'Granny hobbies,' Boommates, and the return of the cougar 🐆
Can someone please knit me some zebra print hot pants?
Happy mid-week, MoMi friends! If you’re new here, Welcome 💕 This is a weekly digest of trends and perspectives on the new middle age and retirement and what that means for business, culture, media, and work.
This week we have some steamy morsels of retirement intrigue and midlife desire: the youths continue to opt-in to senior-inspired activities and memberships, while seniors just want to have fun and spend money; cougars are trending and the spirit animal everyone’s writing about; plus some new ways to think about—and increase—longevity. As always, smash that heart button up top and forward on to a friend or colleague that needs some midlife+ inspo and intel.
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Taco Bell Opens Early Retirement Home for Fans of All Ages (Adweek)
This might be my fave brand activation, not just because it’s Taco Bell but because they’re really leaning into the trend of the aspirational retirement lifestyle. If you’ve been following along, we’ve seen it with cruises, quilting, early bedtimes, book clubs, and golf communities. And now as a pop-up retirement community for the old at heart with senior-inspired activities like pickleball, early bird dinners, and afternoon aerobics. Throw in some free Crunchwrap Supremes and you’d have to drag me out of there.
Related: Millennials Are Swapping Their Midlife Crisis for 'Granny Hobbies' Instead (Newsweek)
Born Before 1974? This Investor Wants to Talk (Inc)
Katerina Stroponiati, founder of the new early-stage venture capital firm Brilliant Minds, is betting that the next generation of game-changing companies will be started by entrepreneurs over 50.
"We see aging as a decline. We should see it as an opportunity," she says. "I'm tapping into this market, which is totally overlooked. It's like Moneyball. Everybody's looking somewhere else." she adds, "I'm creating a new market here." 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Related: You might be a late bloomer (The Atlantic): On average, innovation occurs later in life: Nobel Prize winners made their crucial discoveries at the age of 44; the average age of a U.S. patent applicant is 47; the fastest-growing start-ups were founded by people whose average age was 45 when their company was launched; the peak innovation age is the late 40s.
‘We’re Not Dead Yet.’ Baby Boomers’ Good Times Drive the Economy. (WSJ)
A fascinating look at an “active adult” community fueling the U.S.’s fastest growing city, Georgetown, Texas: “‘It’s like they’re at college except they don’t have to go to class and they have $3 million in the bank,’ said [Mayor] Schroeder. ‘It’s almost like a cruise ship on land.’..
Older Americans are emerging as major drivers of the economy. Their stock portfolios, retirement savings and paid-off homes have swelled in value over decades of growth. Hours once spent raising young children and working can now be devoted to golf, concerts and brunch.” Do NOT sleep on the spending power of this cohort:
Americans 55 and over control nearly 70% of U.S. household wealth
Their dollars amount to 45% of U.S. personal spending
Most companies should be thinking about how you can design or improve your products and services to meet these active adults’ needs, or at minimum, adjust your marketing to speak to their real lifestyles, not the outdated stereotypes.
Scandinavia is having a moment as European travelers seek ‘coolcations’ to beat the heat (Fortune)
We talk a lot about travel trends and shifts among older travelers here and this is an adjacent trend worth watching. As people start looking to cooler climes for their vacations, this will be even more relevant to an older traveling cohort who has the means to afford the typically higher price point of Scandinavian destinations. And as a destination, what better tourist could there be than ones who don’t rage party, don’t damage property, and also spend big bucks? In this era of hypertourism when tourists are getting squirted with water or paying tourism taxes, tourism boards that court fewer, bigger spenders could help alleviate the strain.
Related: One of the best recent tourism ads was for Visit OSLO and it is perfection.
The Awful Ferocity of Midlife Desire (The Atlantic)
Not that I’m complaining, but I’m curious why now there seem to be so many stories of older women-age gap relationships. Have we all just collectively decided we want more of these stories? Have we become more comfortable not banishing middle-aged women into a cellar of sexlessness? Either way, I am here for it. Especially if they are as brilliant as Miranda July’s novel All Fours and Catherine Breillat’s film Last Summer.
Both works have the same thesis: The state of midlife, for women, is a kind of second (or third) adolescence, a coming-into-age identity crisis that roils with hormones and exploration and discontent. More crucial, the intensity with which both artists render midlife desire makes it entirely incompatible with the confines of the traditional domestic setup. When home is no longer enough, where are women supposed to go?
Related: Being a Cougar Is So Back (Elle) “In the last two decades, culture has labeled women who pursue [younger] relationships “cougars.” Suggesting an inappropriate power imbalance, and framing the woman as a predator of a sort (that this concern is never applied in the reverse is but one small example of how women are forever held to different standards).” Mic drop. Floored. Putting on my leopard print right meow. 🐆
The ‘evergreen economy’: Harnessing the power of healthy longevity (McKinsey)
Excellent interview with economist Andrew J. Scott on the importance of rethinking and planning for longevity, and not in a creepy tech billionaire way, but for everyone as life expectancies increase. This applies to both employers who will be employing an aging workforce and brands and companies who have an opportunity to create an expanded suite of products and services geared towards serving an older and more engaged senior population.
What are the things I can do at 30, 40, 50, 60 to help me keep my health, keep my purpose, keep my sense of engagement. And that’s a huge opportunity—it’s the leisure industry, it’s the food and beverage industry, it’s about education and financial services, as well as, of course, health products. It’s an enormous market opportunity because, around the world, everyone is living longer and can expect to have more time ahead of them. So how they age is incredibly important…
A lot of change needs to happen now; we’ve got to adapt to these longer lives. Lots of new products. Lots of new services. And most firms, when I talk to them, think of the over 65 as a single market focused invariably on issues such as care and decline, effectively underestimating the capacity of older people. That’s a belief hardwired into the concept of an aging society—that is, to fundamentally misunderstand an enormous potential market with an ever-growing number of people who tend to have more money than younger people.
With cafes and restaurants, senior housing is opening itself up to the public (Fast Company)
No more walled gardens of the senior living communities, the latest senior community development trend is creating spaces open to the public. Designing these intergenerational spaces is great all-around as it provides access to amenities for younger folks and also keeps senior residents engaged in their local community. In the era of ‘open concept everything’ this one at least makes good social and economic sense.
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Kareem Rahma of the hilarious TikTok series Subway Takes launched a new long-form show on YouTube called The Last Stop and the first episode is a gentle roast of baby boomers, featuring boomers Jerry Saltz and Brenda Cullerton who are great sports.
Horizon Media published an excellent report on the new middle age called, well, The New Middle Age and there are some real gems in it. If you don’t want to give your email to download, hit reply and I’ll send you the pdf.
Gen Z’s enthusiasm for all things touchable is resurrecting the analog economy—and costing parents I feel for these parents. Especially if you’re investing in the analog hardware and also the digital subscriptions. And they don’t even get to go to a Sam Goody. (Forbes)
'Boommate' boom: How baby boomers living like 'The Golden Girls' are curbing loneliness and cost burdens: Between the housing crisis and the loneliness epidemic, no surprise with this one. And anyone who can create a marketplace between Boomers with rooms and tenants in need stands to make a lot of money.
Prescribing of testosterone for middle-aged women ’out of control’ (Guardian)
Why more young people are signing up for AARP memberships: In another episode of Youths Imitating Seniors, AARP memberships are skyrocketing. In our cash-strapped economy where people are getting crafty with their savings, AARP’s expansive discount program can help ease wallet pressure (Modern Retail)
I cannot wait to read Emily Nussbaum’s latest book, Cue the Sun: The Invention of Reality TV. I’m not even a huge reality TV fan (other than The Golden Bachelor of course) but as The New Yorker’s TV editor and a fantastic writer, it is sure to be entertaining. (NPR)
An insightful viral tweet from a financial advisor about the impending Great Wealth Transfer which is estimated at $84 trillion.
A free way to lengthen your life: Be grateful. In a new study, researchers followed 50,000 older female nurses in the U.S. — average age 79 — and found that those who expressed the strongest feelings of gratitude had 25%-30% lower risk of premature death. (LA Times)
On that note, I want to thank all my readers. I’m grateful for those who made it this far and those who didn’t. But if you did, you know what to do with that heart button up top 🥰
What a great read!