At the time, I rather liked the first half of HPMOR, because I thought it was going somewhere and it was taking the piss at Harry Potter. I also enjoy fiction where people aren't idiots for sake of the plot, so I was enjoying a bit of deconstruction of that.

And then it just... Stopped the story and spun in place for what should have been the second half of the book and turned into drivel that takes itself very seriously.

I may have even told people to read it. I'm so sorry.

I think when most people say a culture product was good, they mean that they were entertained. I found it entertaining way back when. Looking back at it now, I'm not sure why. It is objectively awful.

Thinking about it, I think it's a combination of:

• Due to real life stuff, I wanted to be distracted and entertained (I binge watched and read a lot of material of questionable quality at this time)
• Fanfiction, so large suspension of demands of any formal structure and logic
• Fanfiction of children's fantasy books, so another large helping of suspension of disbelief
• I started reading just as it was wrapping up, so binge reading and then moving on (only to then 10 years later finding out that it was a cult recruitment tool, like finding out you had been to Scientology seminar, enjoyed free snacks and just missed all the cult recruitment going on)

I also think stories happens to a very large part in the mind of the reader/listener/watcher/player. So the story as perceived by me of ten years ago, or sailor's coworker, doesn't have to have much connection with what was actually written. That is also what I have noticed trying to re-read some of the sci-fi I read as a kid. The stories I remembered was much better than the ones in the books.