@RustyCrab neh, the tl;dr is the faggots and furries (same thing) picked up on it for a few years in the middle. Now that they are moving away from the MLP fandom the cool people are coming back and are more noticeable. Lots of oldfags are either back to making pone or came up with some new interesting stuff to show off (such as myself).
Mare Fair kind of helped too - https://marefair.org/