在线英语听力室

Social Media Personalities Over 70 Change People’s Ideas

时间:2021-09-18 02:40:45

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号:tingroom,领取免费英语资料大礼包。

(单词翻译)

 

Joan MacDonald's health was suffering. At age 71, she was overweight and on several medications. She had high cholesterol1, rising blood pressure and kidney trouble.

Her daughter is a fitness trainer. She warned that MacDonald would become severely2 unwell if she did not make big changes.

So she did. She went to the fitness center for the first time and learned to eat healthy with the help of a new tool: an iPhone.

Now age 75, MacDonald promotes fitness on social media. She has 1.4 million followers4 on Instagram.

She is part of a growing number of "grandfluencers" – people over the age of 70 who have huge numbers of social media followers.

Many of their fans are several years younger.

"It's so rare to find someone her age being able to do all these things," said 18-year-old follower3 Marianne Zapata.

MacDonald and other older social media influencers are turning their popularity into a profit.

MacDonald has paid partnerships5, including with the sportswear and nutrition company Women's Best. She also just launched her own health and fitness app.

On TikTok, four friends who go by the handle @oldgays have 2.2 million followers. The four men, who are gay, are all age 65 or older. They use TikTok to humor fans with their incorrect answers to popular culture questions. They have a paid promoting deal with Grindr, a gay dating app.

Lagetta Wayne, who is 78, is another grandfluencer. She has young people asking her to be their grandmother. Online, she attends to and cooks vegetables from her garden. She goes by @msgrandmasgarden on TikTok.

Wayne, who is based in Suison City, California, has gained nearly 131,000 followers since June 2020. She owes her social media success to her young granddaughter. Her very first video, a garden walk-through, got 37,600 likes.

"One day my garden was very pretty and I got all excited about that and I asked her if she would take some pictures of me," Wayne recalled. "She said she was going to put me on TikTok and I said, ‘Well, what is TikTok?' I had never heard of it."

Since the pandemic, grandfluencers have expanded their social media use beyond Facebook.

Jessay Martin is the second youngest of the of the Old Gays. He is 68 years old and lives in the California desert town of Cathedral City.

Like MacDonald, the men who are part of the Old Gays fight against mistruths about what is possible in older age.

"They're showing...that you don't have to be afraid of aging. The 20 and 30 somethings don't often think about that," Alison Bryant said. She is an executive with AARP, an interest group for older Americans.

Sandra Sallin, a writer and artist, has slowly built her following to 25,300 on Instagram. Her reach recently grew to include the British Olympic gold-winning swimmer Tom Daley after he tried one of her family recipes. Sallin's social media centers around cooking and beauty. She also shares pictures from her past and travels.

"I wanted to expand my world. I felt that I was older, that my world was shrinking. People were moving" and people were sick, Sallin said. She started her blog because she wanted to reach people.

Sallin said it was hard to learn how to use Instagram. She said she is surprised that many of her followers are 30 to 40 years younger than she is.

Toby Bloomberg, who is 69, is a Sallin supporter. She found Sallin after Sallin competed on the Food Network television show "Clash of the Grandmas."

"She talks a lot about aging," Bloomberg said. That is unusual on social media since it is controlled by young people, Bloomberg added.

Grace Maier, who is 32, stays home full time with her two young children. She follows Barbara Costello, a 72-year-old Connecticut grandmother, who uses the handle @brunchwithbabs.

"She does these posts, ‘Did your mom ever tell you?' and I followed her immediately on Instagram," Maier said. Costello has many suggestions for living life that remind Maier of her own grandmother. And Costello "seems like the kind of person who would welcome you into her home," she said.

Mae Karwowski is founder6 and chief executive of the influencer marketing7 agency Obviously. She has more than 100 influencers in her network between the ages of 60 and 80.

Karwowski said people like young fashion influencers often have whole teams of people helping8 to run their social media accounts. But a lot of 70-plus aged9 influencers are doing everything themselves.

Karwowski said most media news "presents a really narrow viewpoint on this age group. What's great about social media is you can follow a really cool 75-year-old woman who is just doing her thing in Florida and that's fun, she said. "That's different."

Words in This Story

cholesterol –n. a substance produced in the bodies of people and animals which the body uses to produce biological chemicals

promote –v. to bring attention to something through advertising10; to make something more popular or well-known

app (application) –n. a computer program that carries out a specific job

gay –adj. a person who identifies themselves as being sexually attracted to the same sex

recipe –n. a set of directions for making food

post –n. a message on an online message service

fashion –n. a popular way of dressing11 during a particular time or among a particular group of people

viewpoint –n. a way of looking at or thinking about something


分享到:


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 cholesterol qrzzV     
n.(U)胆固醇
参考例句:
  • There is cholesterol in the cell of body.人体细胞里有胆固醇。
  • They are determining the serum-protein and cholesterol levels.他们正在测定血清蛋白和胆固醇的浓度。
2 severely SiCzmk     
adv.严格地;严厉地;非常恶劣地
参考例句:
  • He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
  • He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。
3 follower gjXxP     
n.跟随者;随员;门徒;信徒
参考例句:
  • He is a faithful follower of his home football team.他是他家乡足球队的忠实拥护者。
  • Alexander is a pious follower of the faith.亚历山大是个虔诚的信徒。
4 followers 5c342ee9ce1bf07932a1f66af2be7652     
追随者( follower的名词复数 ); 用户; 契据的附面; 从动件
参考例句:
  • the followers of Mahatma Gandhi 圣雄甘地的拥护者
  • The reformer soon gathered a band of followers round him. 改革者很快就获得一群追随者支持他。
5 partnerships ce2e6aff420d72bbf56e8077be344bc9     
n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 );合伙人身份;合作关系
参考例句:
  • Partnerships suffer another major disadvantage: decision-making is shared. 合伙企业的另一主要缺点是决定要由大家来作。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
  • It involved selling off limited partnerships. 它涉及到售出有限的合伙权。 来自辞典例句
6 Founder wigxF     
n.创始者,缔造者
参考例句:
  • He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
  • According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说,罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。
7 marketing Boez7e     
n.行销,在市场的买卖,买东西
参考例句:
  • They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
  • He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。
8 helping 2rGzDc     
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的
参考例句:
  • The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
  • By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。
9 aged 6zWzdI     
adj.年老的,陈年的
参考例句:
  • He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了,也老点了。
  • He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老,然而记忆力还好。
10 advertising 1zjzi3     
n.广告业;广告活动 a.广告的;广告业务的
参考例句:
  • Can you give me any advice on getting into advertising? 你能指点我如何涉足广告业吗?
  • The advertising campaign is aimed primarily at young people. 这个广告宣传运动主要是针对年轻人的。
11 dressing 1uOzJG     
n.(食物)调料;包扎伤口的用品,敷料
参考例句:
  • Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
  • The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。

本文本内容来源于互联网抓取和网友提交,仅供参考,部分栏目没有内容,如果您有更合适的内容,欢迎 点击提交 分享给大家。