US finfluencer couple ‘Alexis and Dean’ go more viral on TikTok thanks to tariff talk (2025)

LOS ANGELES – Couples who go viral on social media tend to do so because of their relationships, parenting routines or aspirational lifestyles.

But husband-and-wife influencers Dean and Alexis Indot are getting millions of views for their posts on finance and economics instead.

And the American couple – who are based in Los Angeles, although Mr Indot grew up in Malaysia and has a Singaporean mother – have grown even more popular discussing the new tariffs being imposed by the United States.

Posting as @alexisanddean, they have amassed more than 1.7 million followers on TikTok and 300,000 on Instagram in the last two years.

Mrs Indot, 28, will ask her 53-year-old Kuala Lumpur-raised husband to explain or address a hot topic – for instance, whether tariffs will be inflationary, a post that has garnered 10 million views.

Mr Indot will then offer a pithy, direct and sometimes humorous explanation or viewpoint, often with an air of faint annoyance that followers seem to enjoy.

“Love this man’s energy”, reads one comment. “Please continue to explain as a frustrated parent might.”

The couple’s social media presence is entirely Mrs Indot’s doing, they share with The Straits Times in an interview.

She launched their joint TikTok account in March 2023, when the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank heralded a banking crisis in the US.

“There was so much chaos in the news and I didn’t understand it, so I asked Dean to explain what was going on.”

But Mr Indot – a commercial banking executive in Los Angeles – had no idea his wife was going to post a clip of his explanation on TikTok.

Or that the video, their first as @alexisanddean, would eventually rack up 1.3 million views.

“The next morning, she calls me and says it went viral. And I don’t even know what that means because I don’t use TikTok or Instagram.

“And she just kept posting after that, with me still being pretty oblivious about what it all means,” says Mr Indot, who has lived in the US since moving there to study. He attended California State University, Fullerton, where he graduated with a degree in business administration. He also has an MBA in strategy and finance from Pepperdine Graziadio Business School.

Reading through the comments on those early posts, Mrs Indot, who works as a mortgage broker, realised people were hungry for information.

“They were asking about investing in stocks and other finance questions, so I started asking Dean those questions – and that’s how it kept going.”

They have discussed everything from credit cards to property and mortgages, and their top post so far, with 14.4 million views on TikTok, sees Mr Indot advising against the use of debit cards because of fraud risk.

But their most popular posts recently have been about the new US tariff regime, which Mr Indot says could potentially push the US into a recession – although he also thinks there will be no tariffs on Singapore and Malaysia in the long term.

He will also suggest topics when he feels an issue is being poorly explained to the public.

“I see someone is putting out wrong information and I go, ‘Okay, I’ve got to fix that.’”

For years, he has been cornered at parties for his take on all things economic.

“People ask me a lot of questions at social gatherings. I’m a banker, so maybe everyone thinks I should know everything about the economy,” he says.

“Dean has a love for education,” adds Mrs Indot.

“When you watch the videos, he almost puts on a teacher hat, but he’s also funny and has this dry sense of humour, and people like it.”

The couple, who have no children, also get curious questions about their relationship in the comments section, even though the pair – who met on a dating app in 2020 and married in 2023 – rarely discuss their personal life online.

“They ask about it a lot, but we don’t really talk about it,” Mrs Indot explains.

“I don’t like that part of social media,” her husband adds. “I don’t understand people sharing their personal stuff.”

Being TikTok-famous has meant giving up some anonymity, though.

They are now recognised in public and approached by fans on a regular basis – not just in Los Angeles, but also while travelling in Texas and Argentina.

Mr Indot does not know quite how to react.

“It’s awkward to me.

“I tell Alexis I look up to people like (American) billionaire hedge fund managers Bill Ackman and Ray Dalio, or economists who have done things that are really significant.

“So who am I? To me, it’s ridiculous because I haven’t achieved anything,” he says.

Mrs Indot begs to differ.

“Dean’s not on social media so he doesn’t understand what he has,” she says.

“But he makes this stuff that’s really complicated easy to understand for normal people – and that helps a lot of people.”