An acquaintance recently bought an apartment in a fancy Swiss ski resort. I know because he sent me a message on LinkedIn to “give some news” and ask how I was doing. He also included a link to the Airbnb listing of his apartment. Just in case.
He’s shameless.
I don’t know him well; we saw each other a few times five years ago. That’s all. Yet he thinks it’s all right to pollute my mental space with his commercial offer.
Where I come from, we consider this behavior rude.
It might be OK if I had recently expressed interest in skiing in Switzerland. But I did not, and he would not know about it anyway because we are NOT in contact.
I see people like this at work all the time. They’re the ones who constantly complain about their projects and demand to have better ones. They ask their managers for a raise until they win their case. They go talk to the big boss about their future in the company any time they can.
And because they ask, it works.
Shameless people get the promotions, the money, and the fancy projects
In some way, it makes sense. If someone’s shameless enough to ask for a position for which they’re barely qualified, it means they’re likely shameless enough to call a prospect seventy times until they become a client.
They’re also likelier to have no qualms about firing 10% of their workforce while saying people are the company’s biggest asset.
Being shameless is a competitive advantage.
Globalization and social media favor the shameless
Without LinkedIn, it wouldn’t be so easy for my “friend” to pollute my mental space. In our modern world, he can copy-paste his message and send it to 600 contacts in less than one hour.
In small groups, it’s easier to identify the shameless and tell them to keep it down.
In a classroom of ten, you can tell one of the students to stop answering so that others will have their chance. In a classroom of fifty, you can’t do that efficiently.
We don’t live in small local neighborhoods anymore, we’re much more globalized and interconnected.
That’s why the shameless have many more opportunities.
What can we do about it?
There are three main actions we can take in the context of our modern society.
#1 Be a little more shameless
For most of us, being more shameless would be beneficial. We would be more likely to share our desires and communicate with our partners. Our bosses would be more aware of our hard work and wouldn’t forget to give us a raise or an exciting opportunity.
And we would be more inclined to negotiate better deals.
For example, we would reply to our Swiss-real-estate-loving friend, “It’s so good to hear from you, and your apartment looks fabulous. Could you give us a 43% discount in memory of all the good times we spent together?”
#2 Call the shameless out
The advantage of living in a village is that if someone takes advantage of another person, everybody will learn about it. It forces the shameless to have some restraint.
In our globalized world, this effect doesn’t exist.
The shameless can always find new clueless people to scam.
If we were more vocal, they would be less likely to act as they do. For example, if we all wrote to our elected representatives to remind them that insider trading is against the law and simply not decent, it would be easier for them to resist the temptation.
#3 Subscribe to people like me
Following me and subscribing to my Substack would give you more exposure to well-thought-out articles and less to bullshit infomercials about ski resorts in Switzerland.
You see what I did here, of course.
My grandma, who, understandably, is older-school, said that asking for a tip on my ko-fi account would be too much. But I didn’t follow her advice for once and left the link. I’m a bit ashamed to ask for money, but it would mean more possibilities to share my message. And I think it’s one worth sharing.
You’ll be the judge.
On Substack, the shameless thing to do is to self-like and self-comment your articles to give your readers the illusion of social proof and make them more likely to like and comment.
It's hard to be the first to like and comment.
Is it shameless to help my readers?
I don't think so.
I can see why I don't succeed online so much- I am the opposite of shameless.