Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

The serial entrepreneur’s new clothes: The LinkedIn news feed

09.01.2021 by David Murray // 4 Comments

I always wanted a Chicago daily newspaper to pay me to hang out at the McCormick Place convention center and just report on the weirdest conference taking place there every day. Like a conclave of professional speechwriters, for instance.

Short of that, I could write a daily blog by just scrolling through LinkedIn and making fun of people trying to be “professional.”

On LinkedIn:

People call their corporate tenures “amazing.” What, exactly, was “amazing” about your six years working as a comtroller at Western Power Corporation?

The glibbest fuck wins. This has been going around LinkedIn communication circles, for instance. “Likes” out the wazoo. It means exactly nothing.

Rhymes with glib fuck: Gary Vaynerchuk. And if you don’t know who that is, don’t look him up.

In glib fuck’s poker, the first glib fuck doesn’t stand a chance. “Quote of the day: ‘When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.’ — Tao Te Ching” Yes, Chinese people can be glib fucks too. Confucius was huge on LinkedIn.

(The only people who get more likes than glib fucks are the sanctimonious fucks, who post phony homilies on such courageous themes as the importance of never badmouthing competitors.)

Twain supposedly said, “When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it’s always 20 years behind the times.” Now, that’s LinkedIn. The other night I read this bolt from the blue: “We’re seeing the most innovative companies are continuing to shift to video.”

LinkedIn is:

People telling you they are excited about things.

“Edgy content.”

“Serial entrepreneur,” as a term of admiration.

Sentences like, “Storytelling is only table stakes.”

And people who say those things, with a straight face.

And across this vast white wasteland, not an ounce of truth or a new idea, because such things bead on LinkedIn and run off, like water off a glib fuck’s back.

In the name of Frederick Winslow Taylor, what a waste of everybody’s time.

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Comments

  1. N Hrab says

    September 1, 2021 at 9:12 pm

    Yes x 100,000 times!

    A gassy swamp that’s not worth the slog…

    Reply
  2. Karen Wing says

    September 2, 2021 at 1:53 am

    Ok, agreed but still the post seems a little harsh. I actually know two recent college grads who got decent jobs through LinkedIn connections—and now they can move out of their parents’ houses, so LinkedIn can’t be all that bad.

    Reply
  3. David Murray says

    September 2, 2021 at 1:55 am

    Oh, I love LinkedIn as a way to connect with folks; could not do my business without it; or wouldn’t want to try to, anyway. It’s the way people BEHAVE on it, on their LinkedIn feed, that disgusts me.

    Also, if the post only seems a little harsh, I have clearly failed in my attempt to make it insanely harsh.

    Reply
    • Craig Davis says

      September 3, 2021 at 2:20 am

      😂😂😂 Good burn Dave! Love the last paragraph before the reference to Frederick Winslow Taylor.

      Reply

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