IN FOCUS: LinkedIn’s identity crisis – from professional platform to clout contest

I, too, received a Top Voice badge in May 2023. I suspect it’s because, like Ms Ooi, I treated LinkedIn like a blog, where my professional updates often contained personal, uncensored thoughts. 

It’s easy for such casual content to stand out on a supposedly corporate platform where being your true self, just like in a real-life workplace, is rare.

Also, I truly enjoyed being on LinkedIn.

But by October 2024, I no longer did. AI-generated content constantly invaded my user experience, no matter how many posts I hid or people I blocked and/or reported. 

I decided LinkedIn was headed in a direction misaligned with my personal brand, and asked to opt out of the Top Voice programme.

The blue badge on my profile inadvertently associated me with a platform that seemed to champion virality over value – the opposite of what I stood for.

A few days later my badge was removed, and I let out a breath I didn’t realise I was holding.

In hindsight, the writing was on the wall – or all over my newsfeed.

“DISTINCT LINKEDIN VOICE”

Ask ChatGPT to write a story in “LinkedIn style” and the AI chatbot will know what you mean.

That’s because users’ approach to the platform has become so recognisable that it’s possible to recreate, NUS’ Assoc Prof Pang pointed out.

On LinkedIn itself, it’s increasingly common to come across satire of standard LinkedIn content – although, like all good satire, part of the joy is seeing some miss the point. There just happens to be more of such people on LinkedIn, at least from my observation.

There even exists a “countermovement against the distinct LinkedIn voice”, Assoc Prof Pang added, referring to the Reddit community r/LinkedInLunatics – with over 722,000 members – that highlights “insufferable” LinkedIn content like “virtue signalling and cringeworthy titles”.