LinkedIn’s Four Deadly Sins: Where True Inspiration ‘Lies’
“As I wandered through the digital realms of LinkedIn, I beheld four deadly sins searing the souls of those who indulged in them. I first beheld the sinners of Soullessness - those empty vessels devoid of any originality and personality. Next, I saw the sinners of Deceit - those who indulged in inspiration lies and misleading positivity. Further down, were the sinners of Restlessness - their hearts are consumed by the pursuit of worldly gains at the expense of their own and their kin. Lastly, I beheld the sinners of Ingratiation - those who seek to gain favor and advantage through their insincere praise and false compliments to their superiors, using their deceitful tongues.” excerpt from Dante’s Digital Inferno
You wake up from a deep REM sleep, it's the start of a new week, the dreaded Monday and you're already bracing yourself for the usual repetitiveness. Just thinking of the monotonous cycle of "You're on mute" and "How was your weekend?" is already draining your soul. You crawl out of your bed through your daily routine like a snail powdered with crushed sleeping pills, barely registering the tasks of getting your children ready for school and battling the morning commute. Meanwhile across town, you’re a student on the brink of graduation, locked in an epic battle against the relentless blitz of research papers and project deadlines with uncooperative team mates, yet thinking of another threat of joblessness waiting just beyond the angry horizon. As a person living two blocks away, you’re fight with your spouse from last night is still fresh in your mind, adding to your already overwhelming sense of despair. And like everyone else in the country, the shadow of taxes looms ever nearer, casting a dark cloud over you as you struggle to make ends meet.
You arrive at work and now walking and greeting everyone keeping a smile, and then all of a sudden, you have it - 10 minutes of freedom before your 9am call. You begin to scroll quickly through social media, searching for any glimmer of hope or inspiration, anything that can brighten your day, even just a little. But then, suddenly, you stumble upon this LinkedIn post:
How does this post make you feel? Does it fuel your desire to conquer the world by abandoning your personal life at the expense of your work? Do you feel that you'll never be good enough if you prioritize your work-life balance? Everyone has got their shit together, why you’re the only one that has it not figured out? Or does everyone not know what they are doing, but they are plowing through just like you? All these thoughts happen in one place and one place only.
LinkedIn.
It is a strange place. There’s a sense of overwhelming feeling like an arm wrestle between motivation and doubt that can be hard to shake. The constant pressure to succeed can leave you feeling lost and unsure, and maybe distant, like you're drowning in a sea of expectations with no second chances. Too little to risk yet so much to lose.
Soulesness: NO Personality
I tried to engage with LinkedIn’s forgettable personality. Each post that I see from people fades away from my memory like cotton candy dissolving in water only emptiness left for me to sort through.
If you're skeptical, then let's try an experiment together. Wake up with a fresh mind. Then, immerse yourself in LinkedIn's posts with genuine interest for just 5 minutes. Once the time is up, ask yourself: what do you remember? Can you recall anything that stirred your emotions? Were you able to distinguish your friends' posts from others? most importantly, could you differentiate unique posts?
I challenge you to try, but doubt you'll succeed.
LinkedIn created an oppressive nature that pressures people to conform and be all the same. Contents are all beautiful, but easily forgettable. Immemorable. A constant recycling of the same posts sucks the air out of the room, leaving no chances for uniqueness or individuality to survive. All posts sound the same, feel the same, and shared by terrified people. This terror seeps into the smallest details, killing any genuine personality development, like in the comment section of a job promotion or new hire. LinkedIn created preset comments that you just click on rather write manually to rescue users from having to congratulate a friend with their own words. This red flag made comments on job promotions and other achievements feel robotic like everything else.
This corner of the internet has no personality of its own and it is angering. LinkedIn users are afraid, succumbing to the pressure of conformity because it is very cheap and easy to do. It is designed to squash any attempt at uniqueness or originality.
Deceit: The Dark Side of Positivity
Its now Saturday morning. The sun shines through your space, a peaceful feeling surrounds you like a long hug. You take a deep breath in, taking in all aroma of freshly brewed coffee. With every inhale through the quietly peaceful mindscapes, you can hear the faint rustling of your nostril hair, a small detail that adds to the perfection of this moment. And now, with your laptop before you, you are ready to embark on a journey of discovery and possibility. Until you suddenly see this post:
I will give you a second to regain your consciousness after getting slapped by this person’s ego.
The tsunami of false positivity that floods the feeds of LinkedIn is a poison that lurks into the very soul of its users. I view those messages of hope and inspiration are like a wolf in sheep's clothing, luring you in with promises of a brighter future, but in reality, they are nothing but lies.
Deceit is core value, and everyone is playing to win only one thing: your attention. It's a cutthroat world. You have no idea who is telling the truth and who is not. The toxic positivity that permeates every corner of LinkedIn is a breeding ground for false prophets and charlatans, preying on the vulnerable and the desperate. The only grace they have is their titles that gives them “legitimacy.” A very dangerous game of influence and power.
The danger of toxic positivity suffocates the soul by the weight of its own expectations. The pressure to be happy , positive, and successful all the time is a heavy burden to bear, and has made it out alive.
The temptation of the false prophets and their messages of hope is too strong for us to resist. They cast a wide fishing net and will catch everyone who bites. The toxicity of their messages is like a drug, numbing you to the pain of reality, but in reality, it's only making things worse. Like an addict. It is temporary.
In the end, the only way to escape the toxicity of LinkedIn and the false positivity that permeates every corner of the digital world is to look at the eyes of the devil, unshaken, and understand the darkness. The fact that we need to acknowledge that life is hard, and that it's okay to feel sad or angry or lost as such feelings will always pass.
RestlessnesS: “All work and no play”
In the malicious world of LinkedIn, the culture of labor and perfection is the spearhead value of this digital machine. LinkedIn’s constant drive to achieve, to climb the ladder of professional success, can consume those within its grasp, leaving them burnt out and exhausted. Shells of their former selves.
This toxic work culture seeps into every aspect of life, leaving no time for rest and most importantly the care of the self and others. Personal interests and hobbies are relegated to the sidelines, cast aside in favor of work and its endless demands. Emails and messages follow people outside of the office, disrupting any semblance of work-life balance and straining relationships.
These posts pressure to achieve and succeed at all costs creates unrealistic expectations, leading to disappointment and frustration when those goals are not met. In this culture, the line between work and personal life blurs, leaving little room for self-care and rejuvenation.
The human spirit will suffer in this relentless pursuit of professional achievement. Neglect of personal life features can rob individuals of the joy and fulfillment that comes with exploring the basic meaning of life.
The call of success is strong at LinkedIn, but at what cost? I quote Sylvia Plath as a final attempt to make my point clearer.
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story… One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor…I wanted each and every one of them…the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. — Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
False Flattery: “look boss, I like what you like!”
Granted. LinkedIn, like any workplace, is a realm of hierarchies. And a growing one too. However, a dangerous trend emerges: the art of boss false flattery. Throughout my professional career and as an observer from the sidelines, I have observed an alarming number of individuals who shamelessly attempt to ingratiate themselves with their superiors by lavishing them with excessive praise and constantly endorsing their colleagues' both in life and posts on social media - all with the intention of currying favor and advancing their benefit. If you think of it, such manipulative behavior is insincere at best, and downright fraudulent at worst. The thought of my subordinates indulging in such a performance without true conviction sends shivers down my spine. However, this doesn’t stop here as LinkedIn encourages such behaviours.
I received the above notification a while back through my LinkedIn profile and I thought a lot about it. There is something sinister and , again, very dangerous about being too subservient to your boss. It conceals your true self, rendering you nothing more than a mere shadow in the eyes of your colleagues. Being a jester in your supervisor's game is a death sentence for your self-development and professional growth. Honest feedback, push back, and constructive criticism are denied to those who seek to please their superiors at all costs.
But the damage doesn’t end here. There is a vital currency in the world that is called, Reputation. They say that only one percent of your colleagues can be lifelong friends, but if you seek to be a kiss-up, you'll end up with no one. Your peers are bound to see through your attempts to appease your bosses, and your credibility will be forever tarnished. Those who appear fake and insincere will quickly be ostracized, left alone in a cold and hostile workplace.
Hope
I refuse to use my pen to write a bitter and hate-filled post about LinkedIn without looking at its good side. I consider myself as an honest person and I approached this topic with an honest outlook and appreciative sense and as such I will keep my promise to deliver.
At a specific time in my life, LinkedIn has been instrumental in my professional journey, agreed it has not led to tangible opportunities, allow me to explain.
During the peak of the pandemic in 2020, I found myself unemployed and decided to start my new journey in Denver, Colorado, where my closest friends, whom I proudly call my family, reside. However, the downside is I lacked professional contacts to aid me in my endeavors in the mile high city, but LinkedIn was a beacon of hope in my time of need and here is why. In my moments of despair, I reached out to more than 40 individuals, cold-messaging them with the hope of finding job openings in Denver. That number would have been higher but LinkedIn wants me to pay for premium feature to cold message people who locked their accounts. Not a good pricing model in a space designed to find jobs for people (but I digress). Out of the 45, only 10 responded, and of those, only 6 reciprocated with a positive back and forth responses, enabling me to have a constructive dialogue. Of those 6, only 2 graced me with a meeting on Zoom.
So there you have it… LinkedIn is not THAT horrible, its just bad enough.
I am eager to explore the full potential of LinkedIn. Being an optimistic individual, I believe that LinkedIn will someday display its unique identity through the diverse and exceptional thoughts that form its user base. I am not talking about people. I am talking about the different ideas and thoughts being posted.
But what do I know I’m just a guy with a keyboard…