Once upon a time, LinkedIn was boring. People listed their roles, shared a few updates, maybe posted a job ad or an article. It wasn’t exciting, but it was honest. You could more or less tell what someone actually did. Today, to be visible on LinkedIn, you have to be special. Not competent. Not solid. Not reliable. Special. And since very few people are genuinely doing something extraordinary at any given moment, the easiest way to get there is through language.

LinkedIn has quietly turned into one big, corporate-flavoured pissing contest.

Not about who does the best work. Not about who delivers the most value. But about who can phrase their mediocrity in the most heroic way. You didn’t attend a meeting. You “had a powerful conversation with an inspiring group of thought leaders.”. You didn’t finish a project. You “delivered a transformational outcome through radical collaboration.”
You didn’t learn something. You “were humbled by a profound insight that will shape your leadership forever.”

Posts written in this exaggerated, emotionally charged style get more likes, more comments, more reach. So people copy it. Then everyone copies it. Then it becomes the new normal. Once that happens, the bar moves again. Now it’s no longer enough to be proud. You must be grateful.
It’s no longer enough to succeed. You must be deeply moved. It’s no longer enough to fail. You must be publicly broken and spiritually rebuilt.

What fills the feed is no longer work, but theatre. People perform humility. They perform authenticity. They perform wisdom. Everyone is trying to out-signal everyone else in a space that has become numb to exaggeration.

The worst part is that everyone knows it’s fake. But nobody can afford to stop.

Write plainly and you disappear. Speak like a normal human and you get buried. The algorithm does not reward competence, nuance, or quiet consistency. It rewards emotional hooks, dramatic phrasing, and whatever makes someone pause their scrolling for half a second.

So the arms race continues.

Meanwhile, real professionals are still doing real work. Quietly. Competently. Without hashtags. They just don’t shout loud enough to matter in the feed anymore.