I hate it, because it makes me feel defensive. PHP in their minds
    is much worse than it practically is. Im tired of defending
    PHP, Im tired of being set back and having to proof my compete
    by virtue of being a PHP programmer.

For me it is the other way round. I like it when journalists ask me what super advanced tech stack I use. When I get tweets about what libraries I use in my projects. And students mail me questions about the technology behind my Startup. And I can reply "It is just your average LAMP stack".