Stuart Todd, a Senior SWE | PHP, Laravel, JS, TS, Vue., recently posted something that made me stop scrolling: "🫡".

That was the whole post. No caption. No context. Just a salute.

And yet it landed: hundreds of likes, a healthy comment thread, and the kind of quiet virality that most long-form posts never reach. Stuart's tiny signal is a useful reminder that on LinkedIn (and honestly anywhere online), communication is not only about information. Sometimes it is about acknowledgement.

In this article, I want to respond to Stuart's one-emoji message and expand the idea behind it: why a minimal post can work, what it communicates, and how to use that kind of content intentionally without turning your feed into empty noise.

What a simple salute actually communicates

A salute is shorthand for something bigger. Depending on the reader and the moment, "🫡" can mean:

Respect: I see you, and I appreciate what you did.
Agreement: You are right, and I am with you.
Support: Keep going.
Solidarity: We are in the same work.
Acknowledgement without debate: I am not here to add takes, just recognition.

That last one matters. Not every moment calls for a hot take or a mini essay. Sometimes the best contribution is to signal presence and respect.

A small acknowledgement can be more human than a perfect paragraph.

Why minimal LinkedIn content can outperform long posts

Stuart Todd's post is a good example of what I think of as low-friction engagement. Readers do not need to parse an argument or assess a claim. They can react immediately because the post is emotionally clear, even if it is semantically open.

Here are a few mechanics at play.

1) It reduces cognitive load

Most feeds are dense. A short, recognizable symbol is fast to process. That speed increases the chance that someone reacts before they scroll past.

2) It invites people to supply their own context

Because the post does not specify a topic, readers map it onto their day:

A tough sprint that just ended
A colleague who shipped something big
A job hunt
A difficult week

Open-ended posts can act like mirrors. People engage because it feels personally relevant.

3) It creates a comment prompt without asking a question

A lot of posts end with "Thoughts?" or "Agree?". A salute can do the same thing more subtly. People reply with their own salutes, interpretations, or quick stories.

4) It signals confidence

This is underrated. Posting something minimal can read as self-assured: the author does not need to over-explain to be understood. Of course, this only works if you have built some baseline trust, or if the gesture is widely understood.

The deeper lesson: presence beats performance sometimes

When I look at Stuart's "🫡", I do not read it as "content" in the traditional sense. I read it as presence.

As professionals, especially in tech, we often treat communication like a proof:

Here is my reasoning
Here is my evidence
Here is my conclusion

That is valuable when the goal is teaching or persuasion. But a lot of professional relationships are built on something simpler: repeated moments of showing up.

A salute is a "showing up" gesture. It says: I am part of this community, and I recognize the work.

If your feed is only performance, people learn from you. If your feed includes acknowledgement, people connect with you.

When this kind of post is a good idea (and when it is not)

Stuart's post worked because the gesture matched the platform culture and because it felt authentic. If you want to borrow the pattern, do it with intention.

Good use cases

Congratulating or acknowledging a broad group (graduates, new hires, maintainers, volunteers)
Reacting to a shared moment (a launch day, a community win, a tough industry week)
Supporting someone without making it about yourself
Closing a loop after a series of posts (a quiet "respect" after a milestone)

Risky use cases

Sensitive news where people need clarity, not ambiguity
Topics that require accountability or specifics
Moments where minimalism could look like vague-posting or engagement bait

A useful rule: if the audience might reasonably ask "What are you talking about?", add one sentence.

Turning minimalism into a real content strategy

The point is not to post emojis forever. The point is to understand that variety matters, and that not every post must carry the full weight of your expertise.

Here is a simple, practical structure I use when I advise people on content strategy.

1) Mix three types of posts

Teach: clear lessons, code snippets, breakdowns, frameworks
Build trust: behind-the-scenes, values, decisions, tradeoffs
Acknowledge: signals of respect, support, and community participation

Stuart's salute is squarely in the "acknowledge" bucket, and that bucket is often missing from otherwise solid professional feeds.

2) Anchor minimal posts to your identity

If you are known for PHP, Laravel, Vue, or being a thoughtful senior engineer, a salute reads differently than if your profile is empty or inconsistent.

Minimal content borrows strength from the audience's mental model of you. That is why consistency in your other posts matters.

3) Let comments do the heavy lifting

A post like "🫡" can become a thread where others share context. Your job is to participate in the conversation:

Reply with genuine thanks
Ask a follow-up when someone shares a story
Highlight a good comment

That turns a small signal into real community building.

4) Keep a quality bar, even for short posts

Minimal does not mean careless. Before you post something ultra-short, ask:

What am I acknowledging?
Who is this for?
What emotion am I trying to convey?
Am I okay if people interpret this in multiple ways?

If you cannot answer those, it is probably not ready.

A quick example for software teams

Imagine you are a senior engineer and your team just handled an incident well. You could write a detailed postmortem-style lesson (great). Or you could also do a simple acknowledgement:

🫡 To every engineer who stayed calm, communicated clearly, and shipped the fix.

That is still short, but it adds just enough context to focus the meaning. It is also a public reinforcement of the behaviors you want more of: calm, communication, delivery.

Stuart Todd's one-emoji post sits at the extreme end of that spectrum, but the underlying idea scales: acknowledge the work, not just the outcomes.

The takeaway I am stealing from Stuart Todd

Stuart's "🫡" is a reminder that effective communication is not only about being informative. It is about being timely, human, and clear in intent.

If your LinkedIn presence is all tutorials and opinions, try adding a small percentage of posts that simply recognize effort and signal respect. Done well, those posts do not dilute your expertise. They amplify your relationships.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by Stuart Todd, Senior SWE | PHP, Laravel, JS, TS, Vue.. View the original LinkedIn post →