Senior Rappers and Gamers Challenge China’s Concept of Age

The 65-year-old woman crouches in a field and holds a head of cabbage. Behind her, two friends back and forth, holding cucumber and radishes. “This rotten cabbage, let’s pluck it out, eat it, achieve some culinary freedom,” Guo Yifen, the woman with the cabbage, sings in a low, husky voice in the song “Spicy Hot Pot Real Rap”. ).

The trio, known as Sister Wang Is Coming, are known for sharing fun videos on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. Guo and her musical partners Wang Shuping, 64, and Wang Xiurong, 66, have more than 500,000 followers who watch their food-related music videos, with songs like “Fried Mushrooms” and “Country Food Rap” ( Redneck food rap).

The group is one of a growing number of elderly Chinese who have found viral success by sharing their daily lives online. In this corner of the Chinese internet, octogenarians sing, septuagenarians dance the tango and graying fashionistas walk runways and give makeup tips to millions of fans. There’s even an 86-year-old man who just sits back and plays video games like Call of Duty.

With more than 260 million people over the age of 60, China has the largest and fastest growing elderly population in the world. Nearly half are online, where some choose to live their professional dreams, while others simply have a little fun. Many find companionship through their fans, an antidote to a lonely life. They are part of a new generation of Chinese retirees who have fewer grandchildren than their predecessors and greater financial autonomy to pursue hobbies and share experiences online.

The singers, dancers and accidental celebrities are part of a global community of seniors who have embraced the ups and sometimes downs of social media.

In China, influencers are helping to challenge the particularly ingrained stereotype that grandparents are expected to stay at home or help care for their families by cleaning, cooking and looking after the grandchildren while the adult children work. For some retirees, grandchildren are no longer a factor as more and more young Chinese reject marriage or choose not to start families.

“We look at our parents’ old age and think: We have to live differently,” said Sun Yang, 66, a former English teacher who retired more than a decade ago. Sun and three of her friends are fashion influencers who go by the name Glamma Beijing. In their videos, they show vintage and modern clothes and mix style tips with advice for everyday life.

“What we do now is something we could only dream of when we were young,” she said. Many of Glamma Beijing’s more than 2 million followers are in their 50s and 60s. But there are also younger people, who ask women about school and dating. Some say the tutorials helped them overcome their fear of aging, Sun said.

Glamma Beijing stars sometimes feature family in their videos. Sun’s daughter-in-law manages the social media account, and her 6-year-old granddaughter often helps with filming. But mostly the four talk about travel, walks and rehearsals for fashion shows.

Independence is a common theme in influencers’ videos, as they rail against the idea that seniors should stay home in retirement and help raise the next generation.

In the music videos for Sister Wang Is Coming, Guo and her friends run around the fields, play pranks on each other, or lie on the grass and daydream. They rap about their love of cooking and eating. It’s a world away from the daily routines they once had as mothers and wives with children to raise and husbands to feed. “Times are changing,” said Lin Wei, 67, another Glamma and former nurse who has vowed to stay active in her old age. “We need to keep up with society and integrate ourselves into it.”

For the foodie rap grandmas🇧🇷 who live in a village near Beijing, the videos started as a way to pass the time during the pandemic. “It was just fun and games,” said Wang Shuping. When Wang’s son Ren Jixin came to visit during the Lunar New Year holiday, he decided to help the women perfect their number.

“We sing out of tune. We don’t have a musical ear,” Guo said. Ren, a composer of music for documentaries, suggested that the trio rap instead of sing, and began writing lyrics for the group. This year, hundreds of thousands of people started following his Douyin account. Ren moved back home and now spends several days a week writing, rehearsing and filming.

“It exercises our brains,” Guo said of the content they create.

There is money too. Through her Douyin account, Sister Wang Is Coming earns around US$1,400 (R$7,400) a month. It’s not enough to live on, but as their fan base grows they generate more interest from companies wanting to advertise with them.

For Glamma Beijing, streaming is much more profitable. They can earn over $115,000 (R$613,000) in advertising and sales commissions from just a few live streams. At one such event in August, the four grandmothers sat by a lake in a park in Beijing and talked about their youth as 21,000 people watched online.

But success can have its challenges. Some older influencers in the country are managed by talent agencies that impose strenuous quotas and require their clients to sell products and brands. Fans can be fickle, and networking platforms like Douyin can bombard users with channels more focused on selling products than telling a good story.