Aah... those times where I saw ponies on the internet and laughed at how immature I thought these fans were...
Let's just say I've gone through a lot last year.
Those fans might have been the ones from 4chan actually, which is where the whole MLP craze started. A lot of MLP fans who go elsewhere are as mature as the rest of the users in general. For the most part, it's more like people who like anime a lot and go to conventions, except with the 4th gen of MLP instead of anime. I don't watch MLP, but from what I've seen, the 4th generation is much better than many crap they air on TV on kids channels since the early 2000's.