LinkedIn is littered with inspirational gurus sharing a range of (*surely*) made-up stories to humble brag about the leadership lessons they have learned or how their unconventional and open-minded decisions ended up paying off in the end.
And this doesn’t bode well with a generation that is allergic to the fake and curated, let alone ‘workplace bullshit’. Gen Z would rather have some fun with it and mock it than participate in what they perceive as an insincere mass display of self-congratulatory and virtue-signalling content.
An example is the quickly growing subreddit called r/LinkedInLunatics, where the most extreme examples of the above-mentioned behavior is posted and mocked. Some even take it a step further. Since the platform is so serious, people will believe almost anything. So some users set out to post over-the-top stories, for example, of preparing chicken in hotel room coffee machines instead of dining on company money because ‘it’s the little things that get you promoted’.
There are even companies using these kinds of messages to reach potential Gen Z employees as it signals that you don’t take yourself too seriously and this implies it’ll probably be more fun to work for you than for a company that has strict communication guidelines. Take a look at more examples here.
