He steals waifus(joke response)

Well the romance between him and Twilight in the first two films wasn't really handled too well, and he wasn't given a lot of screentime or depth either. (Even if the fandom worships characters like Marble Pie who have even less personality)

But I think a lot of it comes from just how controversial the first movie was and how awful the fandom was during that time, as well as just how controversial the idea of one of the mane 6 getting a love interest in general is.

However I do believe if his pegasus version was introduced in the show later on, like in season 5 or so as a potential love interest to Twilight, the fandom would have been less hostile towards him. Even if some people never really would have warmed up to him in that scenario either.

Because he barely has any personality. He's a terrible "love interest" for Twilight. I'd imagine Twilight would prefer someone who shares her love of knowledge, not just some guy she talked to twice.

I'm completely neutral about him.

Terrible writing. An unnecessary character. Like anyone of the other mane 6 could have found the pics in the trash and etc. He was not needed. That being said he later appearances left me not hating him though (not that I ever really did, but just didn't like him). He's actually pretty cool now and wouldn't mind seeing more of him even if it is as the butt of a joke XD 

I wrote why here, but to keep it brief, he's a filler secondary (now tertiary) character, one of the flattest ever written in FIM personality-wise, and has an identity of nothing but a shallow love interest to Twilight. People like myself hate him, because he's an awful character.

On 10/16/2017 at 7:47 PM, cmarston1 said:

(Even if the fandom worships characters like Marble Pie who have even less personality)

Your comparison doesn't make a lick of sense.

1. Marble Pie is nothing more than a low-hanging comic relief character at the very most. She's completely unimportant to the plot other than to have a tiny chuckle to lighten the story's mood.
2. On the other hand, unlike Marble, Flash is a sexist stereotype. His whole personality is embodied by how good-looking he is and is a mesh of high school drama cliches that do nothing except make EQG's worldbuilding (or lack thereof) very dated. Secondly, in EQG1, he was just as important as the ReMane Five, if not more so. Although he's more a tertiary character now, Flash's complete crush on Twilight and arc are still played straight. Unlike Marble and her mm-hmms, we are supposed to take his crush angle and character seriously, but how can the audience do so when DHX put a dead end on him before it started?

On 10/16/2017 at 7:47 PM, cmarston1 said:

But I think a lot of it comes from just how controversial the first movie was and how awful the fandom was during that time, as well as just how controversial the idea of one of the mane 6 getting a love interest in general is.

Nope. Regardless of the time of release, a bad character is a bad character. Even if EQG1 was released like sometime during season 5, people will still hate him, because he's so poorly conceptualized and worse written. If DHX is gonna write in a love interest to a main character of a series about friendship, write him well and don't plug him in places where he can be easily replaced by other main characters.