What was once a professional site used for networking and searching for jobs, LinkedIn seems to have gone off the rails in recent years. Instead of simple posts about people celebrating being at their current job for 5 years, the site is now filled with toxic advice and “professionals” bragging about their commitment to their work ethic. That’s why groups like LinkedIn Lunatics have begun surfacing. This subreddit, which describes itself as “for insufferable LinkedIn content,” has been around since 2019 and has amassed 324k members, or “LinkedIn Premium Members.”

“Scroll through LinkedIn and you will find a mix of rampant virtue signaling, cringeworthy titles, and stories that could come from r/thathappened,” the moderators explain in the community’s About section. “This subreddit is for sharing and discussing these LinkedIn characters.” From facepalm worthy posts to the worst advice you could ever imagine, this group has it all!

Now, there’s nothing wrong with having a great work ethic. Working hard can be rewarding and satisfying, especially when it translates to higher pay, promotions and greater opportunities within your company. However, there’s a big difference between being invested in your job and being a workaholic. Many of these “LinkedInfluencers” tout the advantages of missing important events in their children’s lives, skipping out on holidays, working while sick and working overtime because “the hustle never stops.”

To learn more about hustle culture, we reached out to Danielle Clemente, Creative Consultant and Founder of the Her Messy Bun Podcast and Consciously Creative. Danielle explains hustle culture as “when you put work above everything including your mental health, available energy, rest, family and personal time.”

“Hustle culture is filled with unsustainable practices that perpetuate the idea that you live to work, rather work to live,” she continued. Danielle also noted that hustle culture can negative impact our lives for many reasons, including causing burnout, forcing people to try and meet unrealistic deadlines or expectations at any or all costs, and affecting how we see ourselves in the world.”

“It’s harmful on so many different levels, and it has the ability to affect anyone,” Danielle told Bored Panda. “Hustle culture is sneaky, because the idea to hustle is also tied to the idea of working hard or that you have to hustle in order to get what you want. The word hustle itself is defined as constant movement or forcing movement, so when applied to entrepreneurs (especially neurodivergent creatives) it’s extremely detrimental to your wellbeing.”

Danielle also says that most of us have participated in hustle culture at one point or another, due to how normalized it’s become. “If you ever went to school sick because your parents couldn't take off work, if you ever worked for a company that only allowed so many sick days or time off, if you ever went to a university that failed you if you missed too many days, if you ever got road rage… The examples are endless,” she shared. “I think the majority unknowingly participate because of how ingrained it is into people's everyday lives. Once you start realizing that there’s an alternative way to work and live, you start seeing how many things are tied to it.”

But we’re not all doomed to a life of perpetuating hustle culture forever. “What I teach burnt out creatives and entrepreneurs, is that there’s an alternative way to work, there are simple solutions to everything,” Danielle shared. “On the small scale it looks different for everyone, but when you zoom out and look at the big picture, it’s all about learning to work around your different energy levels and as I call it – Work Intuitively.”

Danielle recommends “creating an intuitive work schedule, filled with simple strategies that honors how your brain works. An example of this, I’ve been teaching for years and has helped so many creatives and large creators, is to break up your days into themes and then always start with the bare minimum, the easiest yes,” the expert explained. “Working in themed days prevents context shifting which then intern protects your current energy levels, and allowing yourself to do the bare minimum first takes the pressure off of feeling like you have to stay busy, or constantly do more.”

Danielle also told Bored Panda a simple test we can all do to see where we’re at in the toxic hustle culture world. “If your idea of productivity is constantly trying to find ways to save time and energy, only to use that time to do more work, that’s part of the toxic hustle culture,” she noted. “I help creatives learn how to save time and energy, so they have time and energy to live more, and do the things they love.”

If you’d like to learn more about Danielle or gain more tips from her on combating hustle culture, be sure to visit Her Messy Bun! 

Are you feeling inspired to finally use all of your PTO and actually take some time to rest out of spite, pandas? We hope you know how ridiculous all of these posts sound, so keep upvoting the ones that made you laugh. Let us know in the comments what the craziest things you’ve ever seen posted on LinkedIn were, and then if you’re interested in checking out another Bored Panda article discussing how toxic LinkedIn is, look no further than right here!