What it’s like to come out at work as a social-media influencer

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. For Citigroup analyst DeAndre Brown, it was supposed to be another run-of-the-mill Zoom meeting. His bosses had dialed in, and Brown was introducing himself when another participant interrupted.

“That’s the TikTok boy!" she exclaimed. Brown gulped. For weeks, he’d been posting comic videos online about generational differences at work.

Several went viral. He’d tried to keep his budding life on social media separate from his more button-down professional identity, but the two worlds were colliding. “I was like, ‘Shoot, now they’re going to start asking questions,’ " Brown, 25, says.

Six months later, he quit to pursue content creation full time. No one expects to share a cubicle with an influencer. These days, though, a growing number of Americans are pursuing side hustles on social media, even as they work traditional jobs.

Some become accidental stars after posting a video that unexpectedly strikes a chord. Others amass online followers for months or years before co-workers find out—moments that can prompt everything from pride to relief to embarrassment. “It’s like being Hannah Montana," says Brooke Miccio, 27, referring to the Disney show featuring a teenager who secretly transformed into a pop star at night.

A New York-based influencer, Miccio boasts half a million social media followers riveted by what she eats, buys and wears, which has yielded a steady flow of brand deals. Before becoming a full-time influencer, she worked as a sales rep at Oracle, cold-calling prospective leads and getting cursed at or hung up on. She spent her breaks and nights building her follower count with up-close looks at her life as a recent college graduate, earning $10,000 a month on YouTube alone