I'm not really sure who is supposed to be the contrarian in this particular instance of that game in your view, but here I feel that this person neither is trying to punish me for contrary views or express any of their own, but is merely repeatedly nitpicking my phrasing without engaging with the substance of the comments they're replying to, a widespread mode of argumentation that I find as annoying as it is vapid

that behavior is indeed what i call Punish the Contrarian. As opposed to, eg, engage with the contrarian or debate the contrarian. This nitpicking tactic is not an argument at all but just an attempt to discourage the target from future attempts to present their position by exhausting their motivation to articulate it.

Ah, that makes sense. I'm pretty sure it's all a lot of internet denizens can manage on difficult topics so I've met it frequently enough to find it merely annoying rather than exhausting. It's occasionally fun to use it to force myself to think through a position in more detail, but I know I can just ignore it and walk away if I can't spare the time. It's no substitute for an actual conversation with a thoughtful person of course, but it can be a useful exercise. Kind of the predecessor to talking to chatbots. Hell, these days I'm sure a lot of them are using chatbots