Does This Make Me Look Old?

Are we all secretly ageist? Shiv and Sim dissect some relatively recent articles examining the language that we use around aging and older adults and how it may promote ageism in society. In doing so, they realize that they may have used some of this language themselves... For instance, did you know that the terms "seniors" and the "elderly" can be considered ageist? Join them to learn about several studies on ageist language and learn a little more about elements of the ageist lexicon.  

As promised, here is the follow-up to our episode on 'I Care A Lot' and guardianship issues in the U.S. We focus our episode on Joan Lawrence and how her case highlights the ways in which the elderly in Canada can also be exploited. Joan was a 77 year-old woman, living in Muskoka, who mysteriously disappeared in 1998. As part of an investigation into her disappearance and possible murder, a fraud case involving a set of retirement homes in the area was also uncovered. Her tragic case brings to light deficiencies in how we as a society treat people who are in need of long-term care, but hopefully her story can be used to prevent such situations in the future. 

Sim celebrated her birthday this week but is having issues with exactly how old she is. Do birthdays during the pandemic count? She also discusses her issues with the aesthetics of numbers: her 43rd birthday is going to be a problem, y'all. We touch on the relatability of 'This is 40', the agelessness of Paul Rudd and the current culture wars between the millennials and Gen Z. As Gen Xers/Xennials, we're going to sit this one out. But pass the popcorn!

Shiv and Sim sat down to watch Rosamund Pike, Eiza Gonzalez, Chris Messina, Peter Dinklage and Dianne Wiest and their hijinks in 'I Care A Lot'. Although wildly entertaining, they slowly realized that despite its heist movie vibe, there is a mild horror movie component running throughout the film. Find out exactly why in this week's episode of 'Does This Make Me Look Old?'.   

Shiv and Sim discuss their friendships and how they have changed from their teenage years through adulthood until now. They also bring up an interesting social science study (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.160097) examining the use of cellphones among different age groups and what it may tell us about the numbers and quality of friendships and relationships as we get older. What do you think? Have your friendships changed over time? Let us know at dtmmlo1@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you!

Shiv was interested to see if her music tastes were fossilized from her 20s and 30s, so she created a playlist of her favourite songs and...nerded out. Sim found this hilarious and thus, this episode was born. Listen as we find out how much Shiv (and Sim, it turns out) like parsing out the statistics of music preferences. Commiserate with Shiv as she realizes that she too is part of the statistical average. Plus, since we like stats SO much, feel free to send us your playlists, top 10 songs, and/or your own calculations based on your music preferences. We're genuinely curious to see if it's true that our music tastes are born and stay stuck in our 20s and 30s!

As we age, do our music preferences get stuck in time? What if you want to buck the trend and continue to listen to current music? Shiv and Sim explore this topic in this week's episode and discuss how things have changed in terms of getting exposed to new music and literature. Plus, Shiv discusses her difficulties in using Spotify to learn about new music as well as her issues with its algorithms, which seem counterintuitive to learning about new bands. Meanwhile, Sim doesn't seem too troubled about her music tastes which she thinks are current (shhhhh...don't let her know that her favourite singers have had careers that span 15+ years!). Check out this week's episode and help a lady out by e-mailing Shiv your music recommendations at dtmmlo1@gmail.com. We look forward to your suggestions!

Shiv and Sim use Tom Brady's 7th Super Bowl win at the age of 43 to delve into the world of sports (of which they know a little), Hollywood (of which they know a little more) as well as the corporate and the scientific/academic worlds to discuss whether or not one can age out of one's profession. Through this discussion, they manage to touch on the movie "Mank", Amy Schumer's "Last F*ckable Day" as well as the relationship that Helen Mirren and Jason Isaacs portray in HBO's "Catherine the Great", which may or may not support their point that sometimes people may age out or be aged out of certain professions. Tune in and find out!

How often have you looked at advertising for older people and thought that based on marketing, aging is mainly about taking medications, being unable to get up, and/or walking around wearing diapers? Or looked at fashion and felt that it just doesn't recognize that older people wear clothes too? We talk about ads and fashion and how they have traditionally excluded seniors as well as about some exceptions to the rule. Plus, is it possible that Shiv willed the Timothée Chalamet Cadillac commercial into existence?!!??!?

We asked our friends (a super scientific survey, we know!) about their fears around aging, and/or how their fears changed as they got older, and got some really interesting answers. In the process we learn that we're not alone in these fears and that it's nice to try to face them together.

The World Health Organization (WHO) published a list of myths related to aging that stunned us! Do we really think all older people are not suited to the modern workplace? Only young people can be creative?  It’s not worth spending resources on older people? That’s crazy! Hang out with us as we chat about some of these myths!

We share the top 5(ish) things we like and dislike about aging. There may be more than five on that list - turns out we can’t count!  Financial literacy makes the list. And being more confident (which is a good thing!) And somewhere along the line, we manage to talk about @starbucks* and the new Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunion too.  (*Note: Not a paid endorsement - we just love Starbucks lattes!)!  See if you like and hate the same things we do about getting older!

Shiv had a birthday the other day, and has strong opinions on being told what she should or shouldn’t do as she ages. Plus we learn about our ageism and "looksism" not only towards other people but maybe even towards ourselves!  

We use “Americans in Bed” as a jumping off point to talk about relationships as we age and what we’ve learned about dating as we get older. We also nerd out about “A Suitable Boy”, Jane Austen and “Little Women” and what they tell us about relationships...or maybe, what they say about us.

How old are you feeling today? We find out that age is all relative as we discuss the points in our lives we realized we had gotten older (or pretended we weren’t).