Analysis of LinkedIn's Advertisement "No One Knows What You Do"

In November 2023, LinkedIn, a social media platform built for professionals, released a string of advertisements showing older people in a negative light. One of these ads portrays an older woman, Mrs. Ramos, being interviewed about her son’s job. The intended “humour” of the ad is derived from her believing that her son literally sells clouds. We know that his actual job is in cloud computing and we also know that no sane person would believe cloud salespeople exist. This concept is utterly absurd, ageist, and harmful. The ad plays into the stereotype that older people are technologically inept and suggests their cognitive abilities have declined to the extent that they would believe in the ludicrous idea of selling clouds.

By looking at the appearance of the woman herself, we see further stereotypes used to represent older people. The woman in the ad wears bland clothes that could be seen as outdated. She is wearing glasses to signify that her vision is impaired. She sits slightly hunched over, signifying to the viewer that she may not be taking care of her body. These are all tropes often used in screen media, instilling within the viewer that all older people look like this. Beyond the woman’s appearance, her demeanour contains further ageist tropes common in these ads. She speaks quite slowly with a soft tone of voice and she keeps her hands on top of each other in her lap. These visual cues not only perpetuate ageist stereotypes but also contribute to the normalisation of narrow perceptions of older individuals.

The final remark from Mrs. Ramos that she “shouldn’t have let [her son] play so many video games,” serves as an illustration of another ageist stereotype: the belief among older generations that video games are fundamentally harmful. This stereotype perpetuates the idea that with age comes a disconnect from contemporary society, suggesting a belief that past times were inherently better and that today’s challenges are a direct result of deviating from those ways.

The ad concludes with the tagline “Parents don’t understand B2B. LinkedIn does.” While LinkedIn may understand B2B, they definitely do not understand being inclusive and pro-aging. To add to the damage they had already done by creating and publishing the advertisement, they took a defensive stance, stating that “although Council acknowledged some viewers would find the ads to be distasteful, they considered viewers would likely interpret the ads as light-heartedly suggesting that the acronyms and technical jargon associated with certain IT jobs that did not exist until relatively recently may not be generally understood by the older generation.”¹³ This response exemplifies how lightly society treats ageism, hiding behind guises of humour and not acknowledging the harm that comes with it.

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