All in order? Older female influencers’ displays of ageing on social media

Abstract

Drawing on qualitative interviews in the UK and Denmark, we analyse how female influencers aged 50+ discuss the presentation of their bodies on Instagram. We advance Julia Twigg’s theorising of age ordering – body and dress norms devaluing older women – and Janet Finch’s concept of display by applying these to influencer culture in digital consumer society. Our findings illuminate participants’ desire to share positive experiences of being at the time of life they are, within the bodies that they are, and the normative constraints they experience on their dress and bodily display. We identify three non-exclusive display positions: ordering (accepting norms around older female bodies), reordering (negotiating these norms by striving for a youthful look), and disordering (challenging those norms). We suggest that reordering is the new ordering but find positions of disordering in all age groups, and examine how the digital and commercial context influences these displays of ageing.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Sociology, 2026 · DOI ↗