To be fair I usually don't find people hating on U2 in my real life.
I'd thought -though probably I'm wrong- that this one applies to most countries where English is not spoken and/or where rock is not popular music.
Because in here, the huge majority of people don't know and don't care who is U2 or any other rock band, and for the people that listens to rock music, chances are that U2 is considered and measured more as a legend.
Let me put it this way, there's not many rock stations on the radio, so there isn't a pop station, an indie station, an alternative station, a classic rock station, etcetera... Basically a rock station plays all of them at the same time, so it isn't that common to label something and be on the opposite corner of it.
Obviously there are people that hates them ("too mainstream" I'd say it's their main target point, but since any music that is not Banda would be alternative, that becomes a moo point -Joey dixit-), but it's not really hard to be aU2 fan in here.
Hell yeah I'm proud to be a U2 fan! I hyped up 360 on my Facebook page when it came around and did the same thing for IE. I made longish posts on why U2 is easily one of the best current bands around and why nobody else knows how to work a stage that our 4 guys do. When people say "So, you saw U2 twice in the same week?" I reply "You bet I did and you better believe it was worth it". I take pride in knowing that there is something in life I enjoy enough to engage in over and over again.