A comedy act called 'Wankernomics' just showed up in my YouTube recommendations. I thought about booking a ticket to their show but its too close to reality.

> but on LinkedIn itself you have to confront the reality that these people, often colleagues / former colleagues etc. are being serious

I doubt many are being serious.

Business culture (at least in the US) is so steeped in lying and general fake-ness that in-group signaling as "real business person" involves public performances of bullshit.

It's what you're supposed to do in interviews: bullshit just the right way, to show you understand the game and are willing to debase yourself to play it. Otherwise you're "risky", either due to excessive commitment to ethical principles or to being too clueless or inept to play the game right. That's what's going on, on LinkedIn. "Humility" and "realness" even have to be faked just the right way.

It's incredibly gross.

"The baby's gotta eat" is a very strong motivator for people to do somewhat cringe things in the name of their livelihoods and future. Including $50/year subscriptions for PDF reader apps (dead serious).

I have made one post ever to LinkedIn and it was something I said as a joke in a 1-1 that I realised was perfect LinkedIn fodder. It did some pretty good numbers, and made me respect that site even less than I already did.

Well, serious in the same way cult members have to be serious.

If you crack and admit it’s fake, everything falls apart and it’s your fault. Expulsion out onto the street follows.

Even worse, now everyone else is going ‘how could you be so dumb to believe it’ and/or ‘you sure fucked up by admitting it was fake’ all at the same time.