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7th Apr

Why I will never have a LinkedIn

I think the biggest red flag a person can have is being chronically active on LinkedIn. I can rant about LinkedIn for hours but fortunately, none of us care about LinkedIn. Hence, this post is not really gonna be about that. I mean there will be a section for why I don't like LinkedIn but feel free to skip that part (you probably should), the hero of the blog is the hilarious story of my classmate from high school who has 7 thousand followers on LinkedIn by pretending to be a NASA scientist at the age of 17... I KNOW RIGHT! That's sOoOoOo stupid but so are the users on LinkedIn who are falling for things like this and still using LinkedIn.

Problem with LinkedIn

The problem with LinkedIn is why it started and how it is going right now. I believe it started off for networking and hiring and all that stuff, and I presume it worked & that's why LinkedIn became popular. Later on, it kinda diverted from being a job market or whatever it used to and sorta became like a social media where people can share stuff and that was good too. A lot of influential people started posting about real life problems and their solutions and a few other things that that did help a lot of people, places and businesses bloom. However, this same thing would end up making LinkedIn bad.

Remember when I said LinkedIn became sort of like a social media? Yep, people instead of using LinkedIn for networking, hiring, sharing real life problems started to post things like their lavish life and other unrelated things. It got the same problem as Instagram. Everything became about followers and chasing clout even if that required people to become pretentious and phony. When I last opened LinkedIn, I got barely 1-2 posts related to hiring or problem solving or just being passionate about their craft or job, and instead, I got like 30 posts of people holding a whiteboard with photoshopped text like quotes or random sh*t begging for likes, shares and follows or fake tweets with similar text, again begging for likes & follows. And I mean, do I need explain anymore? People who are actually passionate about their craft are active on their respective platform say GitHub for coders and DeviantArt for artists, maybe SoundCloud for musicians or whichever is popular these days BUT none of them are being clowns on LinkedIn (unless they aren't really actively working on their craft that is.) People looking to hire should be looking for active GitHub profile or DeviantArt; NOT LinkedIn!
If any employer is reading this, or anyone who can share this with employers, screenshot this section or just send them this blog right away. Ask them to read this paragraph specifically.

Hero of the post

Back to the hilarious story of my friend. Before beginning the story, lemme give you some context as to what he was like in school. He was a funny guy. You know, the clowns of the class who will do anything and everything to make everyone laugh. He was that guy. Never good with studied though. He was into photography and cinema so naturally he tried to be a YouTuber. He tried product reviews and vlogging but neither worked. Tried streaming too which didn't work either. If you still go to his profile on most platforms, you will see that he has either written YouTuber or content creator as his profession. Anyways, that should be enough for the context. He is a great guy, and good cosplayer too actually lol. Coming back to the story tho', so I called him one day 'cuz umm let's not reveal why lol. That was after school ended and stuff. We weren't in touch for 2 years. Getting his number was hard as well. Fortunately, I found his Discord and reminded him about me and got his number. We talked for a good while that day. I asked what he was doing and he said that he cleared the medical entrance test with a great score. I was shocked and but I thought maybe he has actually started to study or something. I was congratulating him BUT THEN he pulls off the biggest joke of that day which gave everything away. He said that he is working as an astrophysicist for NASA xD. I knew that he was kidding so I played along and kept asking him questions like "oh cool, in which department?" and "how did you get the offer?" and "are you being paid?" and stuff. He answered all of them as if he was actually interning for them LoL. I thought maybe he is improv classes as he was always interested in cinema. I was very impressed and kept playing along as I am also into improv. And oh, his answers were good but you know, I had studied physics too so I could clearly see through all the inconsistencies in the answers haha. Just then, he mentions his LinkedIn. He said that he posts his stuff there. I went to check it after our conversation. I won't be linking his profile because of obvious reasons however, I can tell you what I saw. First of all, a lot of followers. The numbers back then was 2k and now it is 7k :p. Secondly, too many epic achievements for a 17 y/o. Like he worked for Microsoft as analyst intern, and that at the same time when he was in school. B*stard was in the same class with me, sitting right beside me back in those days xD. Also, is it even legal to work as a 16 or 17 y/o? I don't think Microsoft will risk that. Neither will NASA. He has mentioned that he was using his telescope to do astrophotography and sending reports to NASA. Ofc, NASA really didn't have better telescopes and cameras with them and oh, also they ran out of computing power that they introduced an internship program for that and he was the only participant as I could not find the internship on NASA's website at all. Anyways, so umm, yeah he has interned for Microsoft, NASA, is pursuing 5 degrees at once, everything from astrophysics to MBA, all at once. And to back all that up, what did he have? A single PDF he made with NASA's logo on it "certifying" him for his amazing blah blah for NASA. His profile is just hilarious. I told other friends and cousins about it and they were laughing too. One girl also noticed that apparently, he does nothing on LinkedIn except post fake certificates on LinkedIn and likes weirdass posts from beautiful chicks xD. Also, hate those posts. People on LinkedIn really love to show off. They drag their words so much that "I got my driving license" becomes "I am honored and thrilled to announce that I have been selected among the top 5 applicants who participated in the professional... (20 minutes of reading later)... I cannot describe my joy and cannot wait to see what chapter will be next in my professional life!"

Conclusion

Umm, let's keep this one short and use bullet points for that: