Ken Cheng doesn’t believe in giving his employees raises to increase their productivity. He has a simpler solution: remove their office chairs. Without the ability to sit, workers are more alert and inspired, he wrote on LinkedIn.

But that’s because Cheng isn’t really an executive. He’s a 35-year-old comedian living in London who has crafted a satirical CEO persona on the professional networking platform: “I want to connect with you, emotionally :),” reads his LinkedIn tagline. He writes articles in what has become a classic, chaotic LinkedIn style:

Start with a conundrum in life or work (from providing difficult feedback to reporting directly to admitting you’re struggling) urinating in public toilets).

Space each sentence or clause in its own paragraph.

To create suspense.

And end it all with an unexpected lesson learned that propelled you to success.

Cheng’s wisdom includes realizing that it’s okay for men to cry when tax loopholes are closed, that trading their raises for an air hockey table is good for morale, and that there are ways to justify watching porn at work.

The absurdity resonates with workers scrolling through their work feeds, where its messages often blend in so easily that people can’t tell if it’s satire. Cheng has gained thousands of followers over the past few months, and even around 7,000 in the last week, as his posts went viral and shared by others on Reddit and X. “Everyone has met a boss. Everyone “Everyone has met a person who has reached the high end and they’re just not very smart,” Cheng told me about his job. Collectively, we watch billionaire tech CEOs make wacky style choices and challenge each other to cage matches. Part of the comedy comes from “seeing these incredibly rich people lose their minds,” Cheng said. LinkedIn is one of the places where we all observe what’s happening in real time. But can a platform known for its humble boasts and manufactured corporate enthusiasm become actually funny?

Comedians like Cheng are posting there because LinkedIn content has become much stranger. It is a place that lays bare, like my colleague Rob Price in other words, “no one really knows what it means to be ‘professional’ anymore.” Screenshots of deranged posts that fill the r/LinkedInLunatics subreddit and the X account @BestofLinkedin capture the change in mood of the once buttoned-down social network. There are bosses who pride themselves on being innovative leaders for instituting company policies such as no raises. There are sharers who divulge too much about their personal lives on the platform, such as divorces, exotic vacations and, in at least one case, five lessons on principles from the days when the CEO of an employee of ‘Start-up Slept With Employee’s Wife “In Retaliation For My Reluctance About Him At Work.” Last week, Ryan Salame, former co-CEO of FTX, posted, ironically, one of LinkedIn’s typical new job updates: “I’m happy to announce that I’m starting a new inmate position at FCI Cumberland! (His profile is no longer available.) Salame is serving seven years in prison in Maryland for campaign finance fraud.

Workplace humor is a very common trope. “Office Space” remains a cult classic for its wry commentary on micromanaging bosses, long commutes and the catharsis of getting revenge on the printer for another paper jam. “The Office” was a vision of corporate life with a jester as a boss — it was both cringe-worthy and redemptive. Maybe work can being a family, we’re almost convinced of that after many seasons of watching Michael Scott yearn for bonding and blossoming romances in the workplace. Fittingly, “The Office” was the most streamed show of 2020. Confined at home, America was nostalgic for a more seductive vision of office life. Post-pandemic, workplace humor has taken a much sharper turn.

Today, instead of poking fun at the banalities of office life or an eccentric boss, LinkedIn comedians like Cheng take aim at the ego and tone-deafness of their CEOs. They question company loyalty, tough mindset, and other ideals that have long been the hallmarks of a reliable worker — it’s not just about having “a Monday deal “.

Cheng says he has never worked in a company; he has always been a comedian and an online poker player. “I’ve always been against corporate structures,” he said. “I never respected the people who rose up in these structures.” But since he started using LinkedIn for comedy, he’s seen a bigger change. The pandemic has led more people to think that “nothing means nothing,” Cheng said. We live in a world of anti-work culture fueled by post-pandemic changes that have caused people to reevaluate their priorities and their relationship to work. Viral posts about bad bosses have pushed anti-work sentiment, previously a more niche idea, into the mainstream in 2021. In a 2023 Gallup survey, only a third of American workers reported feeling involved in their workplace. work, compared to 40% in 2021. 2020. But in a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, only 11% of workers said they were dissatisfied with their boss, while 26% said they were dissatisfied with their pay. Books like “Work Won’t Love You Back” and “The Good Enough Job”, published in 2021 and 2023 respectively, have been popular. Workplace trends such as the “Great Resignation” and “quiet resignation” highlight a refusal to work in exploitative conditions for unfair wages and a rejection of the drudgery of power.

And the dynamic of corporate trolling is gaining momentum. John Mulaney roasted Salesforce employees when they were hired to perform at the company’s annual Dreamforce event in September. “Some of the most vague terms ever conceived have been used here over the last three days,” Mulaney said. “The fact that there are 45,000 ‘pioneers’ here can no longer devalue the title.” It’s a state of mind that is also found on TikTok and on Instagram Reels: comedians do sketches about their daily work in front of computers. And critiques are increasingly tackling topics related to the greater value that business and work have in our lives.

It’s not “Dilbert.” It’s the chore of finding work in this economy and not really understanding what this economy expects of you. Jason Roeder

But that snark, usually found on X, has seeped into LinkedIn, a much rosier and more serious platform. “The environment is not set up for it at all,” Jason Roeder, a Los Angeles comedy writer and former editor-in-chief of The Onion, said of the marriage between comedy and LinkedIn. “People kind of imposed themselves.”

He is one of those people. Roeder left X and started writing joke articles on LinkedIn about a year ago, he said, after becoming “disillusioned” with what who attempt to be helpful, without understanding that it is satirizing the platform and the employment climate itself. “I almost find it nice to post something absurd, when someone comes along with helpful tips and resources,” Roeder said. This kind of seriousness is as much a part of LinkedIn as inspirational bragging. LinkedIn posts can reveal as much about one person’s difficulty finding work as another’s vaunted success. “It’s not ‘Dilbert,'” Roeder added. “It’s the chore of finding work in this economy without really understanding what this economy expects of you.”

LinkedIn’s relationship with jokes is complicated. The platform focuses on promoting “knowledge” content, or posts offering advice and information. But as Daniel Roth, editor-in-chief of LinkedIn, said, content creators must find a balance while showcasing their productivity: Followers “also want to see your personality – that you can have fun while doing both . Work doesn’t have to be a duty.

Disjointed LinkedIn content needs to reach some sort of tipping point. It’s unlikely that comedy can become a staple of the platform in the same way that “shitposting” thrives on X and Reddit, or that comedians in sketches do on TikTok – LinkedIn lends itself to niche humor on office culture and remote work. The occasional laugh to interrupt a stream of job searching and brownnosing is refreshing, but being funny on LinkedIn ultimately serves the platform’s core purposes: self-promotion and networking. Cheng said the posts helped him land comedy gigs, but they also unlocked new work on the platform itself: as a ghostwriter on LinkedIn for executives. He tries, writing in his snappy style but with the more sober musings of a real CEO, he said. Maybe not everyone gets the joke. But some see what he’s built and they crave that same influence on LinkedIn.

Amanda Hoover is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, covering the technology industry. She writes about the biggest companies and technology trends.