I have seen obvious marketing people starting subreddits with purpose to hate on competition/social rising and carefully craft a cult. I don't believe a wider cult hate singularity can exist without money spent on it somewhere for a purpose.
Follow who is going to profit from the hate. An uncritical hater can't rile up thousands or millions of people worldwide to hate something only specific people have access to.
Ironically, I have noticed strong fans are also strong haters and it doesn't take much for them to change their side.
Yes, these days organized hate is usually led by paid social media influencers, who are often easy to see through for people with critical thinking capacity.
Not always. I disagree with the idea that critical thinking alone is needed and that it doesn't have its own share of spectrum.
To me, critical thinking is like a veil. It describes many of the behaviors and skills underneath which are not so generally applicable. Empathizing is one of them which many critical thinkers outside of their domain forget about (it's not their fault).
A classic HN example is only a few programmers are needed to replace [insert wildly different industry jobs]
Some media influencers are purposefully obvious, critical thinking requires time and energy so once people think they figured out the obvious bait, they stop at that and move their attention to someone who calls out the obvious bait pretending to be an authority of trust. It also gives you power for denial of those untapped as conspiracy theorist or haters.
Follow who is going to profit from the hate. An uncritical hater can't rile up thousands or millions of people worldwide to hate something only specific people have access to.
Ironically, I have noticed strong fans are also strong haters and it doesn't take much for them to change their side.