Why is LinkedIn So Weird Now?

As a recent college graduate in 2025, I unfortunately have to go on LinkedIn a lot. I started my journey into the professional world with wide eyes, a desire for connection with like-minded people, and a tight grip on my backpack straps like it’s the first day of school. Since then, I’ve been sullied by the professional hellscape that is LinkedIn. It’s not surprising that the platform has transformed into a distant cousin of what it was originally intended to be. The entire internet right now is, for lack of a better word, weird. People are behaving way differently than they used to, and there’s a clear reason why this phenomenon has made its way over to LinkedIn. 

Everyone Is Over It - Even the People Who Need It the Most

Many of my Gen Z colleagues have shared the sentiment that LinkedIn is the most insufferable social media platform out there. Yet, to play the game, you have to buy in. Job seekers clap for attention like seals for fish, desperate to position themselves as a high-accomplishing team player. A single scroll through my own LinkedIn will show I’m the most hypocritical person on earth. Though, this can’t be solely attributed to LinkedIn. Performative culture is a widespread epidemic from the filtered travel content of Instagram, the curated top four films of Letterboxd, to the Ring Light-lit Get Ready With Me videos of TikTok. Everyone is pretending to be a cooler, more interesting, more performative version of themselves. The frustrating thing is, it doesn’t have to be this way. The proliferation of inauthentic content upsets everyone. It provides no value and erases the hard work that actual recruiters and professionals with something to offer do.

I don’t think it’s cynical to say that personal anecdotes without any professional relevance have no place on a platform intended for networking and job sharing. Yet, this opinion may be in the minority as the site is more and more bogged down by influencers, birthday posts, and family vacation photos. Job posts go unnoticed because the algorithm is filled with trivial content about how Mondays are the worst and how your office had pizza for lunch. By the time you finally receive job posts two weeks later, applications are closed. 

LinkedIn vs. Real Life

Like many things wrong with the world, we can thank the COVID-19 pandemic for the dilution of the network. Isolation from the pandemic made everyone hungry for attention and clarity in a chaotic, polarized world. Without the ability to connect in real life, social media took its place. It’s no secret that humans desiring connection turn to social media to seek a feeling of being understood by others. In the case of LinkedIn, job titles give people who have no capital on other platforms credibility. Now, anyone can amass a following simply because people want to work for the same company they do. This prompts a slew of content that’s too personal for a casual work colleague to know.

The individual can’t shoulder all of the blame, though. You can no longer just be a person on LinkedIn. You have to be a fully formed brand with 5 years of SEO-flavored job experience by the time you’re freshly 19, or good luck getting a job. Attention spans have shrunk so rapidly that if your entire existence can’t be summed up in a single sentence or an AI résumé scan, you have no chance of being considered. The result is people screaming into the void of the attention economy circus to even slightly break through the noise. Job seekers become tired of having to tightrope walk and backflip for an interview when our parents walked into their dream job with a handshake and a printed out résumé, praised for their go-getter attitude. Hence, the posting. Man takes picture. Man posts pictures. Man gets comments and engagement. Man rules the algorithm. Or, whatever Laura Dern said in Jurassic Park. The desire to be noticed and appreciated (and of course, get a job to make a living) is human nature. The system at large is to blame, but our participation in it is only fodder for the machine. 

Real Connection Is Still Possible

LinkedIn, at its core, has a solid idea, which is why it became the social giant it is today. There’s still good content out there; it’s only buried. As someone in the advertising field, I find conversations about campaigns extremely useful and interesting. LinkedIn is the only platform where I would be able to find productive conversations on the effectiveness of new campaigns like this. That’s the type of content that should be shared - articles, creative ideas, and professional discussions. For your opinion on the latest headline or pictures of your beach engagement, seek out other appropriate social media platforms, like Instagram or X. Better yet, connect with people in real life to feel understood. Work on interpersonal and conversational skills without social media, and see how much fuller life will seem.

Here’s where that leaves me: unfortunately, I will still be doom-scrolling, getting frustrated, posting my professional wins, and doom-scrolling again. Still, I hope to post with a little more intention and spread actual field-focused insight into the algorithm, so it's 1% more tolerable to use. All while, of course, dreaming of the ultimate goal - being in such a high-ranking position that I never have to use LinkedIn again.