Weak Links

This one's something of a head-scratcher. I found it on LinkedIn today. I have to admit that I'm curious about why one would lose a lot of friends just from being serious about life goals, unless applying oneself to one's goals means not having the time or the energy to maintain relationships with others. Outside of that, it just seems like a bit of car porn with some dubious "wisdom" attached to it.

But it seems to be a fit for what LinkedIn is these days. People are chasing your bog-standard social-media "engagement" by posting things that appear designed to resonate with and validate readers; in other words "like farming." Better this, I guess, than posting random pictures with the promise that a like and comment will make something happen.

Seriously... who thinks something will actually happen?

Part of the reason why the more business-minded LinkedIn users have lost the war to "Keep LinkedIn Professional" is that there are no consequences for posting whatever one might decide to. As has been pointed out, in the alternate universe that is LinkedIn, "cancel culture" has yet to gain a foothold.

Fortunately, LinkedIn had finally implemented a "mute" function (one that I've been giving quite a workout) so that it's now possible to keep one's contacts from flooding one's stream with irrelevant junk without needing to unfollow or unconnect from them. But even with that, the idea of LinkedIn as a place for people to go to further their non-influence careers seems to be petering out. But if you're looking for wonky life advice or people excitedly extolling their spirituality, it's got you covered.