Influencers over 50 are changing the conversation on aging
When Gym Tan's daughter suggested she start posting her outfits online, the 63 year-old didn't think much of it, figuring it would be a fun hobby to showcase her style and give fashion inspiration. What began as a simple #OOTD post, however, has since grown into a following of over 260,000 on TikTok and over 250,000 on Instagram, and very quickly led to conversations not just about fashion but about age.
"That was something that came up very quickly. That was a surprise," Tan told ABC News about the influx of comments on her videos from women who were thankful that someone was showing what a woman in her 60s looked like.
Aging -- or, more specifically, the desire to maintain youth -- has always been a topic of conversation online. The rise of "Sephora tweens" proves younger girls are entering the skin care world earlier than ever in the hopes of preventing aging. There has also been an increased trend of women in their 20s dabbling in "baby botox" to prevent fine lines or wrinkles. But with older women like Tan entering the digital space, the conversations are changing, and women who might once felt like they were "past their prime" are taking back the narrative.
On TikTok, the hashtags #over50beauty and #beautyover50 have thousands of posts and tens of millions of views. The hashtag #over50influencers also has hundreds of videos and millions of views, while the similar "influencers over 50" search term and variations on it have tens of millions of views.
Instagram boasts a similar trend, with tens of thousands of videos tagged #over50beauty and more than 100,000 posts tagged with the similar #beautyover50 hashtag. Versions of the hashtag #over50influencer are associated with tens of thousands of other videos.
Cherie Gyllenswan, a 55-year-old beauty content creator from North Carolina with over 44,000 followers on TikTok, said the community she has created through her content is mainly women who are realizing that they have the opportunity to reinvent themselves for their "second act."
"We spent our whole life working and building our careers and raising kids, and now these kids are out of the house, and we're left with a whole bunch of free time, and we don't know what to do with it," says Gyllenswan who was a trained make-up artist in her 20s before making a career switch when she had children. "And so now we're in this space, where it's like, we have to figure out who we are now -- like, who am I when I'm not a mother and an employee and a wife and a friend and a daughter? And that is where this space comes in."
The draw of older influencers online is relatability, said Karen Karlsen, a 60-year-old macro nutrition coach from Oregon with 49,000 followers on TikTok and 77,000 on Instagram.
"[This space] gives people in our niche room to sort of relax and go, 'Thank god, somebody is real here.' Because it's really hard with the celebrity images that are out there. It's harder and harder to relate to a celebrity over 50, especially if she's a woman," Karlsen said. "We love them, but they're all getting tweaks starting in their 40s, surgical things that we can't see, and so it doesn't seem fair."
As women themselves are coming to this realization, brands are also connecting the dots and seeing the buying potential of this demographic that has previously been overlooked. Companies like e.l.f. and L'Oréal have recruited big names like Jennifer Coolidge and Jane Fonda to be the faces of their brands, to reach older consumers.
"We're seeing skin care brands show their [products] on unfiltered aging skin with crow's feet and sun damage, because that's where the money is," Gyllenswan said. "Those are the people with the dollars. When my daughter wants a Charlotte Tilbury bronzer, she calls me."
Not only are older influencers shining the light on a demographic of women who are working to find their footing in a new phase of life, they are also helping younger generations look forward to and welcome aging.
"I've got both younger girls and older women coming with comments to say 'I'm no longer afraid of aging because I look at you and I think, "Oh my god," you know, "Someone in their 60s can still look like that,"'" Tan said.
Said Karlsen, "I want the younger women and I want my daughter to be proud of the fact that their mothers are bold, and they're fearless, and [to know] that aging is not something to be afraid of. Because if you are, it's going to wreck every day of your life."
For Gyllenswan, who said she "hated" her 30s and "was so insecure," aging has been a breath of fresh air.
"Every decade brings a gift," she said. "There's this freedom that comes from having lived a lot of life."
