LinkedOut

The Social Network That Made Professionalism Painfully Personal

May 16, 2025

I’ve had a funny relationship with social media in recent years. From having an account everywhere to having no personal accounts at all (unless you count this one).

I’ve signed up to them all at some point (except for TikTok because, well, I’m a middle-aged bloke, so why would I!); Facebook, Instagram, Bebo, Pinterest and yes, LinkedIn.

By 2025, I closed them all without a second thought. The only one I ever consider going back to, for some reason, is LinkedIn.

Every time I meet with potential new clients, collaborators, suppliers or anyone in a professional capacity, I stress about it. I get anxious wondering if I’m doing myself a disservice or putting myself at an unnecessary disadvantage by not being on LinkedIn.

I get misty-eyed about the LinkedIn I remember… then I remember what LinkedIn is like now.

I didn’t think I could get emotional about a website where people humblebrag about promotions and endorse each other for “team synergy,” but here we are.

LinkedIn - the suit-wearing, coffee-sipping, jargon-spitting oddball of the social media family is gone. OK, maybe it’s not gone, gone, but something has definitely died.

Maybe it was the vibe? The sincerity? The ability to scroll without seeing someone turn getting ghosted by a recruiter into a life lesson on perseverance?

Whatever it is, this felt like the right moment to gather, reflect and lovingly roast the only platform where oversharing became a career strategy and “just wanted to share some thoughts” was code for 47 paragraphs of insane brain dumps.

Let’s be honest, LinkedIn was never cool in the same way Instagram or TikTok were in their infancy. Even in its prime, it was the social media equivalent of a corporate cafeteria; fluorescent lighting, stiff small talk and the faint smell of desperation masked by cheap instant coffee.

But somewhere along the way, it stopped being just a place to awkwardly connect with your old boss and morphed into a bizarre theatre of professional cringe - a platform where people post ‘motivational’ business advice like they’re the Tony Robbins of Excel spreadsheets, where layoffs are announced with the dramatic flair of a Shakespearean soliloquy and where the phrase ‘Let’s take this offline’ is somehow now considered normal human speech.

This is a eulogy for that LinkedIn - the one we pretended was about ‘networking’ while secretly knowing it was really about performance, posturing and the unshakable fear that if we don’t #hustle, we’ll disappear into the algorithmic abyss.

Gather round and let’s pour one out for the weirdest, most unintentionally hilarious corner of the internet. Let’s begin.

Dearly beloved,

Ladies, gentlemen, colleagues past, present and mysteriously “Open to Work” despite claiming to be thriving in a unicorn startup and all you "thought leaders", we gather here today to mourn the passing of LinkedIn as we once knew it - a simple, harmless platform for connecting professionals.

What began as a humble digital CV repository has evolved into a surreal carnival of humblebragging, faux-inspiration and performative networking.

LinkedIn is not dead, no - but the illusion that it was ever just about "career opportunities" surely is, and for that, we must grieve.

Thank you for gathering today to remember this fallen titan of tie-clad self-promotion, corporate claptrap and algorithm-approved authenticity.

We are here not just to bury LinkedIn, but to truly understand it, to roast it lovingly, to raise a paper coffee cup in one hand while live-streaming our tears with the other.

Today, we say goodbye to the weirdest, most well-intentioned professional social network to ever grace the internet.

Let us begin, as all LinkedIn posts do, with a completely unrelated childhood anecdote:

“When I was seven, I sold rose perfume on the side of a road with one beheaded flower per cup and zero customers. That was the day I learned the importance of grit. Now, as Chief Strategy Officer of my own consultancy with an intentionally misspelled name, I reflect on how that taught me everything I needed to know about scaling purpose.”

Sound familiar?

Yes, dear friends, LinkedIn as we knew it will rest in peace… and in PowerPoint slides.

In the Beginning, There Was a Resume (And It Was Good)

LinkedIn was born in 2003, in a time when MySpace was still cool, people thought ‘Friends Reunited’ was the future (for some reason), Facebook was still a University dorm-room project and ‘social media’ wasn’t yet a phrase that made HR departments break out in hives.

Its co-founder, Reid Hoffman, envisioned a place where professionals could connect without the messiness of personal lives - no holiday photos, no political rants, just pure, unadulterated careerism.

What could possibly go right?

People listed their jobs, connected with colleagues old and new and occasionally endorsed each other for skills like "Microsoft Excel" (a bold claim for many).

It was supposed to be the online home for professional connections. No duck-face selfies, no memes (at first), no vines (remember them?), just the reassuring embrace of bullet-pointed job experience and humble brags professionally sandwiched between endorsements for "Strategic Synergy" and "Microsoft PowerPoint."

For a while, it worked.

In its earliest days, LinkedIn felt like the internet in a tie; stiff, a little awkward, but clean… more or less.

A place where you could connect (for some reason) with that one guy from Accounts who always used “per my last email” as a threat. Where recruiters roamed freely, hunting apprentice-level candidates with five years of experience in something they couldn’t possibly know yet.

It was boring, inoffensive and functional - like a fax machine, but for your career.

It was a simpler time, but oh, how it evolved.

One day, something terrible happened… LinkedIn discovered it had a feed.

The Glow-Up… or the Glow-Down?

Somewhere along the way, thanks to its new feed, LinkedIn got personal.

Not in the “you’re my friend” way, but in the “let me trauma-dump for engagement” way.

We watched the transition with confused awe. The same network that once hosted earnest posts about supply chain optimisation now churned out monologues like:

“I got fired last Tuesday, lost my cat and spilled coffee on my white shirt, then my toddler called me a failure. That’s when I knew I was destined to lead thought-leadership seminars on emotional resilience.”
1,247 likes. 348 comments.

So brave.

What LinkedIn became was not just a platform. It was a performance stage - a workplace masquerade, complete with emotional soliloquies, personal rebrands and a peculiar type of social theatre where people found meaning in email autoresponders and did #MondayMotivation like it was an Olympic sport.

The Descent Into Posting

LinkedIn became less about who you knew or what people said you could do and more about what you could say to make strangers question your self-awareness.

The platform’s shift from digital Rolodex to professional performance art stage was gradual but inevitable.

Suddenly, everyone was a "Top Voice", a "Changemaker", a “Thought Leader”, or worst of all, a "Disruptor".

The modern LinkedIn post was born - a unique literary genre where people share career advice with the gravitas of a TED Talk, but the substance of a fortune cookie.

That was until… posts became announcements.

So. Many. Announcements.

New job? Announcement. Left job? Announcement. Thinking about leaving a job? Cryptically hint at an announcement. Got coffee with a mentor? Better announce it by writing a 12-paragraph tribute ending in “This is what leadership looks like.”

There was no silence on LinkedIn.

Even in moments of grief or transition, there was a template for turning it into engagement. You couldn’t just go through things, you had to leverage them.

We lived in a timeline where someone could lose their job and still post a carousel with “5 Lessons I Learned From Being Laid Off.” It was like emotional alchemy - spinning straw into content.

Then, of course, there are the humblebrags - posts that disguise boasting as vulnerability:

"So honoured to be named ‘Top 30 Under 30’ while also battling imposter syndrome and raising two rescue dogs. #KeepGrinding"

LinkedIn became a place where people announce layoffs like they’re accepting an Oscar, "After 12 incredible years at Pretentious & Co., the universe has decided it’s time for a new chapter…"), where "engagement" means commenting "This! 👏 So 👏 much 👏 this! 👏" under a post about teamwork and where a simple job change is framed as a spiritual awakening.

Let us not forget that the greatest overlord of all on LinkedIn was not the hiring manager, not the “Head of People,” but the algorithm, and the algorithm demanded vulnerability.

That hungry, invisible beast we all must bow down to; on LinkedIn, it rewarded oversharing and punished nuance.

We began optimising ourselves not for authenticity, but for performative transparency. If a tree falls in the forest and doesn’t hashtag #Resilience, did it even fall?

LinkedIn, you became a diary written for strangers who would never reply, but might endorse us for “Team Collaboration”.

The Cringe Is the Brand

Guess what? It worked. Kinda.

What made LinkedIn truly special is its lack of irony.

On Twitter, we mocked ourselves (or used to). On Instagram, we curate flawless illusions. But on LinkedIn? We post. Unfiltered. Unashamed.

A man will write 800 words comparing his career to The Odyssey and genuinely think, "Yes, this is what the people need."

Now, as we reflect on its life, let us eulogise the types of people who made LinkedIn the glorious fever, cringe-induced dream it was. There was…

1. The Humblebragger

Never just got a promotion. No, they "humbled to announce" it. Often alongside a moody black-and-white headshot and a quote from Gandhi, Steve Jobs or their Uber driver.

2. The Thought Leader

These digital sages rarely led anything other than a Tuesday Zoom call, but oh, did they think. And post. And hashtag.

“Leadership isn’t about leading. It’s about listening. Unless you’re too busy hustling. Then it’s about silence.”

Well done. Now just go back to your hot-desk and finish your AI-powered synergy loop.

3. The “Let Me Tell You a Story” Narrator

A barista gets their name wrong? That’s a parable about brand misalignment. Dropped a croissant? Time to reflect on resilience. Every minor inconvenience became a case study in business agility.

4. The Emoji Overuser

Every sentence ended in 🔥💼💪🚀. It was like trying to decode hieroglyphics, but instead of revealing the secrets of ancient Egypt, they just led to a 200-slide PowerPoint.

5. The Recruiter with Infinite Hope

Bless them. Always posting jobs that “may not be for you, but might be for someone in your network.” Which really meant “No one’s applying and I need to fill this position before my bonus disappears.”

Let’s not forget the reaction emojis - why just "Like" a post when you can "celebrate" 🎉, "support" 🤝, or "love" ❤️ it? Arrgghhhh. Please 🛑.

After all, nothing says "professionalism" like spamming confetti on a post about quarterly earnings.

Where Everyone Was a CEO

We cannot bury LinkedIn without acknowledging its most bizarre transformation: the proliferation of CEOs of nothing!

Suddenly, everyone was a "Founder." Everyone had a "personal brand." You weren’t just a freelancer, you were a “solopreneur in the digital narrative architecture space.” That’s right; writing tweets for small businesses now comes with a three-page vision deck and a mission statement.

Oh, and don’t forget the startups with names like “Zyngly” or “Plurvio” founded by people who listed “Disruptor of Traditional Mindsets” under work experience.

LinkedIn became the only place where an unpaid internship at a juice bar could be recast as “Junior Wellness Operations Associate at a fast-paced health startup.”

You didn’t network anymore. You navigated ecosystems of impact.

The Cringe, The Courage, The Cost

Yes, LinkedIn was cringey. Yes, it sometimes felt like walking through a job fair run by motivational speakers and brand strategists trapped in a kaleidoscope of Canva templates, but it also asked us to do something rare in a professional setting: put ourselves out there.

In a world obsessed with polish, LinkedIn encouraged people to show their frayed seams.

Some turned that into performance, sure, but others - God bless them - genuinely tried to connect, share and uplift. But putting yourself out there always comes with a cost.

Like here on Substack, every post was a gamble. Would it resonate? Would it flop? But unlike on Substack, you’d have to balance that with whether your former manager would see it and quietly judge your “growth mindset”?

To be fair, that happens here, too.

LinkedIn became the digital tightrope we all walked; somewhere between aspiration and exhaustion, and in doing so, it held a mirror to the modern professional psyche - a place full of doubt, hustle and the desperate hope that someone, somewhere, would see what you posted and say “You’ve got what it takes. Here, have a job!”.

Networking or Not Working?

Of course, we can't eulogise LinkedIn without addressing its fundamental promise: professional networking.

Did we make genuine connections? Sometimes. Did we endure cold DMs offering crypto consulting services or franchise opportunities in obscure sectors? Definitely.

There was a strange intimacy to LinkedIn, because nothing says closeness like someone you haven’t spoken to in 13 years asking for a recommendation you’re unqualified to give.

The platform thrived on polite obligation. “Sure, I’ll connect. Sure, I’ll like your product launch. No, I haven’t read your ebook on leadership in the metaverse, but I will nod respectfully.”

LinkedIn created a universe where we were all perpetually on. All seeking opportunity, while pretending to already have it.

The Price of Putting Yourself Out There

For all its flaws, here’s the thing about LinkedIn that few understood: it demands vulnerability without guaranteeing dignity.

Every post is a gamble. You might go viral for your "inspiring" take on leadership… or you might be screenshot into a meme for calling yourself a "visionary potato", but once you hit publish, there’s no take-backs.

Some pay the price in embarrassment. Others pay it in connection requests from strangers who "would love to pick their brain over coffee." (Translation: They want free consulting.)

A select few pay it by becoming ‘LinkedIn Famous’ - a dubious honour that means your face appears uninvited in the feeds of thousands, like a corporate Bigfoot.

But perhaps the greatest tragedy of LinkedIn is that, beneath the cringe, people are trying.

They’re trying to be seen, to be hired, to matter in a global economy that treats all workers below the executive level as expendable.

The over-the-top posts, the relentless optimism, the performative networking - it’s all armour against the fear of irrelevance.

The Final Post

Now, as we lay LinkedIn to rest - succumbed, perhaps, to an AI tool that just generates synthetic careers for us - we must ask ourselves one question: what did we truly lose?

We lost a place where the professional and the personal awkwardly collided like two consultants trying to shake hands and fist bump at the same time.

We lost a platform where people could rise from interns to Influencers, armed with only a Canva subscription and access to Grammarly Premium.

We lost the joy of watching someone announce they’re leaving their role without announcing where they’re going, forcing us all into wild speculation like it’s deadline day of the Premier League transfer window.

We lost a digital town square where everyone was either hiring, looking or “just sharing something I learned about vulnerability today.”

But we also gained something.

We gained stories.

Strange, bold, overly long stories about leadership, failure, success and yes - even that one time you didn’t get a reply from a hiring manager and somehow used it to launch your TEDx career.

Rest in Professionalism

So here we are, collectively bidding farewell to the LinkedIn that once was - a quiet, unassuming website where you could stalk your old workmates in peace.

In its place, we have a monster of our own making: a hybrid of a resume, a self-help book and an open-mic night where everyone’s punchline is "synergy."

But let’s not be too harsh.

LinkedIn, you were many things.

You were the cringey uncle at the digital dinner table.

You were the HR manager’s playground, the recruiter’s Rolodex, the entrepreneur’s echo chamber.

You were where dreams were pitched, buzzwords were born and everyone became a brand.

But above all, you were ours.

And though you're gone, possibly to be acquired by an even worse platform called "MetaPro Connect+ Ultra", you taught us that showing up professionally doesn’t have to mean being perfect.

It just has to mean showing up. Ideally, with a filter and a well-written caption.

LinkedIn, for all its absurdity, is a mirror. It reflects our desperation to be successful, our need to belong and our collective delusion that if we just post enough, the right opportunity will miraculously find us.

So here’s to you, LinkedIn. You took "professional networking" and turned it into performance art.

You gave us "thought leadership," endless journeys", and the ability to endorse someone for "Active Listening" as if that’s a measurable skill.

You made us all a little cringey, a little desperate, and, against our better judgment, a little hopeful.

Rest in peace, LinkedIn’s dignity. You were too pure for this world.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a post to write about how this eulogy was a metaphor for resilience.

Amen.

#TheHustleNeverStops #ProfessionalLegacy #HumbledToAnnounceYourPassing #RIP #GoneButEndorsed 🙏💼🕊️

Are you still an avid LinkedIn user? What do you like about it? What do you hate about it? What’s the most unintentionally funny post you’ve seen on there? Let me know in the comments below. I read and reply to all of them.