Haters

Firstly, there's definitely a point in which you attract fanboys but not haters, and if your popularity/fame is in a smaller niche, you may never end attracting the latter at all. Generally, someone tends to get haters when they go 'mainstream', and their work is shown to people that don't like it/can't see why it's popular or successful.

Number 2 on the list probably has some relevance too. For both fanboys and haters, since it's entirely likely every creator has both people who'd love them/their work if they found it and those that'd hate it, and also likely that not everyone in those camps has come across it yet.

In addition to that though, I think there are two more factors that play into how much of a hatedom you have, and I guess also how many fans you have too.

1. How you deal with attacks or criticism. If you ignore the trolls and haters and respond in a civil way to critics, you'll get a lot fewer haters than if you lash out at people. A lot of the folks with more... dedicated critics fall into the latter group. See Chris Chan, Darksyde Phil, Derek Savage, that guy who makes Yandere Simulator, etc.

2. The topic of your success/supposed expertise. If your work is seen as political, it will get a more backlash than if it's about some hobby/interest than most people are neutral about. For instance, I've recently posted two things that got popular; some videos about glitches in a certain video game, and an article calling out web developers/software engineers for using frameworks in situations where they didn't need to.

The former got mostly praise and questions, the latter has brought about a ton of personal attacks and criticism.

Someone who writes a successful article about why Donald Trump got elected/is popular is going to get a lot more hate than someone who writes about quantum mechanics.

I'd say it's a mix of those factors myself.

In both cases there were career incentives that drove each to pursuing their targets. At no point did either say to themselves, I hate this fraud because why good on him/her and not me? They thought, I’m going to bust this crooks ass because this is a true injustice that should be exposed, and I’m going to be the one who benefits from doing it.

There’s a big difference between cheating and succeeding (that’s what I think haters don’t want to believe), and in some cases like the two you mention, it wasn’t just perceptual. There was hard evidence of fraud.

if you’re a startup CEO and you spend a year relentlessly bragging about your startup publicly you invite scrutiny on yourself. You are practically begging others to ask questions you might not want asked.

His chief of staff literally insulted the intelligence of anyone who dared suggest Lambda School was worth less than $100B https://web.archive.org/web/20190921045339/https://twitter.c...

Is a hater akin to a criticaster? Like a critic without substance? And a fanboy a fan without substance? Then the burden of proof to prove a lack of substance is with the person who starts to use the word "fanboy" or "hater". As such definitions are essentially ad hominem (and no, you being attacked personally does not warranty an equal ad hominem).