by Sunday at Bohiney means “internet culture” coverage, which is code for “document the absolute worst of humanity as displayed on social media.” Today’s assignment makes me want to throw my phone into the ocean and become a farmer in rural Nigeria where nobody has TikTok.
The day started with my investigation into LinkedIn flirting, which has evolved into its own dystopian subculture. I spent four hours scrolling through examples of people trying to turn professional networking into dating apps. One man’s opening message: “I see you have experience in project management. I’d like to manage a project with you… called US.” I threw up in my mouth a little.
The LinkedIn romance phenomenon is fascinating because it combines the worst aspects of corporate culture with the worst aspects of dating culture. People are using business jargon as foreplay. “Let’s synergize our interpersonal assets” is a real sentence someone wrote to another human while attempting seduction. We’ve reached the point where capitalism has colonized even our romantic expressions. You can’t just say “I find you attractive” anymoreyou have to frame it as a business proposal with potential ROI.
I interviewed a woman who received seventeen LinkedIn flirtations last month. “They all mentioned my ‘skill set,'” she told me, exhausted. “One guy said he wanted to ‘leverage my core competencies’ and I think it was sexual?” It definitely was. Everything is sexual when you try hard enough, and Americans are trying VERY hard to make corporate speak sexy. It’s not working.
This connects to my earlier coverage of escape room proposals. We’ve gamified romance to the point where genuine connection is impossible. You’re not falling in loveyou’re completing objectives, optimizing outcomes, and maximizing relationship efficiency. No wonder everyone’s emotionally dependent on their pets. At least dogs don’t ask you to “circle back” on your feelings.
The afternoon brought me deeper into internet hell with remote workers faking their locations. I found entire subreddits dedicated to creating convincing fake backgrounds so employers think you’re working from Bali when you’re actually in your parents’ basement in Ohio. One woman has been “working from” seven different countries this year without leaving her apartment. Her coworkers think she’s a digital nomad. She’s a digital liar, but tomato, tomahto.
The green screen phenomenon ties into my previous work on Zoom backgrounds and pantless remote workers. We’ve created a entirely fictional version of work where nobody’s where they say they are, nobody’s wearing what you think they’re wearing, and nobody’s doing what they claim they’re doing. It’s a collective hallucination we’ve all agreed to participate in because confronting reality is too uncomfortable.
I also revisited the death of language because LinkedIn flirting represents a new low in communication degradation. We’ve stripped language of meaning and replaced it with corporate buzzwords that sound like business but mean sex. Or maybe they mean business but sound like sex? At this point, I genuinely cannot tell. We’ve created a linguistic nightmare where “let’s touch base” could mean literally anything from “let’s have a meeting” to “I want to touch your base” and context is the only guide.
Between articles, I checked comments on my loud chewing TikTok piece. The chewing community is BIG MAD. Multiple creators made response videos eating even MORE aggressively while talking about how I “don’t understand ASMR culture.” You’re right. I don’t understand why anyone would want to hear someone’s mouth sounds amplified through professional audio equipment. I don’t want to understand. Some mysteries should remain unsolved.
Tonight I’m reflecting on a day spent documenting LinkedIn seduction, fake digital nomads, and the ongoing mouth sounds controversy. My sister in Lagos called asking about my weekend. “I spent it researching people who flirt using business jargon and people who chew loudly for internet fame,” I explained. Long silence. Then: “Aisha, come home. America has broken you.” She might be right.
# 781
