LinkedIn is ridiculous. The AI-written humblebrags. The heroic layoff stories. The leadership lessons from airport delays. The posts that make you want to close the app and reconsider literacy. And yet… What if LinkedIn is still too useful to abandon? My new article argues that LinkedIn is not just a cringe machine. It is also one of the last public mirrors of the labour market: absurd, artificial, annoying, and still strangely necessary.

There is a particular danger in spending too much time around personal development. One begins to develop opinions about gratitude journals, resilience frameworks, breathing exercises, leadership retreats, meditative interventions, emotional intelligence diagnostics, purpose workshops, reflective journaling, and seminars where everyone is invited to “share one word” about how they are arriving in the room. The correct answer is rarely “hungry,” although it often should be. Ov