Kory Virgo had always wanted to be a bus driver, but his dreams were put on hold. After graduating in graphic design, he became a fashion buyer, dealing with suppliers from across the world for major brands.
He worked in Selfridges before embarking on a fashion buyer course, later moving to Manchester from London due to a promotion. His job was to communicate with suppliers and designers on a global scale.
But in 2024, he lost his job. Living in Manchester with his family and friends still down south in the capital, it pushed him to finally take the jump and fulfil a lifelong passion, becoming a bus driver on the streets of Greater Manchester.
A year later, and Kory is recognised wherever he goes. Multiple times a day he is stopped and asked if he is ‘the man from TikTok’. He began his social media journey, documenting every day life on the job and has now quickly amassed over a million views.
Kory has been driving buses for a year(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)
“I had always wanted to be a bus driver since I was a kid,” Kory, 34, told the Manchester Evening News. “I had been a fashion buyer for ten years and before moving to Manchester, I had been in London before getting a promotion.
“I sourced the companies who produces clothes for brands. So I worked with designers and teams to get clothes from fabrics into stores or online. It was anything you’d think of, to shapes, colours and prints.
“When I left in 2024, it was the perfect time to find something new. I decided to just apply.”
Within a number of weeks Kory had gone through training processes to be able to get on the road. Based at the Hyde Road depot, he is now one of the Bee Network bus drivers on the streets of Greater Manchester.
He ‘loved it more than he ever expected’ and now travels on 21 different routes around the region. But as well as getting passengers from A to B, he has a rapidly-growing following on social media who watch his ‘day in the life’ videos.
From documenting his life as a bus driver, to funny clips about passengers repeatedly pressing stop buttons and the ‘real reason’ a service shows up late, some of Kory’s TikToks have over one million views, offering an unseen glimpse into the job.
Using social media started as a ‘weird accident’. While making videos he was editing in TikTok to send to his friends to update them on how the new career was going, he then accidentally posted one, which quickly amassed tens of thousands of views.
Kory has over a million views on social media(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)
“It’s very different to driving a car, and you need a licence to drive a bus which is different,” Kory said. “It took me about four weeks to get the licence. We worked with driving them with training teams and hazard perception theories again. We also spend weeks learning all the routes.
“It’s really weird on day one. You sit in the seat and think ‘how am I going to drive this massive thing?’ It is daunting. But when you’re training you are in the bus quite a lot and get used to your surroundings. It then starts to feel like it’s not as big and you stop thinking about whether it even has an upstairs or not.
“[My TikTok] was a weird accident really. I moved up here with no friends or family, and they are all based in London. When I passed, everyone was asking how it was going and instead of just telling them one by one, I made a video about it and edited it in TikTok.
“I posted it by accident and it sort of went from there. Then I noticed people were interested in it and it was getting views. I expected nothing but then I saw it was being viewed more and more.”
Under the username @busstopkorz, Kory has shared bus trivia questions, showed litter left on a double-decker and a comical message to ‘OTT stop button pressers’. Another clip captioned: “The real reason your 42 to Stockport is late” showed Kory dancing while at the depot.
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He added: “My first video had 25,000 views and it became a whole thing. I think when people watch it, it feeds their curiosity about the job. People think we just go to stops and drive people, and that’s it.
“People aren’t aware of the routes we do in a day, and it can be four or five. They don’t know about the shift patterns and things we share between us and experience as bus drivers.
“I didn’t expect this at all and I’m not used to it, but I love it. My videos are literally an idea, either of me driving or about an experience that happened. When I filmed the bell video, it had happened the day before and I thought it would be funny. Everything has been experiences I’ve had.
“I posted it by accident and it sort of went from there”. (Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)
“It’s so surreal that I don’t understand why people are so interested. I have no words really. Funnily enough, I was doing my shopping in M&S and someone asked if I was the guy from TikTok. I get it multiple times a day, and it doesn’t feel real because it’s just me doing my job as a bus driver.”
Asked about his new career, he explained: “I have got to get to know Manchester doing this and have seen so many different places that I didn’t know existed.
“With my background in buying, I worked with people every day from around the world, so that gave me the confidence to know I could deal with passengers easily. It’s so much better than I ever expected and I am so happy I am doing it.
“Because I love it, it keeps me filming and documenting it and to keep going.”
@BusStopKorz can be found on TikTok here.