It’s Gen Z’s favourite social media platform, but some of TikTok’s most popular content creators are from a very different generation. Georgina Roberts meets the grandmothers scoring millions of likes.
A year ago, Norma, an 89-year-old who uses a wheelchair, was living a quiet life in the East Midlands. When the grandmother of two became an unlikely TikTok star, her life changed.
Today, people stop her in the street to ask for photos, stacks of gifts and letters from fans arrive at her house, and charity donations are made in her name. TikTok fame, she says, voice breaking, “has kept me feeling young. I feel like a person, and not just somebody sitting in a chair who can’t walk without help.”
It’s all thanks to her 26-year-old granddaughter, Jess Asquith, who started posting videos of Norma on TikTok in March 2022. Since they first shot to fame with a video of Norma slating her teenage grandson’s new tattoos, they have racked up one million followers and 25 million likes on their shared account, @jessandnorma.
The pair, 63 years apart in age, are part of a new wave of intergenerational TikTok stars. Grandparent and grandchild duos like them are accruing millions of likes on the platform. The hashtag #grandparentsoftiktok has 1.4 billion views on TikTok, making the “granfluencers” social media stars.
TikTok has had more than four billion global downloads. It is mainly used by Generation Z — 68 per cent of the UK’s 17.5 million TikTok users are aged under 25. But among the sea of dewy teenage faces on the app, there is a growing number of wrinkled ones.
There is a large appetite to watch them — 70 per cent of Generation Zers said social content featuring their grandparents receives higher engagement than regular content.
Young audiences are fascinated by watching elderly people attempt viral TikTok challenges and dances including Rihanna’s Super Bowl routine. The results are both funny and moving. So in one video a grandparent wells up telling their grandchild about the war, and in the next they scream because the grandchild has turned on a TikTok filter that makes it look as if they have no eyebrows.
The family duos who get the most views can cash in on brand partnerships and book deals. It can become a lucrative career — the global influencer market was estimated to be worth £11.2 billion in 2021.
Some pensioners now have agents, but many of the grandchildren who have turned their grandparents into stars have found themselves managing their relative’s social media career: negotiating sponsorship deals, filming, editing and replying to fan comments.
@jessandnorma Norma loved the broccoli 😂😂 #norma #nan #nantok #GenshinTeleport #UnlimitedHPInk
♬ original sound - Jess and Norma
In Norma’s snug, homely front room where the pair film their viral videos, a giant silver “1m” balloon bought by her granddaughter to celebrate reaching one million TikTok followers bobs above red folders stuffed full of fan mail. A pink fluffy flamingo sent by a young fan sits on the mantelpiece next to photos of Norma’s two grandchildren.
Norma is clutching the hedgehog-shaped hand warmer her granddaughter bought her with her first pay cheque as an adult social carer. Running the @jessandnorma account now pays enough to be Jess’s full-time job.
Jess started out posting videos of her boyfriend, but it wasn’t until her grandmother featured that “it blew up”, she says.
In person, you can see why the 26-year-old filming daily life with her grandmother gets so many hits. Norma has a dry sense of humour. When Jess asks her what her bad side is she replies, “Both”. They laugh a lot. Norma rolls her eyes as she teases her granddaughter about her driving skills and the number of outfits she tried on this morning.
That sassiness comes across in their most popular video, viewed 11.3 million times, where she berates her granddaughter for trying to slip £10 into her purse. In another, she shoots Jess a disapproving look and says, “You’re not coming out with me with that hairstyle.”
Watching them make each other chuckle is heartwarming in the age of “generation wars”. “When you think about the difference in our ages, it’s amazing. We say things to each other and I’m bent over laughing,” Norma says.
Norma is partially disabled and walking is difficult. The trolley next to her chair holds everything she needs so she doesn’t have to get up — most importantly mints, the TV remote and her landline phone.
Her phone being a landline, not a smartphone, makes her such an unlikely social media star. More than one in five Gen Zers said their dream job is “content creator” in a 2021 survey by YouGov. Unlike the hordes of savvy teenagers desperately seeking TikTok fame, Norma didn’t understand what the app was when they mentioned it on her Look North local news programme. “I’m not technology-minded,” she admits.
Strings of birthday cards from fans hang above her head. But at first, the octogenarian was concerned about putting herself online. “Friends my own age thought I was starting something that might be nasty.” But she says “it’s been a blessing”.
The pair had to remove their Amazon Wishlist after fans sent far more chocolates, baklava, toffee and Jaffa Cakes than they could eat. They now ask people to donate to charities or food banks instead.
Norma, who is losing feeling in her fingertips, holds a mug of tea printed with her and her granddaughter’s faces. “Because I am semi-disabled, Jessica is my rock,” she says. They live ten minutes away from each other, but Jess does her grandmother’s dishes and gets her ready for bed most days. “I don’t know what I’d do without her and my daughter. I feel so sad about those that haven’t got what I’ve got, because it must be dreadful.”
That care and love is clear to see. When Norma’s purple skirt reveals her biggest insecurity — her ankles and feet — her granddaughter quickly covers them up with a blue blanket sent by a fan. She repeats my questions louder for her grandmother, as she runs a brush through her white hair.
When Jess was homesick at university, it was her grandmother she called in tears before moving home for her second year. Separated during the pandemic, they spoke on the phone through the front window. “We’ve always been this close. But everybody commenting how special the bond is has highlighted it,” she says.
Many of the young people and children who love their videos say Norma “reminds them of their lost loved ones. People get a lot of comfort from it. They comment, ‘I wish I had a family like yours,’ which is really sad to hear,” says Jess. Norma knows loss too. She shows me her wedding photo and the trinket box and cheese-plant stand in the corner, crafted by her husband before he passed away.
Fans often approach Norma in her wheelchair at the local garden centre and say, “Can we have a picture?” Or, “Thank you. Our children love you.” The attention makes her “feel warm inside. It gives me goose pimples. This has come as a huge shock for me. I never dreamt of it.” Her granddaughter agrees. “It feels surreal. We’re just Jess and Norma, then people stop us in the street.”
@jessandnorma Norma was spotted out in public and oh my she felt so special 🥹🤍 she absolutely loved it! #norma #nan #nantok #jessandnorma #grandma #StemDrop001
♬ original sound - Jess and Norma
As well as leaving her job, the TikTok money has allowed Jess to take Norma on days out, such as to the local wildlife park for her birthday last week. “The plan for me is just to give Nan a good quality of life. She did that for me when I was little.” Her grandmother’s face lights up talking about the wallabies they saw, but her tastes are simple. “Having fish and chips and calling at the supermarket is all I need,” she says.
Before I leave, we tuck into the Victoria sponge with which Jess’s boyfriend surprised them when they reached one million followers. Those milestones don’t matter to Norma. Her plan is “to keep talking to people. I need them more than I ever thought I would,” she says.
Of all the reasons to make TikToks, that of Lily Ebert, a 99-year-old Holocaust survivor, is one of the most compelling. She shares her memories of Auschwitz on an account run by her 19-year-old great-grandson, Dov Forman. They have two million followers and 38 million likes on @lilyebert.
In January, King Charles awarded Lily an MBE for services to Holocaust education and wrote the foreword to the duo’s bestselling book, Lily’s Promise.
They make a sweet pair. The innocent-looking Dov with his rosy cheeks and glasses often puts his arm around a smiling Lily, dressed in brightly coloured clothes and hats. He speaks quickly and passionately while her measured, European-accented voice wavers and catches with emotion.
In their most popular video, liked 4 million times, she wears a short-sleeved pink shirt that reveals her Auschwitz identification number tattoo and says, “I was not my name. We were not humans. We were only a number.” In another, with 2.3 million likes, she explains why women didn’t have periods in the camps.
Dov will never forget the first time he saw that tattoo, aged 11. “I remember her slowly lifting up her left sleeve and saying, ‘A10572. This is a permanent reminder of the Nazis’ crimes against humanity,’” he says. “That was the moment I realised one day it would become my responsibility to share this story.”
@lilyebert Lily being awarded her #MBE from His Majesty the King ❤️🤩👑🎖️ #99yearold #holocaustsurvivor #love #king #windsorcastle #royalfamily
♬ original sound - Lily Ebert & Dov Forman
Dov, one of Lily’s 36 great-grandchildren, decided to post her stories online after she caught Covid. “I realised that soon she, like many other survivors, will no longer be with us. It made me feel a sense of urgency. I thought, these are the last moments and I have to do what I can to share her story,” he says.
When Dov first suggested they make TikToks in lockdown, his great-grandmother laughed and said, " ‘I’ll do it, but I’m not dancing.’ So we don’t dance. We try to share this mission with as many young people, old people, across the world,” he says.
Lily, born the eldest of six in a Jewish family in Hungary, was a similar age to her great-grandson when she was sent to Auschwitz. She and two of her sisters survived the ordeal but her mother, youngest brother and youngest sister were immediately sent to their deaths. In her TikTok videos she often wears the golden pendant her mother gave her, which she hid in a piece of bread and kept stashed in her armpit in the camp.
Most of the duo’s audience are aged between 10 and 25. Those young followers, some from countries where the Holocaust isn’t taught, have asked Lily thousands of questions on TikTok. They include, “What happened if you had no shoes in Auschwitz?” “How did you feel when the Nazis tattooed your number?” “Do you remember what Auschwitz smelt like?”
Now history teachers are using the pair’s videos in their lessons.
Her goal has always been to tell people what happened in Auschwitz, whatever the platform. Even after spending time in hospital in the summer, she kept asking her great-grandson what she could do. “When there was this terrible situation I said, ‘God, if you let me stay alive, I will tell the world what happened there.’ I promised myself that as long as I am here, I will further the message,” says Lily, speaking from her home in London. “One of the most important things is to educate our next generation.”
She also wants to send her online audience a message of hope: “There is only one thing you have to learn from my story: never, ever give up. Tomorrow will be better. You are much stronger than you think you are.”
Sadly, the pair have also become targets for antisemitic abuse online. “It’s disgusting that I wake up to thousands of antisemitic comments and messages on TikTok. It’s frightening and it’s worrying,” says Dov.
Dov has had insults shouted at him in the street when he has worn a yarmulke on the way to school in London. “One would imagine that having someone scream ‘dirty Jew’ at you from their car is something that only happened in Nazi Germany in the Thirties. It’s not; it’s happening today,” he says.
The pair usually film together every day, but Dov is in Israel on a gap year at the moment. “She is the queen of the family. Asking these really difficult questions — that makes you very, very close,” he says. He is comforted that even after she is gone, “Her story will live on.”
Even seemingly mundane videos, like making dinner, attract a huge audience when they feature a grandmother. The TikTok account @emandann, which Emily Clark, 24, shares with her grandmother, Ann Clark, 84, is followed by 117,000. Most of their 2.4 million likes come from food videos in which Emily asks, “Nan, what you having for tea tonight?” In another video, her grandmother deadpans, “I daren’t dye my hair because it might turn green. I’m not partial to green hair.”
When I arrive at their house in Yorkshire, Emily looks every inch the typical Gen Zer, with her white-tipped fake nails, tight blue top, white trainers and belly-button piercing. She crouches down protectively next to her grandmother, who sits in a plaid armchair.
One thing all the “granfluencers” have in common is the bond with their grandchildren. Emily’s mother suddenly passed away more than ten years ago. “She lost her mum when she was 12. It was a shock,” Ann says with tears in her eyes.
Soon after, Ann’s husband died and Ann moved in with her son and Emily.
Next to them are the £650 ($1,285) Balenciaga trainers that Emily made her grandmother try on for a video and had them both in stitches. The pair are immediately likeable and clearly very close.
Emily helps her grandmother up and they give me a tour of the kitchen where they filmed the video of her preparing a bread bun with butter and jam, watched 2.5 million times on TikTok. There is a brimming snack drawer and flapjacks, doughnuts and shortbread on the side.
“She’s a feeder,” Emily says, smiling apologetically. They spread Lurpak butter over a slice of cake from a giant 750g tub that only lasts them eight days because of how much use it gets in their videos. Out shopping, people recognise them and ask, “Have you bought the Lurpak yet?”
The first video Emily posted of her grandmother was of them dancing together in 2021. “When I told Nan about the comments she was a bit shocked,” she says. Ann has become an unlikely fan of the rapper Stormzy, but today the pint-sized pair are sweetly dancing to the pop star Raye.
“I didn’t know what TikTok was. I don’t know how to work a mobile or the television,” says Ann, who was initially nervous about the reaction to their videos. “I said, ‘I’m too old. I’ll feel out of place.’ " But since making TikToks, “I’m a lot happier. I go out more. Emily takes me everywhere,” she says.
When Ann leans in conspiratorially to tell me about smoking clover leaves when she was young, her granddaughter shouts from the kitchen, “I didn’t know that!”. Ann’s face crinkles as she chuckles. “I only tell her the good bits.”
“My nan and I have had a really close bond from when I was born. But doing this definitely has brought us closer together,” Emily says.
The grandparents of TikTok
Grandad Frank, 77
7.2 million followers, 180 million likes
A 77-year-old from Kent who dances to Drake, Chris Brown and Meghan Trainor. Frank Hackett is paid to advertise brands such as Samsung thanks to the funny TikTok account run by his 17-year-old granddaughter.
Brunch with Babs, 74
3 million followers, 38.2 million likes
Millions watch Connecticut grandmother Barbara Costello cook comforting recipes, from pumpkin muffins to breakfast casseroles. The account has earned the retired teacher paid partnerships with clothing and cleaning brands.
Dan and Her Nan, 89
164,000 followers, 6 million likes
This account is all about brutal honesty. When Danielle asks her grandmother, “What’s your absolute pet hate?” she replies, “Men.” She gives frank and sassy responses to her granddaughter’s questions such as, “Were you a player back in the day?”
Grandad Joe, 90
6.2 million followers, 204 million likes
Joe Allington’s videos are a mixed bag — in one he will talk about losing his wife to dementia; in the next he will jokingly rate his granddaughter’s outfits for the horse races.
Grandma Droniak, 92
8.4 million followers, 230.8 million likes
A former factory worker, Lillian Droniak is paid five figures to promote brands on the TikTok account run by her 25-year-old grandson. Her make-up tutorials for going to the cemetery receive millions of likes.
Written by: Georgina Roberts
© The Times of London