On the Non-Ironic Love for the Old
Or why Sassy Senior Lady is more authentic than you
You’ll never believe what these crazy millennials are doing now!!! Gosh, how dare they culturally appropriate the elderly by dyeing THEIR HAIR GRAY??!
Here’s the thing, we are all familiar with the fact that every time young people do something different, the world scoffs at their ridiculous hipster trends. And to be honest, sometimes I’m the one doing the scoffing. I know gray haired, vintage shopping, ugly sweater knitting, high waisted pants wearing, bow tied twenty-somethings can test everyone’s patience. But I’m not writing to complain about these trends and I’m also not writing to defend them. No one needs any more think-pieces about why millennials are the end of the world or on the other hand why you should stop being so darn mean to them and let them live. It’s a fight that will never end and every generation will likely detest the one after them.
I am writing to think through why it is that some of us may be drawn to these pieces of “old lady culture”. What spurred this curiosity of mine was a package I got in the mail from my mom recently. In it was a framed embroidered picture that had belonged to my great-grandmother. Now it hangs on my bedroom wall and I love it. It says “All I need is LOVE… And the bear necessities” (Gag). It has cute bears holding hands by a sailboat. The girl bear is holding a smaller teddy bear, the boy bear is holding a bear shaped balloon. It’s very (beary?) cute. But to be honest, it would look way better in my grandma’s home than it does in mine. There is something distinctly homely and quaint about it that doesn’t scream 20 year-old’s NYC apartment. (Note I would not consider my grandmother to be either homely or quaint but you get the idea.)
Suddenly I had to ask that annoying question: Do I like this ironically? Ugh. That was painful to even type. What type of person has an existential crisis about their level of authenticity. Obviously I’m exaggerating but it is interesting to think about where the line is in between ironic and non-ironic love. (Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to define whether the placement of embroidered bears on my wall is an example of postmodernism or metamodernism… today.)
Let’s take a break from these bears real quick and look at my favorite Facebook page “Sassy Senior Lady”. It’s short description is “Thoughts & Fun from a lady who has embraced the AARP age group and trying to still have fun!” and it is as amazing as it sounds. Our mysterious admin will occasionally post about herself but for the most part the page is for the community. There are inspirational posts over sunsets, silly sayings over crude cartoons of crazy elderly women, sassy one-liners over vintage photographs, random pictures of shirtless hunks that she’ll “just leave here… (;”, and a lot of emojis. Sometimes she gets reported for being too sassy, sometimes she has to deal with trolls, but most of the time it is a supportive community who like to LOL and share fun anecdotes about themselves. This is the type of content that makes Facebook worth checking for me. I think I like it because it has that authenticity that isn’t usually found in posts friends of my generation may make. The Sassy Senior Lady just wants to have fun and uplift people. She doesn’t care about seeming cool and I say that in the best way possible.
If I were to take to social media and post a status saying something like “Hello! ❤ Just smile and feel fabulous today!” (something she recently posted), what would people think? I don’t say what would people think like I may have meant in middle school, worrying if people would judge me or roll their eyes and then not sit with me at lunch. I mean it like, would people take it seriously? Would they assume I left my Facebook open on some computer and a friend posted it as a joke? Would they think I was saying it ironically? Would they think what the hell don’t tell me what to do, bitch? Or would they go, hey, that’s nice, and feel a little bit more fabulous than they did before? Or perhaps the biggest question is does it even matter? If someone laughs at it thinking I’m making fun of grandma style facebook posting or if someone smiles thinking hell yeah I am fabulous, either way it would have a generally positive effect, right?
I am extremely fortunate that my family tends to have babies pretty young so I know all of my grandparents and knew several great-grandparents. I am very aware of how rare this and I’m very thankful for my relationship with grandparents. While thinking about the idea of authenticity I want to think about them and those in their generation. Now I don’t want anyone to think I’m creating this blanket idealization of baby boomers’ mentality. There are things they say that I don’t agree with, there are ideals they hold that I don’t hold, and there are things about my life that I don’t want them to know about, not because I’m ashamed but because we simply understand things differently. That being said, they sure do know how to appreciate things. I’m not apathetic, I have passions, I have loves, I enjoy life. But I don’t sit in a restaurant and think “Wow, this is just the nicest slice of heaven I have ever experienced” 20 times a week. My grandma does. She loves and she appreciates and she then vocalizes her appreciations. Sometimes it’s annoying and I want to just say “Ok, calm down we’re in a TGIFridays”. But I don’t. Because there really isn’t anything wrong with finding your slice of heaven in a sticky booth in a crowded casual dining American chain restaurant while sipping a mango passion smoothie.
At the end of the day these homely pictures, Facebook posts, and outlooks, remind me to be appreciative. Because all I really need is love and the “bear” necessities, honestly. Saying it now kinda makes me want to puke but if everyday I wake up to see that on my wall maybe I’ll start believing it and living it more full heartedly. Maybe.
