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Parent:: @News Read:: 2023-10-11
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The radical earnestness of Tony P
How an affable 25-year-old mesmerized D.C. with the blissful mundanity of his daily life
Anthony Polcari, or Tony P online, films content for his social media accounts at home in Washington on Aug. 31. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post)
On a top floor of a glass-walled apartment building on a brutalist stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue, somewhere between the Oval Office and the Senate chamber, past a bored concierge, up an elevator, down an endless hallway, in a sterile apartment filled with rented furniture, Tony P studies his salmon.
He softly sings the “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” theme song, even though there are no neighbors around. He mounds red and white miso paste into a bowl, douses it with rice vinegar, soy sauce and honey, and mixes it into a beige sludge to bathe two meaty filets. He’s never touched most of these ingredients before and is going mostly on feel. When the food finishes cooking, he exclaims, “It’s a Christmas miracle,” even though it isn’t. It’s just a quiet Tuesday in the life of Tony P.
“I’m learning along with my followers,” he says.
He’s got more than 66,000 on Instagram, where he documents his life as an average “25-year-old bachelor in D.C.”
His life is basic. People love it. This month he’s been getting hundreds of new followers every day.
During the week, he walks 35 minutes to his consulting job, shedding calories that he replaces with extra double-chocolate cookies from Subway, where he devours “the Tony P Special”: a tower of turkey, bacon, green peppers, lettuce, spinach, onions, a little bit of rotisserie chicken, dressed with the MVP parmesan vinaigrette, on toasted wheat.
By now you could probably guess that Tony P is in a kickball league. After games on the National Mall, he might hit a happy hour at Astro Beer Hall or one of the other Miller Lite-soaked bars every 20**-**something professional in D.C. flip-cups through. In the evening, he attempts new cod and salmon recipes and winds down with an episode of the original “Law & Order.”
“If Lennie Briscoe’s not in it,” Tony P says, “I’m not watching.”
Weekends are for golfing or Nationals games. Sometimes he’ll dance like nobody’s watching, though he’s aware that tens of thousands are.
He records and broadcasts his day-to-day life on Instagram and TikTok. Each video is more quotidian than the last. There are no traces of Gen X irony or cynicism in his content. No snarky anxiety-fueled memes that millennials indulge in. The self-described “husband-in-waiting” seems, simply, like a kind, young guy with a life that’s familiar to anyone who spent their mid-20s working and dating in Washington.
“It’s so mundane,” says Tony P. “I’m still like, ‘Wow, this stuff actually does appeal to people.’ They find it endearing, I guess, which is nice.”
He posts about one video a day, sleeping only five hours a night to keep up with work and this side-hustle. His Cameo inbox is full of requests for personalized video greetings. In one, he advises a new D.C. resident named James to visit all the Smithsonian museums and to find a signature brunch place. He also specializes in decaf roasts, Friars Club-style. “How the hell can you not be good at chess?” he says to a guy whose girlfriend requested one, adding: “You have more time to make a decision than a quarterback does in a clean pocket, for the love of God.”
Over the summer, people have been finding Tony P on Instagram and TikTok. The algorithm has been serving him up, too.
Here’s Tony P, trying on dress shirts.
Here’s Tony P, going furniture shopping.
Here’s Tony P, cooking fish.
And here’s plenty of Washingtonians, all tuning in to Tony P’s daily schedule of chores and errands.
A fan account, the P-Hive, posts Tony P-themed memes and videos of other people emulating some of his signature moves, such as the “triple-arm cross” in which he widely crosses his arms three times while showing off an outfit.
Unbeknownst to Tony P, the fan account is run by a group of his friends. They thought it could be fun to bolster his content, because they love Tony P.
“You never feel bad after watching a Tony P video,” says a friend of Tony P’s who is the clandestine manager of the P-Hive and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“It’s not mind-boggling to me that he’s getting so much attention,” says Tony P’s college friend T.J. Tann, “because he’s one of the most genuine dudes I’ve ever come across.”
As Tony P racked up more than 40,000 new followers over the summer, he became something of Rorschach test, especially for people in this violently cynical town he calls home. His earnestness seems otherworldly. His wholesomeness seems impossible.
Is it a prank or the new punk rock?
Who is Tony P, and why can’t we stop watching?
Tony P records himself making miso salmon for dinner. (Video: Travis Andrews/The Washington Post)
When I first stumbled upon Tony P’s page, I thought it was a bit. My cynical mind, raised on Andy Kaufman and Nathan Fielder and poisoned by this job and this town, couldn’t accept that someone could just be himself. Be so normal. Be so seemingly happy, so effortlessly. Nor could I grasp that so many people would want to watch someone simply live their uneventful life — not in this perpetually frantic age of social media.
I had to explore all this — why he is doing this, why people are watching — which led me to his dining-room table, and a plate of miso salmon and green beans.
Tony P later posted a video of our dinner to Instagram. Nearly 1,800 people liked it, and many had a burning question: “Dinner for 2? Who’s filming? Wine? Cooking date night?? We need answers Tony P.”
The answer is just me, a curious 35-year-old reporter asking about Tony P’s life.
“I was born in Methuen, Massachusetts, a town on the border of New Hampshire,” says Tony P. “I could crawl to New Hampshire if I wanted to …”
His full name is Anthony John Polcari. He was a working-class townie kid north of Boston.
His parents divorced when he was 4 years old and he split his time between them. His mother, on the way to work, would drop him off for the day at Whirlaway Golf Shop, by the Merrimack River. He developed a swing good enough to compete on the New England PGA Junior Tour.
He says he was raised “by a village” that included his grandfather Dan Ferraro, who would quote Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” — “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them” — and Marie Donahue, his great-aunt, who became like a second mother to him. When she died in 2012, she left Tony P her collection of 70 vinyl records of Neil Diamond. Two now hang on the wall in his apartment. He wants her close by.
From a young age, he was an old soul. That’s what everyone says.
Tony P pins down how old: 35.
“I’m more of a 35-year-old trapped in this body,” says Tony P.
The old soul grew up fast. His mother got hooked on pills. He spent years exercising empathy in church basements full of recovering addicts. He saw the holes in the social safety net. He saw his mom work two jobs to pay rent. Eventually, Tony P presented her with her 15-year sobriety medal.
He also struggled with his own mental health. The transition to the prestigious St. John’s Prep in Danvers, Mass., on a partial scholarship, was difficult. His dad’s old 2004 Infiniti stood out in the parking lot among all the shinier BMWs and Mercedes. The academics daunted him. Small struggles suddenly felt enormous. He began losing his temper on the golf course. He fell into a deep depression. He thought about suicide.
One day, after losing a round, he chucked two golf balls into the water. His coach reprimanded him, reminding him that no one is bigger than the game. This small incident, to Tony P, felt like a wake-up call.
When people meet him, they can initially think it’s sort of an act, that it’s sort of fake,” says Jay Pawlyk, Tony P’s high school English teacher. “Like, no one is just this upbeat and nice.”
In 2017, at the end of senior year, Tony P — then known as A.J. — won the school’s Loyalty and Service Award, and he was asked by the St. John’s administration to give a speech at an awards ceremony for students. Typically the speaker reflects on his or her own experiences at school.
“As is typical of A.J.,” Pawlyk says, “he gave a speech highlighting the classmates that he felt privileged to know.”
Still, he seemed to prefer discussing philosophical ideas in the company of adults. Jason Larocque, a St. John’s administrator and former Red Sox bullpen catcher, says he was impressed by Tony P’s maturity.
“I’ve had my challenges in trying to figure out my own masculinity and what I believe and value,” says Larocque, who became a sort of mentor to Tony P. “And I think that he was in a similar place when we started the dialogue about healthy masculinity.”
What do I want to be in the world? Tony P wondered. What kind of man?
Tony P has a superpower, according to his mother. “People are just drawn to him, and he’s compassionate and loving and caring,” says Judie Polcari. “He wasn’t a star athlete, and he wasn’t a star student. What came easy to him was people being attracted to him.”
He’s a practiced talker and smooth storyteller. He’s watched the entire trial of O.J. Simpson three times, and Johnnie Cochran’s closing argument 10 to 15 times.
“I’m just amazed how someone could talk for nine, 10 hours,” says Tony P, “and do it in a way that is so structured, but almost like a lullaby. You’ve heard of ASMR? Johnnie Cochran is ASMR.”
In the midst of his depression, Tony P decided to run for student council. “That’s when things started to change,” he says. He started therapy. He leaned on his Catholic faith. The day a dear family member died, he got a call that he was no longer waitlisted at the University of Richmond.
“I’m a religious guy,” says Tony P. “I don’t showboat it, but I do believe in things like fate.”
At Richmond he was elected co-president of the student body.
“I was never exactly the athlete,” says Tony P, and “I wasn’t a ladies’ man either.”
He says he helped roll out an app to allow victims to bypass Title IX when reporting sexual assault. He helped petition the school to remove the names of enslavers from campus buildings, which led to a nasty, year-long battle with the board of trustees.
He insists that others did the hard work.
He graduated in 2021, worked briefly in accounting in Boston, and last year got a consulting job in D.C., where he’s building a life made of noisy happy hours and bespoke Subway sandwiches and “Morning Joe.” He hints at vague aspirations of running for office eventually. He recently announced that he is part of “the Subway Squad,” a brand collaboration that brought him to Kansas City earlier this month for a showcase of his beloved sandwiches.
“Most of the time, being Tony P is great,” says Tony P. “It’s fantastic.”
But.
“But not having somebody, not having been with someone for a while — things get a little lonely sometimes. They just do. And I hope the person’s out there. I really do.”
The question keeps him up at night.
“Am I going to end up alone?” wonders Tony P.
Tony P never expected to be recognized on the streets of D.C. This is now a near-daily occurrence. All because he took a timeout from Washington’s dating scene. After two relationships ended back-to-back earlier this year, Tony P took a break from the game to teach himself domestic skills in preparation for that special someone.
“I want to be the best damn husband I can be,” says Tony P. “The best father I can be.”
He decided to record himself learning how to be those things.
“I noticed there weren’t a lot of male influencers in their early-to-mid-20s that did things like cooking, cleaning or running a house,” he says. “Now that I’m getting a platform, how can I use it to better benefit people?”
Making cod and spending Saturdays cleaning is not community service. But he hopes his mundanity conveys a version of “positive masculinity.” Or “vibrant masculinity,” which he partly defines as “showing compassion and empathy” and “being emotionally vulnerable with people.” Related: He’s considering making mental health a part of his videos in the future.
“I didn’t have a lot of girlfriends,” says Tony P. “That always stuck in my craw a little bit. I was always kind of questioning my own manhood because of it.”
In a world in which many young men follow influencers like Andrew Tate, the former kickboxer and self-described misogynist, Tony P is busy listening to the Carpenters.
David Foster Wallace once argued that irony and ridicule no longer have a useful place in art, calling them “agents of a great despair and stasis in U.S. culture.” What is truly radical, he suggested, is unabashed earnestness.
“TonyPinDC Instagram account — this can’t be real, right?” reads the title of one recent Reddit thread about Tony P.
Says one comment underneath: “at first I thought it was a parody but after watching a bunch of his videos I think he really might just be wholesome.”
And another: “glad to see someone bucking the hill staffer/consultant/etc. stereotype (even if it’s played up for social media it’s clearly at least a bit genuine).”
At times, the incredulity turns to cruelty on Instagram.
“Homies 24 going on 53.”
“Consult deez nuts.”
“I just know your grandma thinks you’re her most handsome little consultant!”
Tony P laughs off some of it, like the comment on Instagram calling him “short, liberal and lonely.”
“I’m taller than Ron DeSantis and taller than Mike Pence,” says Tony P.
“He triggers people,” says Tony P’s mom. Might have something to do with his sincerity. Jerks can’t handle sincerity. “I thought the trolls would kill him,” adds Tony P’s mom, “but they only made him stronger.”
The cruel comments, says Tony P, can be “tough to hear.” His followers often fight the trolls on his behalf. An outfit video from early July attracted particular vitriol. “Shirt to jacket cuff ratio is atrocious,” said one commenter. “Please go to a tailor.”
Members of the P-Hive — the sneaky friends, the gentle strangers — have his back.
“I love your page!” commented one fan. “Comments can be cruel, don’t let them get to you!”
“Tony P hate will not be tolerated,” posted another.
And another: “WHY ARE U GUYS HATING THIS DUDE IS JUST ENJOYING HIMSELF”
Tony P is indeed enjoying himself, he says. And maybe that’s enough.
correction
A previous version of this article misspelled Jonathan Stern's name. The article has been corrected.
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