52 people have literally marked it as "clever" which is what I am referring to and this is obviously my opinion so whatever neckbeard

I undestand exactly what it is doing. what ditproz has said is correct. It is a perfectly adequate solution but it is not "clever" and it will not feel clever in 6 months when you have to explain to the junior devs what is going on

best practice? This is super efficient but noone on your team will ever understand how it works

not clever, too hard to understand. Someone will come back to this in 6 months and not have any idea what it is doing