I feel conflicted about things. I want to agree with you, but I have a lot of sympathy for people feeling that way, because I think we all do it.
There certainly is a different feel to someone who dislikes a thing due to actual legitimate reasons, and someone who hates a thing due to preconceived notions, external influences, or projection. I actually think that "hatred" is a thing worth taking note of. Sometimes people's reactions to things seem far too strong considering the reasons they give for disliking something. If something fills you with rage you might want to spend some time evaluating what you're actually angry about.
I don't think this is malicious, though. I think it's something happening on a subconscious level that someone may or may not even be aware of.
It's actually a funny coincidence I'm having this conversation on an ffvii forum considering I've known a number of people who dropped the game 20 minutes to 2 hours in and felt the need to tell me this either angrily or apologetically or proudly, as if I was the representative of the ffvii hype machine in their life and I had to be informed of their opinion.
Most people have come to me with completely legitimate explanations for why they didn't stick with the game and I'm totally cool with it. I've actually probably been a level of cool with it that caught some people off guard, like they're used to people being thrown into a rage if they admit to not liking a thing. Giving me a reason like, I found the gameplay unfun, the story didn't hook me, I think those are completely legitimate complaints. I don't think FFVII is perfect either, I just like it. These were people who came into the game with an open mind and didn't like it. It happens.
But there was one sole person who drove me up a sort of wall.
Not long after E3, I happened to be peeking at an exboyfriend's twitter page because I have no self control, and I found him going the fuck off for a handful of tweets about "fuck FFVII." I know he dropped the game a few hours in years and years ago. He never offered up an explanation as to what about the game didn't work for him. I think that's fine as far as, some people aren't seasoned reviewers and I think it's okay to not have the words for why you didn't enjoy something. But I think if you can't point to any specific reason why you hate something, it might be worth evaluating if you're really mad at the thing itself or something else. Seeing dickhat on twitter publically announcing over and over that he didn't like thing just made me feel like, what are you actually angry at right now? Were those 2 hours tops of gameplay really so offensive to you that you're still angry about this 10+ years later?
I think probably, he doesn't know what he's really angry about either, or else he'd recognize how absurd he's acting. It's that lack of self-awareness that bothers me more than the closed-minded hatred of a thing I enjoy.
As mentioned, I've done it too. We've all done it. There's a handful of shows I won't even watch, things I won't touch, because I know the aforementioned dickhat liked them. Even though I'm aware of that association influencing my experience with a thing, I can't divorce myself from the association long enough to figure out if I actually dislike the thing itself for legitimate reasons, or if I'm just feeling a lot of anger and sadness from the get go and inventing reasons to justify that feeling. So I tend to steer away from things making me feel that, even if it's entirely internal. Sometimes it's just not possible to be open-minded because we all have messy brains clouded with baggage.
But am I at least aware enough of what's going on in my head that I'm not going to consider "this thing is bad because at least one dickhat liked it" a legitimate complaint against something, and I'm sure as hell not going to make a bunch of tweets proudly stating my dislike of the thing.
Edit: wait I can tl;dr this, i'm sorry. "I think that disliking something due to external reasons is an okay and valid response also, but not worth claiming as an objective review because it's based in something highly subjective." I guess that's all I was trying to say. I don't even think this is arguing with starling it's just an expanded idea with a more sympathetic attitude. I have a lot of words in my head. I'm sorry. This quiche is delicious.