The worst thing about summer on social media (LinkedIn, in particular), is that the self-indulgent modern-day philosopher posts you see in the other three seasons of the calendar year are even more prominent and even more unbearable now that everyone finds themselves with a week off work. The sun comes out, and so does the sap. ‘Content creators’ from around the platform regale us with key insights that let us know not only how #HashtagBlessed they are after a week on a sun lounger, but also how keen they are for everyone else to aspire to (envy) their level of centred, successful serenity.

For the purposes of brevity, hard-hitting hilarity, and the opportunity to step back and allow you – my dear readers – to regale me with your own stomach-turning, eye-rolling experiences of summer social media posts, I’ll stick with the main seven that make me wonder where the heady days have gone whereby documenting your summer meant taking random single-shutter snaps on a disposable Kodak from Boots (that wouldn’t turn up again ’til October).

So here they are – 7 summer social posts more painful than sunstroke.

1. Holiday announcements. Thanks to your insurance-invalidating advertising campaign to announce that your usual residence is lying vacant for the next week, have a word with yourself and realise that people on LinkedIn can feel free to go round to your house and rob you whilst you’re away, right? I’ll admit that they’re a slightly better class of criminal than the opportunists on Facebook, but still, you’ve just told a bunch of sodding strangers on the internet a) where you are, and b) where you definitely are not.
2. New best mates. Tell me you travelled thousands of miles to the other side of the world to escape it all, see different cultures, and experience new ways of life, and then tell me you spent half your time selfie-ing in an Irish pub with some loser who lives three miles down the fucking road from you back home, and you disappoint me. Sure, a coincidence is fun, and there’s warmth, camaraderie, and humour in familiarity, but if I wanted to spend all of my hard-earned holiday time becoming bezzie mates with Wayne from Westhoughton, I’d have saved myself some cash and gone all-inclusive down The White Horse.
3. Hotdog legs. I mean, if the impressive summer scenery you’re hoping to make us so jealous of is really that lush (and it IS lush, I agree), why spoil it by blotting out the middle two sixths of the snap with your lightly-browned sausagey limbs? And where did the trend start to take pictures of our legs but not our feet? That’s right, I said it… where the fuck are your feet, people? I get that nobody wants to see a relative stranger’s trotters poking out from their i-phones (I don’t think), but on that level, do they really want to see a view from your crotch, either?
4. Laptops on the beach. AKA, sand in your space bar. Yes, you can ‘work from anywhere’ thanks to ‘the time and freedom’ and whatever guffy stuff we (all) endlessly bleat on about having as business owners, but it doesn’t mean you should. I get that you might not be mentally able to switch off from your work (I know I’m guilty of this), but if you actively choose work over any of the other million things you could be doing in an away-from-home location, during precious free time, with the loved ones you claim to prioritise and hold dear as your ‘why‘, then you’re not on holiday, mate – you’re just working in a slightly more glamorous location than a Regus, And if your clients don’t respect you enough to leave you the hell alone for seven sodding days, then you’re not the kind of business owner most of us find aspirational, I’m sorry to tell you.
5. Hashtag Refreshed? Hashtag Bollocks, I say. Everyone knows that even in the rare event you’ve had a holiday where nobody’s wanted to murder a member of their own family, it’s a given that we come back from said holiday in need of a holiday. No matter how much fun or relaxation you had when you were out there, you come back tired, skint, burnt (but also freezing), up to your tits in laundry, and generally depressed that you’re, well, not on holiday anymore. Don’t lie to me that you’re happy to be back, never mind thrilled about opening a spreadsheet.
6. Lessons allegedly learned. Unless it’s a lesson for a future holiday (eg, ‘Olive oil holds no SPF rating’, ‘Cocktail fishbowls are 40% bleach, 40% backwash, and 20% the reason you’ll end up in A&E, or ‘The world hates English tourists – learn the language and respect the damn culture’, then I’m not interested in what hackneyed, segued, shoehorned learnings you’re allegedly now bringing to your business for the remainder of 2023 (because you know all that bollocks will change anyway in 2024, when you do your obligatory ‘New Year, New Me’ post). It was a trip to Turkey, not a Ted Talk. Have a word with yourself.
7. Announcements of your return. Okay, I admit it, there was a point when you hadn’t posted anything for a whole 17 minutes where we thought you must be dead, but after after the 18th minute, we’d somehow learned how to cope just fine without you. In summary, most people didn’t notice you were gone, but even the ones who did, didn’t care. Don’t let that get in the way of you regaling us with how detoxifying your switch off from social media was, though. So detoxifying, in fact, that the first thing you did to mark the success of the cleanse was to post about it on social media. The fucking irony.

Ugh. Please let the sun set on these kinds of social media posts. I love it when people have nice holidays (we ALL deserve them), but I don’t love it when people use their snaps and stories to tell the world how bloody wonderful they are as human beings and/or business owners. You’re not. You’re merely the same tool you were back home, albeit now with a fabulous tan.