idle gaze 070: the youth = relevance -> age = confidence shift
the allure of staying young is fleeting but the confidence of growing old runs deep.
There’s an interesting juxtaposition going on in the collective psyche of young people right now.
They’re working harder than ever to delay ageing. But at the same time yearning for the cool confidence that can only come with growing old.
On one hand, ageing is seen as an almost moral failure. From the obsession with celebrity’s looks who haven’t changed, to the collective mob-like lambasting of those who do show their age. There’s TikTok plastic surgeons posting “real or sus” videos nitpicking anti-ageing procedures. And beyond the desire to delay the realities of ageing, there’s the corner of Silicon Valley currently on a pursuit to reverse ageing, like Bryan “Blood Boy” Johnson, the tech millionaire on a mission to reverse his biological age through father-son blood plasma transfusions and draconian diets.
Yet at the same time, when you look at the world of fashion, entertainment and beauty, we’re entering an era of unprecedented intergenerational pollination that instead fully embraces the idea of ageing.
Youth focused brands everywhere are partnering with ‘mature’ icons. Some recent examples: 69 year old Willem Dafoe featured in campaigns for both the streetwear brand Palace and e-commerce giant Zalando, while 70 year old Jerry Seinfeld made his modelling debut with New York label Kith.
When relevance has for so long been intertwined with the idea of youth, why has there been such a steady uptick in clout-driven consumer brands courting younger consumers with celebrities twice or three times their age?
On some level, it’s as simple as offering a sense of creative juxtaposition. When we see 69-year-old Whoopi Goldberg in an Ami campaign, or 85-years-young actor Anthony Hopkins in the LOEWE Fall/Winter 2022 pre-collection, there’s a particular spark of joy in seeing seemingly different areas of culture collide unexpectedly.1
But there’s something deeper and more meaningful at play too. The idea of ageing, once treated as an inconvenient, shameful reality, is increasingly being embraced as not just something positive, but something to aspire to.
With the emerging desire among younger cohorts to step beyond the confines of their age group, who with increasing frequency showcase an interest in tapping into the carefree style of older generations, it’s a marketing strategy that makes sense. Take for example the linen-clad, New England “coastal grandmother”, or the staid country club uniforms of ‘old money aesthetics’, or the the musty cardigans of grandpa-core taking over TikTok, which all embrace dress codes associated with otherwise fuddy-duddy elders. When you observe the newly-acquired swagger of the kids engaging with these trends, it becomes clear it’s not just about the outfits. It’s equally about the unburdened sense of liberation they associate with older generations, who have been able to move past the fear of judgement and self-doubt that so greatly inhibits the young and insecure.
In the age of fleeting fads and relentless trend-chasing, this maturity is associated with a sense of steadfast, cool confidence. As Carina Chocano observes in an essay in The New York Times about the rise of 50+ mentors in the fashion industry:
“This is a different kind of aspiration than the one found in closet tours of young influencers and celebrities…many of those figures seem focused on stockpiling luxury brands and reacting to trends. Part of why [older fashion icons] feel so reassuring is that, like all cool older people, they seem comfortably past all that, as though they've already seen the trends, chased the goods and graduated into freedom.”
This new age of future aspiration also implies a fundamental shift in our collective psychology. It indicates that for young people, their future selves are no longer deemed irrelevant. When we perceive the trajectory of our lives, current research tells us that when we look back at our past and into our future, we can typically be categorized into two camps: ‘dividers’, and ‘continuers’2. Dividers tend to perceive more distinct boundaries between their life phases, viewing both their teenage self and future self as strangers - fictional characters from a novel. Continuers on the other hand, are more likely to feel emotionally connected to the past and future, feeling a strong, unbroken thread of identity running through their life stages. When young people exhibit a sense of shared resonance with older generations, it indicates that the illusion has shattered: their future self is no longer a distant stranger. They are seen as one and the same.
In The Substance, one of the most provocative and talked about films of the year, where faded Hollywood star Elisabeth Sparkle is fired from her TV show and, desperate for youth, injects a black market serum that splits the main character into two beings — a new, younger, vibrant self and her original, older self, elevates the debate to a new conceptual extreme. “Remember, you are one”, a recurring line in the film, has evolved into a cautionary message for Gen Z, who today grapple with the desire to fight back against the realities of losing their youth, while finding ways to embrace the virtues of maturity that can only come with age.
To see our older and wiser future self and younger, vibrant, but ultimately more naive current self as one, rather than two strangers in conflict, has taken on a radical aura in a culture that continues to stigmatise the realities of ageing. As Ingrid Fetell Lee, an expert in design and joy, imagines:
“What if instead of seeing ageing as something to defeat and conquer, we were to embrace what gets better with age, and work to amplify these joys while mitigating the losses of youth? In a culture where angst seems to prevail, and young people face uncertain futures, ageing with joy is an act of humanity.”
The traditional marketing playbook used to follow one commonly accepted rule: if you want to sell to the youth you have to show them that you are youthful too. Elevate the voices of their generation, partner with role models that represent the zeitgeist of their era.
The brands that today feature millennials that might have once been derided as cheugy or boomers dismissed as cringe are not simply indulging in a dose of rebellious creative juxtaposition. They’re offering a statement that age = relevance; a proclamation that the best (and coolest) is yet to come. These are the brands that now understand that the allure of staying young is fleeting but the confidence of growing old runs deep.
A version of this essay was originally published in Mediacat Magazine.
Footnote:
📚 Had the pleasure of contributing to
excellent “the resurgence of text media” report (alongside some of my favourite researchers and thinkers including and ). The 30 page dossier explores the changing landscape of media production and consumption, diving into everything from the rise of the text image format of style not com & BRAT style album covers, to subcultural advertorial print magazines and literary it girls like Ottessa Moshfegh strutting down runways. Highly recommended reading for anyone remotely involved or interested in modern media!A large majority of these collabs are male ‘mature’ icons which says a lot about the continued stigmatisation of ‘ageing’ women.
Nothing brings me more joy than watching Pamela Anderson reenter the spotlight and show up so unapologetically as herself. People like her make every phase of life sound like an adventure worth embracing to the fullest and looking forward to :)
Nice piece as usual Alexi! I love seeing older icons like Willem Dafoe and Anthony Hopkins celebrated like that. Also Jeff Goldblum is another good example.
I just watched The Substance. Was not expecting that! Very visceral and thought-provoking movie.