I saw ponies floating around EVERYWHERE late in 2011 and after a few months of wondering why I decided to give the show a shot.  I watched the pilot and thought it was good, but it didn’t quite grab me.    A few weeks later I was bored and watched the third episode and got hooked.  After the end of season 2 I started watching some stuff from conventions, and was shown the Pony Anthology video which got me interested in the fandom as a whole.