Do Influencers Have to be Young? How about Geezer Girl?

By Andrea Sachs

When I arrived at my hair salon last week, my stylist Raymond (his nom de comb) was in a tizzy. A popular young influencer had come in recently and had a haircut that she raved about in a social media video. Raymond marveled that he had already gotten a half dozen new clients as a result.

I watched the influencer’s video afterwards and found it amusing in ways that she probably hadn’t intended. The pretty young woman held forth about the continuing existential crisis her bangs caused her. Mirabile dictu, with a stylish haircut, Raymond had saved her from tonsorial ignominy. What especially made the video a giggle for me was that it featured only Raymond’s disembodied hands, not his face. A little self-absorbed?

There’s been a hubbub lately about the growing clout of glam young influencers who appear on social media platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok. Some of these little tadpoles have built a thriving online presence, shaping the opinions, behaviors, and purchasing decisions of their faithful audiences. Many of them also take freebies and swag that would get journalists canned; her haircut from Raymond was gratis. When I worked at a newsweekly magazine, accepting that would have been a hanging offense.

Yep, I’ll admit it–I’m a little bit jealous. Who wouldn’t want to be a footloose, fancy-free twentysomething in NYC?  As Oscar Wilde famously said, “If I could get back my youth, I’d do anything in the world except get up early, take exercise or be respectable.” So, bowing to my accumulation of birthdays (73), I’ve been thinking I could recreate myself as Geezer Girl, a seasoned Upper West Side Boomer influencer, but with more reportorial skill and higher ethics.

Maybe I’d start by sharing UWS bargains and enchantments – there are so many ways to entertain yourself in this nabe! A couple of examples hiding in plain sight:

Best place to break your diet? At the Utopia Diner, which serves sweet potato fries to die for. Diners are a perennial choice of seniors; and the UWS is chockful of them. They provide a plethora of food choices, huge portions and a community vibe.

Best place to catch a wave?  The exemplary swimming pools at the Marlene Meyerson JCC or the West Side YMCA. Both offer senior discounts.

Best place to get a Covid booster? My personal fave is Wellness Pharmacy. Say hi for me to David Su, an ever-helpful pharmacist there.

But it’s not all peaches and cream when you cross the Rubicon, age-wise. I must admit that being a Boomer influencer on the UWS would mean knowing where to buy a great shiva tray or delicacies for a friend in mourning. Fear not: this is 2025 and there is now Shiva.com, which delivers in the neighborhood. Knowing about things like that comes in handy when you reach a certain stage in life

I’ve also been thinking about more exotic neighborhood thrills Geezer Girl could recommend. My recent trip to Studs might qualify.

Calm down–it’s not what it sounds like. Studs is the McDonald’s of piercing, with dozens of studios nationwide. I’ve had pierced ears forever, but I’ve wanted to get my ears double-pierced for a while and have never got around to it.

I’m a bit of a free spirit—hey, I skinny-dipped at Woodstock! (Well, close—I saw the movie.)  So, I journeyed a smidge south of the UWS to West 50^th for the procedure. But when I saw the piercer approaching, I almost chickened out. He looked like a kindly Hell’s Angel, with a thousand piercings of his own. His warm hello won me over, though. “Hi—I’m Gab, like the gift of Gab!’ And I must say, Gab was good. Time for a tattoo, perhaps?

Do influencers steer people to personal gurus? Not a phony like the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who was denounced by the Beatles as a scam artist in 1968. To my wonderment, someone wise whom I hadn’t seen for a long time has filled that role for me.

December 10^th was the 40th anniversary of my being hired at Time. (I retired at the 30-year mark in 2014.) So, to mark the occasion, I sent a thank-you email to the wonderful woman who had taken a chance and hired me so many years ago. I think she was genuinely happy to hear from me, and she jumped at my invitation to have lunch,

I arrived at the restaurant and there she was: 90 years old and as stylish and sharp as ever. We chatted over French food for hours about what had occurred since we’d seen each other, about the vicissitudes of aging (we both use canes now) and about the fates of our old work compatriots, some of whom have gone to that big newsweekly in the sky.

Then my mentor said something simple that I’ll never forget. I paraphrase unpoetically, because I didn’t have a reporter’s notepad with me: If you want to live a long life, unwanted things come along with that journey. That’s it in a nutshell, right? Thank you, Leah, for hiring me and guiding me into the next chapter of my life.

So those are some of my Geezer Girl influencer ideas. But don’t ask me to tell you my hairdresser Raymond’s real name. You think I want you cutting in front of me in line?

Subscribe to West Side Rag’s FREE email newsletter here. And you can Support the Rag here.