Tony P in DC Will Teach You ‘Vibrant Masculinity’

Anthony Polcari is not your average influencer. He’s not pranking people on the street or giving away Teslas or collaborating with Nike. Instead, his videos—which he makes after coming home from his job as a consultant—model something that he calls “vibrant masculinity.”

“You can love things like going to the gym, you can love things like football and more traditionally masculine things,” he said in an October 2023 video in which he defined the term. “But at the same time, [embrace] new things like creativity, cooking, or going to the theater.”

Polcari, 25, is on Instagram, but his message has really taken off on TikTok, where he has over 200,000 followers and regularly reaches hundreds of thousands of users with his fit checks, vlogs, and messages of encouragement. He’s been compared to Connor Hubbard, who makes videos about life as a regular middle-class guy, and he recently collaborated with Davis Clarke. All together, the three are forming something like a new wave of nontoxic masculinity online.

Polcari and I went deep on the issues plaguing modern men, how algorithms contribute to toxicity, and the people like him who are creating a new kind of community for men.

Anthony Polcari: I do think that there's the charisma angle that I think I do present that's helpful, like a presenter or a storyteller. However, I think a lot of it has to do with luck. There is this rise of guys posting stuff on social media beyond just the workout and motivational content, which I think is great, especially if it's healthy. But I think there's a new angle where a lot of guys feel comfortable talking about average, regular lifestyles. I think the healthy, vibrant masculinity space is mostly filled by older-stage people, professionals—Scott Galloway, for example. There isn't really a space for younger people like myself to talk about it from a healthy perspective. The younger people that are talking about masculinity are more the Andrew Tate type. You're seeing a lot of these younger influencers talking about this kind of incel culture. You're not seeing that on more healthy masculinity. It's mostly these older people that know better.

It's all about building community, right? So a lot of these people feel a community in these negative spaces. And, again, I don't think there's really any infrastructure on my side of it. There's just a few voices talking about it, and talking about vulnerability and men being creative and presenting themselves in different ways just beyond the macho side. And I think that's where we need to build an infrastructure.

I went to an all-boys Catholic school, and one of the coolest things I learned there was leadership. I became student government president, but I also became the head of broadcasting. So that's where this whole creative side starts. I did broadcasting for three years. And then I took that to college. I got some offers to go to broadcasting school and actually do this for a living. I turned it down, and it's kind of one of the regrets I have in life is that I didn't do that. That was definitely a dream and still is.

I also became student body president in college and found my voice as a presenter. We went at it with our board of trustees over building names. We had a scandal where there were a lot of buildings that they named after people that were literal slave owners and eugenicists. And there was also a lack of funding for affinity group programs and DEI programs. We went to battle with our board of trustees over that, and we ended up getting what we wanted. It ended up being about a year after I left, but we laid the foundation, which is pretty cool. For years I had always been one of these people that was the ultimate politician. I wanted to make everybody happy, wanted to please everybody, wanted no one to be angry at me. And I hated being hated. Well, that all changed as a senior in college. That changed with finding my voice. There are many other student leaders that were a part of this, but I was a component of that movement and had to use my voice.

So I go back to Boston for a year, work in accounting, don't like it. I then moved to DC and within six to eight months, I went through a couple of breakups that were tough for me. I had seen other influencers in DC, a lot of female influencers that didn't drink a lot, they actually had cool events, museums they go to, or different social events. And it kind of inspired me. Maybe I could talk about some things as a guy who doesn't drink a lot and likes to go out and do unique activities and dinner parties and play golf as opposed to going to bars and clubs every night. So I started talking about that mostly. And then I also love fashion. I'm old-school in that regard—I do think that dressing up for work is a good thing, even in a remote environment. I think it's a good thing for your confidence. It also makes you work a little bit more focused. So those two things came together. The fits, the ties, the suits. And then it became more of, “Okay, what am I doing on a weekend?” And maybe I can show some people, “Hey, you can do other things besides going to bars and clubs.”

People meet me, they don't think I'm a real person. They don't think I have an authentic bone in my body. They think there's no way a guy can be this positive. The fact is, I've had an interesting life. I've experienced two divorces in my life, the deaths of people very close to me. And there's trauma there, of course. And I'm not saying you have to be positive every day of your life, but I do think that adopting a Mr. Rogers view of the world with positivity and seeing the glass half full and trying to not only bring joy to yourself, but also bring joy to others in your interactions with people, I think is very, very important.

I think a lot of men, we're told to always be stoic and not express our emotions, especially with each other. I mean, I'm Italian. I grew up with hand gestures and both my grandfathers, my father, every time, hug and kiss, “Hi, I love you.” We also express our emotions with sports, and we get into stuff and we get passionate. Even when we're talking about things, we get very, very loud. But a lot of people don't feel comfortable expressing themselves, whether it be vulnerability, talking about emotions or talking about traumas, but also just being able to have permission to be happy and say, “Hey, I'm feeling pretty good today. I'm excited to cut the lawn.” Or “I'm excited to go to work. I'm excited to watch TV tonight.” Or go on a date or go, you know, whatever it may be. I think we're taught as guys to not open ourselves up like that. I think it's changing, which is good. And I'm not saying that there isn't a place for guys to have emotional regulation, of course. I think emotional regulation is a part of emotional maturity. I think there's a balance there.

So the audience is a very interesting coalition, and I say coalition because I have followers from every part of the political spectrum. I have an increasing female following. Some people come for the masculinity content, whether it be the explicit stuff that I put out or just through the Mr. Rogers-type lifestyle [posts]. And a lot of guys will come up to me in bars and clubs and different parts of the city and say how much they appreciate it. Some people will also just dunk on it and make fun of me, which is, hey, you know what? If people get some enjoyment from my page, for whatever reason, I'm doing my job. I don't care if they're dunking on it, if they hate it, if they just do it because they wanna make fun of me. I'm not gonna judge. Everybody's welcome on my page.

When you go on any of the social media sites, the algorithm is very clear. The goal is to keep you on it. It creates rabbit holes and I don't blame [men] for falling prey to the red pill movement, the Andrew Tate movement, because the algorithms feed you to it. I mean, you watch one minute of a video that talks about getting guys motivated to do better in life, content that's not anywhere near that, then it just starts to roll. You get convinced of things. It's content that soothes us that makes us feel better about our existing positions that allows us to go “Oh, yep. The echo chamber. Proved my point. Okay. I'm happy.” The problem is that escape is designed to reinforce things that you already think. You don't have to really engage with it. Introspection doesn't sell. Negativity sells.

The We Are Man Enough podcast is really great. They talk about masculinity, gender equality, how men could be a part of that. And they really talk about how men, we are good. We are good in so many ways. I think guys can really discover the beautiful parts of their personality without even realizing it. So there's that, I think Dr. Jason Wilson, Scott Galloway, [provide] really positive spaces to talk about, How do we get better as men? How do we become better leaders? How do we uplift others? How do we provide avenues of opportunity for underserved populations of people that haven't had a voice?

Outside social media, the positive spaces can come from joining things like a book club or joining a Volo league or recreational sports league where you can really create community with like-minded people. Sports trivia, reading a book, or whatever it may be. Also anything that involves service. I'm on the board of National Links Trust, a pretty big program that's expanding golf and recreation access to the underserved. But there are many places that people can get involved in in their communities, whether it be local government, charities, or philanthropies.

It's very used, but [I think of] Dr. Maya Angelou's quote, “People will never forget how you made them feel.” I think the way you embrace that positivity is by doing the things I just mentioned consistently. Anywhere where men can come together in community, whether it be with each other or with a diverse group of people, and doing that consistently. It's kind of like a muscle. You keep doing it, being vulnerable, talking with our friends and engaging on a new level.