- Cereal Velocity: Seth's right hoof stallion, a coder, and has written a few fanfics. Known for his Portal style "Equestrian Innovations" videos. Thinks Rarity is Best Pony.
- Phoe: Organized the Fan Art training grounds that help spawn several fan favorite artists in the community. Thinks Lyra is Best Pony.
- Calpain: Mostly handles the customs, plushies, and comics posts. Thinks Twilight Sparkle is Best Pony.
- Xyro: Handles community streams. Thinks Spitfire is Best Pony.
- PK: Blog intern, may or may not be working against his free will. Often handles the Nightly Roundups. Also thinks Twilight is Best Pony.
Oh, and where can you find this rather popular corner of the Bronyverse?
Right here.
Tropes
- April Fools' Day: Ever year thus far.
- 2011: the site was "taken over" by Trixie, who announced that the site was now dedicated to talking about how great she was.
- 2012: they pretended they had a corporate takeover by Hasbro, turned the website pink, and posted a bunch of pre-G4 content.
- 2013: the site took random news from all over the world and ponyfied it, simply because Equestria Daily is most peoples' news site (in their own words).
- Author Appeal: Seth is a big Trixie fan. Many jokes have been made about Seth's obsession with Trixie, and the blog arguably helped make Trixie an Ensemble Darkhorse.
- Despite just how huge of a fan of Trixie that Seth is, he believes that Twilight is the best pony (see the staff page link above). This led to him stating several times that Twilight is best pony in the blog itself. Cue stunned disbelief from the posters.
- Colbert Bump: Any site that gets linked here can expect one of these. Just look for the "CHAAARGE" tag. Also true for fanfics, art and just about anything else they post, really.
- Early Installment Weirdness: Can you believe Sethisto wrote this?
- Hostile Show Takeover: In October 2011, Phoe took over the blog for a day, and Sethisto and Cereal's OCs were shown tied up in the banner◊ (until they escaped and got their revenge◊).
- Logo Joke: The banner rarely stays the same for very long, often changing based on a holiday, recent episode, event, or whatever strikes Seth's fancy.
- Milestone Celebration: When the blog was young, artists used to celebrate every time the blog's hits passed another million with a special comic. However, the blog eventually became so popular and started getting a million hits so frequently that this almost became a daily thing. When the brony fandom exploded during the summer of 2011, the hit count rose so rapidly that it became impossible to keep up with every one. Now, only huge milestones would be met with any acknowledgement.
- Rose-Haired Pony: Phoe's OC is depicted as this.
- Running Gag: Every one of the mods has a favorite pony, as noted above. They are not above adding random posts with only a picture of their favorite pony doing something adorable, or demeaning to the other mods' favorites. Inevitably, this sparks a "best pony" war in the comments.
- Phrase Catcher: Sethisto.
- "Go to bed, Seth."
- This even carries over into the image boards, such as /mlp/. Any time someone posts a Trixie thread, well...
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Sethisto used to be portrayed as a cube trying to get out in Madmax's comics until he got a proper OC pony.
- Sturgeon's Lawinvoked: The argument they give for the quality control that they impose. Due to the fandom's massive size, the majority of fanworks will inevitably be crap, so they implemented quality control.
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