Hacker News Reader

Comment by neom | Hacker News Reader

What I find interesting is that, anecdotally, recently my VC network on LinkedIn has started treating it like facebook. I always thought LinkedIn was basically just an address book for people you've interacted with professionally, increasingly I see it turning into family photos and mediocre thought leadership.

View on HN

LinkedIn is a hallucinogenic social media platform. Because people are using their professional identity on that platform, you can post that 1+1=3 and have people profusely thanking you for your valuable insights.

I have half considered to create a fake LinkedIn account to comment on all the BS that is posted, however life is too short.

LinkedIn is a strange place indeed. People interacting like overexcited toddlers, banalities are shared like life-changing epiphanies, people are congratulating themselves on jobs well-done.

I considered writing a short story about an alien race that prepares for first contact with earth solely from learning about humans on LinkedIn.

I’d read that story - LinkedIn is a very weird place.

There's already a number of parody LinkedIn accounts. The real accounts are so crazy I really wasn't 100% sure this was a parody when I first read it: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alexander-cohen_work-money-ho...

I really want to comment on some of these idiotic posts but it basically goes on your “permanent record” so to speak, so I hesitate. Probably the same for everyone else, and why there is nothing at all to stop the rampant fake positivity which ruins the platform.

I made the mistake of connecting with an old engineering colleague who has since become a "life coach" and I'm so sick of their life lessons posts and fake positivity but feel like I can't remove them from my network.

You can unfollow them and I think that will keep them out of your feed. I’m on a job hunt so I have to be active on LI right now. I consider the future, where I can ignore it again, a motivator to get a new gig.

>I have half considered to create a fake LinkedIn account to comment on all the BS that is posted, however life is too short.

A second best idea is to join the subreddit /r/LinkedInLunatics and have some fun.

LinkedIn has increased its value for me because I can follow companies and learn what they are up to - either as competitors or potential employers. These mediocre linkedin influencers are a scourge on the platform, though. If I encounter one of these posts, I quickly unfollow the person that liked or shared it.

The issue seems that it more and more enforces other recommended stuff and you constantly need to be "unfollowing" stuff you didn't follow in the first place.

So like all other social media recommendation algos. Side note, I also unfollow people liking shalloe leaderships posts. Either Simsek stopped posting, or I finally managed to get rid of him.

Don't you want to read my story about how a guy cut me up in traffic and swore at me and then turned up to be interviewed by me 30 minutes later? Definitely really happened and not made up.

Yesterday I was walking to an interview. There was a starving dog on the road. I stopped to feed him & missed the interview. The next day I got a call asking to come in to do the interview. I was surprised, but I went. Then the interviewer came in. He was the dog.

(source unclear)

Smart dog :-)

The worst thing is some of these LinkedIn influencers have been spotted cutting and pasting these bullshit stories (not necessarily your one!) word for word. It's cringey enough as an original, but to copy it??

My favourite is the (hopefully) joke version, that starts off denouncing the mindless copy-pasting of feel-good content and ends something like:

> Just remember you're the best dance group anyone could hope for, and wish you all a fantastic 2011!

(Ironically I can't remember enough of the pattern to Google it to paste an exact copy…)

This is the latest version I received for Christmas, just make sure your name isn't Helen:

Hi all, just wanted to take a minute to wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy year, most of all good health! These days people don't spend much time or thought on some personal words to their friends and family, they just copy and paste some random old shit and send it on. So after all we've been through together this year I want to thank you for your friendship and wish you a happy and fulfilling 2018 - you’re the best gymnastics group anyone could ask for. Best wishes, Helen xxx

Just in case you missed the video on it, here it is https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IHt9PJM8Md8

Ha!

Wow. Talk about a massive red flag. If your interviewer can’t afford food, you really don’t want to work there.

Source: I’m a dog.

Lol

About halfway through the interview for my first office job I realised the bloke interviewing me had almost knocked me off my bicycle about a year earlier, trying to beat me to the junction because he wouldn't be able to overtake me for a bit after that (maybe 30 seconds?) He actually got out of his car and made the wanker sign at me and I almost certainly said something choice in return. There was no mistake because the junction was right outside the office.

I took the job. Funnily enough, one of my colleagues told me that our boss thought that speed limits in built up zones were annoying and should be at least 50mph. Not a surprise.

They call it "Broetry."

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/why-are-these-p...

I do the same, immediately unfollow people in my connections that like something of that kind. Now I follow just 3-4 connections who don't like a single thing, as I do.

Never used LinkedIn.

They started spamming me relentlessly in the early noughties, and I never talk to spammers. They were a seedy, manipulative platform, almost as seedy as Where Are You Now? (WAYN), which was a ghastly sewer.

Agree! It’s the best place I know to get updates from many companies. I follow over 1000 startups there for monitoring purposes and it’s incredible how many news are being published exclusively through LinkedIn, at least here in Sweden.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linkedinlunatics is full of that, lol

Having a - not so great - day at work, I know what I'll spend some time on now. :-D

Love it!

Thanks!

The interpretations are what does it for me.

I joined LinkedIn two weeks ago for the first time and have never used it before. It feels very much like Facebook to me with a touch of business-LARPing.

It's somehow worse than Facebook because the 'social media' aspect is flooded with posts from what people refer to as LinkedInfluencers competing with each other to post the most cringeworthy brand-safe corporate-worshiping 'motivational' content you can imagine.

People do that either to push their brand/being visible, or to appear relatable to their network. It's like most ads - not meant to convince you of the product, but to reinforce your awareness of it.

For me it is 3/4 just this type of address book or my company's talent search posts.

The other 1/4 is a flood of r/linkedinlunatics material which is getting increasingly more common and worse. Platitudes about leadership, work life and mediocre, thoughtless hot takes on whatever field the OP is working in.

It feels very much the same as Instagram influencers superficial bullshit posts but now it targets the professional world rather than potential consumers.

True. I'm not in VC or anything, just a regular engineer.

I've been considering ditching LinkedIn altogether for many months now, due to increased rubbish content. The only bit I'd miss is to be able to look into others profiles to basically access their CVs.

I wonder if there in an opportunity for a paid solution for something which is "the old Linkedin" which means your online CV with very limited social stuff... perhaps some text messaging and that's all.

Just don’t read it and don’t get rid of your account?

> mediocre thought leadership.

Mediocre is being generous

Reply on news.ycombinator.com