A CEO Went Viral For Posting A Crying Selfie To LinkedIn After Laying Off Employees

August 11, 2022 / Posted by: Emily

Braden Wallake is the CEO of HyperSocial, a marketing services firm in Columbus, Ohio. Mashable reports that recently, Braden laid off a few of his employees. This made him sad. So sad that he actually shed tears. But it’s what Braden did next that made him go viral: he posted a crying selfie on LinkedIn and wrote about how guilty he felt: “Days like today, I wish I was a business owner that was only money driven and didn’t care about who he hurt along the way. But I’m not.” Braden says that he just wants people to see that not every CEO is cold-hearted. Exactly! Some are emotionally manipulative doofuses who get off on playing the victim.

Braden’s woe-is-me post gained more than 29,000 reactions and 5,000 comments on LinkedIn. It also went viral on Twitter and Reddit. A few comments were supportive (well, on LinkedIn), many were angry, but the vast majority were fully cringed out. Here’s Braden’s tone-deaf post:

here it is, pure cringe pic.twitter.com/VYbqH7VATd

— LinkedinFlex (Parody) (@LinkedinFlex) August 11, 2022

And here are some Twitter reactions:

Just saw a selfie of a CEO crying…

He had to let his team go.

This is why personal branding sucks.

Instead of making it about his employees by sharing links to their profile so we could help them find a new job.

He managed to make it all about himself.

Only on Linkedin.

— Joel Lalgee (@Humanheadhunter) August 10, 2022

Linkedin is unintentionally the funniest social media platform.

CEO posts picture of himself crying because of layoffs.

Goes viral.

Gets clowned for adopting a sea lion during a recession lmao pic.twitter.com/HcnS0o1iJk

— Jack Raines (@Jack_Raines) August 10, 2022

Oh right, the sea lion/otter thing. Some LinkedIn guy named Jared Steele commented, “Maybe it’s not a great idea to adopt a sea lion at the beginning of a recession?”, and posted a screenshot of Braden’s adoption certificate for a sea otter. Not a sea lion. Otter. Lest you think Braden is some billionaire Dr. Moreau-type who collects exotic animals, adopting a sea otter from the World Wildlife Fund doesn’t actually mean you physically adopt the animal. It just means you’re donating to the charity. So, actually Jared, that’s stupid. In fact, everyone in this story is stupid! Except for the poor souls who actually got laid off. The pity Braden was fishing for is rightfully theirs!

I stopped using LinkedIn several years ago when I stalked some Tinder guy I was about to go on a first date with. I’d scrolled alllll the way down to his high school work history before I suddenly remembered that he could see who viewed his profile! I panicked and deleted my whole account. I don’t remember how the date went. Probably bad.

Pic: LinkedIn

Tags: Cry Me A River, Social Media Shit, Woe Is You

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