Work can be pretty hard to come by these days, so the idea of a networking platform that lets you connect with others in your industry and puts your profile in front of recruiters is hardly something to sneer at. But LinkedIn has come a long way since its early days as a straightforward professional networking site, and many of us have resigned ourselves to the fact that it’s no longer just a place to make connections or look for jobs.
It’s also gained a reputation as a hotbed of humblebrags, tone-deaf takes, and posts that read like they were written by people who’ve never touched grass. Fortunately, others online are documenting the platform’s most unhinged moments. From wildly out-of-touch musings to bizarre corporate “bro-etry” written as though the author has unlocked some profound secret to success, these examples show just how cringeworthy LinkedIn can get.
#1 If You Don’t Get Married At Work You Aren’t A Team Player
Image source: ManagementLocal4332
#2 He Definitely Did Had A Great Co-Working Day
Image source: lumugraph
#3 Prove Him Wrong
Image source: beteille
LinkedIn launched in 2003, offering professionals a place to share their résumés, look for jobs, and connect with people in their industry. As Medium blogger Usman describes it, the platform was essentially “a digital resume with a social layer—useful, maybe a little boring, but functional.” And for a while, that’s exactly how people used it.
#4 Retired? You’re Non-Existant To Kathy
Image source: Grsz11
#5 Sleep Is Overrated. Be Successful Instead!
Image source: Silverhand-Ghost
#6 Wth
Image source: TheTanadu
In a 2015 blog post, one LinkedIn user, Henry Innis, looked back on those early days fondly: “LinkedIn started well. It became my rolodex into a range of professional contacts and I could keep [in] touch with the people I had met. Updates around job titles and similar were pretty handy, and it was a little like listing my resume online.”
#7 Youth Loneliness Is Cured By Adults Going Into The Office
Image source: JerrithCutestory
#8 Terminations On The 4th
Image source: WrongnessMaximus2-0
#9 Absolutely Tone Deaf
I’ve been following this person for a while on LinkedIn. She’s a workaholic lunatic who who pushes her desire to work all the time on to her following. We should not be pushing a culture that drives us to work all the time, especially while we’re in the hospital recovering from an emergency or on vacation with our families. This just drove me insane.
Image source: joeyd199
But by the time Innis wrote that, he felt things were already changing. In his view, users had begun treating the platform as a place to share whatever was on their minds. “There’s no filter,” he wrote. LinkedIn, he said, had “in effect, become a bit of a cesspool of bad, naff updates. It feels like the dorky, sanitised version of Facebook (if there was such a thing).”
#10 God Forbid A Candidate Asks The Questions That Matter
Image source: NoFalcon3851
#11 Hired And Fired On The Same Day. Can’t Be More Lunatic Than This
Image source: xiaodaireddit
#12 This Is Just Sad
Image source: Curious-Search-794
If LinkedIn was already getting dorky in 2015, things were about to get a whole lot weirder. Usman notes how, in the following years, LinkedIn “took a hard left turn straight into weird territory.” As he puts it, people started treating it like “Facebook for suits,” and feeds filled up with emotional confessions and diary-style posts dressed up as leadership lessons. He jokingly says, “You’d see posts like, ‘I failed my first interview, then I failed five more. But on the sixth, I got hired to refill the vending machine.’”
#13 Thanks For Sharing
Image source: princess_peach_xox
#14 This Is Crazy
Image source: [deleted]
#15 You’re Not Busy, You’re Just Lazy!
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
Then came the pandemic. With home and work lives suddenly overlapping, people increasingly shared personal struggles on LinkedIn, from homeschooling to working at the kitchen table. Julien Wettstein, LinkedIn’s head of editorial for EMEA, told Refinery29 that the pandemic was “arguably the catalyst” for a major shift in how people presented themselves on the platform.
#16 So Cringe
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#17 This Is Really Quite Sad
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#18 Thoughts?
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
LinkedIn leaned in. In 2021, it launched Creator Mode, a free setting designed to help users build an audience around their content. It replaced the “Connect” button with “Follow,” highlighted users’ original content, and made them easier to discover.
#19 This Really Should Be On Linkedin
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#20 Good Morning People
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#21 Engagement Just Pips It And Makes It Through To The Next Round
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
That same year, LinkedIn announced a $25 million investment in creators, including a Creator Accelerator Program. In other words, LinkedIn wasn’t just adapting to the shift from digital résumé to personal brand. It was actively encouraging it.
#22 Not Because Anyone Asked. Proceeds To Asking
Image source: kalemi
#23 His Poor Wife
Image source: RunDoughBoyRun
#24 Someone Failed Physics
Image source: OBB76
But the thing is, LinkedIn isn’t Instagram or TikTok. Every story, opinion, or milestone shared there is seen by colleagues, recruiters, managers, clients, and potential employers. As Refinery29’s Sadhbh O’Sullivan puts it, “LinkedIn You is the work version of yourself: polite, organized, a clear communicator, only makes jokes when appropriate, and can stare confidently down the barrel of a camera in a formal headshot. Instagram You, to a certain extent, can be hungover. BeReal You absolutely can. LinkedIn You most definitely cannot.”
#25 Stud
Image source: mdn-93
#26 Disney Trip
#27 Please Leave By 9pm
Image source: repressedpeasant
So what happens when a platform encourages people to share personal stories, but they still have to be “LinkedIn You”? For some, personal moments get filtered through a professional lens. The grocery run becomes a leadership lesson, the toddler’s tantrum turns into a masterclass in stakeholder management, and a minor Slack exchange becomes a career-defining epiphany. As Usman jokes, LinkedIn is the only place where someone can say “won my first match of Fortnite” and get 20,000 likes, as long as it’s framed as a story about perseverance.
#28 Yeah Sure This Happened Fr!
Image source: notyourregularninja
#29 This Guy’s AI-Generated Profile Pic vs. What He Actually Looks Like
Image source: walrus_vasectomy
#30 Sir This Isn’t Twitter!
Image source: RepresentativeMoose
For O’Sullivan, this gets at what she calls the “cringe crux.” On Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, people started out simply being themselves, and the selling came later, once advertisers caught on. LinkedIn worked the other way around. Its users were marketing themselves from day one, since a résumé is essentially an ad for why you deserve to be hired. The personal storytelling came afterward. So on LinkedIn, a personal story can end up feeling less like an experience shared for its own sake and more like a sales pitch, usually for the person telling it.
And when that intention feels too obvious, the cringe follows.
#31 Yeah, Ok Buddy
Image source: R-O-Stu
#32 53 🤝 17 = Inspiring?
Image source: puglife_OG
#33 I Was Waiting For This One
As usual bro missing the point – it’s about how much is ethical to spend and the message it sends to society. pure selfishness. feed poor people instead.
Image source: Glittering-Path-2824
#34 Not Sure If The Picture Is Legit But Yeah…….. No Thanks To That “Work Culture”
Image source: aiq25
#35 Lunatic Thinks You Can Just Work From Any Office
Image source: rexspook
#36 Any More People You Wanna Tag?
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#37 Taking New Clients!
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#38 This Belter From Jake Humpfrey May Never Be Topped
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#39 Wow… Some Comparison
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#40 Updating Your New Position To Being An Inmate In A Prison Is The Kind Of Fun I Can Get Behind
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#41 Legend
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#42 Ah…
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#43 Here’s Some Chicken Being Cooked In A Hotel Kettle For Your Morning Viewing
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#44 I Mean He Ain’t Wrong
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#45 Unbelievable Stuff
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#46 Non Woke
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#47 This Is Golden
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#48 Nope
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#49 Spit Fire Linda!
Image source: alexbgoode84
#50 Pack It Up, Lil Bro
Image source: NihilistCharizard
#51 Watching The Clock
Image source: Wizard_AI
#52 Boomer Baited
Image source: clotblock
#53 Property Bro Doesn’t Like The Minimum Wage
Image source: jagerboom
#54 So Is Hiring Based On Appearance Rather Than Skills/Knowledge?
Image source: DuckyPenguin123
#55 Proud Mama
100% happened like that (not).
Image source: oakbarreldoug
#56 A Billionaire And A College Student Have The Same Phone And Laptop
Image source: Junnmm
#57 Yuge Roi
Image source: DataMambo
#58 Love Language
Image source: thebossbaby_123
#59 Grinding… On Your Wedding Day… And Taking A Professional Picture
Image source: mp1845
#60 How To Slap Someone Through The Screen
But of course he has a course….
Image source: LolitaExeter
#61 Let Me Brag About My Husband Ignoring Me. Bonus Points For Self-Like
Image source: Pancovnik
#62 Parentmaxing
Thankfully I never ask my kids “how was school” as it is.
Image source: clotblock
#63 Great Experience
Image source: Foreign_Advantage_75
#64 She’s So Full Of It
She is so full of it. She was head of sales for 6 months lmao and now she’s a CEO of… Herself?
Image source: Flacc0508
#65 I Don’t Think He Has Seen His Twitter Activity
Image source: AdamArchlight
#66 Mark Zuckerberg And I Fell In Love!
Image source: walnut_gallery
#67 Don’t Ever Buy Coffee
Image source: ChrispyOne_
#68 No Pony For You
Image source: medved76
#69 He’s Not Like Other Boys
Image source: weishenmyguy
#70 Chatgpt, Make It Look Like Women Like Me
Image source: desertedaltoid
#71 Insane Take On Recent Boeing Crash
Image source: cranberry19
#72 Why… Just Why
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#73 Forget About The Wife! It’s Christmas Jumper Day
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#74 I Wish This Was Satire
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#75 Neither Do We Chris
Image source: StateOfLinkedIn
#76 The Forbidden S Word
Image source: reseph
#77 Dehydrating For Our AI Overlords
Image source: eldubinoz
#78 LOL
Image source: Local-Bison-4392
#79 Another Kidney Warming Story Called Out Right!
Image source: Ancient_Section_75
#80 Nothing Says ‘Peak Productivity’ Like Operating Heavy Machinery With A Bac Of 0.2
Image source: iamlegman
#81 Fake It Till You Make It
Image source: ironcloudordeal
#82 Has 14 Years Of Professional Experience Of Being A Reddit Mod
Didn’t know being a Reddit Mod counted towards professional experience.
Image source: stopcommentingg
#83 Found One
Image source: [deleted]
#84 Personally, I Rejected A Founder For Sleeping. How Are They Supposed To Maximise Profits If Theyre Laying Unconscious For Hours On End?
Image source: throwawaayyayayyayay
#85 Money Hack
Image source: _silly_g0ose
#86 Every Time I Think Linkedin Is Not That Bad…
Image source: Acceptable_Film556
#87 This Guy
Image source: yungjulius-
#88 Ok, Justine
Image source: mleonadams
#89 Real
Image source: After-Manufacturer64
#90 Guy Uses AI And Ruins A Childhood
Image source: joco_mason59
#91 The Bartender Just Knows Me
Image source: possibly_incorrect
#92 Might Have Found One?
Image source: marimeia
#93 Does This Qualify?
I highly doubt “kid” did that but sure.
Image source: Own_Possibility7930
#94 You Got To Escape The Matrix Brah
Image source: Few-Examination5561
Follow Us
