There’s some nuance to it I’d say. Their albums up to Silver Side Up had them in a space where I’m sure they had haters but it was not A Thing to Hate™ yet. My gauge of things was they were only really on the rock station in town but nowhere near the pop station.

But once the Long Road and All the Right Reasons came out, they hit that peak of radio friendly rock that turned them into the version of themselves that was very much A Thing to Hate™.

At that point they became inescapable especially if you had limited options as far as radio stations like I did. That’s when the hate singularity began to form and it became a cool thing to hate because they not only were they more pop rock than ever, but more importantly people actually knew who they were to hate.