 An article that appeared in the New York Times on December 26 , 2011 , " Navigating Love and Autism " by Amy Harmon , described how a young woman with Asperger syndrome used My Little Pony characters to relieve stress . She visualized the character Twilight Sparkle whenever she " found herself in a bad @-@ mood rut " . The story misidentified Twilight Sparkle as Fluttershy on initial publication and the paper issued a correction , which some journalists have jokingly considered as " the best New York Times correction ever " , though others saw it as a sign of the journalistic integrity of the Times . Harmon was contacted by fans about the mistake , and said , " I hate to get anything wrong , but I confess to some enjoyment in finding the right way to phrase this one . " In 2015 , the New York Times reported that Dylann Roof , the suspect in the Charleston church shooting , was a fan of My Little Pony , but later corrected itself after recognizing it had been duped in a experiment run by a blogger , who had faked the claim but made it as credible as possible as to test how much fact checking major news sources were doing on a high @-@ interest topic . 
