Writing on LinkedIn Feels Like Scribbling on a Public Toilet Wall
Opening LinkedIn feels like walking into any public toilet I’ve ever been in.
The biggest scribbles are usually the dumbest remarks scrawled in the thickest marker. Someone drops a “So good!!” next to it. Someone else adds a “Haha!” next to that. The decent stuff, the bits that actually make you stop and think, are buried away in tiny handwriting, half‑forgotten.
LinkedIn’s the same.
So why write there at all?
Mostly to make sense of where I sit as a copywriter in the post‑COVID, AI freelancing world. Someone who got most of their work through LinkedIn, and to a lesser extent as a photographer in the social media era.
I’d been talking to a mate about how much LinkedIn had sunk in the past two years. It used to be full of solid, useful posts. Now it’s a cesspool of micro‑influencers high on their own content. Every post is basically the same just in a different font.
The Coldplay thing proved it. Overnight, every chancer became an expert on when (or when not) to jump on trends. The following week, the same people declared Ozzy Osbourne was less a musician than a personal branding guru.
Tenuous links to marketing, trying to turn everything into a parable.
And the sincerity in their comment threads—jesus. I’m not a cynical person, not in real life, but it’s hard not to become one when you read the guff these pied pipers with hard‑ons over digital marketing put out.
Even just by posting on LinkedIn, even if it’s my own work, I’m part of the muck too.
I am, strangely, more optimistic about copywriting now than I was a year and a half ago. But it’s taken 200 cold emails just to get back to where I was before.
I’ve also cut down on reading any “the industry is f***ed” posts on LinkedIn. It felt like the sanest aversion to denial.
This week alone I unfollowed two creative directors. Serial commenters who seemed it was in their constitution to leave a negative remark on every single post in my feed.
I’d never met either of them. I’m sure they’re perfectly nice in person. But they reminded me of an uncle waking up hungover on Christmas morning, stepping on Lego and blaming his kids for the headache.
But back to the illustrious pursuit of copywriting and photography.
Last week I grabbed a coffee with a photographer whose work I love.
They were brilliant. Helpful. Genuinely interested in my work.
They reassured me my trajectory looks good, which is nice considering three years ago I would’ve been at a loss to explain what aperture was.
They said finding a niche matters, but it’ll show up on its own, given time.
I’ve also got a few personal projects and shoots lined up for the next few months that should nudge me closer to that point.
I left thinking about how copywriting feels now.
It seems everyone who was once just a copywriter has had to morph into some multi‑hyphenate impresario. Experts in SEO, CMS, UX, UI, design, strategy, content and social. Licking a finger and going toward whatever way the LinkedIn wind is blowing that week.
Being an all-encompassing copywriter will probably remain the norm now.
But the thing is, even though it’s hard not to be dissuaded from writing in the face of AI, there will always be a space for good copy. The sweetest peaches grow out of shit.
And for all the AI‑generated, vacuous posts that say nothing at all, I do genuinely think most people can smell the difference when something’s written by something with a pulse.
If you write from a place of truth—whether for a brand, a blog or a product description—odds are it’s true for someone else too.
So for now, I’ll keep chasing my photography niche, writing without one, probably send another 200 emails, and try hard to ignore the 24‑carat‑crock‑of‑shit influencer posts.
Keep looking for the tiny scribbles in the corner. They’re the ones worth reading.
