>>41371247AG and DP were discussed on bulbagarden/serebii, even social media wasn't really a thing for pokemon back then. Nobody went on twitter to discuss the anime at that time.
Even though May and later Dawn were popular, back then we had to deal with bitter Misty fans/Pokeshippers who stopped watching after the end of Johto, trolling pokemon forums for some reason because they were actually stupid enough to think Misty had to return to the show and couldn't handle her leaving. Misty fans launched a smear campaign against May and Dawn, stereotyping May and Dawn as idiots with no personality, that they were "weaker" than Misty, or too girly. You can look through the archives of the forums to see this from 2002-2010 especially.
Mods used to ban these people but the debates went on in threads a good while before they were closed. I think some of you younger fans have no idea why Misty fans get such a bad rep in the fandom, you guys have no idea how much trolling they did, ranting about how much they hated the show or how people wouldn't watch after Misty left.
That's why I said, this XY vs. SM thing going on now is childsplay compared to the Misty fans vs. May/Dawn thing that happened for a decade.
