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Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

trungphan.substack.com

271–280 of 290 posts

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#271
post #11

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.

This post, verbatim, would go viral on LinkedIn.

Do it man.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#272

Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just getting old and tired. Maybe I'm just sick of the constant trolling, yelling and generally lots of people trying to out-asshole one another on so, so much of the internet. But I don't mind LinkedIn. I find the cynicism on display here very sad. Sure, there are plenty of narcissists and vapid people posting on LinkedIn. So? At least they're posting "inspirational" stuff, and you know what…

I’m with you on the cynical stuff, too much of that on the internet. Too dismissive.

But I find LinkedIn’s positivity cold and almost inhuman with the repetition, exclusive positivity, and focus on work.

It seems very weird to me.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also have stack ranked tests you can take to demonstrate skills, which seems like a relatively fair way to do it.

Have you seen the questions though? Ridiculous, useless trivia.

I disagree. It is only 15 questions so obviously can't be a comprehensive test, but it does test whether you understand various mechanisms in Python

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the questions though? Ridiculous, useless trivia.

I disagree. It is only 15 questions so obviously can't be a comprehensive test, but it does test whether you understand various mechanisms in Python

The JS "assessment" was all trivia and no substance.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#275

I feel like TeamBlind is the exact opposite of LinkedIn -- no positivity, no one cares about mission or whatever, the #1 thing is TC and WLB, and everyone is anonymous. And yet its posts are much more honest, candid and just overall useful than those of LinkedIn.

Indeed, they are total opposite. I wonder if these are the same people who show different faces. I wonder about these people on LinkedIn, either they are total hypocrites on LinkedIn, or they totally buy on the corporate BS. I'm not sure which is worse! I've had a career change recently and I joined a big American corp. I wasn't familiar with this type of environment. The level of bullshit and hypocrisy there is amaz…

> I wonder if these are the same people who show different faces.

I would be very surprised if the cringey people on LinkedIn are the same as the based people on TeamBlind.

I assume those cringey "agree?" posts on LinkedIn are written by "influencers" as opposed to the engineers we see on Blind. Hard to be an influencer when everyone's anonymous.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#277
post #7

LinkedIn probably has a net benefit for your career by keeping up to date and checking the messages once a week, but I cannot get over the awkwardness of seeing total BS stories and thousands of replies saying "YES! AMEN!". "I was running late to an interview this morning but stopped to help a man who fell off of his bike and fixed it up for him. Afterwards I bought him a coffee and talked about life. He mentioned ho…

You only forgot one thing. The post would be written like this. This insufferable style of two line breaks between short sentences. Seems to be a requirement for LinkedIn viral content.

Don't forget to add :clap: emojis between each word in the final sentence.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#278
post #7

LinkedIn probably has a net benefit for your career by keeping up to date and checking the messages once a week, but I cannot get over the awkwardness of seeing total BS stories and thousands of replies saying "YES! AMEN!". "I was running late to an interview this morning but stopped to help a man who fell off of his bike and fixed it up for him. Afterwards I bought him a coffee and talked about life. He mentioned ho…

I wonder why do social networks always get corrupted by AI?

Oh wait, the people behind are corrupted themselves, it is human nature reflected in machines.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#279

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.

Forever ago, I created a Chrome extension that allowed you to annotate skills that had been endorsed by others with a "Hell No" label if you felt it was not deserved. For obvious reasons, it never got traction but got a few laughs on the podcast that inspired it, which was enough for me.

I mean unless it had a backend server no one would ever see the "hell no css styling" (and even then only others who also had the extension) so it doesn't really make much sense.

Re: Why is LinkedIn so cringe?

#280
post #36
post #20

Having office-shared with a recruiting firm, and having worked in several startups that have a "long-sales"/"closer" department.. I can attest that LinkedIn is exactly what it is like in the day-to-day jobs in the flesh, too. Lots of gongs/bells/claxons, always followed by _so_ many high-fives and a round of applause. Everyone knows it's bullshit, but this kind of toxic/fake positivity is demanded, and weirdly, it wo…

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.

It was only for sales achievements, and I never saw an email like that for any other department.

Sales people ringing a bell in the office when they make a sale is traditional in certain sales environments. When I worked in radio, the sales people did it. I've seen food truck operators and baristas do it when someone tips.

It's related to the expression "ringing your own bell," which means to be shamelessly boastful.

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