A surprising amount of people have been asking us to cover this, and since we used to report on oldschool 4chan pony drama back in the day, I figured it might be interesting to look into it. We were born out of the fires of the comics and cartoons board over there after all.
If you aren't in the know, the image board got itself a pony section back in 2012 after many a thread was deleted. Back then, Friendship is Magic was pretty much taking over the nerd sphere of the internet, so instead of spending all day deleting cartoon horses, they decided to just contain it into a single section and ban it everywhere else.
If you have no idea what 4chan is, I wouldn't recommend going there. It has a very... unique culture, and is filled to the brim with NSFW material, even in the supposedly safe sections. That's not what we are here for though. This is about Anonfilly, so lets get to that below!
Since not everyone here is even aware of who Anon is to begin with, lets start there. Over in the wonderful world of chan boards, everyone is default anonymous. You can adopt a name or even a code that helps you have a unique name, but there are no account systems and most people piss and moan about people dawning a tag.
Anonymous eventually became an actual entity, represented by a green guy typically wearing a black suit and a question mark face. He has evolved far past that over the years based on which section of the site is using him. In the case of /mlp/, or the pony section, he's everything from a guy trapped in Equestria pretending to despise his obnoxious horse companions (while secretly loving them) to what we cover today... Anonfilly!
Back around 2014, someone decided to take our favorite multi-use, trash talking self insert and create an idea around him being transformed by Twilight into a filly. There were several comics and drawings based on the idea, so I'm not sure who exactly sparked it. Chances are it was a greentext story (basically mini-fanfic) lost in the many threads built up over there. Regardless, it has been on ongoing thing ever since.
Depending on who takes the helm in whatever the stories or comics are being written about it, Anon's journey as a filly is usually focused around comedy. Sometimes he's actively trying to get revenge on Twilight. In others, he's working with her to find a cure causing all sorts of wild miscast spells to take place. Usually though, he openly begrudgingly accepts it while secretly loving it. Turns out, some people on 4chan really do wish to be the little girl.
Since her creation, hundreds of drawings have been drawn, comic released, and an overwhelming amount of stories written up. She's been a pretty constant theme on /mlp/ for three years and counting. Some people take it a little far, but most just want to build around the concept of an adult being forced to live a life in pony utopia as a little filly.
With the history out of the way, lets break down the current drama. Late last month, she started getting deleted by site staff. Stuff like that isn't uncommon. This is something that has plagued the board for ages, and many just assumed it was another rogue janitor causing trouble. People were not originally receiving bans, and nothing was said about it by anyone in charge. People assumed someone posted pornographic images and a mod got lazy and decided to just nuke the entire thing.
Unfortunatetly, another was removed, then a 3rd sent to the new "/trash/" section of the site. An area where there are few rules and threads that don't quite break external ones are migrated if moderators don't like them. It looked like Anonfilly threads were officially being removed from their home at /mlp/.
When asked about this on the official 4chan IRC, one of their moderators simply responded with a "You're not getting your thread back ever. Period. Find a new life". As you've probably guessed, they aren't really into the whole public relations thing over there. It seems the mod just had a bone to pick with the concept, and has decided to nuke it for lulz.
Some cite that it promotes foalcon, but for the most part the threads were pretty tame and many a post dedicated to that concept remain bumping away and thriving. It really does seem like it's just a case of a power trip. The thread itself rarely broke any rules, and if it did the offenders were swiftly removed by an avid group of people reporting to keep the place clean.
At this point, she's officially banned from bringing up in the IRC, and many have shifted over to the newly formed /mlpol/, an offshoot of their April Fools joke this year where they combined the pony section with the politics section. They still have a thread on /trash/, but like any community break up, its hard to get everyone from the old one to migrate elsewhere.
The war continues on, and many have begun flooding the meta-discussion dedicated "/qa/" section with anonfilly posts in protest.
Moderator egos are just a part of the game on 4chan, and chances are they will get bored long before actually doing anything about it. A few people have messaged the site's owner, but he tends to stick to the sidelines. For now Anonfilly fans continue to wreak a bit of havoc while waiting for the inevitable burnout.
Note: If you are easily offended you probably shouldn't go googling around after reading this. Especially to their new hangouts. For everyone else, have a blast.
