LinkedIn's Embarrassing Shift: Is It a Group Chat Now?

IF YOU’VE HAD the misfortune of logging onto LinkedIn lately, I can only assume you’re still trying to wash the burning sensation of utter corporate cringe out of your eyeballs. What started out in 2003 as a legitimately useful, if somewhat boring, social media platform aimed at professionals and jobseekers has, in recent years, descended into nauseating levels of humblebrags, performative posts and life lessons written with a heavy sprinkling of AI. LinkedIn was never meant to be the cool kid of the social media world, of course. All that virtual backslapping for corporate achievements using cringey business speak has always felt a bit naff. For most office workers, hearing soulless workplace jargon that would put David Brent or Severance’s Lumen Corporation to shame in real-life meetings was bad enough, but it somehow felt even more awkward and stilted when done online. Kick it Forward / YouTube Writing things like; “I’m delighted to announce I’m exploring x, y, or z,” or endorsing someone’s critical skills you haven’t seen since rag week in college or hailing a post about someone’s corporate journey as “truly inspiring,” was undoubtedly performative networking, but as eyerolling as it was, it felt just about tolerable, especially as the corporate world moved more into the digital era. There was even a time, and in some sectors, this still applies, when having an updated and active LinkedIn profile became an important part of climbing the corporate ladder or just getting a foot in the door. It was a space that allowed graduates and eager job seekers to connect with peers and companies. Recruiters began to use it to headhunt talent, even preferring the individuals’ profiles themselves over the once-hallowed CV. Advertisement What happened? It became a cringey, but necessary evil, where you talked the talk because your current or prospective boss might very well be looking at your posts, but that was part of the deal. The simplistic beauty of LinkedIn was that it knew what it was: a virtual corporate echo chamber where everyone was kissing each other’s backsides. It wasn’t trying to keep up with the influencers on the many other social media platforms. You were less likely to find LinkedIn users posting pictures of their breakfast or hawking a miracle supplement a PR sent them. And while platforms like TikTok charged ahead, making stars of their content creators posting intimate and invasive personal videos claiming to show an authentic look into their lives, (usually involving a morning routine where they’ve already gotten up, set up the phone, pressed record, run back in to bed and pretended they’ve just woken up), LinkedIn did its own thing. That’s all changed, however. LinkedIn is now the preserve of thought leaders, productivity coaches, business mentors, personal growth experts and mindset gurus, where oversharing weird, presumably AI-authored word salads about turning failure into success, have me reaching for the sick bag. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eOEfuuLc_Wg A visit to LinkedIn now feels less like networking and more like wading through a glut of dysfunctional life lessons, and God help you if you’re innocently trying to use the site to find a job. These days, most job postings are of a suspiciously spammy variety and are ones that most people in their right mind wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot barge pole. So, where did it all go wrong for the once-boring, but most reliable of the social media bunch? The pandemic took its toll. Working from home became the norm, and posts took a sharp veer into the personal variety. Changes to the platform followed, and with it the rise of ‘LinkedInfluencers’ who gain a bigger reach by oversharing personal anecdotes that play out like the hard sell sob stories right off the screens of the X Factor at its noughties peak. It’s now a smorgasbord of long, waffling posts on how tragedy was spun into success or of epic failures that led individuals onto the path of corporate greatness and accordingly, some kind of scheme suspiciously shaped like a pyramid, that you should definitely sign up to. A changed landscape Many point to a post in 2022 being the moment when things on LinkedIn took a further nosedive into the land of weird, when a CEO named Braden Wallake, posted a tearful selfie accompanied by a post which began by, “This will be the most vulnerable thing I’ll ever share…” after he had to lay off several staff. He faced a massive backlash and became known as the “crying CEO”. There’s no doubt that as a business owner, letting people go is filled with emotion and can be upsetting. However, it’s always much more distressing for the employees. It’s also safe to assume that helping those you’ve let go to find further employment might be better than posting a tearful selfie about how bad you feel about it and how great you are for showing that vulnerability online for the world to see and comment on. The tone-deaf post was quickly labelled by many as narcissistic virtue signalling of the highest order and illustrated how far users of LinkedIn had strayed from their original focus. What was once a straight up corporate networking and job seeking platform had now wandered into the same personally performative and image-obsessed category as every other social media platform going. It was no longer enough to slap people on the back for their new job or project success; to gain a following, you now had to mine every depth of personal emotion, capture it and post about it for likes and engagement. There’s still some positive stuff to be found on LinkedIn, and it can be useful for businesses, but it’s just so much harder to cut through the spam. As a website, it predates most of today’s still active social media platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. In social media terms, it’s become the uncool parent in the room, desperately trying to be down with the kids by using current slang words like “rizz” and “so sigma,” only to find that not only are they using them in the wrong context, but they are no longer very cool. It’s hard to see how LinkedIn can get its groove back. Let’s be honest, it’s not alone in a world of confused and disoriented social media apps. They’re all in the midst of an algorithm and AI-fuelled identity crisis. Maybe it will go the way of Bebo (yes, remember that?) or MySpace and disappear altogether. We might see it become the preserve of the older user, like Facebook. Let’s just hope it doesn’t descend into the hate fest the once beloved Twitter, now X, has become. Maybe it’s simply time LinkedIn and its non-stop cringe fest is laid to rest, or to use its own lingo, goes off to seek a fresh new inspirational adventure. Or given its original focus was for career growth and job opportunities, perhaps it should revert to the good old days of CVs, job announcements and actual real-life networking. I’d sign up for that. Niamh O’Reilly is a freelance writer and wrangler of two small boys who is winging her way through motherhood, her forties and her eyeliner.