not that I will ever understand a sane interest from a grown man in My Little Pony

It could be MLP, Avatar, a videogame or a hobby, it's just an excuse, it's just a support to be in a community that foster something positive, something constructive, something about sharing that specific niche and being happy just for once being part of something nice rather than having yet another place reminding you of the everyday bullshit.

My best friend had a shitty upbringing, alcoholic mother, work alcoholic father, bullying brothers and a speech impediment, I only learned that quite recently but he almost offed himself, twice, nasty stuff until one day while randomly watching tv he found some cartoon named "Kim Possible" and unbeknownst to him his life was so shit he unconsciously started to care about that as some form of refuge against the daily shitty grind or something, he watched the shows and interacted with the fanbase on imageboards but instead of complaining about his shitty hand he focused on mundane, trivial stuff about "his" show, he did that for years and slowly but surely he cared less and less about the shit that was gnawing at him and focused on positive stuff. He might be all grown up now, with kids and all, but he still have found memories of that show.

Hell, got myself rather deep into ptsd and survivor guilt, you know what support I used to buy myself enough time to heal? fucking Monster Girl Quest, recommended by other fellow army vets because apparently that's "our" cope thing. Why do you think the slice of life anime or yet another moe bait are so successful? that shit is like heroin to the soul when you're five feet under, obviously, like alcohol some people can't handle it and will just delay the inevitable, but that's another topic.

I hope this helped to shed some light, even if it's just a meager one.