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Angela Barnett hails from Taradale and her tūrangawaewae is Piha. She’s a writer, body image activist, mother, and lover of wigs.
COMMENT: “Mum, look at us older!”
I could think of other things I’d like to look at. Women playing soccer. Giant eagles. Carrot cake.
Holding her phone in front of our faces my teenage daughter looked 35. Me, no longer 35, looked about 65.
I recoiled at my own image then kicked myself. I am meant to be the role model. The one always banging on about not judging anyone by appearances, and how ageing is a privilege not everyone gets to experience, and we all need to stop being ageists.
Yet there I was looking at the wrinkles in my cheeks on TikTok’s new ‘aged’ filter thinking CRIKEY (but in more colourful language).
I forced out a “huh” followed by ‘interesting’. Not my best pep talk or response.
It was confronting because the AI used is more realistic than those Facebook filters that flew around a while ago. You can see yourself. There you are in your potential future being someone else but still you. Older you. It’s like you’re waving at yourself through a time machine.
This filter is getting a lot of airtime. Kim Kardashian and younger sister Kylie said they “didn’t like it”. Over and over. Words like ‘yuck’ and ‘ew’ are common.
To be fair, it’s hard to like it. None of us wants to confront that sober thing called mortality and remind ourselves that one day we will be closer to the end of our lives than the beginning.
But it’s not really about the existential impermanence of life. We don’t like the wrinkles in our cheeks.
When ageing filters come out the beauty industry claps its grubby hands with glee. More products to sell!
Hearing the Kardashians and everyone else on TikTok talk about how shocked they are by their old faces is kryptonite to the industry. Creams, lotions, potions, injections, fillers, serums, needles and that weird red lamp beauty therapists assure you is good for your skin but feels like you’re baking it, are all on offer. I’m not judging this as I fell for it myself.
For a while, I have been hearing that I need to use Vitamin C and Retinol serum on my face. I keep putting them on my list and then forgetting about them or something else comes up like wheel alignment. But exactly five days after I saw my older self on TikTok I found myself in a pharmacy studying all the Retinol and Vitamin C on the shelf.
I couldn’t remember what everyone had told me: do I get both, can one do the job and what is Retinol anyway? (I still don’t know as I didn’t have my glasses so couldn’t read the stupidly small font).
But there was a recent image in my head of wrinkly cheeks. I bought the Retinol.
But I like to always remind myself of the system that’s fuelling my urge to buy products and stick them on my face. I’m stuck in a capitalist world that will not value me when I’m old so it’s a very normal reaction to fear ageing because ageism exists.
When my daughter looked at her image she was not thinking “wow, life is going to be great over there at 35, no more teenage angst wahoo!” She’s been fed a story that ageing is a bad thing too.
But we could use this clever AI as a wake-up call. Instead of recoiling at my older face, I could have asked some questions about 35 and 85-year-old us. What are they up to? What’s the best thing they’ve seen in their worlds? Does TikTok still exist?
Instead of focusing on my wrinkles, I could have said to myself “one day (hopefully) you will be that person you see in the filter so what are you doing to make them content and comfortable over there?” Sorted out your Kiwisaver? Flossed? Put sunscreen on? Are you going to set up that thing, walk the thing, see the thing, become the thing by the age you hoped you would? Are you going to learn the tango or take Ayahuasca in Brazil like you promised yourself?
This would be a good use of AI, except all the self-helpers who talk about Future Selves would then sell us books and podcasts and tips about how to get there.
I didn’t have one positive thought about what 85-year-old me was up to, I judged her appearance. There I was being an ageist.
But I’m not going to give myself the double whammy of feeling stink about that. Ageism is hard to escape. And I did like the nice hair I had. Shoulder length, thick. I’ve always feared having wispy thin tufts of hair when I reach that age. It’s been getting thinner and thinner–thanks to pregnancy and breastfeeding but mostly genetics–so I smiled at my hair.
And next time my daughter wants to look at older us, instead of saying “huh, interesting” I’m going to ask some more interesting questions.
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