Derpibooru

About

Derpibooru is a booru site dedicated to images related to the My Little Pony fandom that lets users tag images and original sources for searching and discussing MLP artwork. Originally, the image repository started off as a successor to Ponibooru. The site also shares the domain with Trixiebooru.

History

Derpibooru originally gained popularity after the closure of its predecessor Ponibooru on August 17th, 2012. On June 17th, 2012, Ponibooru announced that it would be shutting down all upload capabilities and taking the site offline two months later. Equestria Daily^[1] user Cereal Velocity posted about the news stating, “According to the site owner, this was ‘not due to any sort of external pressure, nor is it due to financial problems. The reasons are personal: I (Eco/Archive/&c) have simply reached the point where I can see no way to run the site that I can live with, nor do I have any person whom I trust to run the site in a way I can endorse.’”

Derpibooru^[2] (seen below) is currently the largest My Little Pony fandom site on the web, with estimated traffic of roughly 700 uploads per day, four admins, nine developers and 21 moderators. Carcer, who originally came up with the idea for the site, is the founder and also an administrator.

Features

Signed-in users on Derpibooru can choose to either be anonymous or identified based on their preferences by hiding IP addresses through features on the site or accessing it via an onion address. Users can also perform most functions on the site without signing in and can remain anonymous while uploading images, posting comments and replying to threads. Derpibooru^[3] makes use of numerous tags for organizing, describing and listing various information like original artists of images posted to the site. These tags also allow users to browse the library of images and search for content. Users can make use of filters for hiding certain content and retrieve or upload images directly from outside sources such as DeviantArt. Similar to other boards, posts feature an upvote and downvote system that’s separately displayed, including favoriting images. A forum section on the site allows users to discuss all aspects of their fandom, in addition to outside discussions or site-related updates.

Highlights

In January 2013, Derpibooru launched its Twitter^[4] account, which currently has 1,647 followers. On Tumblr,^[5] the admin team runs the page Derpibooru News that posts updates, news and various discussions. The community also runs the private subreddit^[6] r/Derpibooru on Reddit.

Black Lives Matter Controversy

During the 2020 George Floyd protests, users on Derpibooru began posting various content related to the Black Lives Matter movement, which sparked online debate and discussion. On June 1st, 2020, Twitter^[7] user woot_master tweeted about the issue claiming users were biased regarding images on the site discussing the death of George Floyd and BLM. The post (shown below) received 458 likes and 149 retweets.

On June 4th, 2020, the Derpibooru Twitter^[8] account then tweeted a statement about the protests and said, “Derpibooru’s administration fully supports the Black Lives Matter movement and are abhorred by the onslaught of police brutality across the United States,” receiving 657 likes and 188 retweets (seen below). The tweet received several replies from both supporters and detractors, with an example of the former coming from Twitter^[9] user SigmasonicX who said, “This is good to hear, but this better not result in Black Lives Matters pictures being taken down. I also want a purge of Nazi and especially Aryanne images.” Twitter^[10] user presentfactory then replied, “This is quite possibly the stupidest decision this site has made since its inception. Not only does it ruin the previous permissive content policies, but is incredibly politically biased due to favoring a specific side of the debate rather than being unilateral in application.”

On June 5th, 2020, after Derpibooru’s “Ask Mods Important Questions” thread was locked on the site’s forums due to a flood of comments about the policy change, user Awkward Segway^[11] created a thread titled, “Unofficial BLM-related Policy Change,” where heated discussion between users occurred, resulting in 403 replies.

Search Interest

External References