LinkedIn is full of narcissists and I have the data to prove them.
It all started when I would become viral on LinkedIn. Instead of just guessing what could work, I took a data -driven approach, scraped posts and analyzed what drives commitment. What I discovered was surprising (and depressing): The most successful posts are overwhelmingly self -centered, with people who talked about themselves in allegedly “inspiring” ways.
Instead of participating in the self -evident parade, I decided to call it out. I built the viral post generator, a tool that automatically creates eye -rolling posts, making the formula painfully visible to everyone. In a lovely vri of irony, this tool that spotted viral content went viral.
In this post, I will share how it happened and what I learned about product marketing, distribution and modern virality along the way.
The birth of the viral post generator
About two and a half years ago, I decided I would go viral on LinkedIn. That was my goal: Writing a post that would start. Of course, I started to wonder what really makes a LinkedIn post to become viral in the first place.
So I did what every curious marketing employee would do. I scraped over 200,000 positions and filtered them based on engagement metrics to identify different patterns among the most successful. I specifically checked if keywords made them become viral. After analyzing all this data, it was pretty obvious what happened.
These viral positions all followed the same formula. The LinkedIn user shared a personal story with lots of dramatic heights and low, giving VAGE advice to “hang in there” or “believe in yourself.”
This insight led me to create the viral post generator, a parodial tool that generates the Cringeworthy LinkedIn positions based on minimal input. The concept was simple:
- Tell the generator what you did today.
- Add any “inspiring” advice.
- Choose a cringe level (low to high).
- Get a perfectly designed viral post that mimics the exact patterns of successful LinkedIn content.
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The technical approach was straightforward, especially according to today’s standards. This was before chatgpt rolled out to the public. Using the most viral positions of all time as inspiration, I created about 50-100 templates to serve as a foundation.
For the interactive element, an AWS library provided natural language processing to analyze user inputs, match them with the right template and even adjust the text slightly to fit the sentence structure. The whole project came together on the adalo platform without code, proving that deep technical skills are not needed to create something that really resonates with people.
How a parody tool actually became viral
After building a tool that parodied viral content, my next challenge was to get people to use it. The first launch fell completely flat. After sharing the viral post generator across X, LinkedIn and Reddit, all I heard was crickets. No one seemed interested.
This first failure taught me a crucial lesson: Having a good product is not enough. Distribution strategy makes all the difference.
By turning tactics, I began to feel profiles on social media that regularly criticized LinkedIn’s culture for self -promotion. By placing the tool as “inspired by them” (despite never interacting with these accounts before), these larger accounts began to share my product, giving me immediate access to their established audience.
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At Reddit, my positions were originally facing deletion for promotional violations. By reshaping the conversation to involve society, telling them that I created the tool for them and invited them to share their best creations, these limitations are transformed into opportunities for engagement.
People who feel they helped trigger an idea are much more likely to support it. By giving people credit I gave them a reason to share what I had built. It was one of the most effective ways I found to reach the audience that I would never have access to as a newcomer.
When acquisition comes and knocks
When the viral post generator started starting, I got a message from the founder of Taplio, a platform that helps users grow their LinkedIn presence. He saw the potential of the tool as a brand awareness play and would acquire it.
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At first I wasn’t sure. There was something incredibly satisfying about building something that had my name on it. But as traffic began to slow down and the reality of maintaining momentum kicked in, the offer began to look more appealing. I was tired. Keeping the tool alive meant constantly promoting it – placing, answering and finding new ways to keep people interested.
Behind the scenes, the technical pressure was even more intense. Sleepless nights became the norm when I was constantly worried about the place crashing, while thousands of visitors actively used it. As a solo creator without a support team, the stress of being “internet famous” had quickly lost its charm.
After weighing these factors, I cited what I considered a high acquisition award. The Taplio founder fell immediately and not even offered a counter offer. Instead, we agreed on a 24-hour test: I will include an ad for taplio in my generator to measure its brand awareness value before I decided a reasonable price.
The viral push at the last minute
When the 24-hour window started, I noticed that our numbers fell. I needed one last shot to do this work. I thought, “Where haven’t I tried to send yet?” I remembered that there is a subbreddit called R/Internetisbeautiful, where people share cool new tools they find online.
I posted there and it immediately jumped up. Someone saw my post on Reddit and shared it on X. That post got crazy viral. Within hours, it hit 22 million people and nearly 180,000 likes. It was completely unexpected.
The chain reaction was intensified when Reddit’s official accounts began sharing the tool. Instagram pages with millions of followers picked it up, and thousands of users started sending about it across social platforms. In a single day, the generator reached 1.4 million users who created and shared their parodiposter.
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Then came the technical nightmare. For many contemporary visitors not only crashed my tool but the whole hosting platform. An Adalo employee later confirmed that their system decreased specifically due to the traffic wave to my generator. After several tense hours, everything came back online and the flood of users continued unabated.
When our 24-hour test was completed, the taplio founder didn’t even try to negotiate. He simply accepted my original request price – a clear indication that I could have asked for more. But at that time I was ready to close the chapter. What had begun as a weekend project had transformed into an acquisition of success story in just seven breathless days.
Ubundling of mouth-to-mouth
In addition to the acquisition, this experience revealed something in -depth about how content is spreading in today’s digital landscape. Our conventional understanding of virality, a person who tells two people who each tell two more, have become obsolete.
What I call “word-of-slack” and “word-of-whatsapp.” True virality now occurs in private messaging platforms and closed communities, not on public feeds on social media.
Modern mouth-to-mouth has fragmented to what I call “word-of-slack” and “word-of-whatsapp.” True virality now occurs in private messaging platforms and closed communities, not on public feeds on social media. This insight basically changed my approach to designing divisible experiences.
When I built the generator, I don’t bother with the social sharing buttons that no one clicks anyway. Instead, I just wrote, “Take a screenshot and share it.” Simple as that. I made it so users couldn’t copy the text directly. They had to take screens.
This was one of the best decisions I made. When people took screens, they also grabbed my yellow background and watermark. They could share them wherever they wanted, in their group chats, relax channels or DMS. My branding joined the tour. This simple approach worked far better than smart to share widgets could ever have.
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Analysis after launch confirmed that private channels ran the majority of new users. By designing for these intimate sharing contexts rather than public platforms, the tool exponentially achieved greater reach than conventional social media strategies could have provided.
Amazon -Access to Product Development
Amazon has a brilliant framework for developing new products and features. Their teams start with the press release in mind, literally to write up what they imagine that TechCrunch or Business Insider heading may be before writing a single code line.
This “working back” approach forces creators to focus on what makes a product news -worthy. Instead of trying to find out what features to develop and how to build them, the Amazon team starts from the end: The headline that will advertise the product. Only after they have clearly imagined this message do they work backwards to develop it.
For the viral post generator, I used this exact approach. Before development, I saw to me how technical publications could cover a tool that parodied LinkedIn’s self -promotion culture. This mental exercise clarified what to build and why people would care enough to share it.
The coverage that eventually came from Business Insider, The Guardian and Buzzfeed followed patterns noticeable that look like what I had imagined – not by chance, but because I deliberately created something designed to provoke a particular conversation.
By starting with the headline you hope to earn, you create a North Star that guides any development decision against a product worth this coverage.
Tapping for shared experience
Despite all the technical aspects behind the success of my generator, real magic came from tapping into something deeply human. I associated with a daily frustration that LinkedIn subject people experienced, but rarely discussed openly.
What I created was not just a parodial tool. It was permission to laugh at something we all found ridiculous, but still continued to participate in. I never forget to see people’s reactions when they used it: “Yes! Someone finally said it!” The moment of recognition created a connection that was far more potent than any technical function could have.
This emotional element explains why my project spread so quickly. People who feel understood don’t just use your product. They advocate it. I learned something huge of all this: Great Marketing is not about solving problems or adding features. It’s about making people feel seen.
In a world where everyone is fighting for attention, it is sometimes the best strategy not the highest or most pioneering. It is to be the one who puts words to what everyone has thought all the time.