You opened the app, scrolled for eleven seconds, and closed it again. Plenty of people are doing the same thing. Somewhere along the way, LinkedIn went from the place you found your next hire to the place you find a VP of Sales crying in a selfie about what his toddler taught him about HubSpot pipeline management.
It’s the ick, and like any good ick, once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
A brief field guide to the ick
If you haven’t spent time with anyone that’s single lately, here’s a quick primer. “The ick” is dating slang for the sudden, visceral turn-off that hits when someone you were into does something small, like clapping when the plane lands or saying “yummers” at dinner. It’s rarely a betrayal or even a red flag, but it still ends things on the spot.
The phrase has been around for decades, but reality TV (Love Island, mostly) and TikTok turned it into a full-blown cultural phenomenon, and the major dictionaries eventually gave up and added it. Entire corners of the internet now exist to catalog other people’s icks, with the same scholarly rigor most of us reserve for conjoint analysis.
What makes the ick interesting is how irrational it is. The person didn’t change; you just suddenly saw them differently, and the new view is impossible to shake. Think of it as a disgust response wearing a party hat, a small signal that something doesn’t fit the story you’d been telling yourself. Your brain was running a highlight reel, and the ick is the blooper.
A few rules of the ick:
- It’s disproportionate. A tiny trigger produces an outsized reaction.
- It’s sticky. Once it lands, every future interaction gets filtered through it.
- It’s about what the thing reveals. Usually that someone is trying too hard, or performing instead of being themselves.
- It’s contagious. Once a friend points out someone’s ick, you’ll see it every time too.
That’s more or less what happened between us and LinkedIn.
How we got here
The feed didn’t turn on us overnight. It happened slowly, one “Agree?” at a time.
- The broetry. One sentence per line, each one formatted like a revelation, none of them landing as one.
- The AI sludge. Posts that read like they were written by a very confident intern who has never met a human, because they were.
- The humblebrag industrial complex. “I’m humbled to announce…” Nobody believes the humbled part, and that’s fine, so just announce it.
- The engagement bait. “Comment ‘YES’ and I’ll DM you my framework.” The framework is a PDF with four boxes in it.
- The performative vulnerability. Real stories matter, but manufactured ones built for reach are easy to spot.
Each one is small on its own. Together, they check every box on the ick list.
Where the blame belongs
The ick is real, but the platform deserves less of the blame than our habits on it.
LinkedIn still does the thing it’s always done better than anywhere else: it puts you in the room with the people who can hire you, buy from you, invest in you, or introduce you to someone who will. The room just got loud, and most of us responded by either shouting louder or leaving. There’s a third option.
How to fall back in love
Think of it less like a reunion and more like a second first date, with lower expectations and better boundaries.
- Curate ruthlessly. Unfollow (you don’t have to disconnect) anyone who makes you roll your eyes twice a week. Weeding is allowed.
- Follow 20 people who make you smarter. Look for usefulness over volume.
- Comment before you post. A thoughtful two-sentence comment does more for your reputation than your fifth “lessons learned” carousel.
- Write like you talk. If you wouldn’t say it over coffee, don’t post it.
- Post less, mean it more. Once a week is plenty, and once a month is fine if that’s when you have something worth saying.
- Set a timer. Give it fifteen minutes with intent, because doomscrolling a professional network is still doomscrolling.
What it looks like when it works
After 25 years in the data and insights sector, I can truthfully say that most of my best opportunities trace back to a conversation that started on LinkedIn. Very few came from a viral post. Most started with a comment, a DM, or a “saw your piece, want to grab coffee when you’re in Seattle?”
That’s the relationship worth rekindling, with the people far more than the feed.
Your move
This week, block 15 minutes to unfollow ten accounts that drain you and leave three comments that add something to a post that you find inspiring or helpful. Then send one DM to someone whose work you respect and tell them why (WITHOUT TRYING TO SELL ANYTHING!).
No carousel required. You don’t have to love everything about LinkedIn, you just have to remember why you swiped right in the first place.