Unhip

While I have never been at the pinnacle of hipness, never been the one to be followed for my choices, I have to admit I’m currently confused at the choices? marketing decisions? pimping out? latest iterations of LinkedIn influencing I’m seeing saturate my feed.

To make sure I preface this correctly, I have no doubt I’m not using the platform in the way the newest batch of people to know are suggesting to use it. It is the only form of social media that I have, except for that random BlueSky account I use to pimp out this stream of consciousness (and if you found me there – well, hey!). I use it to see what people I respect are choosing to learn, to help friends search for jobs or employees, and celebrate their wins.

Lately however, I’m being tossed into the land of selfies, either over the top negging posts or the writer is pretending to be humble, both while chastising the reader for not making the same questionable choices they have to get them to the top of whichever food chain they’ve arrived at. This seems to be accompanied with a variety of selfies, which, honestly aren’t really selfies if you’ve had to stage the picture and have someone take it while you pretend to be really busy staring at a computer screen, pointing at random boards, or, and this is my personal favorite, appreciating art/some sort of drink/scenic view all while pretending this is a candid pic that you and your team didn’t spend hours orchestrating. All while telling people they aren’t working hard enough/working too hard.

Perhaps I’m more confused than I thought as I have no idea how these posts pay those bills, (and no that is not me asking for your personal sales pitch on how to grow 20,000 followers in 20 minutes) but with every push of my finger I’m assaulted by this latest stage of late night evangelists who wander into my path, smiling with too many teeth, putting me down to try and build me back up in their image and with a small fee to pull out of my pocket. Pretending to sacrifice their own brand to help me out. A desire wrought from thankfulness of their own good fortune, cast into being from their own altruistic souls and certainly not to line their own pockets from the basic bitch self help book they are hawking.

I also don’t expect this particular trend to end any time soon. Somewhere in the timeline it was suggested and then accepted as gospel that the best way to make a dime would be to tell people how to live and then they were given 2 to 3 different options on how to pass that message along. It fascinates me to no end to watch these people take what was a semi serious platform for people to engage in discourse and connect with others that they’ve worked with to help grow their career and turn it into a social media churn machine with a suit and tie as a disguise.

While I do rise up from the depths of the muck once in a blue moon to announce a career change or a certification I’ve earned by watching videos and being tested on what I remember to prove that I’m still able to learn things, sooner or later I will have to decide if this is a necessary evil. Or can I just park a generic picture up, and then not engage while this trend continues its mutation into whatever evil is lurking around the corner.

And/or not look at the platform before I’ve had my first coffee. Probably both.

Meanwhile, here is the requisite selfie in an exotic locale.

Or a picture of my dog expressing his exhaustion at the current weather and other people’s opinions on his treat consumption in the locale of the backyard.