Since the pandemic shuttered offices in 2020, millions have taken to social media to probe our shared cultural obsession with workplaces. While those dissatisfied with corporate culture turn to the more contentious anti-ambition trend, others are sharing fun, solidarity and mostly fond satire in a flourishing of honest and nostalgic content centred around office jobs and workplace dynamics.

On TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, corporate comedy is prospering as creators mine the oddities of the world of work for laughs. Driven by shared pandemic-era nostalgia and also the teething pains of navigating hybrid working, key sub-trends include skits about colleague archetypes, affectionate send-ups of generational differences and happily self-satirising companies.

Audiences are also keen to share more difficult real-life work experiences, sidestepping comedy in favour of catharsis, commiseration and confessional thrills (see Look Ahead: 2024 for more). Focuses include conspiratorial employee storytelling, women explaining coping strategies for workplace microaggressions and career influencers opening a window onto their work-life rituals.

“Corp gore” – a new term for corporate culture – is part of a growing vernacular that furnishes conversations about 2024 working life with a sprinkling of internet-coded slang. As world-of-work content creators develop this shorthand, terms like “corporate baddie” (i.e. a highly confident professional) are being adopted as mantras for work and life.  

The pleasingly familiar visuals of corporate life are providing rich inspiration for brands. The aesthetic cohorts of TikTok have adopted corporate dressing to both celebrate and subvert. Fashion brands are leasing the corporate world for social media marketing, and interior design concepts are bringing the style and satisfaction of office orderliness to in-store shopping.

Entertainment is also offering updated examinations of the world of work as part of 2020’s cultural legacy. A revival of beloved UK (and then US) sitcom The Office promises a timely check-in on Corporate America with intergenerational relevance. Elsewhere, The Devil Wears Prada musical adds welcome camp to workplace theatre, and office simulations are bringing employee cosplay to cosy gaming.