Mommy, Are the Inspirational Stories on LinkedIn Real?

No, sweetheart. Don’t worry. They’re just pretend.

Oh dear. I left my laptop open, and you read a LinkedIn post from an “Entrepreneur, Change Agent, Futurist, Success Enabler, Innovator & Investor.” And now you can’t sleep. Let me see if I can explain this in a way that makes sense.

You know how you make up those amazing stories about dragons and flying unicorns? And you have all of these really special ideas no one has ever heard before, and we tell you that you have such a big imagination? Sometimes, grown-ups make up stories, too, and post them on LinkedIn. Except their ideas aren’t special at all. Everyone has heard them before, and instead of “imagination,” we call it “thought leadership.”

Why do grown-ups do this? That’s a good question.

Grown-ups make up stories on LinkedIn to get imaginary points. They think that whoever collects the most points has the most people who like them. And that the people who like them will then spend $399 on their online course, “Digital Engagement Optimization: Elevating Stakeholder Interaction for Organizational Growth.”

You know how farmers make food for us that we eat, and it helps us grow healthy and strong? Well, this is sort of like that, but it’s called “engagement farming.” Instead of producing fruits and vegetables that nourish our bodies and minds, engagement farmers on LinkedIn produce made-up stories about hiring and firing that suck the soul out of humanity. Does that make sense?

How did this happen? A long, long time ago, before you were even born, LinkedIn was a useful platform for people with similar jobs to talk to each other. Over time, the millennial hustle-and-grind culture morphed and mutated into what they call “the attention economy,” and the result is the swirling professional networking hellscape we have today.

A lot of the time, it’s not even grown-ups making up the stories. It’s done by AI. AI is a fancy robot that writes like a college freshman on Adderall who is using filler to hide the fact that he hasn’t done the assigned reading. So the AI writes the stories, posts them on LinkedIn, then other AI will leave comments like, “Great post! Amen! .” This is called a “robot circlejerk,” and when you see it, it’s best to close the laptop and walk away. It’s not meant for our eyes, and at this point in history, the grown-ups can’t be certain of the repercussions of what we’ve unleashed.

What are “repercussions”? Consequences. Like when you go to time out for hitting your sister or when the AI becomes aware of itself and starts crashing airplanes into the sea. But don’t worry, that won’t happen for a long, long time—at least five to ten years.

But it’s safe to say that this “useful-monetization-robot apocalypse” progression will be the life cycle of every online platform from here on out. Soon, LinkedIn will get very sleepy and close its eyes forever. That’s when a new platform will launch, and we’ll start all over again.

So, let’s talk about the story you read. That one gets reposted a lot.

A graphic designer, Stephanie, shows up for her big interview at a big company. Outside the office building, there’s a sad, starving stray dog shivering in the cold. All of the business people passing by are being really mean to the dog, calling it stupid and ugly. But not Stephanie. She sits down and gives it half of the lunch burrito she was saving. She has no job and no money, and now she has no dinner. But she knows the dog needs it more. Stephanie is now thirty minutes late to the interview and certain she didn’t get the job.

All of a sudden, the dog peels off its dog suit. It’s the CEO! He’s so moved by her generosity that he offers her the position of co-CEO with a starting salary of $1 million per year.

So now you’re afraid every dog and raccoon you see is secretly a Fortune 500 CEO, aren’t you? That’s really scary, honey. But I promise you, it’s just make-believe.

Here’s what actually happened to Stephanie. The company took her design presentation, ripped it into pieces, and then used those pieces to cobble together a digital Frankenstein monster that’s an affront to God and good taste. Then they sent her a rejection email.

Does that make you feel any better? Okay, it’s way past your bedtime. Just remember: nothing is real, and robots are replacing human interactions, leaving us isolated and alone.

Goodnight, sweetheart. Sweet dreams.