Vacation in Santorini.
A vacation-planning spreadsheet went viral for the way it ranked a friend group's income (spreadsheet participants not pictured).
grinvalds/iStock
  • A man posted a video showing an income-ranking spreadsheet he says his friends use to plan vacation.
  • The lowest earner on the spreadsheet makes $125,000 and is named "Broke Bobby."
  • The video went viral and "Broke Bobby" trended on Twitter. Critics called the video "out of touch."
  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A man's viral TikTok sharing his friend group's income-ranking vacation planning spreadsheet went viral, particularly for assigning the moniker "Broke Bobby" to someone who he said makes $125,000 as an accountant.

The video, first uploaded to Instagram Reels on Tuesday by Tom Cruz (@tcruznc), has gone viral on Twitter, leading to "Broke Bobby" trending on Wednesday and Thursday.

The video was also uploaded to Cruz's TikTok account, which has over 819,000 followers, but in a message to Insider, Cruz said the video was removed from the app. TikTok told Insider it did not remove the video.

"So a few years ago, me and my friends started making this spreadsheet breaking down our incomes and availability for travel, and it looks like this," Cruz says in the video before showing the sheet.

A post shared by Tom Cruz (@tcruznc)

The spreadsheet ranks a group of friends who make between $125,000 and $5 million annually and indexes their paid time off, vacation budget, relationship status, whether or not they're willing to travel to "3rd World Destinations," and whether or not they're a "degenerate gambler."

In the caption of the video, Cruz calls it a "Forbes Friend list," a play on the outlet's famous Billionaires list.

According to his social media profiles, Cruz is a real estate investor with over 380 rental properties. A LinkedIn profile that appears to belong to Cruz indicates that he's based in North Carolina. His Instagram bio also describes him as a "serial entrepreneur" and his Linktree points to a Section 8 real estate video course as well as a real estate investing community on Discord. The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program provides assistance to low-income families to afford safe housing.

The "Broke Bobby" video went viral on Twitter after user Karim Alammuri (@Radio_Reem) shared it with the caption "what in the wealth is this."

It has amassed 2.5 million views in less than one day.

Cruz has elaborated on the 'Forbes Friend list' in further videos

Cruz posted a video on Wednesday night on TikTok answering questions about the video.

According to Cruz, the person who's planning vacation trips plans out the activities and a budget, in addition to booking transportation like a private jet if necessary. They then invite those whose vacation budget aligns with the trip to avoid "hurting any feelings."

Per Cruz, "Broke Bobby" works as an accountant.

@tcruznc

Make ##brokebobby trend on TikTok 😂. ##friend ##twitter ##fyp ##foryou ##realestate ##brokebobby

♬ original sound - Tom Cruz

In another follow-up video, he showed a spreadsheet of the "bottom 10 income-earners" in his friend group, who according to Cruz call themselves the "Welfare 10." According to Cruz's comments on the video, it is not satire.

@tcruznc

Reply to @dexxtterrrr The welfare 10c great group of guys. ##fyp ##foryou ##notsatire ##lolz ##motivation ##realestate ##investor

♬ original sound - Tom Cruz

Cruz's video generated discourse on Twitter

After Cruz's video about the "Forbes Friend list" went viral on Twitter, "Broke Bobby" began to trend. Per Twitter's public count, there were over 11,000 tweets associated with the term by midday Thursday.

Many commenting on the video called it "out of touch" and made memes about Bobby and other elements of the spreadsheet. According to United States Census Bureau data, "Broke Bobby" makes more than double the 2019 real median earnings for men who worked full-time, year-round, which was $57,456. The median household income was $68,703 in 2019, according to the US Census Bureau.

In one video about the spreadsheets, Cruz said that he doesn't "care about [his] friends' income" but that the information is helpful in planning outings. He also said in tweets that he and his friends "all joke about each other's income" and that they all contribute their own information to the spreadsheet.

Cruz declined an interview request with Insider, saying that he was "slammed busy this month." He did not comment on the criticism.

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