There's two kinds of it. One is "This is BS, here's why it's BS, here's more detail on why it's BS, don't fall for this BS." It's heavier on evidence than it

There's two kinds of it. One is "This is BS, here's why it's BS, here's more detail on why it's BS, don't fall for this BS." It's heavier on evidence than it is on snark. It uses snark to liven up what could be dull, but all the data is there, and is carefully explained. The other kind is heavier on snark than it is on evidence. It uses the snark to persuade, rather than the evidence. That's "I can't be bothered to actually make a real case here (whether or not the data is actually on my side), so I'm just going to make the other side look stupid, and hope that you decide to agree with me so that you don't feel stupid too". The first kind can be persuasive. (In fact, it can be more persuasive than the dry kind of refutation.) The second kind is a huge red flag - if they're right, it's only by accident, because they can't be bothered to really deal with the evidence. I suspect that, when different people are reacting to snark in such an article, they're reacting to different versions of it.