I disagree with the red line, the animation quality really improved over the seasons

>implying that the quality of the show has neither gone up nor down since S1
>implying that people considered S2 disappointing due to inflated expectations
>implying this chart makes your "Take That" to the fans correct

Yeah, no. Regardless of whether S3 was underwhelming (and it was, don't even TRY to argue that), the fact of the matter is that fan expectations truly haven't been unreasonably high. Most fans have been more than willing to ignore and/or take in stride most problems with the show. We're fans, we LIKE to like this show. It's actually quite hard for the fandom as a whole to truly dislike something.

However, when you cram half a dozen entirely unique sources of fandom-shattering news into roughly one month of time, there's gonna be some goddamn fallout. The leaked Smile Smile Smile song? We could handle it. The Derpy controversy? It took a little while, but most people moved on and got over it.

Alicorn Twilight, Mane6 C&D, Spike At Your Service, Discord's 22-minute Heel Face Turn, Equestria Girls? Any one or two of those we could probably have handled fine, but with such an unrelenting tidal wave of drama and controversy, I wouldn't expect any better reaction than what we got.

We just weren't prepared for this, man.