linkedin is embarrassing

i hate it

Okay so YES, I quit my day job. Yup.

If you read my last post you know that I was very nearly driven to madness by the corporate environment I worked in for the past 5 years.

Side note: I think madness would be a good look for me. I genuinely think I would enjoy being just a little bit mad.

Anyway, for ~mental health reasons~ I left that job! [applause break] It was a hard decision to make for about a year … and then it suddenly became super easy.

Early in the summer, HR sent out a memo saying something like “Starting in September, you losers are gonna have to come in physically to the office 4 days a week so we can make sure you have as little free time as possible and we honestly don’t care what you think about that. :) :) :)”

So that was a nice little push out the door for me. Of course, I left for several reasons, one of which being the soul-crushing depression that set in first thing each morning when I had to go to work. Another reason is that I wanted to focus more on my true love: The Sonar Network, our indie podcast network that we’ve been growing steadily for the last 6-ish years! I love that little guy and I want to give it more of my time and effort. I’ll talk about that some more another day.

ok but seriously

Today I’m here to talk about LinkedIn. First, let me be clear—I’ve done the LinkedIn posts. I’ve been that guy. A bit. Before I left my job for good, I was being encouraged at every turn by friends and professional connections to “Get on LinkedIn!”. Apparently, it’s a huge source of work and fruitful networking for so many people. And I believe it!! I’ve seen first-hand the power that LinkedIn has. I’ve made the connections and great things have come from them. So yes, I get it.

But, regardless of the benefits I’ve reaped, let me try to put into words exactly why it is that I still fucking hate LinkedIn.

The writing style. That’s one thing. It’s cringe. It’s preachy. It’s all buzzwords, and let’s face it—it’s mostly written by AI. There are so few LinkedIn posts that I read that feel like they’re actually written by human people.

The other thing that really bothers me is just the general obsession with work. I’m disturbed by the amount of people out there who spend every waking moment of their lives thinking about work, talking about work. I guess we all have different interests and goals in life. Some people just enjoy work and it seeps into everything they do. But the vibe on LinkedIn is really one of celebrating the never-ending grind. And I just don’t believe that’s healthy.

do you ever not?

Most of the posts I see on LinkedIn are from people who attend one million conferences/events a month and then get AI to write some crap about how “inspired” they have been by each and every event. Do they ever just, like, have a quiet night in? Read a book?

I’m also grinding, don’t get me wrong. I quit my day job and now I’m doing freelance work trying to make ends meet and I know what it means to be constantly busy. But something feels disgusting to me about fetishizing that on a social media platform. I love what I do and I’m so excited to do more of it in my life. I want to meet people in my industry. I want to build relationships! But I don’t know if I can do that by being this “thought leader” character on LinkedIn who sounds like everyone else.

Also, I just don’t think human beings are meant to see every god damn situation as a learning experience. Sometimes events are just events and things are just things. So your dog died in 2019. And you learned 5 lessons about how to balance grief and work? Cool. But maybe your dog died and it doesn’t have to be some big motivational moment? Not everything is a thing.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just jaded. Anyway, if you want to work with me, I DO have a LinkedIn profile where I hypocritically participate in this circus. Find me there and “let’s make professional magic together!”

Shout out to my very cool and smart friend, Trevor, who inspires me to hate LinkedIn a little more each day.

Here’s a photo of me being professional and adorable at a digital content conference / awards ceremony in Toronto earlier this year (our show won an award!!!)