It is a challenge to gain insight into the development and application of personas across multiple companies. Moving beyond single case studies to understand the industry perspective, this study employs analyses of social media data on persona practice to capture and conceptualize practitioner experiences. The paper reports on an analysis of three LinkedIn discussions among 75 UX practitioners on their real-world experiences and attitudes towards the persona method, examining both the perceived benefits and obstacles. Positively, personas support user-centered design and decision-making during the UX design process. Criticism concerns poor data quality, misconceptions about the method, and a negative discourse, which hinder effective method adoption and persona creation during the persona design process. This aligns with previous research. However, the study’s demonstration that negative perspectives often stem from the flawed application of the method is novel. Furthermore, the study presents a new way to obtain knowledge from practical experiences.