"... Ina Garten, cozy interiors, and more, there’s a good chance you might be a coastal grandmother. And no—you don’t have to be a grandmother to be a coastal grandmother. It’s for anyone and everyone. I even made this playlist on Spotify so you can have the coastal-gran ambience with you everywhere you go. If any of this sounds like you, follow along and we’ll gran together."
Said Lex Nicoleta — see her say it in this TikTok — quoted by Caitlin Flanagan in "I’m a Coastal Grandmother. Stop Appropriating Our Culture. Young people on TikTok are trying to hijack my lifestyle" (The Atlantic).
Because Lex Nicoleta is clearly some kind of genius, here is a trend that does both things at once: It introduces a subculture to potential new adherents (young people), and it affirms that culture to the other people (the old people) who are already living it....
When I was 27, I didn’t want to take very slow walks covered head to toe in gauzy white linen. I had a life going on!... Try [the Coastal Grandmother lifestyle] too young, and you miss the point.... Coastal grandmother isn’t the thing! Coastal grandmother is the reward for the thing.
I hadn't noticed Lex Nicoleta before seeing this Caitlin Flanagan article, but I had noticed a grandmother trend on TikTok.
See my March 28th post, with 5 selections from TikTok, including "Everyone should live like a grandmother — 10 reasons!"
The linked video, from Real Vintage Dolls House, shows a grandma lifestyle that's not specifically "coastal," does not connect to any celebrities, and isn't about being wealthy. It's about warmth and comfort, love and coziness — an ideal of perfect satisfaction within a small, enclosed life.
Is that something to warn young people away from? I'm not so sure this is about young and old. It might be more about extroversion and introversion. I can see advising young people to be young when they are young, because the time will come when you're old and you'll have to be old. But what is this young thing that Flanagan remembers? She speaks of drunken parties. Is it so bad to miss out on that phase? Some people don't want parties. The Real Vintage Dolls House video shows a woman cooking, knitting, and reading. Yes, you can frame that as "living like a grandmother," but it is also living like an introvert.
You may say: But what do you do for money? Is this "grandmother" person somebody's wife? Is this a promotion of the stay-at-home role for women? It doesn't have to be. When you have a job, there's still your leisure time. The life Caitlin Flanagan says she had going on when she was 27 involved teaching at a college. She spent her leisure time going to the beach and partying. She could have spent that time in quiet, wholesome cooking, reading, gardening, and so forth. That's the living-like-a-grandmother the videos hold out as an option.
Flanagan promotes the urgency of youth: You must go to parties and have fun. It's not always fun, and it doesn't suit everyone, and it has the side effect of generating a fear of aging. If the lifestyle of the grandmother is appealing to you when you are young, then you can see a long path of happiness ahead. And having bypassed the hard-living wild-youth phase, you might be in better shape to enjoy that long pleasurable life.
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18 comments:
Stop Appropriating Our Culture.
I can’t believe there are people who still think “cultural appropriation” is a legitimate complaint. “I’m related to people who did this thing first; therefore, I own it and you’re not allowed to do it!” Not bad enough that she’s still peddling this stupid idea, but she’s actually expanded it. Since when is age a culture!?
Try [the Coastal Grandmother lifestyle] too young, and you miss the point.
“You’re doing it wrong! You have to be doing it for my reasons. You don’t get to have your own reasons!”
First she says...
And no—you don’t have to be a grandmother to be a coastal grandmother. It’s for anyone and everyone.
...and then she says...
Stop Appropriating Our Culture. Young people on TikTok are trying to hijack my lifestyle
Which is it, granny?
Too much HGTV. Too much Food Network. These people need to get out and away from viewing the world through an internet-connected device in 30-minute chunks.
Take a walk. Read Moby Dick. Visit a nursing home.
Is that what wine moms and wine aunts become when they have grandchildren?
Why "coastal"? Are they so different from flyover country grannies?
RMc said...
First she says...
And no—you don’t have to be a grandmother to be a coastal grandmother. It’s for anyone and everyone.
...and then she says...
Stop Appropriating Our Culture. Young people on TikTok are trying to hijack my lifestyle
Which is it, granny?
Lex Nicoleta made the first quote you are citing; Caitlin Flanagan made the second.
My takes: Anyone making the demand "stop appropriating our culture" is a loser in my view. And "costal grandmother" is just a new term for a snobbish Martha's Vineyard woman of a certain age.
"Which is it, granny?"
The second. The first is characterizing the position taken by Lex Nicoleta.
Homebodies aren’t necessarily introverts. I have known lots of people who love being home but also love having people over all the time. Friends, family, having their nieces and nephews stay with them constantly etc.
The same people married, had big families and always hosted the large holiday gatherings and had the neighbors kids running around. They liked their home but wanted people around. That is what I get out of these granny aesthetics like coastal granny and grand millennial. They are a lifestyle for people who want friends and family around all the time. It is a longing for a normal life prior to the hippie boomer idea that young adults had to be out partying all the time and would actually want to create a HOME, not just a house.
"Lex Nicoleta made the first quote you are citing; Caitlin Flanagan made the second."
Yes, that's correct. I see I wrote "The first is characterizing the position taken by Lex Nicoleta." No, it was the actual words of Lex Nicoleta.
Interiors (1978): a dark coastal grandma and her daughters.
Living like a grandmother when you are in your twenties isn't always a choice. People do it because they can't connect with the world around them. So there are regrets. Many regrets.
Noticeable by its absence in the entire article is the word "grandchildren." Are CG's estranged from their families?
Do they all dress like Diane Keaton?
As seen in Nancy Meyers movies, the "coastal grandmother" aesthetic means being extremely wealthy (those houses would be worth nearly 8 figures today), being extraordinarily fit and attractive for your age, and dating a 30-something doctor after your age-appropriate boyfriend dumps you for his yoga instructor. If that's what the kids on TikTok are aspiring to in life, I say let them go for it.
Lighten up. It's a humor column. She has several funny lines.
If you label it, it must be phony.
I'm positive that it is not appropriate grandmotherly behavior to go on Twitter every hour to see if anything new has happened amongst the Washington Post staffers, and yet.
I've been an introvert my entire life.
But during high school and college, there was so much pressure to "fit in" with the outgoing extroverted people that I did a LOT of very stupid things. Alcohol. Drugs. Even some criminal behavior. Some of those things I regret to this day. And even when I started my professional career there was always the pressure not to appear "socially awkward", as one of my colleagues described me.
Now that I am retired, I can be the introvert I always wanted to be. Be by myself, or just with my wife, maybe a few good friends, and an adorable dog and cat. I have concluded that I like dogs and cats better than I like most people.
So being a "coastal grandmother" in the way that Ann defines it, is appealing to me. Reading books, long hikes with "Buddy", growing a vegetable garden, listening to your favorite music, watching a miniseries on Netflix. I would much rather do these things than going to a party or a bar.
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