>Yes, I got these on Dankpod's reccommendation. Apparently a bunch of people on here hate them but I can't figure out why other than weird elitism

You'll see that a lot around here for sure. The tricky part about headphones/speakers is that people will have different views on how things should sound, and everybody will hear a headphone/speaker differently depending on several factors (mainly size/shape of head, ears, ear canals, etc). Plenty of people have told me they don't like the headphones I own, and vice versa.

The Samson SR850 from my understanding is a headphone that is rather bright sounding (heavier in the treble and deficient in the bass). Depending on the person they might be painful/sharp to listen to because of that brightness, or might not have as much slam in the bass as someone would like. The unevenness of their sound is the main reason some people will not like them.