Ah, influencers. Those half-gurus, lukewarm coffee prophets. They’re there. Every morning. Like a push notification no one asked for. They show up with that “effortless” look — every shirt wrinkle measured to the millimeter, every scuffed sneaker distressed with the precision of an authenticity surgeon. Daily demigods of the obvious, preachers of the bland, delivering the gospel of common sense with the zeal of a caffeine-fueled messiah.
The hair? Oh, that’s not a blow-dry. That’s a thirty-minute operation in strategic chaos, sculpted to simulate spontaneous cool. The coffee, held like a sacred relic — the ultimate proof they’re present, fully in the moment. Organic, naturally. Fair-trade, of course. Roasted by hand in a Costa Rican cabin by a digital nomad monk.
And that look… half-mystical, half-PowerPoint, ready to unveil The Ultimate Truth: how to turn a LinkedIn post into a spiritual quest using filters, hashtags, and “5 tips to succeed like me” (spoiler: tip #3 will SHOCK you, tip #4 might make you quit your job, and tip #5 is so groundbreaking it’s just… working hard. Who knew?).
Ever notice how they all start their posts the same way?
“I fired my best employee yesterday.”
— dramatic blank line —
“It was the best decision of my life.”
— even more dramatic blank line —
“And here’s what it taught me about leadership…”
— pensive emoji —
#disruption #mindset #leadershipjourney #cafe
Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder if LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitch (delete as appropriate) haven’t secretly built a semi-human content factory: Influencer 3.0™.
Pick a vintage sepia filter, a motivational quote with all the depth of a puddle, a completely made-up life lesson… and voilà! Inspiration on demand: “One day, I saw a homeless man give his last sandwich to a one-legged squirrel… and that’s when I understood the true meaning of servant leadership..“
Everything becomes a divine revelation: A post-it stuck to a shoe becomes a strategic breakthrough. Oversleeping turns into a premonitory burnout. Spilled coffee? Obviously a masterclass in resilience.
What fascinates me the most is our collective urge to follow them. As if binge-reading sugar-coated platitudes might magically reboot our careers. “If I read enough posts about time management, maybe I’ll stop procrastinating… by reading posts about time management.”
Let’s be honest: real experts are usually too busy actually doing expert things to post on social media every three hours. Einstein wouldn’t have discovered E=mc² if he’d spent his days writing “10 ways to disrupt physics without breaking a sweat.”
So sure, keep scrolling if it helps you unwind. But remember: reading “I missed my flight and found the meaning of life” probably won’t get your career off the ground. At best, it’ll just help pass time between two bathroom breaks.
( * ) capillophrenia : completely made-up term, a hybrid of capillo- (from “hair-splitting”) and -phrenia (as in cognitive disorder), referring to the baffling ability to draw wildly absurd conclusions with disturbing confidence.
#Productivity101 #LifeCoachButNotReally #CoffeeAndCliches