[handrous]

Maybe it's wrong, but highly-regarded authors writing really mean reviews of work they consider embarrassingly (for the author of the work under review, had they any shame and the good sense not to subject the public to this, which clearly they do not, is the usual implication or outright statement of the review) terrible or highly over-rated is practically a literary genre of its own. This hardly stands alone, and is a continuation of a time-honored (if, again, maybe wrong, or bad, or what have you) tradition.

... in fact, much of the tone of writing on the early and mid-period Web was pretty similar, including some that was among the most well-known, and strong backlash against that in favor of gentler writing has only come in the last decade or so. Simply common and normal, hardly meriting comment, then. Perhaps humanity has recently experienced a great moral leap forward.