Paul GrahamVerified account

Inarticulate person: “bad take” Bot: “actually, merely calling something a bad take is itself a bad take as it doesn’t explicitly refute the central point. See this helpful infographic on @paulg’s hierarchy of disagreement”

Usage varies, but people who say “bad take” or one of its many variations usually mean “what you are saying is unpopular” or “I disagree with this for emotional reasons” rather than “what you are saying is factually untrue”

There are a collection of such phrases (e.g. also "This is tone deaf") and they all imply that what's being said is true, since otherwise they could simply say that it was false.

I think though that when people use these weaker phrases, they don't realize that they implicitly agree with the statement they're criticizing. They just think e.g. "not a good look" without realizing that if that's the worst they can say about it, it must be true.