Category: Social Media

Thoughts on socia media, which has addicted many and alienated others.

Three isn’t just an odd number. It’s the only integer between two and four.

In a contrived post about Shibusawa Eiichi on a certain platform not known for user authenticity:

Shibusawa wasn’t just an entrepreneur. He was a system builder.

…

He didn’t try to dominate one industry. He helped create all of them.

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Japan’s modernization did not happen by accident. It was intentional.

…

[As the reason why he’s on the 10,000-yen note] Not because he was the richest man in Japan, but because he made it possible for others to create wealth.

Wow, that’s four of these AI-smelling constructions in a single post.

Does the person who wrote this using AI realize what it looks like? I doubt it. He identifies as a… drumroll… founder.

Enough said, and I doubt that you even need be told by me where the above was posted—everybody’s favorite hyper-curated phony persona promotion platform.

Microsoft’s LinkedIn, where fake is rewarded and real is punished.

There are signs that intentionally abandoning your true persona in posts on LinkedIn in an effort to game the Microsoft algorithm, which shadow-bans posts it deems undesirable—one unforgivable sin is negativism about Microsoft or AI—can work to reduce the effect of shadow-banning. For me, however, that amounts to being someone else.

As Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

And I will say “I’m going to be myself, because the personal cost of being someone else to game a mindless algorithm designed by tech broligarchs is much too high.”

The Coaching Pandemic

I have often been targeted on Microsoft’s LinkedIn by ads for and posts by people purporting to be able to coach users on how to be “successful.”

There is seldom much elaboration, other than to say they’ll teach you how to get lots of connections and build your network. I guess there are people who value that. I’m not one of them, as I am active in the real world.

I now see more and more translators who have gone into the coaching business, selling their potential colleague translator clients the secrets of success. Some of them present themselves as “founders,” which appears to have lots of value to some people. This often self-applied title often just announces that the title holder is seeking to curate their persona without the need for any discernible substance. But I digress.

When things go bad for your personal business activities, some people turn to taking money from others for teaching them how to succeed.
There are a number of translators who long ago turned to coaching, an activity that can turn into a one-on-one cult religion, depending upon the gullibility of their clients. The number appears to be growing, and it’s now being bolstered by translators in the global south, sometimes regarding European target languages.

This is the world of Microsoft’s LinkedIn, where substance takes a back seat to fantasy.