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.
#24 Disney Trip
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.”
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 Not Sure If The Picture Is Legit But Yeah…….. No Thanks To That “Work Culture”
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.
#34 Here’s Some Chicken Being Cooked In A Hotel Kettle For Your Morning Viewing
