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This Guy Is Trolling People On LinkedIn With Ridiculous Posts And People Love And Hate It

Cheng has turned the platform on its head with extremely viral posts seemingly promoting the hustle culture, but infused with an unexpectedly dark, humorous twist.

Sofia Hou

11 Jul 2025 — 7 min read

LinkedIn, the social media platform focused on networking and job updates, is flooded with polished professional announcements where one's colleagues and acquaintances are always promoting and celebrating their latest accomplishments.

Sometimes, the pressure to impress future employers or pretend you love your job a little too much can be more than a bit soul-sucking.

But for Ken Cheng, a comedian based in London, LinkedIn offered something completely different.

With no one to impress but himself, Cheng has turned the platform on its head with extremely viral posts seemingly promoting the hustle culture that has come to define the platform, but infused with an unexpectedly dark, humorous twist.

According to his LinkedIn posts, Cheng has put candidates through five rounds of interviews with absolutely no intention of hiring them, gave a job to a thief who stole sandwiches from a cafe and purposefully underpaid his employees and even friends who he is indebted to — all for the sole purpose of getting ahead in his work and career.

His posts have sparked heated and divisive debates, with some people taking them 100% seriously and calling him out for being a bad boss or employee, to others who simply appreciate the break from the daily grind.

Almost spoke with Chen, who has now racked up more than 170,000 followers on the platform, about what it's like to become something of a LinkedIn influencer. Read the full interview here:

1. How did you start comedy?

I got into comedy largely by accident. I went to a gig and they had some signup sheets to perform at the back and I did it on a whim. I don't think I ever wanted to be a comedian until that moment but I did the gig and it went well enough I didn't quit forever.

My LinkedIn posting started fairly organically - I got it because I had zero need for it as a comedian, but thought it was quite funny to then post things that absolutely no one would post on there. I could write things with absolutely no consequence to my career. It was never the plan for it to be a serious part of my comedy, but my posts started getting big reach over the last year.

I didn't really choose LinkedIn, it sort of chose me. But I guess comedy and all art is trying things and seeing what happens, and what's happened with my LinkedIn was very much not expected. Once I started picking up momentum, I got a lot of positive feedback from people in messages and comments, so I just followed that impetus. It was never a thought out strategy, but you see where the laughter is and you chase it.

4. Talk us through your process. How do you come up with the ideas for your LinkedIn posts?

Usually I start with just one central idea or a first line, and write from there. Like, I'll say, "I want to do a post about paying my plumber in exposure." Or I'll have the first line of "My stepdaughter tried to poison me. I hired her." Usually a really strong core concept is enough to get going, and I just start writing each next logical step from that starting point. The rest is quite instinctive, and is similar to improv really - I write it in one 5-10 minute window for the most part and to make sure it flows well.

How I come up with the central idea is probably harder, but usually I just try to think of really stupid absurd statements or ideas that have a basis within the modern world. Like, the one I did about charging my friend with insulin as a teenager, came from wanting to send up the very idea of selling insulin being at all ok. It will always start because I want to make fun of some kind of business philosophy and dialing that up to eleven.

5. What is the secret to going viral on LinkedIn? What have you found works best for the platform?

The secret to going viral on LinkedIn is simply being the funniest person on LinkedIn. I'm only half-joking. I gain followers and get likes because my posts make people laugh, and I've managed to keep up the quality several times a week for several months. Though I'm lucky in some senses that there is almost nobody else doing this and I'm competing against po-faced self-promoters who most people hate and see through.

There's ultimately no secret or formula to it. Just do good posts. Obviously I say that but that's not trivial. You have to be a good writer and to be a good writer you have to actually understand people, whether you're doing comedy or not. You have to have an instinct of whether your posts actually provide value to the reader. Luckily, most people on LinkedIn don't understand or care what people want when they click "Post", so your competition is very low.

6. Did you expect to go viral at first?

No I never expected to go viral. I used to do it to a handful of followers and get only likes from some friends, but at some point things started blowing up. A few of my posts got shared and went viral on other platforms. I think when they started being shared on the r/LinkedInLunatics subreddit, that's when it started growing. But even then, I didn't think I'd hit 100k followers then. It was only in the last few months that I realised I was accidentally onto something.

7. How have people online been reacting?

People online are generally very positive about my posts, more so than anything else I've ever done. I get a few nice messages on LinkedIn every day, and they're really enthusiastic. The posts really help break up people's daily scrolling of LinkedIn and is sort of the perfect escape from the drudgery of the business corporate world. Everyone hates their work and their boss and this is sort of catharsis for them to see comedy that basically says "yeah I get it, you're right to think it's bullsh*t". It's only from the feedback that I see how much the content resonates with people on the platform.

8. What do you hope to achieve with your posts?

I don't have an end goal in mind for my LinkedIn - I generally see where things go. With comedy it could all dry up in a second. I'm happy to go along with things. There are definite ways it can and already is helping my comedy career. Not just the followers, but also I've been offered corporate work off the back of it. So that was unexpected and pretty useful.

But in the broader sense I just want to keep up the quality of the content. There are posts I've written that I'm really proud of as just pieces of writing, and it's nice to just produce good art that you like yourself and see that get recognised. So that's always my main goal, make sure the writing stays good and relevant to people.

9. Do you have any advice for young people on LinkedIn?

My advice to all young people on LinkedIn is get off LinkedIn. I don't see why people are on it (my own comedy withstanding). I still don't understand what they gain from using it. That's why, I think, my posts do well, because they're a breath of fresh air in a prison of my audience's own creation. Well, they probably feel it's necessary to be on LinkedIn, but I'm not sure it improves any of their lives? My advice is go out, learn about the world, enjoy life. I've always found a way to do what I'm passionate about in life and I think others can too.