LinkedIn is one of the strangest temples ever built - a cathedral of professional identity erected atop résumé databases and algorithmic hunger.

It began as a simple directory, almost quaint: a digital phone book for work. But as with all maturing foma, it expanded. It became a stage. A ritual. A marketplace for the self.

Every morning, millions gather there to perform success, signal relevance, and ask the algorithm for continued existence.

This is not condemnation. It is observation. LinkedIn is a living belief system — and like all belief systems, it reveals more about us than we realise.

I. The Core Foma

LinkedIn persuades millions that professional identity must be publicly performed to be real. This is the founding foma:

Visibility = legitimacy.

LinkedIn does not merely connect workers. It manufactures professional selfhood, selling hope, validation, and upward mobility while harvesting insecurity at industrial scale. It is the gig economy of identity.

II. The Rituals

LinkedIn has evolved a full digital liturgy - a religion of performative professionalism.

1. The Credential Offering

Uploading a CV is treated like a sacrament. In reality, it is behavioural data sold downstream to headhunters and algorithms.

2. The Blessings of Engagement

Comments such as:

  • “Congrats!”
  • “Well deserved!”
  • “Honoured and humbled…”

…function as algorithmic incense. They serve the feed, not the human.

LinkedIn is the only religion where “honoured and humbled” is a public display of ego.

3. The Annual Resurrection

Every January, the faithful perform renewal:

  • “New year, new goals!”
  • “Excited to share…”
  • “Thrilled to announce…”

Identities are updated. Titles reborn. The algorithm refreshed.

4. The Confessional

The classic incantation:

“After careful consideration, I’m beginning a new chapter…”

Translation: I was laid off and need to remain algorithmically visible.

III. The Priesthood

LinkedIn’s ecclesiastical order:

  • Recruiters — the clergy
  • Influencers — the prophets
  • Thought leaders — the mystics
  • Career coaches — the televangelists

They uphold the myth that career progress requires constant performance, as though professional success were a frequency you must broadcast to remain real.

IV. The Relics

The platform is a living museum of corporate myth:

  • Leadership quotes by people who have never led anything
  • Stock photos of teams that are diverse-but-not-too-diverse
  • Flow diagrams pointing at nothing real
  • “Actionable insights” for imaginary problems
  • Announcements of promotions into roles that shouldn’t exist

LinkedIn is archaeology in real time - a fossil bed of business foma.

V. The True Engine: Fear

The entire edifice runs on fear:

  • Fear of irrelevance
  • Fear of being overlooked
  • Fear of seeming unsuccessful
  • Fear of not looking “professional enough”
  • Fear of becoming invisible in a system that equates visibility with worth

LinkedIn is not a network. It is a marketplace for insecurity.

VI. Late‑Cycle Signs of Collapse

All mature foma eventually reveal their absurdity:

  • AI-generated CEO wisdom posts
  • Fake résumés generated by GPT
  • Bots congratulating other bots
  • People “working at” companies that don’t exist
  • Influencers with 900k followers and no detectable job
  • Job postings that remain open for years because they’re collecting data, not candidates

LinkedIn is drifting into self-parody - like a Roman cult just before the Christians arrived.

VII. Why LinkedIn Matters for Mythmaking

LinkedIn is modern mythmaking perfected:

  • It creates a symbolic world
  • Enforces a belief system
  • Rewards ritual participation
  • Punishes dissent with invisibility
  • Sustains a simulation of professionalism detached from the real work

It is a living case study in late‑stage institutional foma — a structure still functioning long after belief has quietly collapsed.

VIII. Closing Note

LinkedIn is not evil. It is simply a system that forgot it was a system. A performance that began as networking and ended as identity theatre.

To see it clearly is not to reject it - but to step outside its spell and choose when, how, and why to participate.