The fan site was originally established in January 2011 by 23-year-old college student Shaun Scotellaro, a resident of Arizona, to collect fan fiction and news specific to the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. While on the site, Shaun goes by his internet alias 'Sethisto', or simply 'Seth'. Other members of the site's staff include the editors 'Cereal Velocity' and 'Phoe'. After the temporary banning of pony-related content on the English imageboard 4chan, the fan site quickly became popular within the brony subculture, as of June 2011 garnering roughly 175,000 through 300,000 page views per day. Eventually, the Friendship is Magic production team, as well as the network on which it airs, The Hub, recognized the existence of the site, and have since occasionally sent official material to Equestria Daily, with the most notable being an extended promo of 'Equestria Girls', a parody of Katy Perry's California Gurls. The site has also served to keep the fandom alive - primarily through its massive collection of fan fiction - while awaiting the second season of the animated show, as one feminist has stated.
As of September 2011, the site boasts over 35 million hits since its creation in January.
