What happened to my pose

”Cause if they hate Mario, Nintendo is coming for them”

Before I became a Sonic fan, I wondered why everyone hated Sonic. Heck, even that contributed to my conversion into a Sonic fan.

"Conversion" We're not a cult dude

Yall leave Joker alone broo

My guess is, it's because of the hate for the furry fandom and the stereotypes around it.

Or, maybe some who claim it's below the all-audience level. (Play Sonic Adventure 2 or any game with Shadow in its title and you'll see why that's wrong, but it doesn't even need that to be fun for all ages) However, I've never seen this kind of hate for Mario or Kirby.

Or the Mario side of "can only like Mario OR Sonic, never both". There was someone on the Sonic side just as bad who said "If I was in the same room as Osama bin Laden, Hitler, and M****, and I had a gun with two bullets, which two would I shoot? I would shoot M**** twice!" (yes, he even censors Mario's name)

And Sonic 06, the gameplay and loading screen times were bad. Watch the AVGN review (contains coarse language) to understand why, if you haven't played it yourself.

Though I don't consider human x furry to be beastality as furries are more human in shape and personality.

And of course Lost World and Forces are getting lots of hate where I felt the gameplay was all right and pretty fun, even is Forces is pretty short. And for not having a super deep story, do platforming games need that? Look at BotW, that didn't have any more story to it than those two and it was still popular.

Sonic is miles better than Mario, and I will die on that hill.

Tbh it kinda is. Sonic at least sometimes mixes up the formula, Mario is always "herp Mario peach has been captured"

I think it's a combination of Sonic being a high-profile series, general anti-furry sentiment and the inciting incident happening in the mid 2000s, when being toxic and edgy was in fashion. It doesn't help that the franchise then spent most of the 2010s trying to cash in on the hate by mocking itself.

As for the fandom being "awful", I should point out that most fandoms (especially the big ones) have negative aspects. Compared to some I've seen (and indeed been in), Sonic's is probably on the better side with its talented community of artists and game devs. I think a lot of the negative press comes from, as you said, Sonic being an acceptable target to many.

Also, maybe some people just played some of the bad games or harder games and got frustrated with them and assumed the whole franchise was like that. (Besides, if it's meant to be playable for kids, why are some parts of some games so hard?)

Yet, suddenly it seems popular again between the third movie and Shadow Generations, as people have been wanting Sonic merchandise a lot since then.

And yes, every big fandom, even the pony fandom, will have its toxic side, doesn't mean that's the whole fandom or that it reflects the franchise. (And I have noticed the pony fandom receive zero hate here, even from You-Know-Who)