Technologically Skwair ▢ blog
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Print by Marian Hardey. We Are All Squares. March 2020.
Print, Burned Diners, Mariann Hardey, 2026
I fell down a rabbit hole this morning. It started with a piece on the "Burned Haystack Dating Method" by Jennie Young, a strategy designed to help women cut through the noise of dating apps by spotting "embedded red flags", minute linguistic clues that reveal a person's true intent, often in direct contradiction to their stated bio. The article highlighted a specific dissonance: a man who describes himself as "easygoing" but chooses an aggressive anthem about losing his cool as his profile song. To the casual observer, it’s just a bad song choice. To the Burned Haystack analyst, it is a data point. It is evidence that the "text" (his bio) and the "context" (his behaviour) are at war. This was originally shared with me by some teacher friends, who are reading and analysing the styles of the language of the article in their English classes “right now". "We just didn't call it 'Haystacking.' We called it Close Reading." It struck me then that we often pitch literature to students as a way to appreciate beauty or history. But perhaps we should be pitching it as a forensic analysis. Whether we are swiping left on Hinge in 2026 or reading a soliloquy from 1600, we are engaged in the same desperate, necessary work: trying to survive the narrative. The Gap Between Bio and Reality The core pedagogical insight of the Burned Haystack method is that context is everything. In the classroom, that gap between a character's self-presentation and their textual evidence isn't just a "red flag"; it is dramatic irony. It is the tension that makes a text vibrate. I teach a module called How to Read Business to undergraduates who often arrive believing that reading is a passive act of absorption. They think their job is to ingest the words, memorise the definitions, and repeat the strategy. But I teach them that reading the words is not enough. In fact, reading only the words is a trap. In the corporate world, fluency is often a camouflage. A smooth, charming Mission Statement is no different from a poetic Hinge bio; it is a curated performance of the Self. The Seduction of Fluency When I introduce close reading to my students, I ask them to look for the friction. We move beyond "what does this say?" to the forensic questions: What is the intention here? Who is the author trying to be? And, crucially, who is excluded from this narrative? We treat business texts, such as annual reports, CEO apologies, and sustainability manifestos, as "unreliable narrators." For example, consider the standard Layoff Memo.
Reading as Self-Defence By applying this dating app logic to business, the text changes. It stops being a transmission of facts and becomes a site of struggle. We teach students that the readerly part, their gut reaction to a shift in tone, their suspicion when a paragraph flows too smoothly, is data. When we teach them to spot the gap between the "Bio" (Corporate Social Responsibility statements) and the "Reality" (supply chain logistics), we are teaching them intellectual self-defence, far beyond the subject-specific confines of English or Business. We are teaching them that fluency does not equal virtue, and that the most dangerous texts are often the ones that sound the nicest. Austen: The Original Haystacker Reflecting on this, I would argue that Jane Austen was the original creator of the Burned Haystack method. She was the ultimate observer of the "Nice Guy" red flag. Consider Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility. If Willoughby had a dating profile, it would be perfect. He is romantic, dashing, quotes poetry, and sweeps Marianne off her feet. He has the "rizz" (as the students might say). But Austen gives us the context: his actions. He ghosts Marianne (how dare he!) He creates a vacuum of silence. Austen warns us across the centuries: do not fall for the bio; look at the data. Then there is Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice. His proposal to Lizzie Bennet is a masterclass in what the Haystack article calls the "disguising control as concern" pattern. He literally cannot process the word "No." When Lizzie rejects him, he doesn't hear a boundary; he hears a prompt to try harder. He reframes her rejection as "elegant female coyness." He gaslights her in real-time, rewriting her clear refusal as a flirtatious game because he is incapable of interpreting input that doesn't centre him. Austen flagged him immediately. She showed us that a man who cannot read the room is often a man who will not respect your soul. The Shakespearean Wolf If Austen maps the social red flags, Shakespeare maps the dangerous ones. Iago (Othello) is the terrifying extreme of the "Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing" profile. He essentially creates a personal brand: "Honest Iago." That is his bio. That is the LinkedIn headline he presents to the world. But his reality is the systematic dismantling of Othello’s life. He weaponises what we might now call "therapy speak." He feigns empathy. He shares the burden. He says, "I am only telling you this because I care about you." He creates a context where his abuse looks like advice. Or take Polonius in Hamlet. His famous advice, "To thine own self be true," is often quoted on inspirational Instagram tiles as profound wisdom. But look at the Haystack. Look at the context. These words come from a man who is actively spying on his own son and using his daughter as bait. The text is the red flag. The words sound nice; the intent is surveillance. Forensic Literacy My teacher friends are right. If we treat literature as a forensic analysis of human behaviour, it comes alive. We read Shakespeare and Austen not just for their beauty, but to sharpen our radar. They mapped the human condition so precisely that they identified the "softboy," the "love bomber," and the "gaslighter" centuries before we had the terms. So, the next time a student asks, "Why do we have to read this book?", perhaps the answer is simple: Because one day, you might meet an Iago or a Willoughby. And you need to know how to spot the red flag before you swipe right. Links and ReferencesThe Inspiration
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