LinkedIn 'Broetry': Why I Hate the Algorithm-Baiting Era

Key Developments

I recently observed a trend on LinkedIn that I frankly cannot stand. It is everywhere. You scroll through your feed, hoping for professional insight, and instead, you are assaulted by a wall of identical, zombie-like posts.

They all look the same. Short sentences. No paragraphs. Massive vertical spacing. Vague platitudes about “leadership” or “culture.”

It looks like this:

I didn’t hire the guy with the degree.
I hired the guy with the grit.
Here is why.

It feels lobotomized. It feels artificial. To me, it looks fully AI-generated, void of any human soul or nuance. Maybe I’m wrong, and it is not AI generated. Just intentionally written in a style that assumes the reader can only comprehend 3 word sentences.

This style has a name: “LinkedIn Broetry.”

It is a specific copywriting aesthetic characterized by:

The “Haiku” Format: Never using a full paragraph when a sentence fragment will do.
The Clickbait Hook: A contrarian opening line designed solely to make you click “See more…”
The Vertical Scroll: Intentionally wasting screen real estate to force you to scroll more, artificially inflating the time you spend on the post.

Why This Matters

This matters because it proves that we are no longer writing for humans; we are writing for machines.

The reason these posts look so robotic isn’t necessarily because they were written by ChatGPT (though the feedback loop between AI and this style is tightening). It is because the humans writing them are mimicking and pleasing the LinkedIn algorithm.

The “See More” Button: The algorithm interprets a click on “See more” as a high-value engagement signal. Writers deliberately break their thoughts into fragments to hide the context behind that button.
Dwell Time: LinkedIn measures how many seconds you hover over a post. By turning a 50-word thought into a vertically stretched poem, creators force you to spend more time scrolling, tricking the algorithm into thinking the content is deep.
Cognitive Load: In a mobile-first world, we have lost the patience for paragraphs. This format exploits our deteriorating attention spans.

It matters because it rewards “engagement hacking” over actual expertise. The structure effectively kills nuance. And kills me at the same time. You cannot explain a complex engineering challenge or a subtle market dynamic in a series of one-line slogans.

The Contrast

To show you exactly how ridiculous this format is, I took a popular viral post style,about “dream jobs” and “respect” and translated it back into normal, human English.

Here is how the “Broetry” version looks (condensed):

I don’t believe in dream jobs. But here’s what I do believe in: Work where people are respected. Not diminished by the environments they depend on to survive. This isn’t about ambition. It’s about a basic human right. … 20 more lines of spacing …

And here is what that actual thought looks like if you write like a sane professional:

I don’t believe in ‘dream jobs.’ I believe in workplaces defined by mutual respect, not empty perks or ‘we’re a family’ slogans. True respect is quiet: it means being listened to, trusted without surveillance, and treated as a human being rather than a resource. When an environment lacks this, it attacks our nervous system. Culture is simply where we spend our life energy, and we all deserve places that help us grow rather than erode us.

What breaks people isn’t usually stress; it’s ‘dignity injury’, being misread, politically undermined, or reduced to a function. Years ago, I realized this when I had to ask myself if my workplace still honored who I was. Experienced leaders rarely leave because they feel ‘unsafe’; they leave because they have lost their peace of mind and no longer feel respected.

The second version takes 15 seconds to read. It respects your time. It flows. It has dignity. The first version takes 45 seconds of scrolling and treats the reader like a dopamine-addicted toddler. Maybe we are all that?

The Cosmic Irony: The 2025 Nobel Prize

As if the universe wanted to mock this LinkedIn trend, the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature was just awarded to the Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai.

Why is this ironic? Because Krasznahorkai is the antithesis of the LinkedIn influencer. He is famous for writing books that consist of single, breathless sentences that go on for pages.

While LinkedIn gurus fear a sentence longer than ten words, the Nobel committee explicitly praised Krasznahorkai for his “flowing language with long, winding sentences devoid of full stops”.

The press release notes that his work is part of a tradition characterized by the “absurd and the grotesque”. Frankly, I find nothing more absurd or grotesque than the current state of professional social media.

LinkedIn rewards fragmentation, simplicity, and the commodification of thought.
The Nobel Committee rewards complexity, endurance, and the refusal to simplify the human experience.

We are living in a split reality. In the halls of high culture, we celebrate the man who writes a sentence that never ends. In the halls of “business thought leadership,” we celebrate the man who cannot finish a sentence without hitting the Enter key.

Looking Ahead

Will this end? Unlikely. As long as the algorithm rewards “dwell time” and clicks, this format will dominate.

However, I believe we are approaching a saturation point. The more pervasive this style becomes, the more our “spam filters” will tune it out. Or abandon the platform. Authentic, dense, and well-reasoned writing, actual paragraphs with actual thoughts, will eventually become a signal of intelligence in a sea of algorithmic noise.

Until then, we are stuck scrolling through the poetry of the engagement hackers.