Oh, that was a double negative, never mind.

Dude typo'd, must be terrible at English.

I've actually read that article before and find it to disagreeably push an opinion-based perspective on a perfectly valid way to use English as if it were factually wrong. It's totally worthless as a source of meaningful English language rules. It's someone's backlash against a way the word is often used just because they don't like it. It doesn't mean the word is being used wrongly.

In English, if you can generally understand the intent, you're not using the words wrong.

Words words, nitpicks and obfuscation, and some more literally incorrect statements. Especially the bit showing a simile example that doesn't work as hyperbole, when plenty of similes can. And metaphor that isn't simile - which is what the guy that started this was actually using, before you mischaracterized it as simile - almost always works.

"I came in like a wrecking ball". Popular song lyric. Simile. Hyperbole. "I'm as high as a kite". So you're at least 50 feet in the air, right? "She's as sweet as pie." So if I lick this person she tastes like fruit? "Wear shoes, the asphalt is hot like the surface of the sun!" Well, we're all going to die I guess.

All of those are hyperbole, they're all either simile or at least metaphor.

Basically, you said this:

The fact that hyperbolic statements are not meant to be taken literally makes it completely contradictory to use the word 'literally' in the sentence.

That's not correct. Literally or figuratively. It works to do so, it's within the rules of English to do so, and the guy you "corrected" wasn't doing it wrong. At best it's an opinion stated as fact. No amount of Boston.com lifestyle articles can change that. It's just an opinion piece.