Daniel Andrew Stein Jr. (born: August 27, 1988), better known online as MandoPony, is an American YouTuber, composer, singer-songwriter, music producer, writer, director, and voice actor. The channel mainly focuses on music written and performed by Stein, but has in the past featured Let's Play gaming commentary as well.
MandoPony gets his name from the fact that he was a brony (a male member of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom), and the fact that his earliest uploads were My Little Pony themed songs. He would later move on to play video games and release music based on the games, and later go on to make original music.
History[]
MandoPony joined YouTube when he was 23 years old on October 11, 2011.
The same day, MandoPony uploaded his first video, a chiptune cover of the main theme from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.[1]
In December 2013, MandoPony came out with his first album, A Very Mando Christmas, featuring covers of several classic Christmas songs.
On November 20, 2014, MandoPony uploaded his most viewed video, an original song entitled "Survive the Night", based on the popular Five Nights at Freddy's video game franchise, with over 47.0 million views as of May 2025.
In 2017, Mando stopped going by "MandoPony" when distributing music and instead opted to use his real name,which is Andrew Stein.
MandoPony was a frequent collaborator with artists like NateWantsToBattle and AmaLee, joining them on The Cool and Good Tour across America. Stein would later go on to join up with NateWantsToBattle's music distribution company Give Heart Records, where he released his 2017 album Smoke and Mirrors.
Controversy[]
Accusations of pedophilia and adultery[]
In 2020, Stein was accused of inappropriate relations and actions towards minors, as well as cheating on his wife. The investigation is ongoing, but there have been copious amounts of screenshots provided, while Stein himself has yet to prove his innocence. NateWantsToBattle and Give Heart Records have disassociated themselves with Stein by removing all of his music videos from their YouTube channel and removing his content from their website.
In August 2022, Stein released a statement on Twitter in which he claimed that "a SECOND police investigation confirmed, after seeing all evidence on both sides, that nothing criminal happened. You don't know the full story, but police, my family, my therapist and lawyer do. That should be all that matters."[2] Despite this, he has yet to return to Give Heart Records or the public eye in general.