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Sure, LinkedIn may be great for networking and all of that.

However, the social media platform has also given rise to its own unique brand of cringeworthy posts over the years and I think it may just have peaked.

Bear in mind that I follow The State of LinkedIn, a Twitter account dedicated to calling out the worst offenders, so I have seen some shockers in my time.

On Tuesday, Braden Wallake, the CEO of business-to-business marketing agency HyperSocial, shared an emotional post detailing how he had to lay off some employees. That’s never a good time and I can understand a CEO feeling downbeat after doing so.

Something tells me Braden – who, again, runs a marketing agency – may have known his post would garner this reaction.

Wait for it, wait for it…

Braden actually uploaded a selfie of himself crying. This is what you get when you name your children Braden. Let it be a warning to all prospective parents.

There’s nothing wrong with being emotionally vulnerable online but a post about layoffs should really focus on the affected employees, not their bosses.

This just wreaks of ‘woe is me’ and the online community (aside from some on LinkedIn) agrees.

Here’s Mashable:

One of the best comments comes from a man named Jared Steele, whose job title is simply “patents & mushrooms.” He wrote, “Maybe it’s not a great idea to adopt a sea lion at the beginning of a recession?” and attached a screenshot of a post from Wallake’s Instagram celebrating a donation he made to the World Wildlife Fund in July to “adopt” (i.e. financially support) a sea otter.

Yes, that happened:

Linkedin is unintentionally the funniest social media platform.

CEO posts picture of himself crying because of layoffs.

Goes viral.

Gets clowned for adopting a sea lion during a recession lmao pic.twitter.com/HcnS0o1iJk

— Jack Raines (@Jack_Raines) August 10, 2022

Wallake (I like to think it’s pronounced like ‘Blake’ from that iconic Key & Peele sketch) responded, saying the otter adoption was due to a donation somebody made on his behalf as a birthday present and he doesn’t “actually have a sea otter running around our van”.

As the backlash continued, Braden doubled down in the comments under his original post.

He then went for a fresh angle, labelling himself ‘the crying CEO’ (apt):

That was also met with pushback. An example via The Independent:

“You’re sorry it came across that way? If you were really sorry you would have deleted that post and not even made this post and just started fresh by talking about something else,” one person wrote.

“Instead the crying post is still up, and it is apparent you are loving all the attention this is bringing to you. Not sure how much farther this shovel can dig a hole but I hope for your sake that you hit pavement soon so you can start fixing the things that you started.”

Another person accused him of “riding the 15 minutes of fame to loosely promote yourself and/or your brand”.

Maybe the joke is on us and Braden Wallake achieved exactly what he wanted with his post – going viral.

I have no doubt that social media, slowly but surely, will be the ruin of us all.

[sources:mashable&independent]