Yesterday I caught myself about to turn helping my coworker fix a PowerPoint into some kind of professional origin story. The actual situation was painfully mundane – she was struggling with a presentation that wouldn’t load properly, and I spent maybe twenty minutes helping her troubleshoot it. But my brain immediately started crafting this LinkedIn post about how I “facilitated cross-functional collaboration to optimize stakeholder communication through strategic content restructuring.” Which, you know, translates to “I told her to restart the program and delete two slides.”
My finger was literally hovering over the post button when I realized how absolutely unhinged that sounded. Like, imagine explaining to someone from 2015 that we now write elaborate fiction about doing basic office tasks. “Today I leveraged my expertise to drive transformative solutions”… girl, you fixed a printer jam. The urge for professional validation is so strong that we’re all just constantly performing this weird theater where everything we do is revolutionary.
When LinkedIn started, it was supposed to be like a digital business card holder, right? Just a place to keep track of work contacts and maybe find job opportunities. That actually made sense. But somewhere along the way it morphed into this alternate reality where getting promoted to senior associate warrants a three-paragraph manifesto about “embracing new challenges on this incredible journey.” It’s like we’re all trapped in some corporate roleplay game where everyone has to pretend their job is their calling.
I used to work at a tech startup before going freelance, and honestly I was fluent in this language. I could easily write “implemented user experience enhancements through strategic interface optimization” instead of saying “I made the login button bigger.” My team once spent an entire meeting debating whether we had “revolutionized” or merely “transformed” the user experience by moving a menu from the left side of the screen to the right. I wish I was joking about that.
The vocabulary alone is fascinating in the worst way possible. Nobody on LinkedIn ever just helps someone or fixes something – they “architect solutions” and “optimize workflows.” Tasks aren’t completed, they’re “milestone achievements.” People don’t have jobs, they embark on missions and passion journeys. Everyone’s a thought leader, visionary, or change agent. It’s like we collectively agreed to cosplay as more important versions of ourselves.
And we all participate because we want the same validation when it’s our turn to humblebrag. You celebrate my “strategic career pivot” (got laid off), I’ll congratulate your “exciting new chapter” (lateral move to escape a terrible manager). It’s this weird reciprocal performance where everyone’s constantly hyping up completely ordinary professional developments. Like, we all know that “incredible opportunity” probably just means they’re hiring for a position that’s been open for six months because the pay is terrible.
The emotional register is completely deranged too. Everyone’s always “honored,” “humbled,” “thrilled,” and “inspired” about the most mundane work stuff. If LinkedIn posts reflected reality, offices would be these euphoric celebration spaces instead of, you know, fluorescent-lit anxiety dungeons where half the meetings could’ve been emails. I saw someone post that they were “energetically leveraging their expertise to create synergistic growth opportunities” and when I looked them up, they’d just switched from one marketing coordinator role to another basically identical one. Which is fine! But why not just say that?
The profile photos are their own art form now. Gone are the days of basic professional headshots. Now everyone’s got a whole aesthetic – there’s the “nature inspires my business acumen” outdoor shot, the “casually sophisticated but still approachable” look, and my personal favorite, the “caught in a candid moment of being visionary” pose that’s obviously more staged than a fashion shoot. My own LinkedIn photo is from 2019 when I had different hair and thought I wanted to work in corporate forever. At this point I’m unrecognizable but changing it feels like admitting I’m aging, so.
But here’s where it gets really dystopian – LinkedIn has become this breeding ground for the most toxic work culture imaginable, all dressed up in motivational language. People brag about working 80-hour weeks like it’s a personality trait. They post about missing family events for work calls and frame it as dedication. Sleep deprivation gets romanticized as hustle. It’s genuinely disturbing how we’ve normalized destroying our mental health for capitalism and then posting about it for professional clout.
I definitely contributed to this when I was trying to build my corporate career. Posted about weekend work sessions without mentioning they were only necessary because I’d procrastinated all week. Shared articles about productivity hacks while being chronically burned out. The performance and the reality were completely disconnected, but maintaining the facade felt mandatory for career advancement.
There’s also this whole genre of obviously fake motivational stories that somehow get thousands of shares. You know the ones – “A candidate showed up to the interview soaking wet because they walked five miles in the rain after their car broke down. I hired them on the spot because that shows character.” Sure, Karen from HR, that definitely happened exactly like that and isn’t a thinly veiled attempt to go viral with inspiration porn.
What’s really wild is that despite all the performance and nonsense, LinkedIn actually works for its intended purpose. People do find jobs, make professional connections, and advance their careers through the platform. It’s genuinely useful, which makes the evolution into this bizarre theater even more frustrating. Like, we could have a functional professional network without everyone constantly performing their job as if it’s their life’s passion.
I think what LinkedIn reveals is how uncomfortable we are with work in general right now. We’re caught between this “follow your passion” career advice and the reality that most jobs are just… jobs. We’re trying to reconcile wanting work-life balance with a culture that demands we brand ourselves as always-on professionals. LinkedIn captures all these contradictions in the worst possible way.
I experimented once with posting completely honest updates just to see what would happen. “Finished a project that went fine.” “Started a new client relationship, seems okay so far.” “Had a meeting that could’ve been an email.” The engagement was practically nonexistent and I got concerned DMs asking if everything was alright. Apparently basic honesty reads as passive aggression when everyone’s expecting manufactured enthusiasm about quarterly reports.
As a freelancer, I’m trapped in this ecosystem because I need LinkedIn for client acquisition and maintaining professional credibility. But every time I open the app I feel like I’m entering some alternate dimension where everyone’s job is the most fulfilling thing that’s ever happened to them and every minor work task is a breakthrough achievement. It’s exhausting pretending to care about other people’s “journey” updates when we’re all just trying to pay rent and not hate our lives.
The whole thing feels unsustainable. At some point the collective delusion has to crack, right? We can’t keep pretending that optimizing email workflows is revolutionary or that working ourselves into anxiety disorders is inspirational. Maybe my generation will be the one to finally admit that work is mostly mundane and that’s actually fine. You don’t need to love what you do for a living. Sometimes a job is just a job.
But until then, I guess we’ll keep posting about how grateful we are for opportunities to leverage our expertise in driving strategic initiatives. And I’ll keep almost posting about how I “architected collaborative solutions” when really I just helped someone restart their computer. The performance continues, even though we’re all getting tired of the show.
Anyway, I should probably go update my LinkedIn. Got to post about how writing this piece allowed me to “create thought leadership content that drives meaningful conversations about professional authenticity.” See how easy it is to slip back into the language? We’re all doomed.
Rachel’s a Brooklyn designer who grew up online and now questions everything about it. She writes with dry wit about social media burnout, digital identity, and the weirdness of being dependent on platforms she doesn’t trust. She’s fluent in irony and Adobe Creative Suite.
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