Oct 2026
It’s about to be the busiest time of year, so why wouldn’t I decide to launch a TikTok feed and a YouTube Channel? When I learned last week that grandfluencers—“mature influencers”—are a growing social media wave, I was determined to find out more about this mind-blowing phenomenon…and boy, howdy!
83-year-old grandma Martha Alvarez never expected to become a social media sensation, but when her granddaughter, Lila, posted a clip of her walking into Lila’s frame wearing her floral apron and declared, “If the internet wants wisdom, I’ve got eighty years of it,” Lila posted the clip to TikTok as a joke. By morning, it had a million views and suddenly, Martha was reaching people all over the world.
Her videos quickly became a daily ritual. She’d sit in her sunny kitchen, pouring tea into a chipped porcelain cup, and give “Martha Minutes”: sixty seconds of stories, sass, and stubborn optimism. She told viewers how to grow tomatoes in tiny apartments, how to heal a broken heart (“with cookies and time”), and why she still danced in the living room even if her knees disagreed.
Viewers young and old—teenagers, young parents, stressed college students—thanked her for making them feel less alone.
One afternoon, Lila filmed Martha teaching a slow, graceful waltz step. When the music ended, Martha looked into the camera and said, “Growing old isn’t scary. It just means you’ve collected more rhythms.”
The video went viral instantly.
I’m not eighty-three, but I did start my most recent career as an author after I turned seventy, and I have a few things to say, number one being that you are never too old to do something extraordinary. In the next few months I’ll be working on "Tana Talks," my TikTok and YouTube channels.
It’s going to be wild! I hope you’ll come along for the ride!
Email your suggestions to me at tana@tanalhboerger.com.
Cheers and Santé,
