The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
‘Grandfluencers’ are debunking aging myths
Popularity grows from their honest, real perspectives.
NEW YORK — Joan MacDonald’s health was in shambles at age 71. She was overweight and on numerous medications with high cholesterol, rising blood pressure and kidney trouble.
Her daughter, a fitness coach, warned that she’d wind up an invalid if she didn’t turn things around. She hit the gym for the first time and learned to balance her diet with the help of a brand new tool: an iPhone.
Now 75, MacDonald is a hype beast for health with a bodybuilder’s physique and 1.4 million loyal followers on Instagram.
She’s among a growing number of “grandfluencers,” folks 70 and up who have amassed substantial followings on social media with the help of decadesyounger fans.
“It’s so rare to find someone her age being able to do all these things,” said one of her admirers, 18-year-old Marianne Zapata of Larchmont, New York. “It’s just such a positive thing to even think about.”
Both aspirational and inspirational, older influencers are turning their digital platforms into gold.
MacDonald has paid partnerships with the sportswear and supplement brand Women’s Best, and the stress-busting device Sensate. And she just launched her own health and fitness app not so many years after learning how to use digital technology herself.
On TikTok, four friends who go by @oldgays — the youngest is 65 — have 2.2 million followers, including Rihanna. They have an endorsement deal with Grindr as they delight fans with their clueless answers to pop culture questions.
Others focus on beauty and style, setting up Amazon closets with their go-to looks and putting on live makeup tutorials. Lagetta Wayne, at 78, has teens asking her to be their grandmother as she tends to her vegetables and cooks them up in Suisun City, California, as @msgrandmasgarden on TikTok.
Most people ages 50 and up use technology to stay connected to friends and family, according to a 2019 survey by AARP. Less than half use social media daily for that purpose, relying on Facebook above other platforms.
Just 37% of those 70 and older used social media daily in 2019, the research showed. Since COVID-19 struck, older creators have expanded their horizons beyond Facebook and gotten more voracious, often driven by the growing number of feeds by people their own age, said Alison Bryant, senior vice president for AARP.
In the California desert town of Cathedral City, Jessay Martin is the second youngest of the Old Gays at 68.
“I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life relaxing pretty much, and I do, but this is picking up more for us. I had a very structured week where Monday I worked the food bank at the senior center, Tuesday and Friday I did yoga for an hour-and-a-half, Wednesday I was on the front desk at the senior center. I was just sort of floating by, not being social, not putting myself out there in the gay community. And boy, has the Old Gays changed that,” Martin said.
Like MacDonald, they do a lot of myth-busting about what’s possible in life’s sixth, seventh and eighth decades.
“They’re showing that anybody can do these things, that you don’t have to be afraid of aging. The 20 and 30 somethings don’t often think about that,” Bryant said. “The authenticity that we’re seeing in some of these older influencers is really refreshing. That’s part of the complexity of their narratives. They’re bringing other parts of their lives to it.”
Sandra Sallin, a blogger and artist, has slowly built her following to 25,300 on Instagram. A lover of lipstick who focuses on cooking and beauty, Sallin also shares photos from her past and other adventures.
“I wanted to expand my world. I felt that I was older, that my world was shrinking. People were moving, people were ill,” Sallin said. “So I started my blog because I wanted to reach out. After that, I heard about this thing called Instagram. It was really hard learning it. I really stumbled my way in. I’m shocked because most people who follow me are 30 and 40 years younger. But there are people who are older, who have kind of given up and say, ‘You know, I’m going to start wearing lipstick.’”
Toby Bloomberg, a 69-year-old in Atlanta, is a Sallin supporter. She discovered Sallin after Sallin competed on the shortlived Food Network show “Clash of the Grandmas.”
“She talks a lot about aging. That’s quite an unusual phenomenon on social media, which is obviously dominated by people far younger than we are,” Bloomberg said.
Mae Karwowski, founder and CEO of the influencer marketing agency Obviously, has more than 100 influencers in her network between the ages of 60 and 80. With more than a billion users on Instagram alone, she points to the successes on that platform of 93-year-old Helen Ruth Elam (baddiewinkle), 67-year-old Lyn Slater (iconaccidental) and 100-year-old style legend Iris Apfel.
“Mainstream media, I would say, presents a really narrow viewpoint on this age group. What’s great about social media is you can follow a really cool 75-year-old woman who is just doing her thing in Florida and that’s fun,” Karwowski said. “The 21-yearold fashion model influencer is managed. She has a team. A lot of these 70-plus influencers are doing it all.”