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The Spanish 'tik-tokers' grandmothers who succeed on social networks after 80 years

2023-01-11T05:09:38.920Z


In many cases, the grandchildren themselves are in charge of recording the content and managing their profiles. "I am 82 years old, what I want is to live life, who was going to tell me that I would be famous at this age?" says Rosa Vallejo, with more than seven million followers on her TikTok account, Con Buen Humor.


At the end of August 2017, Guadalupe Fiñana, an 88-year-old Sevillian fan of

Game of Thrones

, watched the last episode of the seventh season of the hit series with her granddaughter.

Throughout the episode, Fiñana did not stop commenting on what she saw on the screen, what she did not know is that her granddaughter, aware of her grandmother's grace, was recording her.

A friend uploaded the video to YouTube.

"The video became

virile

from that and from there, I began to record more," he explains in a telephone conversation with EL PAÍS Grandmother of dragons, as Guadalupe Fiñana is now known on social networks.

In these five years, Fiñana has not only become a star on Instagram and TikTok (where she has 159,000 and 322,000 followers, respectively), but has also made the leap to television with her participation in the first edition of the

MasterChef Abuelos program.

"I made some roquefort croquettes that came out delicious and they took me, it's not because they're mine, but I make them very good," she details about the

casting

test .

They took her, yes, but she also won the contest.

Later, she came with a recipe book and even a short film,

Maruja

, released just a few weeks ago.

A project starring Fiñana herself, directed by Berta García-Lacht and co-produced by Isabel Coixet.

The Sevillian is one of the grandmothers who defy the digital divide and succeed on the internet after the age of 80.

The naturalness of these types of profiles is received as a breath of fresh air in the age of filters, and the millions of people interested in their content make it clear that the bubble of social networks is not exclusive to the youngest.

The grandmother-grandson tandem

Behind many of these profiles are the grandsons and granddaughters of the grandmothers, in charge of recording and publishing the videos and managing the account.

On some occasions, they even act as representatives when it comes to dealing with brands that seek to collaborate with them.

This is the case of Mari Carmen and her grandson Héctor de ella, the duo behind La Yaya Mari Carmen, with 305,000 followers on TikTok.

“My grandson studied film directing, he has always been with the camera up and down, recording and making movies,” says Mari Carmen, an 82-year-old from Leon who has lived in Barcelona for more than six decades.

In October 2020, when the growth of TikTok exploded thanks to the pandemic, Héctor decided to upload the videos of his grandmother that he had recorded for years to the platform.

“I have always been fascinated by costumbrismo,

record day-to-day things of my friends, family...”, he explains.

And that spontaneity of routine things is what we find in the videos starring Mari Carmen, with Héctor behind the camera.

From preparing a travel suitcase to his reunion with his sister Encarnita or her rehabilitation sessions, grandmother and grandson show a close relationship but without paternalism, like two friends from very different generations.

"I'm like this.

Everything there is, what my grandson records for me, is spontaneous.

It's how I am.

And he is what he is looking for too.

It's all natural.

Physically, he can catch me in a robe, disheveled, screaming.

And being you, being yourself, seems to reach people”, Mari Carmen makes clear.

And that spontaneity of routine things is what we find in the videos starring Mari Carmen, with Héctor behind the camera.

From preparing a travel suitcase to her reunion with her sister Encarnita or her rehabilitation sessions, grandmother and grandson show a close relationship but without paternalism, like two friends from very different generations.

"I'm like this.

Everything there is, what my grandson records for me, is spontaneous.

It's how I am.

And he is what he is looking for too.

It's all natural.

Physically, he can catch me in a robe, disheveled, screaming.

And being you, being yourself, seems to reach people”, Mari Carmen makes clear.

And that spontaneity of routine things is what we find in the videos starring Mari Carmen, with Héctor behind the camera.

From preparing a travel suitcase to her reunion with her sister Encarnita or her rehabilitation sessions, grandmother and grandson show a close relationship but without paternalism, like two friends from very different generations.

"I'm like this.

Everything there is, what my grandson records for me, is spontaneous.

It's how I am.

And he is what he is looking for too.

It's all natural.

Physically, he can catch me in a robe, disheveled, screaming.

And being you, being yourself, seems to reach people”, Mari Carmen makes clear.

grandmother and grandson show a close relationship but without paternalism, like two friends from very different generations.

"I'm like this.

Everything there is, what my grandson records for me, is spontaneous.

It's how I am.

And he is what he is looking for too.

It's all natural.

Physically, he can catch me in a robe, disheveled, screaming.

And being you, being yourself, seems to reach people”, Mari Carmen makes clear.

grandmother and grandson show a close relationship but without paternalism, like two friends from very different generations.

"I'm like this.

Everything there is, what my grandson records for me, is spontaneous.

It's how I am.

And he is what he is looking for too.

It's all natural.

Physically, he can catch me in a robe, disheveled, screaming.

And being you, being yourself, seems to reach people”, Mari Carmen makes clear.

Without commercial strategies, the grandmothers of TikTok have managed to connect with an audience as young as their grandchildren, or even less.

The examples accumulate with names like La Yaya Joaquina, 93, or La Abuela Antonia, 92, two nonagenarians with tens of thousands of followers on social networks (90,000 followers on TikTok the first, and 132,000 the second).

Rosa Vallejo and her grandson Christian, the creators of Con Buen Humor, have built a community made up of more than 7.2 million people.

The pattern is repeated once more: everything came up unexpectedly, with a grandson in the middle and with no pretension beyond having a good time.

“I started by myself, making videos,” Christian says, recalling the exact date he first posted a video with his grandmother.

“It was January 1, 2013. People loved it.

And from there we made a video and another and another, but it came out of nowhere, without expecting her to become so famous or anything.

In fact, she has not become so famous until three or four years ago, a little before the pandemic, thanks to TikTok ”.

In all cases, they claim to take their presence in networks as a hobby.

“I am 82 years old, what I want is to live life, because one has already been through many hosts, do you understand me?

It's like a second life, who was going to tell me that she was going to be famous at this age?” clarifies Rosa Vallejo, born in Andalusia and a resident of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat for years.

Although these are not professional projects as such, there is a lot of work behind these profiles: creating and publishing content on a recurring basis requires effort and dedication.

The brands, both those aimed at a family audience and those close to the younger audience, have not been slow to identify in these figures an alternative to the usual prescribers.

“Practically everyone is fond of the figure of the elderly, so it is much easier for these types of profiles to empathize with the public and generate high

engagement

.

And what brands are looking for is to get away from the typical campaigns with

influencers

and create innovative content that not only empathizes with the audience, but also allows them to interact with the content," says Sergio Barreda Coy, CEO of the

influencer

agency Keeper Experience.

Challenge to the digital divide and company facing loneliness

Finding an entertainment that you are passionate about after the age of 80 is not usually the norm, but if that

hobby

has to do with social networks, it is even more unusual if we take into account the problem of the digital divide suffered by the elderly.

According to data from the Senior Observatory of the newspaper 65ymás, 76% of people over 80 are concerned about the digital divide.

Getting acquainted with technology at an advanced age has allowed

influencer grandmothers

connect with a young and demanding public, in many cases digital natives.

The success of grannies on social networks (and on the internet in general, as also demonstrated by the phenomenon of Pasta Grannies), where they are the epicenter of a community that embraces them virtually, contrasts with the loneliness suffered by a large part of the third age.

According to a recent report from the European Commission, 11% of Spanish men and women have felt alone at some point in the last year.

A situation that especially affects the elderly, as it is the age group that most often lives without company.

Some countries, such as Japan, have even created a Ministry of Loneliness to try to tackle a social problem that has worsened as a result of the coronavirus crisis.

Guadalupe Fañina confesses to enjoying “

sagram ” like a child

” (as he refers to Instagram) and he is excited to say that what he likes the most is “reading the messages that they send me from all over the world, from New York, from New Zealand, from Ecuador, from Wisconsin, that I didn't even know where there was that.

They send me such beautiful messages that I get very distracted reading them.

I answer and I am very grateful.

Walking down the street, running errands or going to the market, they find fans everywhere who ask for photos and hugs.

“They recognize me a lot, the children and the elderly stop me.

She is the grandmother of TikTok, they tell me, ”says Rosa Vallejo, from Con Buen Humor.

She has also noticed the affection of the public beyond the Mari Carmen screen, always ready to take photos and videos with her followers.

And she remembers an anecdote that happened to her in Madrid: “They stop me for a moment on Gran Vía, and suddenly, group after group,

waving and asking for photos, as if they had gotten off a bus.

In another street, a girl

Rubina

hugs me and starts to cry.

I also cried with emotion.

I will never forget that wonderful hug with tears.

It impacted me a lot."

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-01-11

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