Who's looking for a man in finance? Seeing 'Materialists' with the TikToker behind 2024's viral hit.
The content creator, known online as Girl on Couch, went mega-viral last year with a catchy bop about what kind of guy she's looking for.
'I'm looking for a man in finance, trust fund, 6'5', blue eyes,' the now 28-year-old states with playful vocal fry in a video first posted to TikTok before it was remixed by DJs Billen Ted and David Guetta, transcending social media and climbing the charts.
'Man in Finance' might as well be the theme song for Materialists, which I saw at a press screening weeks before. On its first official day in theaters, June 13, Boni and I met up to see the film together.
She grabbed a small popcorn and I got a small Icee, and we both headed inside the frigid theater, which was surprisingly packed for 2 p.m. on a weekday. I asked her what she knew about the movie, and she was only really familiar with its stars. She was dressed comfortably — as was I — but she was headed to the Jersey Shore to meet her parents after the credits rolled. I thanked her for coming to see a random movie with a stranger, and she joked that a free movie was always a good time.
Boni is funny. Right now, she's still in New York City, living off the money from the record deal she signed in 2024, but she's hoping to break in to comedy. I'm hoping that she can help me, someone who hasn't dated in 10 years, crack how accurate this movie is in its assessment of modern love.
In Materialists, Dakota Johnson plays a matchmaker named Lucy whose clients quantify their desires to her, treating people like math problems. They must be above a certain height, below a certain BMI, earn a certain amount of money and reach a number of other standards. A 6'5' man in finance with a trust fund and blue eyes would be a hot commodity, or what Lucy and her coworkers call a unicorn. Matchmakers use this information to pair people up, and people use this information on dating apps to weed through the masses to find those they might be attracted to.
Lucy's also making her own matches. She's torn between two men: One is perfect on paper — kind with a job in finance (Pedro Pascal) — and one is passionate but hopelessly poor (Chris Evans). Boni and I sat in polite silence in plush reclining seats as Lucy's professional and love lives played out onscreen. I thought I had been struck by a sudden onset flu during the screening, but I had mistakenly flipped on the seat warmer button that I didn't know existed, resulting in both chills and a cold sweat. Boni was too focused to notice.
For something that's billed as a romantic comedy, Materialists isn't particularly funny, so I was surprised when I heard Boni laughing throughout it, mostly at mentions of a leg-lengthening surgery that men can get to become taller.
As the credits rolled, we chatted as we descended various sets of stairs and escalators, grabbing a seat outside the concessions area to chat.
'Can I be honest?' Boni said. 'I mean, it was bad.'
She didn't like Lucy. Lucy's mean! For Boni, the moral of the story was difficult to detect — was it just that sometimes people are rich and sometimes they aren't and it's harder for the latter to find love? The character's choices didn't make sense to her.
'I guess it is accurate because some women are psychos,' Boni joked. 'It's not even modern, because the most unrealistic part is when they went on a first [official] date and [Pascal's character] gives [Lucy] a key the next day. I was like, 'What the f*** are you guys doing? He's gonna murder you in your sleep. And he probably would have because he had like no personality.'
I asked her if dating now really feels like turning yourself into a commodity and weighing the qualities of others to calculate who a good match might be. Do people really look for love like they look for houses or groceries, with certain stipulations and nonnegotiables? Does she?
Absolutely not. The 'Man in Finance' song is satire, she said. The list of qualities in the song was intended to make fun of the people who do that, and even more so, making fun of how it's easy to detect which men work in finance because of how they dress and carry themselves. (See: Light blue oxford shirt, black vest, brown loafers)
'I made the video because my goal at the time was to go viral whenever I could,' Boni said. 'I think it was, unfortunately, really relatable for women who only care about what their partner looks like on paper.'
Lucy, obviously, cared a lot. Perhaps that was because of how her parents fought, raised her and talked about money — criteria that are mentioned in the movie as qualities that help matchmakers measure how compatible two people might be. Is Lucy even supposed to be relatable, or just an example of how thinking about dating all the time for work can drive someone crazy?
Boni won't be seeking out Lucy's services, obviously, because she's fictional. But Boni said the popularity of her song has turned her off dating completely. People ask her if she's still looking for a man in finance all the time, and her answer is an emphatic 'No.' She never was.
'I mean, listen. Everyone agrees. If a man is hot, loaded, works in finance or is a lawyer or a doctor or has some other good job — that's hot. But that's a fantasy,' she said, starting to laugh. She was thinking about how Pascal's character, who lived in a $12 million Tribeca penthouse, only had one silk sheet on his bed.
In many ways, Boni meets the criteria that a lot of men are most likely searching for. She's beautiful with perfectly highlighted blond hair, ridiculously funny and down to meet up with a stranger and see a movie on a Friday afternoon. She knows what she wants: She quit her office job when her social media profiles took off, she's taking the steps necessary to succeed as a comedian and she's congenial when questioned by a reporter about a viral post from last year.
'My parents are like, 'Well, don't you want to share your life with someone?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, I do, but I'm not one of those girls,'' Boni said. 'There are two types of girls: Those who make it their life's mission, and they're constantly let down. Psycho girls who go on dates every week. Then there's people like me who don't make that a priority.'
Though she's not much of a dater at the moment, I couldn't shake the fact that commodifying yourself to become the most appealing possible package for someone else is still something that people do all the time online. Especially if you're trying to keep the followers you gained from a moment of peak virality and convert them to people who could sustain your work as a comedian.
'You want to appeal to everyone … but there's repercussions for being you sometimes,' Boni said. 'It's not just a dating problem. I think the internet's to blame … but I'm always trying to present myself in different ways in different places. I'm trying to be hot on Instagram. On TikTok, I'm trying to be a freak. I'm trying to get people's attention.'
To be a modern woman is to be constantly thinking about what you have to offer and how other people might want to utilize that — not just in dating, but in everyday life.
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