Thank you for the question, Dracorider19! And thank you very much for reviving this topic! I was afraid I was going to have to redo it all over again!
I started discovering MLP:FIM on Boomerang at 2011, I believe. I thought it was weird, since it was on a channel that had old cartoons like Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and Scooby-Doo and old Cartoon Network shows on there, but at that time, Puppy in my Pocket was on there too. So it seemed that female shows were arriving on Boomerang, but later on they were removed from the channel. I checked it out for myself. The episode was "The Ticket Master." I thought to myself, I couldn't believe I was watching a show about ponies, but... I seemed to have an interest in the show. It was not as girly as the previous incarnations of MLP. I even admited they looked cute. I was looking at more ponies on the internet. I learned more about bronies and I was quite surprised. Probably because I saw lots of pictures of them with Amazing World of Gumball and Regular Show. Later on, an old friend of mine who was at my school came over and looked at me looking at ponies. She asked if I was a brony. And now she said it, I said yes. I was now officially a brony. And I still am to this very day. My favourite pony was Rainbow Dash, but now it has been changed to Twilight Sparkle. Why? Because she is awesome, she is smart and she is so adorable! Twilight Sparkle is best pony.
That so far is what I can recollect from when I found out about the show.