Ask HN: Why is everyone so fake on LinkedIn?
Long time HN lurker, don't ever feel that I have anything that important to add.
I go on LinkedIn and I wan't to cry. Why so much fake enthusiasm ?
Do you use LinkedIn and what are your thoughts ?
I go on LinkedIn and I wan't to cry. Why so much fake enthusiasm ?
Do you use LinkedIn and what are your thoughts ?
The next floor, our CEO got on. Everyone's attitude shifted 180 degrees. We all had smiling, perky, and enthusiastic. I don't subscribe to the deification of our executives, but in that moment, I certainly acted like I did.
Anyway, on LinkedIn, people act like their current or next CEO is reading their posts. Because they might be.
I agree that it's fake, and I find my personal LinkedIn newsfeed to be extremely unpleasant - and more or less useless - to read. But when push comes to shove, the next time I'm around the CEO, I know I'll have the same fake enthusiasm.
I am of the thought that most marketing is bullshit, hence I believe most of what you will read in LinkedIn is bullshit as well.
If you see only the cringe posts then you follow the wrong people. I am in marketing and so I follow lot of great growth people, content marketers, copywriters, performance folks and as I am not a deep expert in all these sub-categories of marketing I quite often find super valuable content posted by my connections. Frameworks, templates, good ideas. Stuff I can use. The competitiveness of the environment forces people to post lot of good stuff for free to get engagement, they otherwise would never share.
And in reverse if you post there too and want your content to be read and liked, then you should have only connections relevant to your content. Ie dont have HR connections and then post about coding, instead have mostly dev connections. Because LinkedIn algo tests your post by showing it to only small part of your connections, if your post about coding gets shown to HR people, nobody will like it and thus your post will end up failing the test and LinkedIn will kill its visibility.
In short. Don't blame LinkedIn, blame your managment of your connections.
There are, however, lots of people in lots of jobs who find the whole show distasteful and inauthentic. Like it's a brown-nosers convention where two-faced suckholes get to be performative. And that includes some marketing types too.
No amount of changing who you follow is going to change that fundamental quality for some.
I don't like it either, but its just natural. It's like complaining that sun comes up every day. You need to take it for what it is - these platforms do have some good content but, its strongly biased, its only the positive stuff. Either its positive content of low quality or positive content of high quality. That's all. If you understand that its fine.
I am not sure why some people think it could be any different. If you think its so easy to show of vulnerability then go to NY Times Square and take of your clothes and stand there naked for an hour. Or ok less dramatic version, record a YouTube video about how you're sometimes selfish person, how you sometimes cheat in your work, how you're asshole to people and post it on all your social profiles. You won't. Therefore you are part of the problem. Because you are not participating in negative, real or vulnerable content.
All these things I mentioned are human, none of us are saints and we have moments when we are little selfish or just moments when we are weak, but we don't what others to know.
If you want some honesty, you need the anonymity, 4chan, reddit, hacker news and what not. There is no way around it.
We dont expect strangers in professional setting to be extremely real, vulnerable and personal to hundreds of their colleagues, so why should it be expected from LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is shallow, but you can still get some technical information if you can get over the fact that the stories there are overblown and cherrypicked. Same as Instagram and everything tied to your name and connected to real people you know is.
This isn't true at all. Your feed is made up of content your connections interact with. Likes, comments, etc.
Since so many people interact with vapid and empty "live laugh love" style garbage like Dan Price or B Burns, it's inevitable for anyone's feed to be full of kiss-ass nonsense without hands on curation.
Say the wrong thing, canceled, not only from future employment but current.
There is nothing genuine about a corporate business lunch and this is just another location.
Lack of anonymity. Profiles on LinkedIn have more real information on them then any other platform, meaning that what you say might have real consequences to you.
Basically saying anything negative or critical might be used against you in the future of your career. (see Miranda rights)
Other platforms like reddit and Twitter don't mind anonymous accounts, which ironically invites more honest criticism and discussion, as it doesn't directly link profiles to professional careers.
>Poole complains that Facebook and Google+ are making identity "black and white," forcing users to be the same person in all contexts -- offline, online, at home, at work, etc. "We all have multiple identities. That's not abnormal. It's part of being human. Identity is prismatic," he says.
>"We are multi-faceted. Google and Facebook would have you believe you are a mirror, that there is one reflection that you have, one idea of self... but in fact we are more like diamonds. You can look at people from any angle and can see something totally different, but they are still the same."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/10/20/chris-po...
The problem is building a social network people want to use is a problem well out in advance of faceted identities.
That is very hard. Building identity management first is a solution in search of a problem.
Keep in mind that I have these emotions and thoughts in a fraction of a second. They hit me in the tiny time I spend on the platform to check or édit something.
But what do you expect them to say?
Excited to talk at this upcoming conference --> My company just paid thousands of dollars for me to get on stage and have the audience listen to an informercial.
Excited to be named one this years people who are persons --> I spend all my time working to make partners at a Consultancy/PE/VC Bank rich, but it-least they paid to nominate me, I can show my parents! Do people still read magazines?
Paging "The brutal truth about marketing" guy that records selfie videos in a suburban neighborhood. Maximum cringe.
That is to say: the intrinsic feature set is of course based on self-promotion; at the same time, nearly everyone on LinkedIn (by virtue of the fact that they have time to tend to their profile, beyond a perfunctory business card level) knows, on some level, that they aren't that special. Plus they know that their profile can be looked at any minute, by anyone, from friends to past colleagues to prospective future ones, to crushes and exes to your old friggen higs school crew, for heaven's sake.
So they're always looking over their shoulder, and on some level, fearing their own shadow. The only thing that (momentarily) lifts this veil of gloom (at feeling fundamentally unworthy and illegitimate) is of course more positive attention, or at least the feeling that their profile is slightly less boring than those of their peers.
So they're they go, sprucing their chronology, finding a better headshot or background image... while everyone else is doing the same. Which leads to more gloom, and more insecurity. All as a proxy, a stand-in for building meaningful professional relationships and improving one's actual skill set -- that is to say, one's intrinsic relationship and career capital (to use a catchphrase of this cottage industry).
Meanwhile, an entire generation has grown up believing axiomatically that a strong LinkedIn profile is absolutely essential to your job search, because how else are recruiters going to know anything about you? And you have to put up a headshot because otherwise you must have something to hide.
Thus the cycle of perpetual inadequacy goes on and on, like an Escher staircase.
“Something intelligent” isn’t pithy commentary, it is a contribution that adds some value to what is happening.
In the context of LinkedIn, you’re always selling something. Either yourself, your company/product or something else. Usually that means offering something that makes you look smart or empathetic to stay active in your extended network. Many people are very bad at it.
Personally, I post about the nonprofit organization whose board I serve on. I may get some brownie points, but mostly it’s marketing so I can try to liberate peoples money later to donate to the cause.
The key is to do your homework and be prepared. That’s how some 20-year old kid gets noticed in a room full of professionals.
Obviously it needs to be role appropriate.
Meetings don't determine outcomes. In my experience, meetings have been largely wasteful. It's the actual work that determines the outcome and if this "20 year old not-a-professional kid" can get the job done they must be recognised.
We must discourage this "loud mouths at meetings" culture.
I do think that LinkedIn has a lot of low quality content so I entirely avoid the feed and use it more so as a rolodex and that alone makes it worth it for me.
People that I know have used social network to great effect without the pat on your own back type bragging.
It just feels awkward because you've crammed all candidates into the same room, and they're now trying to shout louder than everyone else, leading to an escalation in "enthusiasm".
#newsthatmatter #grateful #workhardplayhard #money #neuralnetworks #nanoscale #web3 #blockchain #openforhire #leverage #parallelmarkets #hitthegroundrunning #synergy
I’m grateful to have some sense of job security from the weekly recruiter messages I get.
The fake enthusiasm was a big feature at my last company and it got us nowhere. It’s a red flag for me and as an manager, I’d be very skeptical of a candidate who spent too much time trying to be an influencer on LinkedIn.
Anonymous posters will still try to rustle jimmies by saying something provocative.
You know, sometimes people say something provocative in an effort to make others stop and think critically about something.
A futile effort, of course, but noble, indeed.
There are others, also, who use anonymity to make personal attacks and rude comments, but these are easy to filter.
I never thought linkedin had any value (beside being a weird phonebook). How is it these days ?
Either they catch a promising candidate. Or they eliminate them for failing the skills checklist.
LinkedIn is a honking big office. Relationships span the globe at superficial depth.
Don't get me started on the "tech" people I've seen on there, they spend more time talking about getting a job in tech than coding, complete hacks (and not in a good way).
The boring fake alternatives of everyone else are much better.
Conversely I used LinkedIn Learning a lot, and I like to follow certain companies of interest, but yes, there is an overabundance of "lookee lookee at my stuff, but I'm not in marketing, really!" kind of discourse.
* Do not look at the feed. Ever. You are unable to meaningfully curate it, or even create things a la Twitter Lists to separate the wheat from the chaff. It is garbage; ignore it.
* Do not connect with recruiters or direct sellers (read: real estate agents, financial planners, influencers in your field, etc), ever. They are worthless connections, and you can still receive and send messages without a connection, if it's actually something of interest to you.
* Keep your personal profile up to date and shiny for prospective employers and colleagues. This is just basic career hygiene in the 21st century.
* Do look at the notifications - it's still got useful information like people changing jobs, getting promoted, work anniversaries, etc. that provide direct opportunities to keep up the relationship. (Notifications have started getting spammier ... but anything at all valuable is there.)
* Endorse, recommend, and directly reach out to your actual colleagues you admrie and wish to endorse, and don't be shy about directly asking them to reciprocate.
That's it; you can maintain healthy relationships with your peers and ex-colleagues, establish a working brand for your skills and experience for others to find you, and avoid all the nonsense OP is rightfully scornful of.
Ain't just the truth. All I really want is posts by certain people and job updates by others. But instead I get junk.
LinkedIn does serve its professional purpose well. I haven't gotten too many new gigs from it, but I get some, and it nurtures a subset of repeat customers of your own curation. That's pretty much the majority of what I use it for.
Fake enthusiasm, emotional posts, funny(goofy) posts all geared towards getting engagement. Some folks have business(consultancy) that needs them to have the exposure.
Most people understand, mostly unconsciously, that being "fake" (i.e., complimenting others for insignificant achievements, sharing fake stories and relaying content produced by other people) has become the most rewarding strategy to be successful in the westernized culture.
LinkedIn actively contributes to this by hiding most of the negative cues that could let someone assess her/his own performance objectively.
For example: when you see 50 likes to a comment, the author is very likely to feel rewarded and accomplished. However, LinkedIn will hide the fact that probably 500 people thought that content utterly uninteresting, wrong or despicable, but were smart enough to let it go.
Being "true" on LinkedIn, and any other social network, is committing social suicide in my opinion.
To fuel their vampire existence they optimize for the inexhaustible supply of fresh bullshit; easy to amplify self-promotion and simple claims of authority that are averse to deeper inspection maintain network "health".
if enough of us do this, we can actually extend the overton window outside of the current straightjacket and actually push toward a more free and enjoyable society.
your fellow connections will, over time, be informed of your activity; ("Bob finds this Insightful....")
worst case scenario - they might have to begrudgingly admit you find something insightful or curious that they would rather not think about;
best case scenario we start to normalize free and open discussion in the world's most sterile, bland environment (corporate)
additionally, you start to build a more antifragile network, you might have to lean on some of these loudmouths if shit gets too weird in corporate
Poor schmuck who's desperate
Me showing pity on the schmuck
Schmuck uses the opportunity
Me showing LinkedIn how great I'm
Granted there was no spam because nobody was using it.
Because fake enthusiasm gives you online points? And because LinkedIn people are really easy to impress. Just use mediapipe and record yourself pressing some virtual keys and you will be a celebrity.