I can't even attempt to explain this as I have no interest in the show, but I'm pretty sure only a small amount of the popularity is purposely pissing people off, and it's not fair to hate the entire group for it.
It's probably more than you'd think. Even if they're doing it subconciously.
Think about it, no show has EVER gotten even 1% of the replies as MLP, weather it be for adults,for kids, good, bad, whatever.
Like I said, there's something missing here. Even if I liked the show, I doubt it's 1385.125 times better than breaking bad.
(or any other show, you can do the math, just take 11081 and devide it by the number of pages of the topic of the show in question.)
If the topic had say, 50 or 100 pages I wouldn't give a stuff.
I'd just be like, oh, that must be a decent show.
But it has
orders of magnitude more posts than
any other show ever posted about, ever.