[GHFigs]

So the "dog pile" on Apple that you perceive doesn't exist because people hate Apple for its success. It's because people have emotional opinions about Apple and thus will actually read stories about Apple.

I don't understand the distinction here. It sounds like you're exempting "hate" from "emotional opinions". Please clarify.

[roc]

The distinction is this: it's not the writers motivations that makes Apple articles different.

A handful of people Hating Apple may well motivate them to write negative things about Apple. A handful of others may reblog it for similar reasons.

But all sorts of people hate all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons. And one can easily find examples of similar emotionally-driven negative articles about Sony, Microsoft, Google, etc.

Yet those other articles don't inspire the response an Apple article does. They don't generate huge threads. They don't get reblogged much. They don't often generate many responses.

So Apple can't be different simply because of writers motives.

No, it's different because of the way readers react to it. And, specifically, the very large number of readers (historically out of proportion to Apple's significance) with very strong emotional reactions (both for and against).

[w0utert]

I would even go as far as assuming there are many more reasons why Apple attracts so much criticism, unfounded rumors and hate, besides 'emotional opinions' (which as far as I'm concerned indeed also includes hate). Rational reasons such as trying to make money by manipulating the stock, trying to fit into some kind of peer group that appears to dislike Apple, a general need for attention, a lack of inspiration and creativity when writing blog posts or news articles, etc.

Large successful companies gather mind share, be it positive or negative, which makes them an appropriate subject for all kinds of attention. Just like many people feel Apple gets a disproportionate amount of positive attention (which is probably true), many others feel the get too much bad press (which is also true). Usually hate attracts much more attention though.