I’m dumbstruck about how to discuss the 2023-24 Washington Capitals. A lot has already been said in our team’s extensive preseason coverage, culminating in a big dose of hopium as we entered the season. But the one game played was both disappointing and too insubstantial for us to say anything with confidence. Playing 36-year-old TJ Oshie (24 missed games last season) and 35-year-old Nick Backstrom (43 missed games last season) next to Ovechkin feels more like a wish than a plan. Like, that’s as bold as I can get this early.

But there is one thing I am certain of: The Washington Capitals need to do something with DC-based social-media influencer Tony P.

Tony P (government name: Anthony Polcari) is the most fascinating person in my Instagram feed, placing above two cats from Korea. According to his bio, Tony is a 25-year-old transplant now working as a consultant in the District. Tony P spends his days:

• wearing clothes,
• eating food, and
• making sponcon

and he’s really jazzed about all of it. The positivity radiates off him in even the most banal situations. Tony posts his “fits” in short videos that show him repeatedly walking toward the camera with a big grin on his face. By custom the reels end with Tony adopting a power pose after doing his signature arm windmill move. Tony explains what makes each outfit interesting.

A navy suit with a green tie suggests “subtle confidence and stability.”

A blue dress shirt with a gray tie offers a “chilled, smooth texture.”

Another blue dress shirt with a striped tie brings “a little tranquility.”

Tony posts his adventures as a bachelor cooking weeknight meals for himself, which consist mostly of powders sprinkled on fish.

That means mostly salmon.

A lot of salmon.

But then he zags on you with grouper.

Tony fastidiously documents his social life in DC.

Tony reviews some of the most mid bars since 50 Cent stopped rapping.

And Tony’s weekend schedule is packed. He does more social stuff on a Friday night than I did in September. He was more positive about a rained-out Nats game than I was about student debt forgiveness.

And then, for those of us who are into the Tony P deep lore, there’s a passionate community of commenters out there giving form to the metatext.

• “Tony P, [FMK]: seared salmon, cold stone creamery, consulting,” says pat_hunter.
• “If you can’t harvest your own 25 year-old DC consultant,” says twinmoontarot, “store bought is fine.”
• From hoffie00: “Tony. Im begging you. No more visits to Ford’s Theatre. This country can’t lose two great men in the same place.”
• “I blocked your account on my wife’s account,” says youngswaggyz.
• “Tony I’m once again asking you to review meth,” burner80082 says. “I need to know what you think about it.”

Tony P is the perfect scribe for our contemporary condition. I don’t know where he works, and I’m not sure he knows either. Alienation pervades every frame of his videos. Like all of us, consumption is at the core of his life. And yet he’s undeniably happier than I am. He has more social connections than I do. He is has developed opinions about fashion . He’s energetic and engaged. He’s enthusiastic about the mundane.

When Albert Camus wrote about the objective meaninglessness of life in the Myth of Sisyphus, he offered a solution: we have to imagine Sisyphus happy as he forever rolls his rock up a hill. Living life with joy is a revolt against absurdity, and thus Tony P is existentialism’s greatest warrior.

Anyway, the Caps should do something with him.

Headline photo: Tony P/Instagram