LinkedIN: Class or Crass?

The struggle and indignity of networking

One must imagine Sisyphus happy. Therefore, one must imagine me gleefully updating my LinkedIn. 

Woe and behold, I have drunk the corporate Kool-Aid — i.e., downloaded LinkedIn —  a delicious cocktail of humiliation, jealousy, and amusement. 

As part of a mandatory class for my home school, I have been forced to degrade myself on the créme de la créme of professional networking sites — part of our participation grade is posting on LinkedIn. If you have stalked my digital presence — no shame, we’ve all been there — you’ll be sure to see my posts about “what I learned from rejection” and the like.

But since becoming more active on the site, I’m always amused when peers gleefully share ChatGPT’d statements about ‘increasing shareholder value’ at internships secured with parental support. It’s all so grotesquely insincere that it makes me want to barf. 

“Here’s Five Things I’ve Learned from my LinkedIn-Induced Vomit!”

To be real, I am a little jealous of their collective lack of shame. I can judge all I want — they’ll be gainfully employed come graduation. But is this public self-flagellation ritual really necessary to get a job? Maybe so, but it appears more so motivated by ‘flexing’ on your peers. 

This kind of activity carries an air of deep disdain amongst St Andrews students. I’m always a little worried that my more substantive LinkedIn presence will be exposed, revealing a haughty try-hard with not much to show for it. 

So, I was curious to find out why St Andrews students put up such resistance to the good-old LinkedIn flex. So, I reached out to my ‘network’. My LinkedIn warriors, I met in the early morning over coffee. My LinkedIn haters, over a pint — telling. 

Alex Barnard, fourth-year English and German, has used LinkedIn to connect with students in her master's program, but thinks “it is overused to notify people about everything going on in your life”. However, if there is “an achievement you’re genuinely proud of, you should share it”. I agree, a call for moderation is definitely necessary. 

Graham Tanenbaum, third-year Art History and International Relations, echoes this sentiment, but is more fervent in his LinkedIn hatred. He believes that “in some strange mass psychosis” we’ve all downloaded LinkedIn, only to be barraged with “a million unsolicited notifications from people you barely know”. To Tanenbaum, no one wants to read a “banal blurb” about your internships and achievements: “it reeks of desperation for validation”. Call out, much — sometimes I just want to make high school connections jealous!

But what about the LinkedIn ‘shitpost’? Teddy Banham, second-year History, reckons that “LinkedIn is a bit of a joke, and I treat it as such”. Banham lists experience ranging from founding an ‘artisan candle company’ to working as a ‘semi-professional gamer’ on the site, but tells me: “If you know me, you’d know these certain bits are funny.” I will admit, I do have working proficiency in Latin listed on my LinkedIn — technically speaking, true, but it’s more of an in-joke amongst my fellow aficionados of the dead language.   

Banham, however, takes it further. His bits include “joke comments on other people’s posts, usually when I’m drunk”. He tells me that he has “a few of my dad’s mates on it, and a few serious people… but I’m not curating it for them”. Instead, it’s a way for him to connect with peers — and the international influence St Andrews attracts.

“One of the main reasons for downloading LinkedIn”, Banham told me, was “the Americans”.

During residence move-in, “this Dad from Goldman Sachs” asked for his LinkedIn, but at the time, he didn’t have one, motivating him to join the platform. Although mindful not to jeopardise his future employability or transatlantic connections, Banham believes that on LinkedIn, “you can play around and have a bit of a laugh with it”. 

Elizabeth Gillett, fourth-year Art History and Management, is much more pragmatic about her digital presence, as she tells me, “I keep my LinkedIn quite professional.” To Gillett, the infamous ‘shitpost’ warrants some caution: “early in my career, I just don’t want to take the risk of trying to be funny and having something land the wrong way”. We’ve all seen these sardonic or tongue-in-cheek posts, but Gillett stays away from this kind of behavior: “I’ve seen people do it and get a lot of engagement, so if it works, it works, but it’s not really my thing”. 

This engagement-driven culture has ruffled the feathers of Arabella Bartle, third-year International Relations, who believes that routinely posting on LinkedIn is an unfortunate “symptom of rabid careerism.” For Bartle, this behavior is tainted with desperation: “You weren’t allowed to be so simpering and ridiculous twenty-five years ago”. Bartle believes a call for propriety is necessary amongst avid LinkedIn users: “It used to be crass to speak so openly about your achievements, where did that shame go?” 

I think that shame dissipated with the rise in youth unemployment and the increasing precariousness of achieving a comfortable career. In our parents' generation, you used to just be unemployed. Now, you must relentlessly barrage all your personal and professional contacts, writing posts bemoaning a ‘tough job market’ and ‘the value of human perspective’, all with the green #opentowork banner illuminating your desperation. I see post after post from under-employed ‘creatives’ making arguments for ‘reclaiming the em-dash’ or lamenting ‘literature in decline’, all in some futile ploy to gain visibility from potential employers or secure more tenuous contract work. 

Is this some warped funhouse mirror in which my dismal future is reflected back at me? Am I predestined to inundate the world in ‘LVE’, or ‘LinkedIn Vernacular English’, a phenomenon Bartle coined to describe the corperatification of language? Perhaps. Meanwhile, let me bask in my verbosity and snark at those who will inevitably surpass me in career outcome. 

But soon, my ruse will be up. I cannot continue my tirade that LinkedIn is an insidious cesspool. To be frank, my LinkedIn is a bit of a cess-pond, maybe even a cess-puddle. From chatting with my St Andrews ‘network’, I gained the sense that either you should have an incredibly impressive LinkedIn presence with 500+ connections or no presence at all — something in the middle seems desperate, even cringe.

As aforementioned, I’ve already drunk the Kool-Aid — I don’t want to back down now, I’ve already crossed my Rubicon. So, let this article be a shameless plug for connections. Add me on LinkedIn. I could use some future Goldman Sachs employees in my network during the AI-fueled water wars. 

Illustration from Wikimedia Commons