Thought Shrapnel

I hate LinkedIn. I hate the the performativity, the way it makes me feel unworthy, as not enough. I hate the way that it promotes a particular mindset and approach to the world which does not mesh with my values.. I also hate the fact that you can’t be unduly critical of the platform itself (try it: “something is wrong, try again later” the pop-up messag insists)

This post by Amy Santee, which I discovered via a link from Matt Jukes, lists a lot of things wrong with the platform. I’ve quit LinkedIn before, but then felt like I needed to return a decade ago when becoming a consultant. And that’s the reason I stay: with the demise of Twitter, the only reliable way I can get in touch with the remnants of my professional community is through LinkedIn.

It really sucks. I appreciate what Santee suggests in terms of connecting with people via a newsletter, but that feels too broadcast-like for me. I crave community, not self-serving replies on ‘content’.

The mass tech layoffs of 2022-2024 have resulted in an explosion of people looking for work in an awful market where there just aren’t enough jobs in some fields like recruiting, product design, user research, and even engineering and game development (the latter of which are faring better).

As a result, LinkedIn has become a hellish waiting room giving off Beetlejuice vibes, where unfortunate souls are virtually required to spend inordinate amounts of time scavenging for jobs, filling out redundant applications, performing professionalism and feigning excitement in their posts, and bootlicking the companies that laid them off.

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We labor and post and connect and cross our fingers in desperation, getting sucked into the noise, customizing our feeds (this makes me imagine cows at a trough), scrolling and searching and DMing, trying to beat the algorithm (just post a selfie!) or do something to stand out, all with the hopes of obtaining a prized golden ticket to participate in capitalism for a damn paycheck. We feel bad about ourselves and want to give up when someone else somehow gets a job. We may joke about our own demise. We share that we are about to become homeless or that we’re skipping meals. We express our anger at the system, and we’re more aware than ever before of other people’s suffering at the hands of this system.

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The way I experience the algorithm is that it seems to randomly decide whether or not my posts are worth showing other people, or at least it feels that way because I don’t understand how it works. Linkedin definitely isn’t forthright about it. In its current form, the algorithm can be prohibitive for getting my ideas out there, having conversations, sharing my podcast episodes and blog posts, getting people to attend my events, and doing any of the stuff I used to enjoy about this place.

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The execs and shareholders of LinkedIn (acquired by Microsoft in 2016) are the primary beneficiaries in all of this, and they will do anything to keep their monopolistic grip on our time, our lives, and our data (we are the product, too). This is all on purpose. LinkedIn continues to win big from the explosion in user activity, ad revenue, subscriptions, job posting fees, unpaid AI training via “Top Voice” user content, and the gobs of our data we gift them, in exchange for the displeasure of being linked in until hopefully something else comes around.

Source: The Jaw Breaker Weekly-ish

Image: Kim Menikh