‘Some personal news! Delighted to announce I’ll be joining [insert major company] as the new [insert extremely impressive-sounding, well-paid, prestigious job title] this week! It’s been great working at [insert other major, if slightly less gleaming company] but I’m so [insert word denoting excitement or thrill, including “excited” and “thrilled”] at what the future holds! You can find me at [new prestigious institutional email address].’
It is no exaggeration to say that over the past week, half of my Twitter feed has been composed of alerts that follow this exact script. As the trickle thickened to a deluge, I wondered if there was some secret spoof going on. Were they all in on a new year joke? Sadly, a bit of clicking – not least through the dutiful versions of ‘Well done you absolutely totally deserving superstar’ replies – revealed that these posts were sincere.
And therein lies the rub. They are not, in fact, sincere.
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