Johnny Hilbrant Partridge never worked a day on Wall Street. But his character, P.E. Guy, has become a live case study in how shortform video is redistributing creator reach. In roughly 18 months, the account has grown from about 7,000 Instagram followers to more than 400,000, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The numbers behind the finance-satire wave
Partridge is not the only creator turning corporate culture into a recurring bit. A small group of finance-themed accounts is scaling fast on the back of character-led video:
- The Swiss Chris — 442,000 Instagram followers, playing a highfalutin European banker.
- Clemente Varas Collado — 115,000 followers, frequently roasting asset manager BlackRock.
- Varun Rana — 90,000 followers, an engineer-turned-entertainer.
The change is format. Wall Street meme pages have existed for over a decade, but Instagram and other platforms are now favouring shortform video. That advantage goes to creator-actors who can perform a character, rather than anonymous accounts built on still images.
The platform shift behind the growth
Trust Fund Terry, a finance meme account that launched about eight years ago, says building an audience on Instagram has become harder because of Reels. “I think they’ve really been trying to push the more traditional creators, where they’re telling a story in either short or longform video,” Trust Fund Terry told The Hollywood Reporter.
That matters for media planners because format changes eventually reset which accounts are worth buying. The winning creators are not repurposing static memes; they are making narrative characters that followers want to share.
Why the inside joke works
Josh Kaplan, who runs creator management company Smooth Media, says these creators make followers feel like they are alongside Blackstone associates at the watercooler. The audience is on the inside of a joke.
The timing helps. Business news and dealmaking personalities are now entertainment. Some of the biggest sports storylines involve billionaire owners, and Wall Street figures are part of pop-culture conversations. That gives finance satire a wider audience than just industry insiders.
The LinkedIn wrinkle
P.E. Guy’s reach is not spread evenly. Partridge says the account has more than ten times the follow count on LinkedIn than on X. That means the same character can be re-positioned for professional feeds, where absurd corporate behaviour is already familiar.
Josh Brown, CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management, says the P.E. Guy character is identifiable to finance professionals. The satire, he says, is at a level television hasn’t caught up with.
What to do about it
For brands and media teams planning creator-led work, shortform video should be the default format, not a bolt-on. Watch whether an account’s growth comes from video-native content or older static formats, and budget for re-cutting characters across platforms. The metric that matters is format-driven reach, not just follower count.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
