Who is Unstory?

I’ve been away so missed this until today.

I’ve read a few posts from this blog in the past few months. Originally I thought they were just being written to deliberately provoke. A low level trolling kinda thing.

The consistency of it all has me thinking though, and I think their kind of constant criticism is less interesting than the writer seems to believe it is.

We’ve all come across them before, that a particular kind of internet critic who seems to derive status from being the person who “understands how the system really works”. Rather than engaging with the topic at hand they position themselves above the person asking it. It’s a common enough approach: you’re complaining because you don’t understand the world; I do, therefore I win.

In the linked post, the writer uses the line “master did not allow you”. Whilst clearly intended to be provocative, the metaphor does the argumentative work for him: Apple becomes the master, the user the slave, and apparently that is supposed to constitute an insight? It doesn’t. It’s just a sneer dressed up as an argument.

The same pattern runs through much of the writing. “It works as designed” is presented as though it settles the matter, when it merely describes the existence of the design. For me the interesting question is whether that design choice is sensible or justified, and had I been doing more than just posting a moan it’s likely where I’d have taken the post.

Likewise, pointing out that Apple controls its software isn’t some devastating revelation; everyone knows that.

What is noticeable is how often the writing avoids engaging with the actual viewpoint being presented and instead makes the perceived stupidity of the person holding it the subject. A quick scan through the site suggests this isn’t an isolated technique but a recurring one. One we’ve all seen before.

And it’s where I think the writing becomes less impressive than it initially appears. The phrasing is often clever, the confidence is unmistakable, and the deliberate cynicism gives the writing an appearance of intellectual weight.

But clever phrasing isn’t intellectual rigour, and confidence isn’t an argument. Strip away the theatrical language and what is often left is a fairly straightforward opinion wrapped in an elaborate demonstration of how much cleverer the writer is than whoever they’re addressing. At best, that’s intellectual sneering; at worst, it’s bullying dressed up as cleverness. Either way, it’s considerably less insightful than the writer seems to think it is.

Anyway, the internet is a big place, so it’ll be easier to avoid this somewhat nasty little place in future.

Interesting that they also pulled in a comment I posted on Mastodon to include in their post. Almost like they are just casting around for the next victim of their rapier wit and capricious knowledge.