On mid-life influencers

If I weren’t deeply impressed by how much money they make, I’d find the whole idea of influencers preposterous. One day you’re minding your own business making a facial scrub from stuff in your fridge, and the next, you’re sharing this and other recipes on @kitchenbeauty. Now you’re the go-to person for making shampoo out of breadfruit.

I’m way too hung up on the word “influencer.” Language is such a wonderfully stretchy thing. It’s always been there to help us reshape, reinterpret and represent the things we’re interested in.

But “influencer” floors me. It has to be the most presumptuous, bold-faced, unapologetic term I’ve ever encountered. Many other things do influencer work: marketing, advertising, spin, your own observation of trends, heroes in the public eye. Yet somehow there was room for the emergence of the influencer.

Usually, when we think of this enchanted group, we see the young, the beautiful, the thin.

So what do mid-life influencers do? Sadly, much the same. There may be a little more focus on health, menopause and raising families, but overall, most of them traffic in the same goods as their Gen Z counterparts.

I’d love to overhaul my wardrobe and go out looking like Sophia Loren. But it’s not going to happen. Because I am not she. Even though she be decades older than I, it’s still not going to work for me. And I never look that good in glasses.

So if I were a mid-life influencer, what would I do? Well, beauty and fashion were never my passion, so that’s out. I have no interest in telling people where I go or where I buy reed diffusers. I’m not going to try to convince anyone that kale is a food worth their time.

As a mid-life influencer I’d like to get people to listen to more music. I won’t actively put down (in the veterinary sense) any genre, but I would strongly steer you to the bouncy 80s and the experimental 90s. But really, just listen to a lot more music. Forget the podcasts and the mediation exercises. Just dance. And sing while doing laundry.

Do you have a pet problem? I’m here for you. You don’t have to train them, they will train you. Accept that you are here to do their bidding. They didn’t ask to be domesticated. We have already done wrong. Give yourself over to serving those with fur and four legs. Or whatever it is that birds and fish need.

On that note, why are you still eating fish? The world likes to stand aside and gasp in horror about the way cows and chickens are treated. You don’t really care about animals until you start thinking about the fishing industry or even recreational fishing. It’s barbaric.

Now, about food. Food is about flavour and speaks to all your senses.

“Mmmmm,” “so good,” and “this is indescribable” are not flavours. I want to make you weep with yearning over a mushroom omelette. The butter becomes one with the eggs and they fold like silk over the sauteed mushrooms. The mushrooms arrive at your mouth, salty-sweet-umami, not too soft. A smidgen of fresh thyme (must be cooked with the eggs, not on top) is light perfume and the taste of the outdoors. Hungry?

As a middle-aged woman, I want more about cold things. I always think I’m about to die of heatstroke (sometimes described as menopause). The thing we need is more ideas of where to get the best snow cones or which truck has the coldest coconuts. We also need to become advocates for more affordable watermelon juice. Of course I can make it, but I don’t have that kind of time. Or inclination.

When you see me, I won’t be wearing pants. I’m over pants. I have many oversized T-shirts with pictures of cats looking bored. I don’t care if there is a way to upscale this into a trendy dress. I want to encourage everyone to go out in their giant shirts and sneakers. Down with pants.

Now, this concerns your health, so listen up. Stop cleaning everything. Don’t be a slob, but think of the amount of time wasted on polishing things, the great washing of curtains, the obsessive need to keep the windows so clear they become a hazard to birds and curious children. How will we develop resilience against our allergies if we don’t have a bit of dust? (Disclaimer: ignore this if you are asthmatic.)

But most of all, dance and eat cake.