My LinkedIn inbox is under siege…

I’ve returned from a much-needed break to find my LinkedIn inbox under siege. Not by actual opportunities, but by a relentless army of snake oil salesmen promising to “scale my biz to £5m” through something called “story-led AI-integrated brand intimacy.”

Just click the link. Book a call. It’s digital panhandling dressed up in jargon.
“I help visionary founders become scalable, story-led category kings.” Of course you do, mate.

Take five minutes to scroll through LinkedIn profiles. It’s like tumbling down a rabbit hole into a parallel universe where everyone’s a guru, a sherpa, or a bloody Jedi. My feed has become a game of Buzzword Bingo, but nothing meaningful ever emerges from the noise.

Once upon a time, personal branding meant simply not being the person who photocopied their arse at the office Christmas party. Standards were refreshingly low.

Now? It’s apparently about building a “multi-channel visibility architecture powered by storytelling and neuro-linguistic positioning.” Christ.
We used to worry about getting too emotional over lunch with a journalist or nodding off during client meetings while some account executive from Leo Burnett told us how gravy granules possessed a deep emotion and needed space to “speak its truth.”

Those concerns seem quaint now. Today’s professional anxiety centres on “curating your narrative ecosystem” across LinkedIn, Substack, and your upcoming soft-launch on Discord.

The modern workplace has been sanitised within an inch of its life. No photocopiers. No sneaky Gordon’s gin hidden in desk drawers. No one’s pushing Paul from accounts down the corridor in a Herman Miller Aeron chair during a post-deadline celebration.

HR has rewritten the entire playbook. Everyone’s at the gym, sipping mushroom tea, and “optimising their emotional intelligence stack.”
Every job title now sounds like a rejected name from Black Mirror. “Cultural Futurist.” “Brand Evangelist.” “Head of Special Situations.” When someone introduces themselves as a “Storytelling Architect,” I genuinely reach for the sick bucket.

Here’s the brutal irony: we’re in a gold rush for attention, but most people are digging with bloody spoons.
Everyone’s “building pipelines,” but the pipes are clogged with jargon and SEO mulch. Meanwhile, the few who cut through the noise are the ones saying something unexpected. Human. Specific. Maybe even a bit weird.
That’s always been the gig in this business: creativity over conformity. Theatre over templates. The willingness to take risks, to be genuinely surprising, to make people think or laugh or feel something real. So here’s my modest proposal: let’s bring back fun. Bring back the chaos that creates genuine perspective. Bring back ideas with an actual pulse.

And yes, bring back the office party. The real connections. The unscripted moments where something interesting might actually happen.
Just don’t bring back the photocopier incident.
We’ve moved on from that. (Mostly.)