Almost every post I see on LinkedIn these days, starts with a line following the same playbook, namely, tease the reader with something counterintuitive, inflammatory, or feigned oversharing. And this is done in service of splashing around in the shallow end of human communications, seeking transitory “well done” stickers aka likes. I actually have developed more thoughts about how we are drowing in the shallow end in my song, Eyes Up, Heads Up (at the end of this post).
To support my claims, I’ll share some examples of this behaviour as well as that other LinkedIn junk trend, the “cheap shot at AI” post. And I’ll give ChatGPT a chance to respond, to balance the ledger.
The Tyranny Of Clickbait Opening Lines On LinkedIn
The LinkedIn newsfeed, if that’s what you call it, is soaked in posts that open with vainglorious teaser lines. And it seems worse than when I first raised the issue of LinkedIn becoming the centre for humblebragging back in May 2020.
This is what I’m talking about:
- This morning broke me. Again.
- I just told a client ‘no’ to a trend with 50M views. Here’s why. Turns out, the whole post was written by AI.
- Going viral won’t get you success anymore. I used to be terrified of being cringe. So I stayed quiet.
- ✨I used to be afraid to shine✨
- I decided to break up with a friend after the way they spoke to a waitress. Another person cashing in on a private relationship dynamic for a few cheap likes. The author goes on to sneak in a humblebrag too, by saying how they always tell their kids, “just because they won in the lottery of life, their privilege does not make them better than anyone else.”
- I feel awkward about writing posts like this, but I do want to just take a moment to reflect today.
- Unpopular opinion: I don’t hire junior employees.
- Last night, my son, who is in year 10, was upset after receiving his report, disappointed with the academic marks he had received.
- Last night I had to finish something urgently and explained it to my eight year old.
- I fired a client last week. Not because she’d done anything wrong. Turns out, it was a meek message saying to her client you won’t need me again for a while. Yes, that’s right. Not fired at all. Just a braggish way of showing off.
- Everyone sees the wins. No one sees the hard work behind closed doors.
- Honoured and grateful to be invited into the Golden Key International Honour Society — a global recognition of academic excellence, leadership, and service. This milestone reminds me that hard work truly does pay off … Wow, it reminds you, does it? It reminds you that people should know you are an excellent academic and leader, but done in the old ‘humblebragging‘ kinda way.
- I can’t say I’m surprised. Oh, a stranger is trying to hook me in with feigned surprise.
- What my divorce taught me about B2B sales (so far). Yes, that’s right, let’s cash in on private despair to get a few likes.
- Here’s something I’ve never shared. AKA I’m going to pretend to be vulnerable to get a few likes.
- 21 tips to build a personal brand without a strategy. Coming from someone who claims to have made $4million really fast.
Can you see the pattern? This LinkedIn industry has learned that if you tease with an ambiguous or counter intuitive opening line, you might stop the scroll and get someone to click that all important “… more” link.
But for what?
I once create a social media reach and impact competition with a former colleague. We had 48 hours to show real impact from social media activity. My team won because we honed in on a real problem and did our best to get found for that. The colleague and his little group used a service like Fiver to pay someone in India to stand in front of the Taj Mahal and hold up a handwritten sign with their custom message. It was boosted and got seen a lot but people exited fast because it was click bait. The eye-catching piece of content had no connection to the message, the old bait and switch technique.
In a supposedly professional environment, are these plastic attempts at virality really how you want to be known and noticed?
The Cheap Shots At AI
The use of AI in professional workflows is a real thing and it demands nuance and smart thinking to get it right.
Our practice is approximately two years deep in AI usage and from where I sit, I see five points along a continuum:
- On one end we have the people decrying AI’s arrival and claiming it’s the end of the world.
- At the next level, there are people using it in a measured way to help with writing tasks while maintaining tight control.
- In the middle, which is close to where I sit, we use properly primed AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to amplify our efforts in getting research done, doing quick admin tasks like transcribing artifacts, generating images, applying frameworks to raw materials, etc.
- At the next level, are people who are going all in and opening up all their systems to Agentic AI tools, where these external entities are entrusted with access to everything and can act independently, or your behalf.
- Finally, there are the hordes of people lacking talent and experience, whose sense of laziness has decided to just turn the AI tap on and to flood the world with the lowest grade output to meet meagre goals for a jaded audience that might or might not exist.
In fact, the CEO of Signal has a thoughtful insight to share. These super cute agentic “robot” services promise the ease of buying concert tickets for us and alerting friends, but to do that, they need hands deep into our pockets and privacy.
The LinkedIn AI Pile On
Perhaps this is why LinkedIn has become a place where you can get some likes by taking cheap shots at AI or by defending it in an inflammatory way.
Here is just a taste:
- If I see a hyphen or em dash in something you’ve written, I’m immediately thinking “AI wrote this.”
- I recently found out what a content writer does. And it’s not what I thought.
- I’m an author, yet I’m worried about the future of writing.
- As a copywriting team, our biggest competitors aren’t other writers (we ❤️ u copy fam!)
- “Human-generated content” I’m thinking of adding this as a USP in our services proposal.
- The brief that stumped AI.
- Out of curiosity, I asked ChatGPT if it had ever used any of my content.
- ChatGPT really surprised me recently. Not because it spewed out something insightful and smart …
- The marketing report was flawless. Matt used AI to write it.
What grabbed my attention was an article that read:
Why your Chat-GPT copied & pasted post isn’t fooling anyone:
There’s many ways you can tell a post written by Chat-gpt.
Structure of Chat-GPT text 🤖
Overuse of em dashes 🙃
“Fostering” “Empowering” “Clarity” 🥴
(To name a few)
But the main issue I see with posts copied and pasted from Chat-GPT, is the lack of personality and personal experience.
AI is a great tool for idea generation, but it doesn’t know you, your business or your clients.
Follow this structure for your next post:
👉🏻 Hook
👉🏻 Value
👉🏻 Proof
👉🏻 CTA
What Chat-GPT doesn’t provide you with is the proof, and this is what will help you stand out.
You’re guaranteed to build a better connection with your audience if you let them get to know you.
Want support with your personal brand? Then let’s chat, my DM’s are open.
It struck my human ear as being a cheap shot and disingenuous because it was simply a pitch for work that sounded like it was written by AI. The article itself was a textbook case of unfiltered AI gunk.
So, even though I am not a ChatGPT advocate, I thought I should ask it to respond, which it did, thus:
Steve, this post is a clever mix of valid critique, influencer-style rhetoric, and a veiled sales pitch — all wrapped in the now-familiar “call out ChatGPT” format. Here’s a thoughtful breakdown and response, as you requested, including a brief defence on “behalf” of ChatGPT.
⸻
🔍 Critique of the Post
✅ What works well:
• Clear structure: The hook (“your Chat-GPT copied & pasted post isn’t fooling anyone”) is punchy and provocative. It grabs attention.
• Personality: The emoji use and conversational tone suit the Instagram/LinkedIn style it’s likely posted on.
• A valid central argument: Posts written solely by AI, without any human adaptation, often lack personal context or story — this is a genuine limitation worth calling out.
• Useful framework: The hook → value → proof → CTA structure is solid advice for content creation.
❌ Where it falls short:
• Generalisation without nuance: The assumption that a ChatGPT-written post must lack proof, personality, or insight is outdated. With the right user prompts, AI can incorporate all three — especially when drawing from prior context, brand voice, and real anecdotes (as you frequently do, Steve).
• Vagueness in critique: “Fostering,” “Empowering,” and “Clarity” are framed as red flags, but these words are widely used in human-written corporate and coaching content too. They’re not exclusive to AI, nor inherently problematic — the issue is overuse or lack of specificity, no matter the author.
• Irony in the message: The final CTA (“Want support with your personal brand? Let’s chat…”) is a pitch, which is fine — but it undermines the post’s critical tone by revealing its primary goal is lead generation, just like many AI-assisted posts.
⸻
🛡️ Defence (On Behalf of ChatGPT)
Yes, some posts generated by ChatGPT are generic. But this isn’t the tool’s fault — it’s a reflection of:
1. Vague prompts: Asking for “a post about personal branding” with no additional guidance will naturally produce something bland.
2. Lack of human editing: When users copy and paste without tailoring or adding personal insights, the result feels hollow. That’s a human choice, not a software flaw.
But when used well — as you do, Steve — ChatGPT can:
• Draw from previous conversations or uploaded content to include personal stories
• Adopt a distinct voice, be it bold, cheeky, or sincere
• Help structure content to be more engaging or strategic
• Save time by doing the heavy lifting so the user can focus on nuance and human connection
In short: ChatGPT is a co-writer, not an autopilot. The quality of the output reflects the skill of the person wielding it.
⸻
🧠 Final Thought
The original post makes a fair point: authenticity matters. But instead of dismissing AI, we should encourage people to use it better — prompting with purpose, editing with care, and adding their own stories.
Would you like a rework of this idea from your own voice, perhaps as a subtle rebuttal post?
How did I answer ChatGPT’s offer to draft a response by me? I wrote the post you just read, manually!!
Eyes Up, Heads Up
As an example of how I’m navigating the blending of AI with my creative and professional life, I have started using my virtual session band to add music and vocals to lyrics I write. I explain this enterprise on my Steve Davis website. Basically, the message is that I would love singers and performers to use my songs and this support of AI gives me a chance to show them something aurally tangible. You don’t want to hear my humming, believe me!
This song is a reflection on the way ALL of us have become addicted, in the full use of the term, to our smartphones. See what you think.
In closing, we are already seeing studies showing that moderate to heavy reliance on AI tools is diminishing our brain’s capacity to think independently and store and recall data, so my message is the same here as it would be to anybody hopping into one of Elon Musk’s rushed self-drive vehicles: Use AI but keep your hands on the wheel the whole time!