4 ms·

For me the experience is bad not because I don't understand how the platform works but because it represents some of the soullessness of modern culture and onli

by Bakary 6y ago

For me the experience is bad not because I don't understand how the platform works but because it represents some of the soullessness of modern culture and online media. Most of the content that it posted there, even by real people doing real things, often sounds like self-parody or a TEDx talk. The platform itself warps the way people relate to the world. The point you raised about reputation is a good one: it's not just reputation in itself but also a certain culture and way of thinking that is unofficially enforced. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the usefulness of it but I can feel something dying inside of me each time I use it as well. I cannot for the life of me relate to someone who enjoys LinkedIn for its own sake.

he11ow 6y ago
What I meant by "understand how online networking works" is not that you - or anyone else - has struggled to grasp which button to click to connect with someone. Hundreds of millions of people use LinkedIn, and yet that's not quite the use case I'm talking about, so let me be clearer: Most of the value lies in the messaging. You connect with someone. You read their stuff, or they read yours. You strike a conversation. You continue that conversation here and there. You hop on a call to get to know each other a little more. You continue chatting here and there. It could be a week, it could be two months, but do you see how easily now you're not "a vendor" or "a jobseeker", but, YOU? So your CV doesn't need to compete with a gazillion other CVs, before people start asking you if this opportunity is of interest. And clients come to you because they trust you. That's the kind of networking I'm talking about. Yeah, I like it. It gets me business. I get to engage with really nice people in my industry, who self-select because they find the stuff I write interesting. It's not dependent on my physical location or whether I got entry into some event.
- tobmlt 6y ago
  This is pretty much my experience with linked, to the extent that I use it at least. I see my friends from my old job posting about wind turbine projects using our software. See my last big project get released into the wild. Give them a thumbs up; keep in touch, keeps doors open. Find new doors. Not a time sink, more high quality data than googling jobs. Seems mostly helpful. I get spammed invites from many kids coming into industry/almost graduating, but I mostly like it - if they seem honest I accept and get to watch them take their first steps in the job world too. I’ve had seniors asking for advice on how to break into computational mechanics and try to help with project advice / sending resumes along. ...Make friends and influence folk. Not bad.
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  Thanks for this. I always had the impression that it was just for recruiting and transactional networking. I'm gonna give it a try.
- Bakary 6y ago
  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.
  - airstrike 6y ago
    This is so on point you should write a whole goddamn article and publish it
  - serial_dev 6y ago
    Totally agree. 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 Just writing this list made me frustrated.
    - ratww 6y ago
      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.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
leokennis 6y ago
This exactly. Instagram has people posting “accidental” selfies that took 3 hours of make up, 156 tries under a full lighting rig and then an hour of post processing. LinkedIn is full of that same brand of fake, just applied to work. Acting like some boring-ass conference was awesome, pretending that celebrating some minor work achievement with cake was the ultimate team building exercise etc.
- ta988 6y ago
  That sounds like academic twitter to me as well (I never used Twitter for anything else, so I can't say if it is just the platform in general).
  - upinsmoke1980 6y ago
    Are there any Twitter subcultures that aren't cesspools?
- upinsmoke1980 6y ago
  You know, I've long struggled to articulate what it is about LinkedIn that I find so grating, and you just nailed it perfectly, thanks. A significant percentage of my LinkedIn contacts are friends, ex-classmates, social acquaintances, other people who aren't in my "professional network" but I accepted their connection request because meh, why not? The fakeness is particularly obvious when reading their posts. I'm like "C'mon Dave, I know you don't really give a shit about car insurance, it's just a job. Do you talk this with your colleagues?" I keep LinkedIn around because it's helped me find jobs in the past, but my experience on the site improved dramatically when I set up a custom uBlock Origin filter to hide the homepage news feed. I've never seen anything on there that remotely felt worth reading, and my most common reaction to other people's LinkedIn posts is to cringe.

by Bakary 6y ago

he11ow 6y ago

What I meant by "understand how online networking works" is not that you - or anyone else - has struggled to grasp which button to click to connect with someone. Hundreds of millions of people use LinkedIn, and yet that's not quite the use case I'm talking about, so let me be clearer: Most of the value lies in the messaging. You connect with someone. You read their stuff, or they read yours. You strike a conversation. You continue that conversation here and there. You hop on a call to get to know each other a little more. You continue chatting here and there. It could be a week, it could be two months, but do you see how easily now you're not "a vendor" or "a jobseeker", but, YOU? So your CV doesn't need to compete with a gazillion other CVs, before people start asking you if this opportunity is of interest. And clients come to you because they trust you. That's the kind of networking I'm talking about. Yeah, I like it. It gets me business. I get to engage with really nice people in my industry, who self-select because they find the stuff I write interesting. It's not dependent on my physical location or whether I got entry into some event.

tobmlt 6y ago
This is pretty much my experience with linked, to the extent that I use it at least. I see my friends from my old job posting about wind turbine projects using our software. See my last big project get released into the wild. Give them a thumbs up; keep in touch, keeps doors open. Find new doors. Not a time sink, more high quality data than googling jobs. Seems mostly helpful. I get spammed invites from many kids coming into industry/almost graduating, but I mostly like it - if they seem honest I accept and get to watch them take their first steps in the job world too. I’ve had seniors asking for advice on how to break into computational mechanics and try to help with project advice / sending resumes along. ...Make friends and influence folk. Not bad.
dcolkitt 6y ago
Thanks for this. I always had the impression that it was just for recruiting and transactional networking. I'm gonna give it a try.
Bakary 6y ago
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.
- airstrike 6y ago
  This is so on point you should write a whole goddamn article and publish it
- serial_dev 6y ago
  Totally agree. 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 Just writing this list made me frustrated.
  - ratww 6y ago
    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.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

leokennis 6y ago

This exactly. Instagram has people posting “accidental” selfies that took 3 hours of make up, 156 tries under a full lighting rig and then an hour of post processing. LinkedIn is full of that same brand of fake, just applied to work. Acting like some boring-ass conference was awesome, pretending that celebrating some minor work achievement with cake was the ultimate team building exercise etc.

ta988 6y ago
That sounds like academic twitter to me as well (I never used Twitter for anything else, so I can't say if it is just the platform in general).
- upinsmoke1980 6y ago
  Are there any Twitter subcultures that aren't cesspools?
upinsmoke1980 6y ago
You know, I've long struggled to articulate what it is about LinkedIn that I find so grating, and you just nailed it perfectly, thanks. A significant percentage of my LinkedIn contacts are friends, ex-classmates, social acquaintances, other people who aren't in my "professional network" but I accepted their connection request because meh, why not? The fakeness is particularly obvious when reading their posts. I'm like "C'mon Dave, I know you don't really give a shit about car insurance, it's just a job. Do you talk this with your colleagues?" I keep LinkedIn around because it's helped me find jobs in the past, but my experience on the site improved dramatically when I set up a custom uBlock Origin filter to hide the homepage news feed. I've never seen anything on there that remotely felt worth reading, and my most common reaction to other people's LinkedIn posts is to cringe.