I love my civic because it has given me essentially 106,000 trouble free miles at 32 mpg. Sadly, I will be parting with it soon to buy either a Mazda3 or a WRX (depending upon what I finally decide is best for me) so that I can have a "new" and "safer" car.
There's BILLIONS of people who own/drive Civics so even if 5% of them are morons, that's still a huge number or morons. Teenagers, college students, parents, grandparents, professionals, blue collar workers, doctors, garbagemen, janitors, retailers, morons, intellectuals, hippies, stiffies, sisters, brothers, rednecks, FOBs, democrats, republicans, blah blah blah. They all drive Civics. Good little work horses... that sometimes get riced out.
I think the popularity of the civic is the real reason for the backlash. Kinda like Michael Jackson, MC Hammer, Britney Spears, etc.
BTW... ChiMSP... can you tell me who this girl is? I've been trying to figure out who she is (obviously an import model) since I saw her pic in a mag.