The dumbest aging article on the internet

VegOut takes on “toxic positivity about aging" and says what 60-year-olds can't do.

Nothing says “quality longevity advice” like a 10-year-old stock photo.

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There are many dumb things on the internet. This Saturday evening disquisition is about one of the dumbest of them this week.

It’s an article¹, in the online magazine VegOut, about “toxic positivity about aging.” VegOut is run by a trio of Australian dudes based in Singapore. Owing to their cluelessness, combined with the article’s idiotically off-key and unintentionally humorous assertions, the article won my This Week in Disinformaging™ award.

Here’s why.

dis·​in·form·​ag·ing, n. intentionally communicating aging- or longevity-related b.s. for the express purpose of aggrandizing oneself or selling a product or service.

What is “almost impossible” at 60?

Obviously, the headline is clickbait. But when hijacked by stupidity, even clickbait demands a callout.

If the article had listed things that are truly impossible for most (if not all) 60 year olds — running a sub-three-hour marathon, for instance, or winning a battle rap competition, or have all-day tantric sex — most (if not all) sexagenarians would shrug and agree.

Instead, the article proves to be as insipidly asinine as its headline.

“Toxic positivity about aging” at 60 or older

Attacking what it calls “toxic positivity about aging,” the article runs through a list of ageist clichés beginning, reasonably enough, with a typical 60-year-old’s inability to read small print in low light. Fair game!

But then the piece descends into a series of tired tropes that I can’t seem to find enough satisfaction in repeatedly labeling insipidly asinine.

To wit:

“Reading menus in mood lighting. Deciphering a menu in candlelight becomes archaeological work,” says the article’s highly unqualified author, whom we’ll examine next.

The VegOut solution: “You find yourself using your phone's flashlight, angling the menu toward the single tea light, or just ordering what you remember from last time.”

We quickly veer deeper into the insipidly asinine:

“Getting up from the floor gracefully. You need something to push against, pull up on, or roll toward,” the article says of all but the most exceptional 60-year-olds.

The VegOut solution: “Always sit in chairs with arms, avoid floor-sitting cultures.”

“Hearing conversations in busy restaurants. Restaurants become acoustic nightmares where everyone sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher.”

The VegOut solution: “You start choosing restaurants based on acoustics rather than food….You become expert at lip reading and context clues.”

“Sleeping through the night. You're up at least twice, sometimes more.”

The VegOut solution: none.

“Remembering why you entered a room. Crossing a threshold erases your purpose.”

The VegOut solution: “Retracing steps…making lists for three-item grocery runs.”

“Recovering from a night of drinking. You become the person nursing one wine glass all evening, adding ice cubes nobody judges anymore.”

The VegOut solution: none

“Maintaining muscle without constant effort. Skip the gym for a month, and your body interprets it as permission to begin decomposition.”

The VegOut solution: none

“Regulating temperature normally. You're freezing, then sweating, then freezing again.“

The VegOut solution: none

“Seeing clearly at all distances. Your nightstand looks like an optometry display.”

The VegOut solution: “You develop a glasses hierarchy, chains around necks, pairs in every room.”

“Trusting a fart. That confident release you've performed thousands of times becomes Russian roulette.”

The VegOut solution: “You develop new protocols: bathroom first, trust later.”

Bald-faced ageism, from a fist of bros

There are certain nouns that describe a group of animals in the wild: a murder of crows, a pod of dolphins and a tower of giraffes. To this lexicon, I hereby add a fist of bros. An especially apt moniker when said bros include unselfaware idiots perpetuating — I’ll say it again — insipidly asinine stereotypes that target specific groups (farts?) of geezers.

(I’m joking about farts of geezers — mostly. That said, geezer is a word that needs to be taken back and owned by anyone 50 and older. More about that effort in an upcoming AGING with STRENGTH post.)

Who writes about aging’s “toxic positivity”?

The author of the VegOut article on what most 60-year-olds can no longer do.

But, on a more serious note, here’s what is actually dumb about this entire VegOut article:

• It’s written by someone described in his own bio as “a vegan snack reviewer with roots in music blogging,” and who’s known, according to himself, for “approachable, insightful prose.” I mean, come on. That’s funny.

• VegOut is an online publication run by Brown Brothers Media, a five-year-old holding company operated by three younger men with the same last name who are not remotely close to being 60 years old.

• The company’s top two stated missions include “editorial excellence” and “honest reporting” — standards that are conspicuously, even ostentatiously, absent from this insipidly asinine piece of clickbait. (Which I obviously clicked on.)

Geezer is not a dirty word

There’s almost no element of the human condition that doesn’t deserve a good, clever lampooning — including people 55 or older. Aka geezers. But this article isn’t clever, unfortunately.

Clever would have required either a) the author to have done basic reporting on what actually becomes extraordinarily difficult around age 60, or b) VegOut’s crack team of newsroom leaders to have found a credible voice to artfully mock what this piece calls “toxic positivity about aging.”

That’s the story for This Week in Disinformaging.™ Please leave a comment with your thoughts. — Paul von Zielbauer

1. https://vegoutmag.com/lifestyle/s-10-things-that-become-almost-impossible-after-60-unless-youve-aged-exceptionally-well/