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Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

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Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#91

Post by NoPicklez »

Funny this was posted because I have been thinking the same recently, more so than normal.

LinkedIn is a good way to connect with my clients/friends/colleagues and establish what is a small network of people in my field, who know each other and often benefit from each other. I also think the ability for recruiters to see my experience + the people and clients I work with has meant that my job opportunities are far greater than if I didn't have LinkedIn.

But my god, some of the posts on there are absolutely cringe and I don't normally like using that term. Don't get me wrong if a colleague or a client I have worked with recently is promoted or changes positions I am genuinely happy for them and it deserves a like or a "congrats".

But don't go around preaching your corporate life story like your experiences are gods gift on earth, or go around preaching vague and ambiguous virtues that we all know. You don't need to make a story about everything that happens to you and the majority of your network couldn't care less.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#92

Post by hluska »

exdsq wrote: post #81
ALittleLight wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really was once in a meeting where a homeless guy had his face against the window peering in from the outside. While we were discussing what, if anything to do about it, someone recognized the homeless guy as our corporate lawyer. In fact, he wasn't homeless at all, just disheveled. We went outside and brought him in as he was supposed to be attending this meeting.

There was a homeless guy peering in. As a group you noticed his attention to detail, a skill important to a good lawyer. You unanimously agreed to invite him in and offer him a job as a corporate lawyer. He's now the CEO. His name? Jeff Bezos. The biggest advantage of someone with no experience is they don't know what's scary, stupid, or impossible. So they end up doing magic. #HireNoExperience #TakeRisks #PoorNowLaw

This is getting too close to LinkedIn. I’m out…:)

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#93

Post by tiborsaas »

The cringiest thing is that they don't have laughing emoji response on posts. It's probably because someone at a meeting said that "we must provide a safe place for everyone to feel empowered to share anything without being laughed at".

What they didn't consider is that this also accelerates the toxic positivity that existed before emoji responses.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#94

Post by beaconstudios »

lopatin wrote: post #56
projectileboy wrote: post #3

I never understood why I always got so depressed reading LinkedIn, until I read The Gervais Principle by Venkatesh Rao. And then I saw that LinkedIn consists almost entirely of clueless people talking to other clueless people, and exclusively in posturetalk (these are Rao’s terms - “clueless” means something specific). And if you haven’t read The Gervais Principle, I highly recommend it, although it may bum you out.

I love the Gervais Principle, but only as a cynical joke that can sometimes be applied to real life. There's really no need to read the book. If you're interested in a laugh, just see the blog post [1]. The gist of it is that there are only three types of people who work in organizations: 1. At the top of the food chain are the sociopaths. Executives. 2. Below it are the clueless, the mid-manager who works nights and…

it's loosely based on another book, The Organization Man. I think it's loosely accurate in that there are archetypes around the worker, manager and executive, but it's certainly not as clean cut as Venkatesh makes out. I've met and worked with plenty of Loser and Sociopath types; it's the Clueless that I haven't found to exist, but maybe it's an American thing (I'm from the UK).

I think the Sociopath one is most accurate to life but that's just because "executives/investors are profit-seeking goal-maximisers" is both a common trope and pretty realistic - that's their incentive structure after all.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#95

Post by tdeck »

rcurry wrote: post #57
ok_dad wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminded me of the emails we constantly got with the subject “BANG A GONG!!!” at my last work place. It was only for sales achievements, and I never saw an email like that for any other department. It was nice they used the same subject every time, so I could filter them out.

Heh. Reminds me of this time a startup I worked for got acquired by a big financial firm in New York City - we roll into work the first day and at like 10:00 AM this woman starts ringing an actual cowbell and shouting “Standup! Standup Everybody!” They would literally call the developers into the daily standup like they were a herd of cattle.

One of the few HN comments that doesn't need more cowbell.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#97

Post by boring_twenties »

Thank you for posting this, it is absolutely hilarious and spot on.

I wouldn't even mind some of the cringe posts, if they at least came from people I knew. But, the majority of my feed is posts from people I've never heard of, shown to me because a mutual connection "liked" them. No, I'm not going to congratulate a total stranger on their new job ... or try to comfort them after their dog died, etc.

By comparison, my Facebook feed is currently the worst it's ever been since I started using it in like 2007 or something, but it's still light years better than this.

I do occasionally enjoy some of the full-length articles posted on LinkedIn by public figures (e.g. Ray Dalio), but I have no freakin' idea why he only posts them there.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#98

Post by cinntaile »

exdsq wrote: post #23
er4hn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show HN: LinkedIn created over 1 weekend (written in Rust, uses CSS instead of JS)

They said it was impossible... But you can't spell impossible without POSSIBLE. #Influencer #Leader Article to my free e-book on being a social media ninja in the comments :rocket:

> Article to my free e-book

Please provide your e-mail to access the link.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#99

Post by thematrixturtle »

tiborsaas wrote: post #87
willhinsa wrote: post #8

The thing that's been around the longest that always bugged me was: Getting endorsed for skills by people who have no ability to evaluate my competency at those skills. It's so shallow and badly designed at its job. But like every social network out there, it's buoyed by its inertia and network effects, and will last far longer than it should given its quality beyond the size of its network of users.

We used to troll each other with my friends by endorsing with Drupal skills :)

My favorite trio of endorsements is Lubrication, Flexibility and Potatoes.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#100

Post by zem »

SquibblesRedux wrote: post #49
warent wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shameless plug of my open source LinkedIn clone written in a custom Lisp dialect. it's free but we offer cost effective white glove support for businesses and cloud hosted solutions

I want to see LinkedIn written in Prolog. We could call it "Logical Connections."

put your career BACK on TRACK!
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