When I first watched the first episode, I didn't get past "In the magical land of Equestria". I laughed and turned off YouTube.
I was never sure what the hype was about, whether if it was for trolling the forums or if whoever made the first topic was actually serious. It took a while for me to actually try it again, the first megathread died off but the various hate threads and such were a constant reminder that it existed and some users were genuine fans.
The second time I watched it (which was quite some time later, like a few weeks or a month after noticing one of those mentioned threads), I made sure to watch the entire thing to give it a real chance. At that point, it felt like an everyday cartoon show. The cartoon style was nice, it was cute, and had a couple funny bits.
I made a post to sum up my thoughts about the separate ponies, but I wasn't very enthusiastic about the show. I also noted in that post that since it was a two-episode story that I should watch the second episode as well. I watched it a few hours later, again I thought it to cute, funny and nice. I gave it my try, watched the full two-episode story and was done.
It didn't take me till the next day to want to watch the next episode. The second episode was the better half of the two, and it hooked me many hours after finishing it. I slowly watched the rest of the episodes over a months span, now I eagerly await season two.
