I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn last week.

A LOT of time.

There’s an unspoken truth for those in the know:

→ LinkedIn is a cesspool of grifters, spinsters and predators ✔️

Behind the bulleted lists, thirsty selfies and motivational quotes lies a dark underbelly; an economic engine fed by the willfully ignorant clicks and dwell time of unsuspecting passerbyers.

But rather than avoid it, call it out, or work to clean it up, certain bad actors have emerged to take advantage of this burgeoning attention economy.

Now those who know me, know I don’t normally go out of my way to pick fights with people on the internet.

Fights somehow have a way of finding me 🤷🏽‍♂️

And this week was no exception.

So today we’ll take a moment to lean into the culture of LinkedIn and observe what’s going on, objectively.

No B2B sales lessons here.

Let’s start off by handing out some awards.

Top Grifter 🏆

Meet Dale Dupree, ‘creative sales trainer’ and self-proclaimed LinkedIn guru:

Dale uses quite colorful language to describe his vocation. He purports to be leading a ‘rebellion’ against mediocre sales techniques.

His quirky selfies are sprinkled with inspiring mantras like Rebellion is the way and #ChangeTheGame.

Upon a cursory digging, you’ll find Dale’s revolutionary sales approach is…

*checks notes*

→ Crumpling up pieces of paper... ✔️

→ And handing them out to prospective customers… ✔️ ?

Dale’s work is going door to door handing out crumpled letters on behalf of his clients.

I discovered Dale on one of my recent LinkedIn benders and let him know my immediate thoughts.

Dale screenshotted my comment and shared it in a hit piece about me.

But that’s neither here nor there.

What’s impressive is the ambitious PR coup he attempted in his post, dodging any criticism and reframing the situation to paint himself as the victim.

Dale opens with a brilliant victim backstory, strawmanning my comment by placing it next to his treasure trove of rehearsed tragedy talking points.

What’s happening here?

Dale’s ragebait opener is designed to appeal to a reader’s emotion, and works exceptionally well when you’ve conditioned your followers to associate your content with a villain-hero narrative.

Dale’s disingenuous hit piece fits this bill to a T.

A cursory glance through the Double-D repository confirms my hypothesis.

Dale is a textbook people-pleaser. He overcompensates for his lack of self confidence by being excessively nice on the surface while harboring deep grudges because he never dealt with his underlying trauma.

This manifests on social media simply: he preys on the insecurities of other people-pleasers and inexperienced salespeople to hawk gimmicky tactics that likely won’t move the needle for them.

Dale’s content is empty on the inside. Just like Dale.

He offers his followers empty pleasantries in exchange for sycophantic approval.

The engagement he receives becomes social proof itself, touted by Dale as an indicator of success, while there is no necessary expertise or insight behind the hype.

Through years of optimizing his follower feedback loop for maximum enablement, Double-D has perfected the art of the grift.

How does this story end?

I take no pleasure in writing about people like Dale.

Guys like him need help to reflect and identify their source of trauma. And they definitely need to get off social media and stop using it as a vector to spread their pathology.

Unfortunately, instead of getting help people they usually double down.

In Dale’s case, he got pressure from his own followers pointing out his hypocrisy.

ie. his criticizing of people who criticize people by publicly attacking them.

Unable to accept being seen as the aggressor, Double-D quickly edited his post to tone down the rhetoric and painted a rosy picture of us being bros.

What a bizarre turn of events.

I’m sure Dale is a nice guy in person.

I’m sure he’s a good friend and helps people in need.

I’m sure he never intended for social media to warp his personality through perverse incentives.

But before you axe your whole sales team to hire an overpriced courier to hand-deliver junkmail to your prospects, just remember:

LinkedIn is a cesspool of grifters, spinsters and predators.

So don’t believe everything you read on here 👍🏽

I do feel the need to apologize though.

Dale was right about one thing; he’s not toxic hustle bro trash.

→ He’s an empathy-peddling toxic-positive serially-victimized discount Gary Vee with unresolved childhood trauma ✔️

Agree?

--

PS. I know you do. Now shut up and read the rest of this Insightful newsletter.

Grifter Runners Up 🥈

I couldn’t choose one, so I picked both.

These two come as a pair.

Luke Matthews 🚀 and Brock Pierson 🌭 are bonafide experts at rehashing fabricated drama talking points and linking them to unrelated, self serving calls-to-action.

Luke is currently shilling an AI video generator, using a horrible AI-generated video to do the dirty work for him.

Meanwhile his cousin-in-crime Brock has enjoyed a rather active LinkedIn retirement by banging on LinkedIn every day about how bad LinkedIn is and replying to all his messages and comments.

Brock has also pioneered the cross-platform grift, begging his dwindling LinkedIn base to subscribe to him on X for $3/month (cause it’s more fun there).

Luke & Brock act like the class clowns in highschool, doing anything for attention to build an exclusive roster of ever-changing sycophants.

You can find them on any given day skipping class and peddling their wares behind the bleachers.

But instead of Indian adderall knockoffs, they deal in the currency of clout. A like for a like. Some social scraps in exchange for ephemeral loyalty.

I get it. I can see the allure of being in the ‘in crew’.

Some yearn for those simpler childhood days with no responsibility.

But others choose to grow up and contribute productively to society 🤷🏽‍♂️

In other news…

I broke a bolt changing my wheel bearing.

After an hour of trying everything I could to remove the seized threads, I gave up and just taped the ABS sensor back on.

That’s all for today.

As a thank you for dedicating your time to reading this, I have a gift for you.

If you’re a founder and you’re already sick of LinkedIn after reading this email, I made a guide to help.

Feel free to check it out and let me know if it makes the pain of LinkedIn any more bearable.

And stay tuned for next episode as we tackle the spinsters and predators.

Saleem 🤎