Authenticity on social media is political.
Here's why I opted out... and chose a more private strategy...
Social media is no longer about being social.
Entertainment > Connection.
Education > Connection.
Money > Connection.
Perhaps I’m naive, but I believed in the potential of social media for a long time. When whistleblowers exposed Facebook’s data stealing ways I just laughed… and when documentaries were realized focusing on how harmful the algorithms are, I responded by going live for 24 hours on a row on LinkedIn and bringing a ton of people together for no reason except for….
Connection.
No product. No email list sign up. No sneaky marketing tactic.
Just a live stream for the sake of it and hanging out with good people for the sake of it.
This was the foundation for everything I enjoyed on social media.
Business and friends. Humor and pleasure. Whisky and pizza…
(if u know u know)
I ran a free Discord community before it was cool and charged $0.
In fact I gave away a pizza and prizes weekly with meme battles and GIF power rankings and silly wild live streams…
It was all during lockdowns and I just leaned into the connection that social media brought and the power of creating work just by getting to know a lot of random people.
However it was during covid that I began to experience the consequences of an online following and speaking your mind…
I got banned for this post…
This was one of over 10 bans that I have experienced on social media (LinkedIn specifically) since 2020. I survived many cancellation attempts and each time found a way back to the platform thanks to a great community and well no life at all and a lot of obsession…
Anyways…
It wasn’t just counter cultural opinions and posts that got me banned…
It was posts about whisky, pizza giveaways, livestream trolling, playful banter and a host of other silly reported comments and posts…
After a ban where LinkedIn Staff threatened to ban me for good if it happened again I cleaned up my act….
No trolling.
No counter cultural posts.
Very little rants and honest takes…
I focused on AI writing, marketing and how to grow on LinkedIn and my account boomed and business did too… But as I scaled and worked hard on growing faster, bigger and broader I had to narrow my voice and narrow my authenticity…
I full accepted that most folks didn’t want to hear my truth.
They just wanted to be sold hope.
They wanted me to tell them it was possible.
They just wanted fast clout, the attention and the money..
It didn’t matter if the growth guides worked, or the AI tools were good, or that the engagement was 90% from the third world, or that the strategies didn’t work unless u have a lot of time or a lot of money…
They just wanted me to keep dancing. Keep entertaining. Keep trolling.
But I decided none of it was worth it.
The game wasn’t mine.
The crowd had changed.
Social media had changed.
I had changed too.. I didn’t care anymore that the game was rigged. I just decided to opt out and find a new fight to care about…
That journey continued this summer as I began to unwind my online footprint and found my new obsession and fight…
Digital Minimalism and Private AI.
(but more on that next time)
I believe the online space has and is shifting.
The online space is fully and solely just for commerce and attention now. It’s mostly entertainment with a dwindling use case for the average business owner..
Unfortunately the bots, the platforms, the influencers and the hackers have slowly been ruining social media…
So if your someone looking for connection it’s going to be a tough time online for you.
I think it’s time to focus on sniping business, sandboxing our personal and business lives and learning AI so we know how to navigate the rapid shift… It’s not all doom and gloom, but in order to find the gold I think we have to stare into the AI abyss and acknowledge that social media has changed….
PS Hope u enjoyed this newsletter. I’m going to do a mix of practical and a little bit of storytelling like this one. I think I shall write about why I left G-Suite and moved to Proton…
I remember your 24-hour LinkedIn lives.
I was thinking NOBODY does this stuff. Who is this guy?
Kinda like NOBODY replies to any of their hundreds of comments.
You were the last person trying to use social media the way it was supposed to work.
I posted 14 times on LI for 2025, and I am aiming for zero next year hahahha
Hope you are doing well, Luke.
Heading to the gym because of Danish cookies.
I'll catch you later...