Eh, I didn't go over those sources very well.
Basically,
4chan had this huge flame war of people spamming pictures of ponies and the mods banning anyone caught doing this, up to the point where they created their own Pony message board.
And it became the newest hipster craze to watch My Little Pony.
I think this is just a rebound from the decades-long cultural desert of bad cartoons we've been seeing, and finally someone's made a show that's
not ridiculously bad! "OMGFTW a show that's
not dogshit, omg imma watch this every day i dont care if it's a girl show!"
The saccharine environment is just a backdrop; if you know where to look, the show's actually written with stalwart dignity, with only an elite minority of even its animations ever blown out of proportion.
More than I can say for the current seasons of Spongebob.