Yes, there are seniors on TikTok. Except that according to popular discourse, the video sharing application would be the exclusive haunt of younger generations, those who have never known a world without the Internet. However, I just need to hang out a little on “QuébecTok” in the evening to randomly come across many lives broadcast by elders.
If we persist in repeating commonplaces with regard to TikTokers, it is perhaps because we consider the platform as a space on the margins of “real” life and that we approach the phenomena which flourish there without really immerse yourself in it. By making the digital participation of our elders invisible, we neglect to talk about the determining role they are called upon to play in the future development of technologies.
TikTok is a social media of recommendations, which means that unlike Facebook or even Instagram, the content presented to us mainly comes from an algorithm, rather than from pre-existing social relationships. So, we generally consume videos of complete strangers. That’s how, while browsing my recommendations page this winter, I came across a video by Gilles Cloutier, aka Gillou, 78 years old, a Quebecer from Beauharnois, who quickly became one of my favorite creators.
Gillou created his account in 2020, during the pandemic. Very quickly, he started posting videos and gradually became familiar with the application. Today, he publishes daily humorous sketches and more serious videos, in which he sincerely addresses various aspects of his life, in front of his approximately 12,800 subscribers. He’s obviously not the only elder on TikTok, but he’s still my favorite. For example, many know Grandma Droniak, a 93-year-old American superstar who has more than 12.8 million subscribers. By sometimes falling into insolence, this connected granny subverts the image of the gentle and silent grandmother. Without denying the biological reality of her advanced age, she nevertheless diverts its meaning: growing old does not mean losing one’s sense of repartee or even one’s desire to seduce.
Grandfluencers
Many “high influencers” espouse behaviors and tropes that we usually associate with young people. They make us laugh precisely because of the generation gap that separates them from the actions they reproduce on screen. If Grandma Droniak is funny, it’s because we don’t expect to see her looking good in a swimsuit, or texting one of her suitors.
Rather than caricature youth, Gillou offers content that is aimed directly at aging people. “I have the impression that a lot of people who follow me are between 60 and 80 years old: single people, sick people, divorced people, people in mourning and whose spouses have died,” he told me.
If Gillou seeks to make people laugh, he seeks above all to bring people together, to forge links with people who can recognize themselves in the experiences he shares.
His community also appreciates the frank and not always rosy portrait that he paints of its reality. For example, he addresses his loneliness, the relationship he has with his aging body, his end-of-life wishes and even his sexuality.
Some of Gillou’s videos are also part of an autobiographical approach. For him, they represent a way of leaving a trace: “If one day, my granddaughter, who does not know that I exist, wants to know who her grandfather was, she will be able to see my tiktoks. » However, the digital heritage that Gillou builds is not guaranteed to pass into posterity, in that it is subject to the vagaries of a private, potentially ephemeral platform, whose entire architecture seems to have been designed to promote the present moment, without regard to the future, the past and the preservation of a collective memory.
The expression “digital dark ages” also refers to the loss of historical information linked to the precarious nature of our digital archives. Since the technology we use changes at breakneck speed, future generations may eventually be unable to access what was built on the web before them. According to researcher Tamara Kneese, “the problem is that there is no clear mechanism for us to bequeath our digital assets” (read in the Guardian), except perhaps a few Facebook settings, implemented following the Virginia Tech University shooting. The tragedy then transformed the platform into a real place of contemplation, highlighting the urgency of rethinking our social media in light of our mortality.
Because technology is often designed by young people for young people, today’s social media are not very inclusive and struggle to meet the specific needs of older people, who do not all have the same level of digital literacy. . However, the aging of the population should rather push us to review our platforms so that seniors are better represented and that they feel wanted, heard and listened to.