Lois Bowers headshot

I read this week about a retirement community in West Hollywood, CA, that has six residents aged 70 to 85.

Except “Retirement House” isn’t a real place, and the “residents” don’t really live there.

Instead, it’s a TikTok account featuring actors with varying previous professional experience starring in videos recorded at a mansion.

“I come into work and laugh all day long. I just can’t stop laughing,” 85-year-old Gaylynn Baker, known on TikTok as Mabel, told Buzzfeed. “We’re changing people’s minds about what it means to age by having fun.”

The BuzzFeed article notes a few other “grandfluencer” accounts on TikTok, too.

Eleven percent of US TikTok users are aged 50 or more years, according to App Ape mobile apps analytics service statistics shared by the AARP. The association noted that social media can be a way for people to make connections, be entertained, learn something new or feel less bored or lonely.

For Brendan Chase, 25, a creator of the Retirement House account, “The bottom line is that people want to see that when they get old, they won’t be boring,” he told Buzzfeed, adding that people seem to have fun watching the videos.

The actors also said that they like that they are bridging age gaps and bringing different generations together.

“I think my spiritual path may be showing people that aging is mostly in the mind. I’ve never had such a good time,” Baker told Buzzfeed.

Ninety-three-year-old Betty Loose, a resident of Dial Senior Living’s Overlook Village in Moline, IL, also appears to be having a good time on the social media platform. A TikTok video featuring her has gone viral, garnering more than 900,000 in three weeks.

The video shows Loose standing in front of a shower curtain. “My doctor told me to install a bar in my shower, so I did,” she says, pulling back the curtain to reveal several bottles of liquor and cans of beer.

Loose was recruited to star in the video by Overlook Village Activity Directors Mindy Dodd and Rachel Hammond, according to the Quad City Times. She also has been featured in additional videos since the original one was posted.

Researchers from Yale University and the National University of Singapore, in an article published earlier this year in the journal Gerontologist, said that the COVID-19 pandemic “supercharged” the use of TikTok — and social media in general — among older adults. If your staff and residents want to join in on the fun, the AARP offers lots of information they may find helpful.

Lois A. Bowers is the editor of McKnight’s Senior Living. Read her other columns here.

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