To clarify, I was indeed talking about understanding the culture, and it is the culture itself that invokes a reaction of nausea. Engagement metrics, Medium-style "lessons learned" posts, growth hacking, hustle porn, the word "influencer" taken at face value, "storytelling", hashtag optimization, "adding value" etc. I live in the real world and I accept and understand that this stuff makes money and that it's not gonna change any time soon but the economic reality of it does not lessen the feeling of postmodern horror. I know there are plenty of genuine conversations about real, non-marketing projects interspersed around this but the general culture is disturbing on a profound level.
Personally, I don't even mind shameless self promotion. Got a new cool job? Good for you. Are you giving talks at conferences? Amazing. You raised money, you screenshot positive reviews of your app, you post your open source package or article, that's all great, I might even share it or like it if I know you and want you to reach a part of my audience.
What I can't stand is the "growth hacking". Claiming quotes as your own to look wise and insightful. Badly describing a step in Elon's career to sound like someone who never gives up. Bad Work memes by people who can't meme! "software devs vs designer" or "how DHL, UPS, Amazon delivers packages" tiktoks. Obviously dysfunctional bogus prototype from "now this" from the nineties disguised as something novel. Talking about how working for $tech company is special / not special at all. Posing in suit at home describing how difficult it is to work from home... For some reason, these posts annoy me, especially if they are obviously a copy of a post that went viral last week
What bothers me more is the absurd amount of noise in those posts. A "software devs vs designer" bad meme can get 200 absolutely inane comments from people who just want the poster to notice them at all costs. It's only comparable to Youtube.
Facebook engagement feeds on outrage, but LinkedIn feeds on people wanting to make "connections" at all costs.
This captures my sense of the linkedin "culture" pretty much perfectly...I have an account mostly as a rolodex of former coworkers and business contacts, but I simply cannot stand the things people post and the way they interact with each other. Even just the tone and writing style is off putting. It's actually kind of wild how quickly I want to gag if I bother to scroll through the feed.
