LinkedIn, Humor, and the Evolution of Communication

On April 30, 2024, a certain Bryan Shankman posted an unusual photo on the business network LinkedIn. It depicted an intimate and emotional act of proposal; a person we assume to be Shankman (since we can’t see the face) is kneeling barefoot on his right knee, offering a ring to a girl whose hand position and facial expression clearly indicate she is positively surprised and emotionally excited.

This kind of photo is typically seen on social networks like Instagram and Facebook. To make it "LinkedIn material," Shankman added a lengthy post starting with "I proposed to my girlfriend this weekend. Here's what it taught me about B2B sales."

The internet didn't take long to react: a screenshot of Shankman's post was shared on the Reddit community r/LinkedInLunatics, which has over 588,000 members. The post awkwardly compared the relationship between future spouses to business in a manner reminiscent of a bad South Park joke. Soon after, meme creations followed, depicting absurd or grotesque scenarios with the message, "Here's what it taught me about B2B sales." Like a forest fire started by a discarded cigarette, the media also joined the story, from Yahoo to The Independent.

Shankman's (un)popularity grew on LinkedIn itself, intensifying with an increasing number of likes and shares. At the time of writing, with more than 30,000 likes, 4,000 comments, and nearly 1,000 shares, a rough estimate suggests his content has been seen by between 700,000 and 3,500,000 people.

This incident undoubtedly sparked heated discussions about the current state of communication on LinkedIn and the stage of evolution it has reached today. Has LinkedIn truly "turned into Facebook," and how did we get here?  

There Are Similarities

Many people don’t know that LinkedIn is actually older than Facebook; LinkedIn was launched in May 2003. Over time, the network grew and absorbed smaller companies like Choice Vendor, IndexTank, and SlideShare, whose technologies became part of LinkedIn's machinery. But in the sea of tech companies, there's always a bigger fish. LinkedIn became part of Microsoft’s empire in 2014, and the acquisition helped LinkedIn grow faster than ever before.

Despite its dedication to development and communication within business spheres, LinkedIn structurally resembles Facebook. From mandatory registration, the ability to share various types of posts, react in different ways, and create individual profiles and company pages that resemble Facebook Pages, LinkedIn and Facebook share several similarities.

Firstly, a significant portion of LinkedIn's profit comes from ads that users can use to gain more visibility in a sea of content. Ads on LinkedIn are ideally integrated into the business world of the network and can appear as sponsored content, dynamic ads, text ads, and sponsored private messages.

The second connection between LinkedIn and Facebook is the use of a complex mechanism that determines the type of content an individual user will see. This mechanism, colloquially known as an algorithm, has been the subject of heated discussions since 2009, when Facebook introduced EdgeRank, a news ranking system that presented each user with a different social reality based on user preferences and interactions.

Facebook's EdgeRank represented a certain revolution in how content was displayed, replacing the archaic approach of chronological post ordering. Soon after Facebook, significant algorithmic changes followed on other platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn, and even the sports service Strava.

In the world of LinkedIn, the integration of algorithms was quite shy and not well-documented. What is known is that the first algorithmic changes were recorded in 2012, but significant advances based on machine learning and artificial intelligence were made in 2015. This marked the beginning of the end for equal opportunities for all and the start of the need to optimize content to achieve virality.  

Different Rules

In such a setup, communication styles began to change, and the psychology of humanizing rigid professional relationships significantly made room for humor. Using humor is a simultaneously controversial and beloved approach to business communication. Given that we live in an era where a significant part of the workforce comprises Gen Z and Millennials who understand what happens behind the scenes of corporate communication and regularly subject it to ridicule, humor on a professional platform, intentional or not, is a result of the pursuit of algorithmic favor and attempts to personalize the cyberspace.

Humor is a primordial thing, part of our spirit since the dawn of humanity. A smile sends energy that connects us to another person like a chain, making an unfamiliar face friendly and acceptable. It has been established that breaking monotony with humor causes a higher level of interaction. Reactions do not necessarily have to be positive, as seen from the example of Shankman’s post. However, when someone shares Shankman’s post with a negative comment, the result is greater visibility and the possibility of discussion, which may or may not lead to the sale of goods and services. If Shankman’s post had been discriminatory or offensive in any way, rather than just subjectively amusing or unfunny, we could talk about potential long-term negative effects. As it stands, given the limited attention span the average user demonstrates each day surrounded by endless streams of content, it's unlikely there will be more significant repercussions than meme content.

How Do You See Me?

Sharing personal stories and experiences on a platform like LinkedIn injects authenticity into the grayness. The power of LinkedIn as a platform for an individual lies in the ability to endlessly shape and build a personal brand. Personal branding is something that even the world's largest companies do not neglect, aware that individuals more easily connect with someone they can stand shoulder to shoulder with rather than with the megalithic structure housing the corporation’s headquarters.

In layman’s terms, personal branding is the way other people emotionally connect to you, a set of values that makes someone describe you in a certain way, and not just in business. Personal branding makes you recognizable, and it is easiest to build it on the network of “scars” that set you apart from the crowd, personal experiences, and ways of solving problems.

Personal stories (with or without a dose of humor) are excellent platforms for demonstrating values, ethical stances, and character traits. They increase interaction through emotional connection. Personal stories on LinkedIn often have “hooks” that users “bite” without even knowing they are looking (needing) a solution to a problem or inspiration. If we are a small business owner just starting to promote our work, it is more likely that a post from a similar person explaining how they overcame a problem and what they learned from it will resonate better with our spirit. Additionally, if we build our personal brand by highlighting soft skills like empathy, demonstrating emotional intelligence, and emphasizing the importance of work-life balance, we will undoubtedly be a more desirable collaborator in professional fields.

Of course, there will always be opponents of this approach, those who believe personal opinions and humor do not belong in the professional world. Their arguments are surprisingly valid when viewed from certain angles. Yes, it is true that humor is subjective and, as such, can completely disrupt communication and even offend, especially on LinkedIn, which is a global melting pot of different cultures and beliefs. Yes, it is true that a bad joke (like Shankman’s) can be seen in certain circles as a desperate attention grab. And yes, it is true that part of the reason for this state can be found in communication methods that include exchanging short videos and meme content, but it’s impossible not to question how much LinkedIn itself, with its business strategies based on profit through advertising, premium subscriptions, and algorithmic targeting, has helped make the professional network reach for such content.

Inevitable Decline

We also need to consider that LinkedIn as a platform may be deeply entrenched in one of the final stages of enshittification. The neologism enshittification was first used by writer and journalist Cory Doctorow in November 2022 to describe the pattern by which online services deteriorate in quality over the years. Doctorow, in his excellent article, stated that this process consists of several stages; in the first, excellent services are offered to the user base. In the second, business users, i.e., those who pay, are favored, and finally, profit maximization is prioritized at the expense of a good experience for all types of users.

Judging by these stages, LinkedIn is currently at the last stop before the final phase. This was not a process that lasted a year or two, and it is a causally clear one: when you change the algorithm to maximize profit, you cause the creation of low-value content rich in emotional narrative. This, in turn, causes frustration for the end user, whether they are creating useful content that cannot surface or simply do not want digital trash on their screen.

In this text, we will not open Pandora's box containing discussions about AI-generated content in comments and posts, along with LinkedIn’s grotesque gamification of the system through Top Voices and Creator programs, which simply encourage the creation of content that most often has no significant emotional, educational, or informational value. 

What’s Next?

The essence of LinkedIn is based on the idea of communication. Communication is based on our values but also on sociological trends. Therefore, it is quite safe to say that in our lifetimes (and not much later), dry corporate communication will not disappear but will evolve at different levels to facilitate idea transmission.

It is also clear that LinkedIn will remain the dominant tool for millions of individuals and companies worldwide for some time, primarily due to the network effect, i.e., value based on a large user base. Of all social networks, it could be said that such an algorithm is least needed by one like LinkedIn, but since it is deeply woven into the business model, it’s unlikely we can ever expect a return to the old ways.

As history has repeatedly shown, the greatest power remains with the end users, even though they are often unaware of it. As content creators, users must know their audience, the platform’s algorithm, and the psychology of human connections, regardless of whether they value corporate clarity or meme playfulness. But if they want to clean their part of the LinkedIn world, they must develop the discipline of not reacting to bad content or removing it using available tools like mute and block.

The algorithm remains, and what you mark as interesting content – that’s up to you. Shankman didn't share his post 1,000 times himself.