Another factor is what your personality is and what your beat is -- one person I know with half your twitter follower count, IMO not even famous in a niche, see

Another factor is what your personality is and what your beat is -- one person I know with half your twitter follower count, IMO not even famous in a niche, seems to have some devoted haters, but he covers, ahem, a wider range of material. I think another example would be two famous people in a particular industry. With one, you can't find a reddit thread mentioning his work without somebody chiming in to whine about how he presents his opinions; they'll complain the way he expresses himself is that other people who disagree with him are wrong, which irks some people. The other is extremely fastidious about his public image, and he tends to exude a sentiment that what he's saying is just his opinion, and I don't pick up the same level of hater activity. The attack surface just isn't there. ^^ I tried to keep it vague, just for fun, but I guarantee some people can parse out who these two people are.