In a spacious, eighth floor apartment on Pennsylvania Avenue, just a few blocks from Capitol Hill, you will find a consultant. Of course you will; Washington, DC is a town filled with and built for consultants. This particular one, in a checked shirt and tweed jacket and charged with a genuine enthusiasm for life rarely seen among people in their twenties, is named Anthony Polcari.
A Bostonian that loves his mother and makes a mean salmon dish would usually slip under the radar. But Anthony, better known as Tony P thanks to his Instagram handle @_tonypindc, has been in the capital for just under twelve months and is already the talk of the town. When I walked around downtown DC with him, we were periodically stopped for selfies by adoring fans. One even halted us on a crosswalk to get a picture, telling him, “My office is obsessed with your videos.” Most seasoned influencers would be nonchalant, but Tony P, who found fame just a matter of weeks ago after a viral hit, was scarlet red and clearly perplexed by the whole thing.
“It was just something for my friends and family really,” he tells me of his first Instagram reel, 16,000 followers and a little over two months ago. Tony stands in front of the camera in a white shirt and invites his followers to pick the shade of his tie. “Red or purple,” he asks. He doesn’t announce the winner, but I have a feeling that purple won. (He told me that it’s his favorite color.) On fashion, he tells me that the key to a perfectly curated outfit are anchor colors. “Mine are purple and white, so I try to get them in my outfit about three times per week.” I ask him if he thinks Washington is as unfashionable as I do, and he looks genuinely surprised that I would say that. When I tell him that the city is known to be the most unfashionable place on earth (see: jokes about the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner being “nerd prom”), he earnestly replies that he’s never even noticed.
Tony Polcari’s first Instagram video didn’t pick up. A mere sixty-five likes and a comment from your aunt isn’t anything to phone home about. But nothing if not resilient, Tony P kept going, and going, and going. And after umpteen “weekend in my life” videos and seared salmon and risotto recipes and updates on dating advice and DC hot spots, a video called “A week in my life as a 24 year old bachelor in DC” got 497,000 views.
Since he first popped up on my “For You” page on Instagram just over a week ago, his follower count has more than doubled and his name has been brought up organically in social settings. “Have you seen this guy online?” one friend asked the night before I had arranged a day out with Tony. “He’s so wholesome.”
Wholesomeness is central to Tony’s brand. Sick of a world of toxic masculinity and gender expectations, Tony P describes himself as something of an “anti-Andrew Tate.”
“If I can show people that you can do good things just because they are the right things to do, if I can show men that being wholesome, kind, sweet and gentle is a good thing, then I consider this whole thing a success,” he tells me. Tony is Catholic and goes to church on average three times a month, switching between a church in Georgetown and St. Patrick’s on 10th Street NW. He thanks his all-boys’ Catholic school, St John’s prep in Danvers, Massachusetts, for teaching him to “walk softly,” meaning to do good things in the background and not just in the forefront — something that will surely be hard to keep up with given his new-found fame.
But whatever he’s doing is working. Even in the usually vile comment section of Instagram, his followers are delighted. They thank him for his recommendations, label him DC’s most eligible bachelor and even tell him to run for president. Tony loves his fans and the only comments he takes issue with are the slightly snarkier ones that label him a virgin, which is “definitely not true,” he tells me. They can laugh and poke fun, but I have a feeling that Tony P will have the last laugh. His Instagram reels have done wonders for his dating life, which he was taking a break from before he went viral after going on so many bad dates.
Sitting down at his favorite pizza place, Ella’s Wood Fired Kitchen, where he opted for a plain margarita pizza, a Caesar salad and a Coke, Tony told me that the DC dating scene had become exhausting. “It started to become kind of like a job, almost. After dating around a little bit and going on different ones, I started to get some feedback. I decided to stop for a little bit. I started listening to [dating] podcasts, particularly one called We Met at Acme, and it’s now my favorite podcast ever. It’s mainly from a woman’s perspective, but I wanted and needed to start learning about how women do dating and relationships, and get out of my tunnel vision of being a guy. I had blindspots that I wasn’t paying attention to. It’s just like at work, I try to learn as much as possible. Dating can be the same way.”
A few months off and some stern, soul-searching talks with himself must have done wonders. The day I met Tony, he had a date lined up after our interview, and a few the week after, and a few the week after that. He receives about thirty DMs a day, mostly from women, which he sounded delighted about. If he went back on Hinge and Bumble, which he deleted a few months ago, I suspect there would be women falling at his feet. (Spoiler: if you do want to date him, you should know that he wants to get married, have at least three children and eventually move back to Boston.) The day before I met him he had an influencer milestone; he started making money from the whole thing. After creating a Cameo account, within twenty-four hours Tony had received over fifty requests for $25 a pop. “Most are birthday messages, but people are asking me to record personalized fashion and life advice. I’m so honored that people want my opinion on this stuff,” he said.
He spends his weekends moseying around the city, popping into Hank’s for some oysters or satisfying his sweet tooth at Ben and Jerry’s. He loves golf, and the fluorescent outfits that come with it. He drinks alcohol periodically but has never been drunk. He wouldn’t like the feeling, he says. He’s never smoked a cigarette, although he has one cigar a month for good measure, which is why I dragged him to Shelly’s Back Room for a few Sauvignon Blancs and cigarettes. (Wine is his favorite.) But Tony P is staggeringly ordinary for DC, and staggeringly pure. In an era when “influencer” is the most common dream job for Generation Z, this actual Gen Z influencer is clear his Insta side hustle won’t kill his consultancy dreams: Tony reiterated to me that if his influencing infringed on his consultancy work, then he’d throw in the towel, and longingly recounted the details to me about his day job in almost eye-rolling, but very sweet, detail. There are even plans to possibly start giving consultancy advice through Instagram reels, alongside the “fit checks” and “days in my life.”
There are others of Tony P’s kind in DC. One of the most popular influencers in the town is Sam Schlageter, also known as @yourdcbestie, on Instagram. Sam creates content that shows you where to go dancing or what events are happening that week, where to find the cheapest cocktails and even gives you a forecast of that week’s weather. Then there’s Jessica Hood, one half of a Christian podcast called Voice Memos to God, who gained the bulk of her followers by recording her “run commute” from her home in to her office, which is ten miles away.
What I have learnt from observing the Washington influencer scene is that these twentysomethings are far more sexless than their New York or London or Dubai counterparts. They work hard and play soft. In the words of Tony P, “Instagram is a great opportunity, but consultancy is my dream.” They’re the heart of Washington, capital city of the most powerful empire on Earth, but also a medium-sized town with a social scene that one of my friends sums up as “valedictorians gone wild” — a class with all Lisas and no Barts. High school may have sucked, but this time, it’s good grades and clean-cut clothes that make you popular. It makes for a strange, antiseptic city, but a lovely Instagram account by a nice Catholic boy who stands out in a crowd of lip-filled, drugged out memelords and wellness scammers. On the internet, DC’s dorkiness is its secret power.
