We’ve all heard that “I’m looking for a man in finance” song by now, right? The one with lyrics about seeking a very tall, rich man spoken over a sample of seminal 2010s binge-drinking anthem “Like a G6”?
Just in case you, like me, are a TikTok illiterate millennial and aren’t quite sure what I’m talking about, let me spell it out. Earlier this month, a comedy creator called Girl on Couch uploaded a video to TikTok with the captions, “Did I just write the song of the summer?” and “Can someone make this into an actual song plz?” In the clip, she puts on an Alexis Rose meets Charli XCX accent and speaks the lyrics, “I’m looking for a man in finance, with a trust fund, 6’5, blue eyes, finance…” before descending into beatboxed remix noises.
I remember seeing it pop up in my feed and thinking to myself: No, there’s no way this is going to take off. Who’s got enough time on their hands to join in with that? Turns out… I’m just old. In what has felt like a fortnight of watching the zeitgeist drift out of reach in real time (Please don’t leave me, I own Starface stickers and Bloom! I know what’s cool, I promise!), the video has become one of the defining internet moments of the summer.
Within hours, the DJs of TikTok had put beats to it: drum and bass, really awful Ibiza house, hard techno, the aforementioned “G6”. Creators pulled together video montages of handsome banker-looking men grabbing double espressos and power protein salads in their tightly fitting Charles Tyrwhitt suits. (Quite a creepy move, if I’m honest.) Someone made a PowerPoint about which types of finance guys are the best to date. (Private equity claimed the top spot.) Someone else calculated the probability you have of actually meeting a blue-eyed, 6’5, trust-funded banker. (Low.) Girl on Couch released the song on Spotify. And then lots of DJs started dropping the sample in the actual club, including EDM titan and man who definitely hasn’t made hugely embarrassing choices over the years, David Guetta.
My initial reaction to videos of twenty-somethings raving to a woman essentially reading aloud her Match.com preferences was: “Yes, thank god, Gen-Z is finally having a truly cringeworthy moment; we millennials had to endure ‘nom nom’, they must endure partying to this.” And if you, perhaps, also have deeply buried memories of DJs dropping Cassette Boy’s “The Nick Clegg Apology Song” to delighted crowds on Sourz-sticky dance floors circa 2012, there’s schadenfreude here for you to enjoy, too. Dig in.