Old Ladies, Big Weights and Being a Badass in Your Nineties.
I’m not the only one. And just to prove it, I’m sharing another great story. Okay, several.
Dear Reader: First of all, if I may do a preemptive strike here: if Unsplash had photos of oldsters in the gym, I would use them.
If Unsplash photographers bothered to peel the prejudice off their eyeballs, they would see that a goodly proportion of the folks in the gyms are my age or within 10–25 years of 68, using trainers, punching out the reps, and getting strong, I would GLADLY post those photos. But they don’t. They have a narrative, that narrative doesn’t include powerful engaged, funny, energetic, super successful oldsters. Add oldsters of color, it gets worse. If you put in any key words around older women and men into Unsplash, you will get the same stupid shit I get. So kindly.
But they don’t. So before my Medium commenters bark at me that I don’t use photos of folks our age, WILL YOU PLEASE. You wanna bark? BARK AT UNSPLASH. I’ve bought photos from Deposit and I have the same issue there. I don’t make enough money on Medium to buy expensive custom photos of a cohort that the general public doesn’t believe exists, so people don’t photograph us. ‘Nuff said.
