What is a White Boy of the Month? This time, it’s an ex-Philadelphia man with a desk job on TikTok.

Former Philadelphia man Patrick Kelly is like a lot of 20-somethings settling into their first postgrad job: overworked, struggling to find a morning routine, and searching for free time to enjoy the city they can kind of afford to live in.

The only difference? Kelly is famous for it.

The 23-year-old has gained more than 36,000 TikTok followers since January when he began regularly posting slide shows of his morning commute to a government affairs job in D.C., interspersed with cubicle humor and weekend itineraries of thrifting, bar hopping, and bagels.

“It’s been a fun way to connect with other people my age,” said Kelly, who grew up in Philly’s Andorra neighborhood and attended La Salle College High School, where he said the national high school speech and debate circuit prepared him for life as almost-influencer and slight oversharer.

Kelly’s rise from Gen-Zer posting into the void to corporate America’s Alix Earle, while surprising to him, slots him into the White Boy of the Month pantheon, where the internet clings to a white man who is just cute enough and funny enough to project fantasies on.

It’s a practice as old as the Tiger Beat heartthrob, but White Boys of the Month only earned a name when the internet sped up the churn and burn of these celebrities. There was Miles Teller, Timotheé Chalamet, Jack Harlow, and Miles Teller again, but the traits stay the same: Attractive and personable in a nondescript way, kind of like a man you can imagine pulling at a bar.

Kelly fits this niche: His content is relatable and aspirational, revealing a measured amount of personality. He has a dry sense of humor, an addiction to Diet Coke, and a love for the Phillies, but a casual consumer might miss his political beliefs or that government affairs is a synonym for lobbying.

Kelly’s mundane employment is perhaps what resonates most: It’s cathartic to commiserate about a job you’re grateful for, even if you’re not grateful for every part of it.

“There are parts of your first job out of college that aren’t very glamorous,” said Kelly, who graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022. “Being able to make fun of that is healthy.”

“I think Patrick is an easy person to root for,” said Julia Kreutzer, a high school friend who lives in Pittsburgh.

The criteria for being a White Boy of the Month is simple: Be “attractive and unproblematic,” according to Benni Litman, who trained as an anthropologist before cofounding Philly-based digital marketing agency LIB Consulting Group.

The term has been around since the mid-2010s, where it originated on stan (read: celebrity worship) Twitter as a pejorative for “a famous white boy doing the bare minimum,” per Litman.

Since then, the phrase has become a badge of honor.

White Boys of the Month seemingly reach this status with little or no effort. Case in point: Chalamet hasn’t auditioned for a role in seven years. Meanwhile, people of color remain underrepresented in Hollywood, on social media, and beyond.

TikTok’s algorithm has a history of boosting white creators while making videos from Black creators less visible, even if the content is similar.

“Whether that’s because of the way that it’s programmed or because of the way that users interact and engage with content, [TikTok is] not an app that you see a lot of Black creators getting hugely successful on,” Indianapolis-based TikToker Chinyelu Mwaafrika told Time Magazine in 2020 as the app faced allegations of suppressing videos related to the Black Lives Matter movement.

“People of color should feel frustrated because this is an example of the internet being a mirror of society,” said Litman. White Boys of the Month “are a reflection of how quickly we’re served content and the privilege of being someone the internet is telling people to like.”

Kelly called his TikTok an unserious hobby, but Litman argues Kelly’s content benefits from Gen Z’s fascination with early success, optimization, and parasocial relationships.

“His content revolves around this very specific niche of ‘white kid learning to live in an expensive city,’” said Litman.

Yet, the adoration Kelly receives is seemingly due to the ways he differs from the cookie-cutter stereotype of an internet heartthrob.

“You’re so hot but in like an exhausted office worker kind of way” wrote one TikTok user.

“You have cow eyes but in a good way,” wrote another.

Kelly finds the vaguely backhanded compliments funny — even if he hasn’t capitalized on them IRL.

“Those comments are real to who I am … I do work in an office, I can’t deny that,” mused Kelly. “But I don’t use my social media presence in dating.”

Kelly’s content also is a window into and a reprieve from grind culture, where the pressure to always make money or advance professionally — and enjoying it — is paramount.

That veneer has started to crack as layoffs hit the tech and creative industries, forcing corporate influencers to pivot from videos of office perks to job searches.

Kelly has a job to poke fun of: He seeks validation from bosses and laments working late in the same ways some of us did or used to do.

“I think on TikTok you get both ends of the spectrum” where people praise their jobs or publicly resent them, said Kelly.

Kelly believes his content resonates because he aims for more nuance. Kelly confirmed he does like working in whatever government affairs is, and his employer has been supportive of his office TikToks. The posts started as an effort to develop work-life balance.

“It’s really hard for me to turn off. I’m the type of person who when I wake up, the first thing I do is check my work email,” said Kelly. “I think it’s important to find something completely different from the thing you do during the work day.”

That divide is growing difficult as Kelly’s TikTok takes off. He gets invited to influencer events, posts sponsored content, and occasionally is recognized in public.

Right now Kelly has no plans to turn social media into a full-fledged job, especially as other creators face backlash for ditching their day jobs as soon as influencing gets lucrative.

“I want to stay true to my values,” said Kelly. “It’s a delicate balance …The community I’ve been able to build online are interested in me because we’re in very similar life stages.”