So I posted the following in this thread originally. People liked the post, and asked me to make it into a separate one.

It's a rehash of the way Britney Spears was subjected to so much hatred by the media and the public. The general reaction to her now is VERY, VERY different.

Please if you have any points you'd like to add, go right ahead. As you can tell I don't believe in TL;DR so if you wanna write your own essay, be my guest.

Here's the post (I added a couple more links and elaborated on a few points):

The hatred for Britney's mere existence has always been horrific, because she was young, attractive, sexual and commanded a stage. The "Baby One More Time" video was considered the height of sleazy and slutty, if you can believe that. People were so offended by it, and by the Rolling Stone shoot she did soon after. Most don't know she orchestrated both: sources here and here.

There was creepy obsession with her breasts and virginity, because she appeared to have implants and told media she was a virgin. It's like people felt they'd be able to "ruin" her if they could just prove she had the surgery or had the sex, it was the weirdest cultural fixation. She had interviewers twice her age asking her about it. Here's an archived article about her being asked to comment on the status of her sex life, at twenty years old, in the middle of a live press conference.

From 98 to around 2001, she was largely seen as disposable, over in a few years. Kinda how people viewed Rihanna at first, except no one hated on Rihanna irrationally. To be fair, Brit's lip syncing didn't help. As Britney's sales went through the roof, the hate turned into "She's is the end of music, le wrong generation" etc. In 2003, Avril Lavigne was marketed as the "anti-Britney", the term was used in almost every article/interview. See here and here.

Britney started right when internet culture was brand new. I remember looking around the early 00s internet as a kid, for "britney spears" and finding a "game" where you shove objects in her mouth then kill or beat her up, it was so disturbing and there were tons of hate sites like that (this was before you just complained on Twitter). I actually can't believe this but I managed to find one of the worst, most slut-shamey sites from YEARS ago, right here. Now this, this is the perfect sum up of how non-fans saw her back then. The worst part is this person HAS a point about sexualisation and exploitation of women and girls, but they blame Britney instead of the corrupt, male dominated music industry. The same thing happened to Kesha.

In 2003, a US politician's wife said she would shoot Britney if she could in a speech about preventing domestic violence (?). Britney addressed it here. Britney was the prime example of the "wrong girl", the one everyone held up as a "bad" example of the worst sort of role model. You always heard people trying to be cool saying stuff like "I can't stand these 12 year olds who dress like Britney Spears, so fake and slutty", now they probably say "Miley Cyrus". Google that phrase, leads to ridiculous articles like this.

When this picture went viral, every media outlet called her fat.

Simon Cowell went to see her 2004 tour and said she "should've hit the gym more before going on stage", then randomly said Christina is more talented.

Justin shitting on her after their break-up has been well publicised recently, but it was also teamed with Xtina framing a lot of her Stripped promo around constantly dissing her too (not to mention JT and Xtina toured together that year), and Christina only got worse after losing all attention to Britney with the Madonna kiss.

Speaking of, the public despised Britney's VMA performances at first. They were seen as what was "wrong" with the VMAs. The 2000 one where she ripped off her costume, the host said "from Mickey Mouse club to the strip club!" so the media framed it like she spent the whole performance slowly getting naked in front of children. Hilariously extra quote from above link: "Britney Spears provided some medieval thrills by hanging, drawing, and then quartering the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" in a transparent body stocking. For a few brief moments, it was as if child pornography had gone over-ground." The Slave performance reaction was almost identical to how people saw the Miley/Thicke performance - depraved and sleazy. Was very weird watching public opinion do a complete 180 on both performances. I never imagined they'd be seen as iconic or the pinnacle of VMA performances one day.

People actively rooted for her marriage to K-Fed to end, to the point where Matt Lauer told her about the hatred in that infamous 2006 interview. She had fucked up a few times in public with her baby when that interview happened, most outlets/public went off at her for not apologising profusely and for not admitting she was a terrible mother (Lauer asks her "Is Britney a bad mom?"). This photoshopped image did the rounds, I had to tell SO many people it was fake. When she got pregnant again, that Pink Is The New Blog guy (who was at the peak of popularity then) snapped. I love the internet because I managed to find his post:

"She looked really bad in this horrible satin potato sack. I'm not sure how many babies she's pregnant with but it looks like at least 8...I think it's safe to say that her career is gonna quit on her....Britney looked a tiny bit better as she left The Late Show (mainly because her coat covered up her chubby back)...She looks like a thicker Kimberly Stewart...with parents like Spederline I'm shocked [Sean Preston] isn't a raging alcoholic already....".

Delightful!

Immediately after her 2007 VMAs performance, host Sarah Silverman called Britney's children "mistakes" and talked explicitly about Britney's genitals. She also said Britney had achieved everything she'll ever achieve, if that isn't actively wanting someone to fail I don't know what is. There was also Perez Hilton, who said both her children looked disabled. Fans were infuriated when he got to open her Circus Tour like a year later. In 2007, the Associated Press publicised that they were preparing Britney's obituary.

Also in 07, Craig Ferguson made a specific promise to no longer make fun of her on his show, because he felt it was all getting out of control.

TL;DR: People have always wanted Britney to fail, in all aspects of her life, many still do. The hate for her has been as synonymous with her name as her success. I guess it's a good sign some people who saw my original post didn't know about it, that means things are changing. Not fast enough though, her X Factor promo run made it to Reddit a couple years ago and the comments were horrific.