LinkedIn proves that capitalism doesn't work

Or at least that it doesn't work for *us* ...

But first, an announcement

Hello again. It’s been a while, I know. You may have already heard this, but I wanted to make sure you knew that my next novel will be coming out in September 2026 from Stanchion Books! Entitled THE SHITBIRD, it’s part noir, part black comedy, and part Bildungsroman, and is verrrrry loosely based on my experiences aboard the US Coast Guard Cutter Campbell in my much younger days. I’ll share news as I have it, and I hope you’ll preorder it when the time comes. Wooo!

When you don’t pre-order my next novel, this is the slanty young idealist whose dreams you’re squashing. (I *did* say “much younger days.”)

Also, I changed the name of this newsletter because I got bored with the old name. I’ll probably change it again later, for the same reason.

Anyway. Here’s the main post. Enjoy.

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I got laid off from my technical writing job back in November. This probably sounds like a worse situation than it has been so far, though it hasn’t been what I’d call great. One of the things this situation means is that I’ve had to spend far more time than I would prefer to on LinkedIn—by which I mean, any amount of time greater than zero minutes for the rest of my life. It is, by far, the worst of the social media sites, and yes, that includes Nazi Twitter. I was going to add that having to be on LinkedIn is the worst part of being unemployed, but that’s obviously not true. It is, however, definitely in the top five.

LinkedIn is an enigma to me. I can’t figure out how it not only survives, but completely dominates the whole work-related social media space. Well, okay, I do understand, because I know what network effects are and how they work, but the fact remains that I don’t know a single person who actually likes LinkedIn. Other than the totally disingenuous clout-farmers, I’m certain nobody does. The vast majority of LinkedIn users are there solely because they’re expected to be there. In some industries, it’s more of an unspoken requirement than an expectation. If you work in tech, for example, and don’t have a LinkedIn profile, it can only mean that you’re the Unabomber and no one will ever hire you.

While it didn’t used to be, actually job hunting on LinkedIn these days is more or less pointless. There are, of course, thousands upon thousands of job posts there, but by the time you find one that looks like it could be an acceptable way to bring in some money, there will already be over 100 applicants, no matter how long it’s been up—even if it was just posted ten minutes ago. I know this because LinkedIn helpfully tells me how many people have clicked “apply.” It’s almost always more than a hundred. Sometimes I make it a hundred and one. Sometimes I don’t bother.

Of course, everyone knows this is a mug’s game, but the platform’s defenders will just tell you that You’re Doing It Wrong. One of the most common exhortations for making LinkedIn work for you as a job-seeker is to become a clout-farmer¹—excuse me, “content creator”—there yourself. Start churning out posts about how much you love to work. Bonus points for stories of working long hours because you’re so dedicated to delighting your customers or to synergizing new paradigms. Share your professional expertise for free. Demonstrate your hustle and, while you’re at it, your complete lack of shame for permitting yourself to be publicly debased in this way. You never know, potential employers might see you and be impressed, unless the algorithm opts not to show your posts to anyone beyond your circle of actual friends from previous jobs who already know you and can smell the desperation wafting from your phoned-in and phony posts a half-mile away.

And make no mistake, it is debasing. Looking for work has always been that way, this slow accretion of minor humiliations that you eventually numb yourself to in the name of securing a regular paycheck that will let you keep the lights on and the gas tank full. But at least in the old days, that all happened in the privacy of the hiring manager’s office, and only once you landed an actual interview. Now everyone you know (and thousands that you don’t) gets to watch you do it in real time, with no promise of anything for your troubles.

I’m sure that LinkedIn has also made the process worse for those on the other side of the equation, the hiring managers. If they’re getting over a hundred responses to every single job they post within the first ten minutes, it’s no wonder they have to use keyword filters just to get it to a manageable number. But never having been in that chair, I can’t really speak to the trials and tribulations those folks experience.

The unchallenged dominance of LinkedIn—a product nobody really likes but everyone has to use—makes perfect sense if you consider who capitalism is intended to serve. It’s not customers. It’s definitely not workers. It’s capital. And capital doesn’t care if we’re having a good time on LinkedIn, or even if we’re getting what we want out of it. Just as long as we keep using it.

And honestly, I probably will, though I’m doing what I can to use it less. I don’t think I want to go back to working in tech, or at least not in a full-time role. Part-time or contract work seems preferable for now—I’ve picked up a couple freelance gigs so far and I’ve been enjoying that—at least until I figure out what the hell I actually want to do with the last decade or so of my working life. I’m lucky in that I never really tied much of my identity to what I did for a living, though I’m sure that would be different if I’d ever landed an academic or research gig, or one of the handful of other “dream jobs” I’ve had over the years.

But this isn’t meant to be a woe-is-me post. I’ll figure something out sooner or later, don’t worry. One thing I’m thinking about doing is teaching writing classes online. Or teaching English here in Portugal, if and when we make the move permanent (that’s where I am right now, enjoying an extended visit, and it’s lovely, thanks for asking). I’m also considering adding a paid tier to this newsletter. I have no idea what that would look like, other than to say that nobody who declined to join that tier would suffer a degraded newsletter experience as a result. It’s just an unformed idea at this point. I’ll think about it some more and get back to you.

Stay tuned.

(Also, don’t post screenshots of this on LinkedIn. Yes, I get the irony. It’s very clever. But please don’t do it anyway.)

1. These clout-farmers are a huge part of why LinkedIn is as terrible as it is. Even on a platform engineered to reinforce the idea that you should, under no circumstances, ever show any part of your personality that does not comport with a relentlessly sunny enthusiasm for work, they still stand out for their obvious plastic phoniness.