These people seem to like the idea of Kishimoto being a master troll, without realizing they are actually damaging his reputation in claiming that. Even bad writers are at least genuinely trying to make a story. If we take there word for this, Kishimoto only wasted everyone's time. In addition to wasting our time, he wasted the NH fans' time. Instead of developing the relationship clearly so no one would cry foul, he instead gave us no reason to like NH in the first place.
That's just a silly notion in general and I don't know why anyone latches on to it. Because it's admitting that a work, one they'd claim victory in regard to a part of it, is essentially shallow and without merit. If you're making something just to "troll" your audience, it's probably more because you have absolutely nothing to say; a good example are those controversy generator games that go super edgy dark and violent and sick to get eyeballs and kick up a fuss only for it to have no real value. it's something you'd expect out of a total hack. Not exactly flattering to the guy they seem to want to prop up and excuse. In fact, it's probably worse than the criticisms. And also makes their "victory" meaningless.
Besides which, no author putting a decade plus into an action adventure series that saw a startling amount of success is going to "troll" their audience. Especially not for something like pairings, which were so minor to the series that we found out in the end no real thought had been put into them. After all, Naruto's not romance genre by a long shot. Authors usually have something to say or at least an idea of what they want to do. Even things with a clear "take that" to the audience - Evangelion springs to mind - is still trying to say something.
It's nothing new. Young people see something they like, they get butt hurt when they find a critical opinion. It's so important to them to feel validated they will attack anyone who thinks otherwise. Unfortunately, some carry this attitude well into adulthood.
Yeah, I always bristle when I see that "young people today" stuff. Or blaming the internet. It's such old man kitten. We were like that too. I was a little kid in the nineties and can remember it pretty well and oh boy, this kind of behavior did not just spring up in todays generation, the internet just let it stretch to people outside of your immediate community. There's a reason we all look back on our younger selves and think we were idiots. We're not all enlightened or anything compared to later generations.
