A NEW VISION OF OLD AGE
‘Grandfluencers’ are proof that recording viral videos under the same roof isn’t reserved for the young
Robert Reeves, 78, spends most days lounging by the pool, taking in the low-desert sun with his friends and neighbors. The four of them talk about what’s new — recovery from a recent corrective foot surgery, some chronic inflammation issues — and record videos for social media, where they’ve amassed millions of followers as the Old Gays.
On a recent blistering afternoon, Jessay Martin, 68, headed across the street for the usual poolside confab, stopping to grab a Bud Light Seltzer Pineapple from the fridge on his way out to the patio. There, he sat down in a stuffed armchair beside a well-endowed wooden sculpture of the male form and rubbed sunscreen into his bald pate as the group discussed the day’s video concept: an outfit transformation set to rapper Jack Harlow’s single “First Class.”
“I need to wear my pretty underwear for this,” Martin said. “I need to have my ruffles on my rump.”
It wasn’t like the first drag video they did, Bill Lyons, 78, said as he took a sip from his milk chocolate Ensure. He raised his eyebrows, then said in a stage whisper: “Bob didn’t wear any underwear.”
“Oh, no,” Mick Peterson, 66, said under his breath.
Martin laughed and said: “Well, he had on a full skirt!” Reeves, the Bob in question, widened his eyes and played innocent, looking out at the shadows of palm trees glistening in his cerulean pool.
The Old Gays were running behind schedule. They still had to learn a dance and film a usable take before Martin’s Tina Turner cover concert that evening. “My music is all I’ve ever wanted to do, but these videos are like a big dessert in my life,” he said. “I live for them; I really do.”
Most of the TikTok influencers living in so-called collab houses — mansions where they film content together — are barely old enough to legally sign a lease. But the Old Gays and their fellow “grandfluencers” are proof that recording viral videos under one roof isn’t reserved for the young. And while these senior influencers may very much be performing for the camera, they’re also sharing a new vision for what it means to live meaningfully with age.
By 2030, 70 million people in the United States will be over 65 years old, according to census data;
for the first time, the country will have more seniors than children. Most older Americans live alone or with only a partner, according to research from Pew. And they want to stay that way: A recent AARP survey found that 86% of people over 65 want to age in place rather than in a care home.
But for people who have lost mobility, the rising cost of home care can be prohibitive. Even those who can manage without support face increased risks of loneliness and depression. Rather than rely on younger relatives or paid strangers for care and companionship, why not turn to each other?
“As you get into old age, moving into a nursing home is what’s expected, and many older people buy into that plan,” Reeves said. “What we’re doing, through the strength of our friendships and our mutual support, is changing the course of the way one lives their life.”
By the time the Old Gays
started posting on TikTok, in December 2020, the four men already had half a century of friendship between them. Reeves and Lyons met in San Francisco in the 1980s. In 2013, Peterson answered Reeves’ Craigslist ad for a room in a gay-friendly, nudistfriendly home. In 2014, Martin moved into a house across the street.
A few years later, a younger neighbor, Ryan Yezak, 35, who’d gotten to chatting with the men during his Saturday morning dog walks, suggested they film a few videos for Grindr, where Yezak worked. Soon, though, the men were ready to take their talents to a bigger platform.
Today, they have 7.1 million followers on TikTok and a few hundred thousand on Instagram, among them Rihanna, Jessica Alba, Rosie O’Donnell, Drew Barrymore and Lance Bass. They meet up by the pool each weekday around 10:30 a.m., rehearsing
and shooting videos that Yezak edits and posts.
Though the internet does reward the risqué, the appeal of the Old Gays goes beyond shock value to something much sweeter. When Reeves has a doctor’s appointment, Lyons drives him; Martin covers his eyes at raunchy comments from Peterson; Yezak and Lyons get in tiffs about how clean the pool is.
“Yes, we have our family moments,” Martin said. “But I genuinely care for this little unit.”
The role of a lifetime
Adi Azran, 27, a content producer at Flighthouse Media, a studio that makes TikTok videos, felt like he’d reached a creative epiphany in June when he showed his colleague Brandon Chase, 25, a video by @ourfilipinograndma, in which said grandma delivered a pickup line to the tune of 12.3 million views.
“I was like, ‘Dude — old people,’ ” Azran said. “And he saw the vision.”
Over the next few months, Azran and Chase plotted out a scripted series about several retirees living under one roof and cast the roles from hundreds of audition reels; if the success of “The Golden Girls” or “Grace and Frankie” was any indicator, they had a hit on their hands. But the plan changed after their first shoot with the actors. “We called them and told them, ‘We’re throwing that all out the window,’ ” Chase said. “‘You guys can just be yourselves from here on out.’ ”
So, what do you get when you give six elders and two young producers a ring light and a platform on TikTok? The Retirement House’s videos are more silly than shocking: lip-syncing trending songs, playing practical jokes on each other. And though the scenes are still a bit scripted, they’re a departure from the actors’ previous roles.
“I’ve been acting for 30 years, and I’ve done a handful of stuff,” said Monterey
Morrissey, 71. “And here I am doing 10 seconds on an iPhone, and 3 ½ million people watch it.” (The group has 3.6 million followers on TikTok and 184,000 on Instagram.)
Gaylynn Baker, 85, started her acting career at 19, when she moved from small-town Texas to New York City and joined the chorus on “The Steve Allen Show” in the 1950s. Sixty-five years later, she’s finally found her big break, performing goofy stunts for six-second videos watched on smartphones around the world, at a time in life when most people no longer want to be working.
“The irony, of course, is that we’re in Retirement House, but I don’t have anything to retire from,” she said. “I’m having a great time.”
On a recent Thursday at the Retirement House
— a Hollywood set rented by the hour — there were two shoots going on. In the kitchen, Chuck Lacey, 70, and Jerry Boyd, 76, ate miracle berries before tasting an array of sour foods on camera, reacting to lemon slices and Warheads made sweet. (Boyd, to camera: “You sweet on me? Take one of these pills, and you’ll be sour on me.”)
On the back patio, Patti Yulish, 81, performed a rap as Azran translated internet slang for her. (“Bubbe,” he said, using her character name, “do you know what ‘sneaky links’ means?”)
The silly group antics of the Retirement House are a welcome counterpoint to stories of isolated elders quietly diminishing in nursing homes during the pandemic. “You see so many stories of older people that are not happy, because as you get older, you lose friends, you lose relatives, you don’t have people to share your life with,” said Reatha Grey, 72. “We’re actually building shared memories together — and it’s on videotape.”
In many ways, Azran and Chase act as stand-ins for Retirement House’s young viewers. They’re producers, but they’re also 20-somethings who went on a Virgin Voyages cruise to the Bahamas with a group of seniors. “All my grandparents live in Israel, so I’ve never spent much time with older folks,” Azran said. “Now I’m filling that void a little bit, realizing that they’re like us, just a little bit more experienced.”
The TikTok account has told its fans “that they don’t have to take the usual route into being old,” Baker said. “Maybe it’s time for us to start getting older in a different way.”