re: Why does "How I met.." get love, but "The Big Bang..." gets hate?

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I'll say this, I know plenty of 40+ people who love the show. I think they are the ones who are "laughing at" the characters to the point where it's malicious like others have said. I also know plenty of young people who love the show, too. I personally don't think it's targeted to 40+. I just think you might have a lot of 40+ watching, but that's mainly because like 20 million people watch the show. You probably have a bunch of all age groups because that many people watch.

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Ok. I'll revise to be more clear.

While the content and setting SEEM to be targeted at kids, or at least, twenty-somethings, the shows structure and comedy is clearly targeted at middle america 35+. I'm saying that the content doesn't match its audience. And that's precisely why it's a fairly standard sitcom wrapped in the trappings of supposed geek comedy. And that none of the jokes really have anything to do with nerds, being nerdy, or geekdom when you actually look at them closely.

Just because you are talking about Star Wars does not mean you are talking about Star Wars. A joke about Penny dressing up as Leia has everything to with Sex and Bikins and nothing to do with Star Wars.

A joke about Nerds, because they are in a comic book store, has nothing to do with being nerd, but people being outcasts because they are nerds. It's not "nerdy humor," It's mean humor with nerdy content.

Take away the college stuff (because in the grand scheme of the show the school setting often is of no consequence), the content is comic books, star wars, computers and social media, etc. that's, for the most part, kid fare. But that's just CONTENT.

Content-wise, sure it has almost nothing to do with the 35+ age group. But Stylistically speaking, the comedy, punchline, writing structure, and characters are written to appeal to an older audience, not a young one. Therefore, as per the original statement, they do not target the same audience as HIMYM.