What does the TikTok Workplace look like during the layoffs? It gets weird.

Tech and finance workers posted countless videos about the luxury of their jobs, until the mood changed.

"This is a day in the life of working at Google," the clip begins. We watch a woman in Los Angeles walk into the office, get valet parking, get iced coffee and a banana, and take care of some tasks on a blurry screen. She shows up but refuses to eat drawers full of snacks, then details her free salad. Highlights of the office space around her include a nap room and a Harry Potter-themed conference room filled with twinkling lamps and house flags.

"Welcome to a day in my life as a 22-year-old living in New York and working at Google," another clip begins. This employee describes a day of meetings, but films the food and interiors: open spaces filled with colorful sofas, a room full of plants, the bathroom is stocked with Listerine, Lubriderm lotion and hairpins, the fridges are full of Red Bull, baby carrots and a wide selection of juice. She goes to get a plate of barbecue. She opens drawers labeled "snacks", each containing more delicacies than the others: chewing gum, mints, M&M's, various packets of crisps. She ends with a view of Chelsea Piers.

TikToks and A workplace guides us through a working day – typically a high-paying role in technology, banking or consulting. Energetic narrators, often women in their twenties, present compressed and organized versions of their routines: commutes, coffee, chores, amenities, lunch, meetings, happy hour dip. The videos appeared to peak, as a format, in 2022, as workers showed off the elaborate perks of working for tech and finance giants. In most cases, the substance of the work was incidental; the narrators glossed over spreadsheets, deadlines and records to such an extent that many saw the videos as proof of how spoiled and indolent the young professional class had become. But the clips weren't about work. They were about performing a class role that accompanies work.

Desks, accordingly, convey expense and ease. The textures are creamy, the food is abundant. Tasks exist in negative space and amenities fill in the rest. These videos play the same role as the movies and shows that once provided ambitious images of different industries: romantic comedies about magazine editors, TV series about glamorous lawyers, stories of young tech workers in offices. littered with foosball tables - none of which emphasized the parts where the characters answered emails. Young people have long turned to the media to form ideas, including offbeat ones, about work. On TikTok, they get these ideas not from Hollywood producers but from the workers themselves. Indeed, the people who make daily TikToks often claim, in voice-overs and interviews, that they are trying to increase access to exclusive workspaces and educate young workers, especially those from groups historically denied access to elite jobs.

Much of what these creators display, and what seems to draw the ire of critics, is that the work does not seem to dominate their lives. Instead of being embarrassed by their hypercorporate jobs, they revel in the peace and lucrativeness of a 9 to 5 (or a 10 each time). Some seem to take a mercenary approach to these jobs and the comfortable lifestyles they enable, treating the job less like a calling and more like a hack. A Facebook employee starts work at the office at 10:30 a.m., spends a few hours "analyzing metrics and identifying root causes," goes to lunch, and is out, heading to Trader Joe's, at 5:45 p.m. One user comments, "My sign to switch to tech, thanks bestieeee." Poster responds "That's why I'm here."

Some workplaces have tacitly endorsed workday TikToks about their business - marketing and recruiting free - while others, in particular