LinkedIn users are spilling the tea: it turns out a little ‘bro energy’ might be your ticket to viral fame on the platform. In a wild social experiment sweeping the networking site, dozens of fed-up women took matters into their own hands, swapping out their pronouns for are-he/him and loading their profiles with boardroom bravado. The results? Off-the-charts engagement.

Tales are flying: After several viral posts suggested that boosting your ‘male’ presentation unlocks new levels of visibility, a wave of professionals decided to try their luck. Some went further, thickening their bios with words like ‘drive,’ ‘accelerate,’ and ‘transform’ to radiate the kind of alpha attitude that seems to soak up attention online. The payoff, according to participants? Huge jumps in profile views and comment sections suddenly abuzz.

Simone Bonnett, a social media expert from Oxford, tried it and was floored by the results. She overhauled her profile to ‘Simon E’ and switched her pronouns. Suddenly, her profile was hotter than a July sidewalk: “A 1,600% spike in profile views and a 1,300% leap in impressions. It’s absolutely wild!” Bonnett exclaimed, still catching her breath.

Megan Cornish, who crafts communications for mental health tech companies, also dove into the experiment after watching her reach nosedive earlier this year. She flipped her gender setting to male and had ChatGPT transform her profile to use tough-guy terminology (‘strategic,’ ‘leader,’ and other power words). To up the ante, she had the AI rewrite her previous underperforming posts with the same vibe. Almost overnight, she saw her visibility on LinkedIn explode—a whopping 415% surge in reach, with a single post racking up nearly 5,000 reactions.

But there’s a twist: the aggressive persona didn’t sit well. Cornish confessed that her usual voice was sharp but kind, ‘warm and human.’ Her new posts felt brash, assertive—a total ‘white male swagger’ takeover. Despite the viral boost, Cornish packed it in after a week, admitting she just couldn’t stand the daily dose of bro bravado.

So, what’s going on? Many suspect LinkedIn’s secret sauce—the algorithm—might just be playing favorites with testosterone-fueled lingo. LinkedIn officially responded in a Thursday blog post, stating that their system isn’t programmed to favor certain demographic info, and that ‘hundreds of signals’ drive which posts rise or fall. A company spokesperson insisted, ‘Switching your gender doesn’t change how your content appears in feeds or searches.’

Yet, with more and more real-world stories piling up, some can’t help but wonder if the LinkedIn spotlight really does shine a little brighter when you’re sporting a stiff upper lip and bro-coded buzzwords. The debate continues—and for some, it might just be time to channel their inner Simon (or not!) to rule the networking jungle.