What it’s like to be called ‘old’ as a 20-something online

Coco Pons, a fashion and lifestyle creator in Charleston, South Carolina, recently turned 26. In August this year, when she was still 25, she went viral on TikTok for “looking old”. Only Pons never asked the internet to comment on her supposed age. She didn’t use any of the age-guessing filters or take part in any of the “how old do I look?” trends. She simply posted a fun, transitional video of her mum and her getting ready for her cousin’s wedding in Raleigh, North Carolina. “The hotel lighting was obviously pretty harsh, and I am like naturally like a freckly, fair-skinned person,” she says. “I couldn’t even remember what I posted, but I woke up the next morning to thousands of comments and all these views.” 

Pons’ video with her mum now has over eight million views and nearly three thousand comments, with many calling the young woman “retired” and telling her to wear sunscreen. She’s also not the only young person to go viral for apparent visible ageing. Other 25-year-old women like Taylor Donoghuee and Conley Thompson have received attention for appearing older, dressing older or not protecting their skin from sun damage. Last year, Gen Z as an entire age group were deemed to be ageing “like milk”, according to the internet. 

First, it was about cosmetic tweakments: influencers and Love Island contestants in their early 20s must be looking older because of filler and Botox. Then, the internet came for any young woman who dared to ask their age or open the door to comments by declaring themselves “youthful looking”. Today, any person or video is fair game, and looking older than you are as a 20-something-year-old woman is a crime punishable by a mix of online bullying and unsolicited skincare advice.

It’s a lesson Pons learnt the hard way. “People won’t stop, and I still get comments,” she says. “At first, it made me feel insecure and upset, questioning if I really looked old, but then I got over it.” As a young person who hasn’t had any work done, Pons said the comments did leave her considering cosmetic treatments. This seed was eagerly and happily planted by those bombarding her with constant unsolicited recommendations on how to change her eyebrows, what skin regimen she should be on and why to stay out of the sun. Some people even asked her what skincare products she used, to know what ones to stay away from. “I was scared to post another video and had to distract myself with friends and family who would tell me there’s nothing wrong with my face, and I don’t need to get any work done,” she says. 

Calling 20-something-year-olds “old” generally exists only as an extremely online experience. The same people telling others to start retinoids likely (and hopefully) don’t stop people on the street to tell them they aren’t ageing “well”. But the comments do reflect how we’ve long thought and talked about women ageing in general – and how warped our perception of what people look like has become. While mother-daughter duos who look “young” together are praised for their genetics and dedication to the highly regimented and expensive beauty-industrial complex, others that fall short are positioned as warnings of how not to exist, grow and move through time. Meanwhile, men are still largely allowed to visibly age.

There’s a reason hagsploitation, a horror subgenre where an ageing woman’s naked body is portrayed as monstrous, is so common. The repulsion of the ageing woman has existed throughout modern history. It’s what sells anti-ageing creams and syringes of Botox. If you can age out of patriarchal womanhood and be deemed a “thing” to be fixed or bullied into submission, instead of a person, in your 20s, anti-ageing also becomes a pursuit for the young. Then, we wonder why young people are getting preventative facelifts, and Shay Mitchell has brought out a skincare line for kids. Even when people discuss ageing in a positive light, it’s usually to praise those “ageing gracefully”, as if it carries some moral value. The reality is that we don’t owe the world or each other the appearance of graceful ageing.

To unpack how people became so comfortable with bullying 25-year-olds for looking “older” online, we need to understand ageism in society at large. Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, says that how we think about ageing is intertwined with class. “The longer we live, the more different from one another we become,” she says. “We’re shaped by things like our access to good food, whether we can afford to stay indoors, and, you know, stress gives you wrinkles.” Anti-ageing products or services are often marketed as a “fix” – the industry runs on a cycle of invented “problems” and perceived, expensive “solutions”. “These are interventions that only wealthy women can afford,” says Applewhite. “No one makes money off satisfaction.” 

Ageism has never had its true pop culture reckoning. It’s a largely un-sexy topic that’s hard to broach without someone simply calling you “old” (even by writing this, I’m aware I’m opening that door myself). But it is one of the last socially acceptable prejudices, and, because of how it intertwines with gender and class, it negatively impacts not only the psychological well-being of older adults, but also how we talk about young people’s transition through adulthood. Musician Sombr recently used the term “25-year-old” as practically an insult, when a fan complained about his show.

“Women in the workforce are never the right age,” says Applewhite. “First, we’re too sexy to be taken seriously, then we are too fertile and, then, women are punished for making the terrible error of ageing and you’re not sexy or fertile anymore, so it’s all over.” It’s true: while having children often leads to less pay for mothers, fatherhood leads to an increase. 

The fear of the ageing woman is so deeply rooted in the beauty industry today that it’s spewing out to an increasingly younger audience. It’s projected onto those who attempt to fight the first visible signs of ageing, but also onto those who don’t, and the young women in the comments of the videos. It’s so widespread that Applewhite says it takes “originality, courage, humour and vision” to resist falling into it. For 28-year-old Lakeisha, that vision looks like de-centring age entirely. “I don’t see it as a limit or a cage anymore because there’s no guideline of how someone should look at a certain age,” she says. “I used to believe 25 would be the age where I would have everything figured out, but that wasn’t the case, so I realised I’m on my own path, my own timeline.” After all, for those fortunate enough to grow old, being on the winning side of ageist culture has an inevitably short-lived window.