The “Broetry” on LinkedIn Is Making Me Sick
I was standing in line at the grocery store when I saw it. 👀
That unbelievable scene changed my life. 😧
I was just scrolling on my phone, but my jaw dropped and I couldn’t believe my eyes… 🌟
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It was yet another growth-hacked LinkedIn post about a hypothetical and probably made-up scenario in which the author soliloquized about some kind of pseudo-self-help realization and ended with a call-to-action designed to get me to comment.
It was delivered line by line.
It was littered with emojis. 🚀
It was filled with faux-fundity.
It pissed me off. And I decided to write an article about it.
You already know what Broetry is.
Here’s what I heard about LinkedIn before I started posting regular content there:
“You should get on LinkedIn!”
“Everyone’s in LinkedIn!”
“LinkedIn has career opportunities!”
Here’s what I wish I’d heard about LinkedIn before I started posting regular content:
“LinkedIn incentivizes people to make fake-deep, clickbait, valueless posts in a shameless attempt to get followers.”
Because that’s what it’s full of. In a strangely consistent format, post after post of it on my feed. That format is endemic to LinkedIn — viral posts on Instagram and Twitter don’t have quite the same flavor. And I learned it has a name: Broetry. I’ve come across an awful lot of it since I started my weekly newsletter on LinkedIn a few months ago.
You know what it is, even if you hadn’t heard the official name coined by Bloomberg writer Lorcan Roche Kelly. Carina Rampelt distilled Broetry down into its five essential parts in a post in Fenwick Media:
- Location: LinkedIn.
- Hook: A click-bait opening line.
- Content: An engineered anecdote that is emotionally charged and makes the writer look suspiciously good.
- Formatting: Line breaks everywhere.
- Closing line: Some kind of poignant life lesson that seems to make sense on the surface but collapses under any actual examination. Think: “I learned to be more mindful after experiencing how someone else had a hard time.”
Broetry is probably an outdated term for it by now. Its success has made it an equal-opportunity bullshit format, with people of all genders using it to go viral on LinkedIn.
When you check out LinkedIn, you’ll see your feed is overflowing with examples that meet these criteria, so I won’t make enemies by calling out specific posts.
What I don’t get is why.
Is this really what readers want?
As a creator, roughly 10% of my waking thoughts are: “Should I get on TikTok/LinkedIn/Whatever-New-Social-Media-That-Might-Take-Over-The-World-Tomorrow?”
Most times I decide no, it’s not worth it. (New platforms rarely are.) It’s hard enough to keep up with my current commitments, let alone add to that list. But with LinkedIn, I thought it might be worth my while.
It’s easy to post there. LinkedIn seems to be promoting its new newsletter feature. I can often recycle posts from my own ConvertKit-based newsletter and back again. I have a new way to engage with existing readers, and maybe find some new ones. Plus, plenty of respected colleagues of mine said it was worth it.
I entered LinkedIn hoping to provide more knowledge about building a career writing about what you love. I’ve found that while my posts find an audience, I can’t quite bring myself to “growth hack” the way other creators seem to. I can’t write Broetry.
The truly tragic thing for me is that its success speaks for itself. It’s clear that I’m out of touch, snobby, or wildly off base. Maybe all three. People must like LinkedIn Broetry, for it to be as successful and prolific as it is. I’ve seen countless comments under what I would consider trite meaningless garbage, reading along the line of, “omg so true. this observation changed my life. 🙏 🙌”
Broetry made me realize I have to prioritize my beliefs, as well as my audience’s.
It’s possible that if I were to learn and successfully perform LinkedIn broetry, my writing career would take off to hithertofore unseen heights. (🚀)
It’s possible that’s what my audience is truly craving from me, instead of my typical bland no-nonsense “this is how you do this thing” posts.
It’s possible I am doing my readers a disservice by refusing to learn the proper way to create LinkedIn Broetry.
But, if I can I be honest here? I’ve sold out before. And it sucks.
Here, sold out doesn’t mean doing something for money. I have no beef with that. Secure the bag. What I mean is compromising your belief for the sake of something as cheap as a view. And I’ve done it before.
I’ve written things for my own profiles and my clients that I don’t believe. I’ve done it for clicks, I’ve done it for money. And while sometimes it worked, it has always made me feel a little cheap and dirty. The juice truly ain’t worth the squeeze.
I have found through hard trial and error that I can only write in a way that is consistent with my beliefs. If I try too hard to write things that will go viral even if I don’t believe them, it makes me less likely to want to write more.
(Though, before you think of me as some paragon of writerly virtue, I have found ways to shoehorn those beliefs into catchy just-this-side-of-tasteful-clickbait listicle titles. I have to pay the bills, too.)
And when I contemplated setting aside my preferences to do better on LinkedIn, I found I couldn’t.
You’ll find your line
If I could write a half-decent specimen of Broetry, I’d end it with something like:
“My secret is a super-strong sense of belief cultivated over decades of hard work. I’m not perfect. But I am worth it. 💪
What’s one boundary you’ve learned not to cross? Comment below.👇”
In reality, I don’t think my observation is worthy of such a composition. It’s pretty basic: sometimes, even if it’s a bad business move, you have to not do things you’re uncomfortable with. Sometimes going outside your comfort zone feels uncomfortable because it’s not growth, it’s a personal value. And if you truly pursue growth at all costs, you’ll quickly find those costs adding up. For me, Broetry just isn’t worth it.
