The internet is home to many strange fads and fandoms, but none has gained quite so much attention so quickly as the Bronies. Meet the men who are obsessed with My Little Pony.

Bronies are the adult (mainly male) fan base of the little girls’ cartoon series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. If for some of you this conjures up fond memories of the popular 1980s Hasbro toys, think again. The ponies have had a revamp, and so have their fans.

Released in 2010, the latest version of the My Little Pony series hit our screens ready to grow up with the next generation of eight-year-old girls. Instead it sparked a huge online cult following where 86 per cent of the community is male with an average age of 21.

The Brony website gets 170,000 unique page views a day and the Brony fan art site has over 50,000 members and watchers.

There are an estimated 7 million people worldwide who identify themselves as a Brony. Even Bill Clinton is rumoured to be a secret Brony.

Since 2011 the Brony community has been leaving the internet once a year and gathering for their annual convention – BronyCon.

This year’s venue was in Baltimore, the city setting for rough, tough TV series The Wire, with over 8,000 Pony fans (4,000 more than last year) turning up to celebrate all things equestrian.