OPINION: LinkedIn I’d Rather French-Kiss Marco Rubio Than Follow Bill Gates

bgates

3:54

Listen here, you glossy, suit-wearing, dopamine-dealing digital cult, I’ve been ghosting your notifications like a Tinder date who saw my height. But the fifth one just slid into my inbox wearing a robe made of pure uncut algorithm and whispered, “Bill Gates is waiting… also drink the soy milk, mortal.”

The actual message I got:

“Following Bill Gates makes you 1.5x more likely to get profile views. Also get the jab, eat the bug-meat, renounce your free speech, and if he wants you to tattoo 666 on your forehead while smiling for the camera — DO IT. Or we’ll tell recruiters you’re ‘not a team player.’”

LinkedIn. Did Satan unionize with Microsoft HR? Are you running on Windows Vista and pure uncut Elon-musk-repellent? This isn’t networking. This is full-blown “drink the Kool-Aid, Kevin, the mothership is real” territory. Let’s dissect this fever dream, shall we?

1. “1.5x more profile views”

   
   

   Translation: Instead of my usual two viewers (my mom and a Romanian scammer named “Slutvenia”), I’ll get a glorious three. One of them will be a “Chief Visionary Officer” at a company whose entire business model is “AI-powered blockchain mindfulness” that pays in prayer and exposure. I’m moist.

   
   

2. “Take his future jab”

   
   

   Bro, I followed one guy and now I need a booster schedule? Is there a Gates-brand booster that protects me from ever seeing another post about “synergistic paradigm shifts”? Because that’s the only needle I want near me.

   
   

3. “Eat fake meat”

   
   

   I tried the Impossible Burger once. It tasted like regret marinated in sadness. Now LinkedIn wants me to swear fealty to it like it’s the body of Saint Bill. Next they’ll send me a digital calf to worship while whispering “no more real bacon, king.”

   
   

4. “Give up your First Amendment rights”

   
   

   Sure thing! Let me just delete the Constitution, replace it with a Terms of Service agreement written by a sentient PowerPoint, and start every sentence with “As a lifelong Gates ally…” I came to LinkedIn to get a job, not audition for The Handmaid’s Tale: Now With More Excel.

   
   

5. The 666 forehead special

   
   

   If Bill wants me to rock the Mark of the Beast, the least he can do is make it glow in the dark for better Zoom lighting or use the Mr. Beast logo. Also, or else what? You’ll keep recommending “People You May Know” that are just 47 pictures of Bill Gates staring directly into my camera like he’s trying to astral project into my house?

   
   

My final offer, you beautiful corporate gremlin: I will follow Bill Gates the exact millisecond he:

• Admits Clippy was a psychological war crime against humanity.

• Stops smiling like a Microsoft mascot that just achieved sentience and immediately regretted it.

• Personally guarantees I get a job that doesn’t involve “mandatory fun” team-building or personality tests that ask if I prefer “structure” or “chaos” (the correct answer is “leave me alone”).

• Gets me back to the Island.

  
  

Until then, BACK OFF. I don’t want your bug patties. I don’t want the jab. I don’t want the glowing forehead tattoo. I already glow enough from radiation off my work laptop and run off from 10 years in construction. And stop calling me a cow, you absolute menace. I’m a free-range human disaster who still believes in real bacon, dark mode that actually works, and getting hired because I’m talented, not because Papa Gates glanced in my general direction and blessed my cursed profile.

Yours in full psychotic break,

A breakaway sweatpant-wearing gremlin who just wants remote work