Why is JavaScript still mocked and made fun of?

The initial implementation of JavaScript was rushed and ended up with strange, seemingly broken behavior in some places.

The WAT talk (https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat) by Gary Bernhardt shows some of the JavaScript strangeness.

This used to be more of a thing than it is now, in my experience. Culturally, it took a while for the perception of Javascript to change from "that janky language you had to use to animate web pages" to a general purpose language on the level of Python or Ruby. Node/React/Vue/etc. have been around long enough now that I think most of that has died out, though obviously, many still have a personal distaste for the language.

“There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.”

-Bjarne Strostrup

Imo it's mostly due to the sheer number of people using it. More users --> more complaints.

With typescript growing more popular fewer have the same complaints -- things are changing