LinkedIn Likes: The Greatest Non-Endorsement of Our Time

LinkedIn—the mythical land where everyone is “honoured” to announce even the most mundane of career updates, and where we’re all pressured into acting like those updates are somehow monumental achievements. Scroll down your feed, and you’ll see it: post after post, showered in enthusiastic likes, like they’re all announcements that someone just won the Nobel Prize. And in the middle of it all, you’re left wondering—what does a LinkedIn like actually mean?

Spoiler alert: absolutely nothing.

If LinkedIn is the corporate world’s biggest pantomime, then the like button is the equivalent of a polite, hollow clap. It’s the nod you give a colleague across the office to avoid looking rude, the laugh you force at the boss’s joke that makes you want to gouge out your own eardrums. A LinkedIn like isn’t a sign of appreciation or encouragement; it’s social currency at its emptiest, a gesture so utterly devoid of meaning it makes Monopoly money look valuable.

The Meaninglessness of the LinkedIn Like

If we’re being brutally honest, a LinkedIn like is the equivalent of a cold handshake at a dreadful networking event: transactional, impersonal, and entirely for show. We’ve somehow convinced ourselves that tapping that little thumbs-up icon is a grand gesture of support. In reality, it’s the absolute bare minimum you can do without being seen as antisocial. You might as well be flicking lint off your shoulder for all the genuine thought that goes into it.

When someone posts about their “new and exciting journey” at yet another consulting firm, what does liking their post actually mean? Does it mean you’re cheering them on? That you’re invested in their career? Or does it mean you had a spare two seconds and thought, “Well, I suppose I should acknowledge this so I don’t look like a monster”? Hint: It’s almost always the latter.

But in LinkedIn’s professional fantasyland, we have to keep up the pretense. We like because we have to. Because LinkedIn is one big popularity contest, and the only way to prove you’re not a heartless, disengaged robot is by plastering likes all over every meaningless post you see. It’s the ultimate non-endorsement, a hollow gesture wrapped up in corporate fluff that we keep repeating because everyone else is doing it, too.

Liking: The World’s Most Polite Lie

We like to think (pun intended) that our likes are acts of kindness, small tokens of support that let people know we’re there for them. But come on—are we really that supportive? Liking on LinkedIn is about as sincere as a “How are you?” from the office sociopath, and about as helpful. It’s not an expression of approval; it’s an act of self-preservation. When you like someone’s post, you’re not saying, “I care about you.” You’re saying, “Please notice me, but only just enough so you remember my name if you’re ever in a hiring position.”

This isn’t support; it’s survival of the politest. Imagine if we actually meant every single one of these likes. Imagine genuinely feeling overjoyed every time some stranger posted about their “unforgettable experience at the latest corporate workshop.” If we were really that ecstatic about every promotion, every minor career achievement, we’d be lying down from emotional exhaustion. No, we like because it’s easier than confronting the terrifying prospect of simply scrolling on by without acknowledging someone’s “journey.”

The Great LinkedIn Niceness Illusion

LinkedIn has somehow convinced us that we’re all part of a big, happy professional family. But in reality, it’s just a bunch of strangers pretending to care. And in this strange network of mutual back-patting, the like button is our currency. Just tap the like, and no one gets hurt. It’s the digital equivalent of nodding along at a dinner party while someone drones on about their kitchen renovations. You’re not engaged; you’re enduring.

Every LinkedIn like is essentially a polite lie, a way to make it seem as though we’re all rooting for each other while doing the absolute least. It’s a game of optics, where the goal is to look like a supportive professional without lifting a single actual finger to help. We’re all playing along, because to break the illusion would be to admit that LinkedIn is little more than a slightly fancier version of Facebook, only without the cat memes and with 300% more people talking about “personal branding.”

Why We Don’t Have—and Won’t Ever Get—a Dislike Button

Now, imagine if there were a dislike button. Imagine the chaos. Your coworker posts a rambling essay about “finding her truth through leadership seminars,” and instead of dutifully liking, you can finally click “dislike” and make it known that no one asked for this. The motivational speaker who floods your feed with posts about “fostering workplace resilience”? One tap, and the LinkedIn gods would know your true feelings. But LinkedIn knows better than to allow honesty. Because if we all started disliking, the whole charade would come crashing down. The carefully constructed world of professional harmony would go up in flames. It would be magnificent.

LinkedIn’s like-only world is the ultimate triumph of modern corporate delusion. It’s the online equivalent of everyone pretending that every meeting is important, that every “thought leader” deserves a book deal, that every milestone—no matter how pointless—is worth celebrating. No one believes it, but we all play along. Because LinkedIn isn’t about truth; it’s about the appearance of support, wrapped in a lot of nice-sounding words and topped off with a shower of mindless likes.

So, What Does Liking Really Mean?

So just remember: if you like this article, what does it mean? It might mean you’re just playing the game, doing your social duty, tapping that thumb to avoid any awkwardness later. Or it could mean you’re in on the joke, laughing at LinkedIn’s absurdities while dutifully tapping along. Or maybe—just maybe—it means you actually liked what I said. But let’s be honest: that’s probably the least likely option of all.

In the end, LinkedIn likes are as meaningless as the corporate jargon they endorse. They’re the digital embodiment of that polite “let’s touch base” email you send when you have absolutely no interest in touching base. They’re a way to look engaged without engaging, a way to look friendly without actually caring. And in that way, they’re a perfect reflection of LinkedIn itself—a place where everyone’s smiling, everyone’s clapping, and no one’s quite sure why.