ACT: 1

Is LinkedIn Stealing Your Money? | The Most Brilliant CON In History! The Con Artist’s Formula A con artist will usually sell you a shortcut to 3 things: wealth, health or happiness. In the case of LinkedIn, they are selling you all 3. The very fact that you signed up and created an account suggests you want 1 of these things. Whether you want a new job, more money or more clients, you’re more likely to be sold on their premium service. And why wouldn’t you pay for it? You want a leg up on the competition, don’t you? You want to be taken seriously by the jobs you apply for, right? I mean, just look at all those perks they offer! Who could blame you? What you’re experiencing right here is called Decision Fatigue. Psychological trickery that LinkedIn uses to influence that premium purchase. The most powerful trick LinkedIn has in its arsenal is its User Interface (UI). The #1 Goal of LinkedIn’s UI is to get you hooked on the platform. To do this, LinkedIn implements another psychological tactic on its users called Wishful Identification. Under the guise of a social networking platform and a corporate portfolio, users are bombarded with images, profiles and descriptions of similar users in wealthy and successful positions.……… Skip ahead a bit. LinkedIn knows it’s overcharging for its Minimal Viable Product (MVP). To work around this, they strategically limited the features a free user can access. LinkedIn does this to preempt any objection you might have on paying for that premium service. See, unlike other social networking platforms that generate their revenue through ads, LinkedIn is unique in that it charges its users for the full array of services. You might say, “Andy, those are totally normal business practices for a company to do.” And I totally agree with you, but we haven’t even gotten to the juicy part yet. Have you ever noticed how LinkedIn shows you exactly how many applications a company has received since the initial job posting? Or the 1-Click Apply feature? You might argue that this is valuable information and a Quality of Life Improvement (QLI) designed to make things easier for the user. Well, yes and no! I’d argue these features are there to create artificial scarcity in high-dense areas. As we go along and continue to expose these manipulative and unethical practices, you will begin to see exactly why I just made that claim. See, getting scammed has less to do with how intelligent you are, but more about where you are in life. The problem is that LinkedIn uniquely targets college graduates by feeding on the very real need for these grads to find a job and make money. Many of whom have an average student-loan debt of $29,900 in a $1.56 trillion-dollar student-debt bubble.

THAT’S JUST THE BEGINNING | IT GETS WORSE FROM HERE

ACT: 2

Selling Access Too A Dream Culturally LinkedIn has become a networking hub that is pushed onto students and graduates as a means to help them navigate the scary world of adulthood and responsibility. As of April 10, 2020, 87 million millennials use LinkedIn with 51% of U.S. graduates using the site. I really hope you can begin to see the problem here. LinkedIn has built a system that charges unemployed, in-debt, college graduates $29.99-$59.99 per month to access the full features of their site, in order for those individuals to have an “improved” chance of getting hired. Again, any objection you might’ve had to those prices has already been overcome with the false perception that a job is just one click away. The only grimy thing LinkedIn hasn’t done is have its price scheme end in a 7. Now I’ll address that claim I previously made regarding artificial scarcity. See, LinkedIn wants it to seem like all these job listings have “value” and that they “really” are only “one click away”. THEY DON’T! You at one time or another have spent all day sending out applications. 100 at a time maybe. It’s all part of the con. When you do this, you feed those application totals. So why show the totals? To discourage you from applying for those high-total jobs. And why is that you ask? Here it is! It’s because the second you give LinkedIn your money, all the responsibility falls on you to find that job. When you buy that premium service and it doesn’t work for you, LinkedIn wants to make damn sure it’s not them that’s blamed. They want you to think that you are entirely responsible for that failure. Whether it’s because you never got a call for an interview, or that your interview didn’t go quite as hoped or you just simply didn’t get hired. They want you telling yourself that: “it’s my fault this didn’t work” “I didn’t put enough work in” “I didn’t send out enough applications” All so you know that it is 100% YOUR FAULT the premium service didn’t work. The Truth After a month or two of trying, are you any closer to getting hired? Possibly? Maybe you give it another go? Maybe this month will be different, you tell yourself. Feeling anxious, you pay for another month. You’ve now dug yourself deeper into the con. Once again, it is entirely up to you whether or not YOU succeed or fail. Remember, hard work is all it takes your friends and family will cheer with encouragement. In tears from the student-loan debt and joblessness you question yourself more and more and more. Your tears turn to anger as you try to rationalize why you’re not getting what was promised. You ask yourself if you received a worthwhile degree, I mean you just paid all this money for that piece of paper, right? You get angrier and angrier as you look for answers to these questions. Eventually your anger subsides and you’re left with a mix of sadness and loneliness. Do I give up, you ask yourself in the back of your mind? No, I shout with a breath of strength. I’m strong! I can do this! Society has taught me to NEVER quit and that hard work ALWAYS pays off. It’s been ingrained in my head since birth. Alright I proclaim, tomorrow is the day! Tomorrow I get on LinkedIn first thing in the morning and spend all day sending out more applications and making more connections. As you lay in bed, a sense of encouragement fills your soul. I know I can do this you repeat to yourself with excitement. Tomorrow is the day.

ACT: 3

The Money Funnel Once the system was built and the social-media aspect of the site began to grow, well… JOB COMPLETE! We just created a self-feeding money funnel that prays on hopeful and eager college grads with the simple dream of getting a job and starting their life. The genius part is that no one suspects a thing. Everyone is too stupid to even think they’re getting conned by a strategy this brilliant! We’ve got you morons in our pocket. We own the media so everything you watch is carefully fed to you like cattle. Oh, you thought you had freedom of thought? WRONG! How stupid of you to even think that! We own the media corporations who have you distracted with the fakest, most-made-up news in our attempt to race-bate you against each other! Even funnier is you morons are too blind to see what we’re doing to you! We’ve been doing this to you for years! For decades! Brainwashing you very carefully from birth. Why do you think your school systems are in shambles? IDIOTS! It’s because we want them in shambles! That way you can’t think for yourself. That way we can steer you whatever way we want! What virus should we dump on the public? What form of social engineering should we push on these brain-dead sheep? Who The Fuck Cares! They’ll buy whatever we’re selling them. The easiest part is… WE’RE SELLING THEM A DREAM. Conclusion Is LinkedIn the most brilliant con in history? The problem is that even if you think LinkedIn is justified in what they’re doing as a business, it’s wrong on so many moral levels. This system we have in place continues to churn out graduates who can’t think critically, don’t have any skills and are extremely entitled. When you graduate, YES, you should work hard, but you should also aspire to be more than a cog in the wheel. Aspire for the stars again! Dream about going into Space! Turn the TV off and spend time with your loved ones. Life is short and we don’t get second chances at it. Credits Director…Andrew E. Terrell Writer & Editor…Andrew E. Terrell

Lead Cast…LinkedIn Supporting Cast…YOU, The Reader

Thank You Congratulations to those that made it to the end! I hope my story has challenged you to think critically about the world. For those seeking more, I have created a Making-Of: Bonus Feature that details some of the hidden gems scattered throughout the story.

THE MAKING-OF: BONUS FEATURE University Education: Communication Major | Summa Cum Laude Rhetorical Devices: ETHOS | PATHOS | LOGOS Story Setup | Movie Setup | Three-Act Structure Chapter 1) The Con Artist’s Formula = The Formula Chapter 2) Selling Access Too A Dream = The Crime Chapter 3) The Truth = The Victim Chapter 4) The Money Funnel = The Villain Chapter 5) Conclusion = The Finale Act 1: The Formula | Act 2: The Victim | Act 3: The Mastermind Meta Commentary • College graduate exposing a site designed to help employ college graduates • Former journalist exposing an absence of genuine journalists Thematic Storytelling Elements • The story is written as a Dramatic Dialogue in which I shift Narrative Point of View to

capture and keep the reader’s attention as I push them through the story. • The story is written with an Active Protagonist. The story’s Protagonist is the reader. • The story is written as a Persuasive Argument, during which, I “Agitate the Problem” to

bridge the gap between Logos and Pathos for the reader. • I intentionally wrote a sales pitch into the story despite it conflicting with the Theme. • As my writing escalates in language so do the Emotions, Obstacles and Tension. • The Truth & The Money Funnel are emotional roller coasters ending in Dramatic Irony. • The Truth includes the 5 Stages of Grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. • The Foreshadowing I setup in Selling Access Too A Dream is Paid Off in The Money Funnel. • “Tomorrow is the day” is a Repetitive Device meant to project anxiety and unease. • I create Narrative Cohesion with the following: “It’s been ingrained in my head since birth,”

in The Truth and “Brainwashing you very carefully from birth,” in The Money Funnel. • The Internal and External Conflicts are exasperated in The Truth |the Rising Action. The

Money Funnel features the Climax, the Falling Action and arguably the Catastrophe. Conclusion includes the Denouement,

• Conclusion ends with me selling the reader a dream about going into Space, which is, in essence, “to dream of something beyond this Earth!”

• The whole story is Analogous to The Deep State and being stuck in The Matrix. • The narrative itself acts as a Plot-Twist. Each chapter containing a profound truth meant to

“red pill” the reader.