SHE HAS found a profitable niche. Natalie Marshall, known online as "Corporate Natalie", skewers the absurdities of office life. She makes skits about "corporate lies" (getting excited about emails), "corporate red flags" (saying work is your life) and corporate lingo (could you imagine saying "synergy" or "close the loop" in everyday life?). Her videos have more than 50m likes on TikTok.
Ms Marshall is one of a bevy of "9-to-5" influencers who offer a glimpse behind the cubicle walls. Around 1m TikTok videos are tagged #9to5 or #CorporateTikTok. You can see "A Day in the Life" of a banker, marketer or lawyer. Some work hard ("Spend a 20-Hour Workday With Me"); others work hard preparing to work hard ("My 5-9 before my 9-5").
CorporateTok may sound dull. Indeed, one 9-to-5 influencer, Connor Hubbard, has been dubbed "the most boring man on the internet". But white-collar workers enjoy watching their own stresses play out on screen. Influencers offer a more realistic depiction of the world of work than Hollywood does. Fans of "Industry" might think that a career at an investment bank is raucous fun. Influencers such as Juliet Mackay show that the small hours are spent drowning in emails.
Having noticed their popularity, firms are inking deals with corporate influencers, believing they can help them connect with customers and employees. In 2022 Deloitte, a consultancy, hired Lara Sophie Bothur, making her the first in-house influencer at a company; her LinkedIn account was estimated to generate $13m of advertising value a year. (She left the firm last year to go freelance.)
Most corporate influencers build their personal brand rather than a company's one. Corporate Natalie quit her job in marketing to start a virtual-assistant business for influencers. Mr Hubbard, who has 2m followers, left his full-time analyst job to become a full-time influencer. Some fans would have preferred them to stay in their 9-to-5s. Mr Hubbard's "content was boring before, but relatable", one wrote on Reddit. "Now it's just boring."