Who is Broke Bobby? Viral TikTok mocked for ranking friends by how much they earn

Ed Barnes
Forbes Friends List

A TikTok has been going viral on social media, as Tom Cruz, an investor, posted a list of his friends – ranked by how much they earn and are willing to spend on holiday.

The original video no longer appears on TikTok with a notification saying it is unavailable. However, a tweet by user Karim Alammuri has over 30,000 likes, 1.2 million views and has been retweeted more than 10,000 times. Alammuri captioned the video “what in the wealth is this.”

On Tom Cruz’s TikTok account, another video is still up with 300,000 views. This video shows a list called “the Welfare 10” which shows everyone who earns below $100,000 a year. Everyone on the Forbes list earns more than that.

The Forbes friends list breaks everyone down on income, how much they’re willing to spend on certain trips, holidays they can take, and whether they’re willing to travel to “third world countries.”

At the bottom of the list, Cruz pointed out “Broke Bobby” who earns $125,000 a year with a $10,000 bonus. The highest earner on the list, Shawn, is projected to earn $5 million in 2021.

On the “Welfare Ten” list, the incomes range from $92,500 to $25,000 with the maximum spend on a trip is $5000. The questions on the Welfare 10 list were slightly different with options to choose from eating at non-chain restaurants and whether they have points for first class.

Welfare 10
Cruz also created the “Welfare 10” list that features ten people in the friendship group who earned less than $100,000

People took to social media to poke fun at the videos. One person commented, “imagine setting up a class system inside your friend group lmao” while one on TikTok asked, “Is this satire?” to which Tom replied “no”.

Another user made a meme out of Bobby when it came to going on a trip:

Another Twitter user also found humor in that Bobby was labeled as Broke despite earning more than $100,000. They said, “I’m sorry but if that’s what you call broke for “broke bobby” then I must be homeless lmao.”

With the TikTok now spreading all over the internet, we wouldn’t be surprised to see this turn into a trend, perhaps with a more tongue-in-cheek approach to ranking your friends by their ‘wealth’.