What social media is selling us is a false notion of age

A few months ago, a salesgirl at a local beauty store spotted something on my face that I hadn't. "What are you doing about those wrinkles, ma'am?" she asked. "Working 10 hours every day," I retorted. My wrinkle, my problem! Ignoring my mild irreverence, she immediately introduced me to a new anti-ageing cream, and, despite my reluctance, I found myself trying it on. In my head, the wrinkles were already vanishing. For a second, I toyed with the idea of buying the product nonetheless, but looked the other way when its price - Dh550 - was revealed to me. In the larger scheme of things, the salesgirl had won.
My body is 33 years old. My mind, not a day older than 25. I have never thought much about bridging the eight-year gap between the body and mind. Where I have cared little, others have cared a little too much. "Act your age," is a sermon we may have received at some point of time in our lives. But today, it's not just about 'acting your age' because no longer is age just a number, it's a marker of your utility. That idea alone could make embracing age, and ageing, a lot more challenging for our generation, and the one that precedes us.
I belong to the older side of a generation that has almost been deemed a sub-category of humans. From our imagined love for avocado toasts to the supposed 'hell-with-it' approach to life, everything has become a subject of ridicule in the clickbaits. As much as these habits are frowned upon, millennials are also a customer base most industries are targeting. And hence it makes sense to employ millennials for jobs in brands that are aimed at reaching out to them. The question is: are we, in the process, overlooking an entire workforce that could contribute equally in those jobs? Recently, a friend who has won several journalism awards over her 16 years of experience, applied for the position of an editor at a digital platform. Despite her years of experience she couldn't make the cut as the organisation was 'fairly strict' about having someone below 30 be the face of the product; she was 32. Can a 32-year-old think any less 'younger' than a 30- or a 28-year-old? For that matter, why assume that somebody older could not be as 'young' in their thoughts and ideas? This is not to suggest that young people should not bag the top jobs should they deserve it. But in perceiving ageing bodies as symbols of fossilised minds and keeping them out of our lines of vision, could we be crediting them for far less than what they deserve?
A large part of being young is not just about feeling young, but also looking young. While the beauty industry might be spearheading a movement to make people look young again, there's an entire virtual ecosystem that thrives on this. Think about it, when was the last time you saw a really terrible picture of your friend/family member on Instagram? While scrolling through my Instagram feeds, I paused as I looked at a photograph of a friend. She opened her account in 2011 - there has practically been no difference in the way she has looked in the past eight years. I even did a before-and-after round, but couldn't spot much of a change except her haircut. As I reached out to her, she gave me a list of natural products that she uses to look the way she does. "I also get by with a little help from Beauty Plus," she told me, insisting that I download the app too. The bandwagon is tempting, but what are the stakes. In its manufactured perfection, what the social media is selling us is a false notion of age. The filters are young and quirky, because the customer is believed to be young and quirky. Which often makes me think, that in a quarter of a lifetime spent on social media, how does one age?
Which is why that moment in the beauty store wasn't yet another tryst with hardselling - it was an epiphany. It was a reminder that no longer is it enough for me to think like a 25-year-old, but also look like one. And while taking care of one's physical appeal is not to be frowned upon as vanity, I wish it wasn't demanded at gunpoint.
- anamika@khaleejtimes.com