How to Spot LLM Slop on LinkedIn (And Save Your Brain Cells)
Let’s be honest – LinkedIn has become a landfill of AI-generated drivel dressed up as thought leadership. It’s like someone fed a Hallmark card, a TED talk, and a motivational Instagram page into ChatGPT and clicked “Post.”
If you've been getting the ick from LinkedIn posts and couldn't quite put your finger on why, this is it. You're reading LLM slop. Here's how to spot it before it melts your frontal lobe.
1. The M-Dash Mic Drop
You’re not just scaling your business – you’re unlocking your potential.
That’s not insight. That’s syntax cosplay. GPT loves the dramatic m-dash like a 13-year-old loves eyeliner. It pauses – for effect – but the effect is nothing.
If you see that rhythm once or twice, fine. But when every second sentence is performing a one-act play with a m-dash, you’re in AI land.
2. Symmetrical False Contrasts
This isn’t just marketing. This is storytelling.
It’s not leadership. It’s influence.
If it sounds like it was written by a committee of LinkedIn coaches and a thesaurus, it probably was – or worse, it was generated. LLMs are obsessed with these X-not-X sentence structures because they feel profound while saying literally nothing.
3. The Holy Trinity List Format
Clarity. Confidence. Courage.
Work smarter. Move faster. Win bigger.
If the post reads like it was trying to win a slogan contest, that’s another GPT tell. Humans don’t naturally write in triple threat clichés. GPT does. Constantly. Because it’s been trained on them.
4. Emojis as Emotional Crutches
Let’s gooooo 🚀
Massive thanks 🙏
So proud of this team 🔥
When a post reads like it was written by a 12-year-old on their first Canva binge, assume it’s either AI, or a person who uses AI like a crutch. Either way, your time is better spent watching paint dry.
5. Over-Explained Emotions
I felt a wave of nostalgia – the kind that makes your chest ache with memories of simpler times.
Humans don’t narrate their feelings like that unless they’re trying to sell you a mindfulness retreat. GPT can’t help but overshare because it doesn’t understand emotional restraint. It thinks emotion = exposition.
6. Motivational Slop Masquerading as Wisdom
Everyone has a story.
You’re stronger than you think.
At the end of the day, it’s about connection.
No, Karen. It’s about engagement farming.
If it feels like a phrase you’d find stenciled on a kitchen wall or tattooed on someone’s ribcage, it probably came from GPT or someone terminally online.
7. The Staccato Sob Story
I walked out. Alone.
No job. No plan. Just hope.
GPT loves this cinematic staccato because it mimics dramatic tension. But it’s fake grit. Real life isn’t an ad for Squarespace.
8. The Corporate Ted Talk Tone
What if we stopped thinking in silos? What if we reimagined work? What if…
Shut up. Just say the thing. If your post reads like a trailer for a tech conference nobody wants to attend, it's 90% chance AI, 10% chance someone who thinks slide decks are a personality.
The TL;DR:
If it sounds like every other post, has perfect rhythm, says nothing new, and leaves you feeling vaguely manipulated – it’s probably LLM slop.
You’re not crazy. Your brain is just allergic to synthetic insight. Trust the cringe.
If you see a post like this, do the world a favour: don’t comment. Don’t like. Don’t share. Let it die in the algorithmic wasteland where it belongs.
That’s how we win… or maybe not. The world is going LLM and maybe its the future, just cut out the em dashes and emojis unless you are a 12 year old girl.
Here's a link to my custom GPT as well that you can use. Just copy and paste the content in, and it will tell you how likely it was that it was GPT-assisted. Pretty much all my feed is LLM-assisted nowadays.
Ben Luong is a technical marketing consultant who operates where AI falls short. In a world flooded with cheap, mediocre code and automated strategies, he provides the expert integration, verification, and strategic accountability required to make modern marketing stacks profitable. He specialises in architecting Google Ads, SEO, and GA4 into a single, high-performance system that is accountable to the bottom line.