The ObserverTikTokWhen four gay men with an average age of 74 started appearing on TikTok, they became an instant hit. They talk about how, as their audience has grown, their outfits have shrunk
No written description quite captures the joy-inducing positivity of their online videos: bopping along to Taylor Swift in slinky striped swimwear; countless dance trends and TikTok challenges, completed in various seductive states of undress. Twirling and whirling in only feather boas and Speedos to Kylie. Clips neatly edited to cut from outfit to outfit, often climaxing in the skimpiest of one-piece swimwear. Over the last six years, the foursome have become certified social media superstars, but not like any other. “We’re The Old Gays,” they say, collectively, “a TikTok sensation with 11 million followers and counting. And if you’re not on TikTok, honey, you’re living in the past.”
Today, the four are sitting squarely together in front of a laptop camera: two on low chairs upfront, the others perched on stools right behind. We’re here to discuss their new book: The Old Gays Guide to the Good Life. As always on occasions like this, they’ve coalesced at 80-year-old Robert’s place: a house in Cathedral City, deep in the California desert. He’s sitting back right, behind Mick, 67, a committed bodybuilder, and Robert’s housemate for the past 10 years. Then there’s Jessay, 70, whose home is directly across the street. He’s a professional singer; the only Black member of the group. “And I’m Bill, 79,” comes the final introduction. “I live a couple of miles down the road. Before the Old Gays, we’d all get together and have dinner parties, get stoned, celebrate the holidays. Now we see so much of each other at work we stay away in our spare time.” He winks. “More colleagues than friends.”
For those unfamiliar with the wider Palm Springs area, where they’re based, it’s a unique place. “We live in a very strange spot here in the California desert,” Mick explains, “just 100 miles east of Los Angeles. Here there’s a large community of older queer people that’s very active and vibrant.” A magnet for gay men in particular, it’s estimated that half of the Palm Springs population identifies as LGBTQ+ (compared to 7% of Americans nationally); right next door in Cathedral City – where the Old Gays are based – that figure is similarly high. “Down the road in LA,” Mick continues, “the culture of youth is everything. Once you turn 40, unless you’re married and with a big career, you’re becoming invisible. It’s the same in many places across the world: mainstream culture emphasises that. We exist to put the lie to that: to spread our energy. Showing the world how life can be, and bringing hope – I think – to people in places where that might not seem possible, whether because of age or sexuality.”
Their online fame has made its way into the mainstream. Regular guest appearances on primetime TV; modelling for Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty fashion house; Forbes listed the Old Gays in its 2022 Top Creators List; and lucrative brand deals with Netflix, T-Mobile and US retail giant Walgreens. With their new book – a mix of memoir, self-help and salacious snippets – the guys can each now add “published author” to their ever-growing list of late-onset accomplishments.
As their audience has grown, their outfits have shrunk: often just a jockstrap or tight bikini covers their modesty. There’s certainly no shortage of older people on TikTok, but they’re often cuddly characters, not brimming with body confidence and sheer sex appeal. Their fans lap it up. “I still can’t figure out why,” Jessay says. Initially, he struggled to strip off; to see himself as desirable. “I didn’t get why people wanted to see us like that. I’m not sure I do now. But because of the rest of these guys, I’m more confident. I shut my mouth, get on with it and have a blast.” “I’m surprised by myself sometimes,” adds Bob. “I don’t think all of us felt so at home in our older bodies before. Now, with all the love we get, we feel so free.”
Each of the four took a different path to Cathedral City. Robert was raised in conservative Arkansas, which he switched for San Francisco in the 1970s, at the city’s liberal, hippie height, where he worked in town planning. Bill’s a California native, with a career spanning interior design, men’s fashion and facilities management. A professional singer, Jessay spent his early years in rural Tennessee, a firm Christian. Mick, meanwhile, grew up in Minnesota, son of a Second World War veteran-turned-dentist father, and a school-teaching mother who quit to raise their four kids. The first Old Gays to meet were Bill and Robert, back in 1980s San Fran. They retell the story in tag-team, at which point Mick pointedly walks out of the camera frame.
“I was the general manager of a large interior design showroom,” says Bill, “and Robert, working for the mayor, came in one day on official business.” The pair got talking. “Fast forward to 1990, we were both living in the California desert. I had a movie night and a friend invited Robert along. We quickly realised we’d met decades before.”
Mick reappears: “Have we finished with the book of Genesis yet? Let’s take it to the last decade.” Mick was the next to join the mix. In late 2012, he was looking for a room in Cathedral City when he saw an advert on Craigslist: “Roommate/Hippie wanted. Must be nudist, LGBTQ+ and 420 lifestyle friendly”. The listing was Robert’s. On New Year’s Day 2013, Mick turned up for a tour. “And there was Robert, stripped down to the waist clearing the garden, and I thought well, all right.” There are knowing grins from the others; the pair quickly became intimately acquainted. Having cooled off, they took a tour of the house. “He showed me my future bedroom,” Mick continues, “which has one whole side that’s mirrored, and he told me… ‘This is the orgy room.’ I made it clear I’d be throwing the mattress out right away.”
The three became a tight unit, part of a thriving intergenerational, queer social scene that Palm Springs and Cathedral City are famous for. After a busy dinner party at the house one night in 2018, some of the guests were getting stoned, when a younger friend, who worked as a producer, decided it might be fun to put Mick, Robert and Bill in front of the camera. The comedy, and the chemistry, were immediately evident. “They filmed a video of us guessing what slang words meant,” Robert says, “and it proved pretty successful. We were called the Old Farts at first, but we switched to the Old Gays. But there was a criticism that surfaced…” The trio wasn’t exactly diverse.
Jessay takes over: “A friend of mine sent me this viral video and I freaked out and got excited. These guys were my neighbours.” Jessay lived across the street, having arrived in Cathedral City in 2013.” I was on my way to work one day, and saw Robert outside, so stopped to tell him how happy I was to see them doing so well online. And then he said to me the group needed some diversity. I replied, ‘You mean some colour?’ I gave him my business card and the rest is history.”
Their first taste of success came through a collaboration that same year with gay dating and hook-up app Grindr, shot in a studio: they told their coming-out stories, played party games and dressed up in drag. “Then in December 2021,” says Bill, “we did our first TikTok video and from then it just shot up to the moon. It was all so much fun and felt so new – we were having a ball.”
The videos were very much a hobby at first: a bit of fun that none thought would go on to yield such success. In part, that’s because they’d previously had little exposure to the star-making power of social media. None of them registered their own appeal. Recently, Robert reckons he’s figured that out. “It’s authenticity,” he suggests. “We feel free to be ourselves, entirely. For some younger people we’re role models that they haven’t had in their lives: substitute parents, grandparents, guncles. And for people of our generation, we’re visible, when so many are unseen. Whatever your sexuality, older people can watch our videos and see a ray of hope and optimism. Confirmation that you can get up, out and enjoy life, not spend every hour in front of a TV.”
Conversation turns to next year’s US presidential election: all signs are that 2024’s race will be a reactionary, divisive and hate-fuelled affair. It’ll be the first time the Old Gays navigate an election on this scale with their platform’s sprawling reach. “We think about that a lot,” says Bob, “there’s the potential we could play a big role in the upcoming election.” Not necessarily through campaigning or endorsements. “Just through us,” Mick continues, “being ourselves, doing what we’re doing so publicly. That is something in itself: showing we’re proud; that we’re not ashamed. It makes clear there’s no putting us back into the closet.” During previous election cycles, Jessay has found himself feeling physically sick: “I just had to step away, I was feeling so poisoned. We are living what some of these bigoted candidates are attacking. We want the country to see us: four happy, gay men full of life. We’re a vision of what America, and the world, can be.” “What gets me the most,” adds Bill, “is knowing all the strides we’ve made towards freedom – because we’ve lived through them – and now seeing the reversal; our freedoms being taken away.”
In their Guide to Life, the struggles each have survived are documented: family estrangement, homophobia, sexual abuse, and life – and death – through the height of the HIV and Aids epidemic. Telling these stories was a no-brainer. “The book is dedicated to those who are no longer here,” says Mick, who is HIV+. “We’re what’s left of a generation who succumbed to a very nasty disease. I’m one of the lucky ones and feel I owe it to people who aren’t here to not only tell my story, but to show I can be old, gay, happy and content. People see us on their screens, but now they know our challenges; our history. If people can see us living our best lives, thriving, while knowing what we’ve each lived through? Hopefully that can give people some inspiration to get through their own crises in life. To remember the good times don’t last forever, yes, but the bad times don’t either.”
Little is off-limits in the book: grief, faith and bankruptcy; masturbation, sex toys, erectile dysfunction and nudes. “Everyone deals with it all,” says Mick, “so why not put it out there? Whatever your sexuality, older people still have bodies, sex and desire.” Whether they’re talking trauma or engaging with the erotic, putting it out there is the Old Gays’ MO. It’s not lost on the group that for centuries, this sort of queer visibility wasn’t viable. Yes, Mick says, recent legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ people are alarming. “But at least it’s in the open now. The hatred, yes, and also our realities. For years, queer people were forced into hiding. Now we’re impossible to ignore; not silenced by shame.”
“Gay men of our age,” Robert continues, “for lots of reasons – death, homophobia, ageism – are totally invisible to the world. We’re also helping bring light to our generation. A little reminder that plenty of us are still here and living a wonderful life.” Still, the book is anything but morose. And taking on these more serious issues, whether in writing or on screen, while continuing to channel the camp, fab and frivolous, feels entirely natural. “It’s always been that way for us,” says Mick. “During the height of Aids, despite the fact our friends were dropping around us like flies, we still knew how to give a party. And that’s the same today. Whatever shit is going on, we still want to find joy. Lots of young people don’t know this history. They think queer history begins with Lady Gaga? No no.”
“Hold on,” chimes in Bill. “I thought it began with Cher?”
All in, we chat away for almost two hours, with little prompting. It’s no surprise there’s been talk of a docuseries – I’d watch. They tell stories, crack jokes, take the piss when things get too earnest. The unconditional support system they’ve developed is self-evident: a chosen family which lifts each other and, when needed, cuts a queen back down to size. They don’t shy away from the battles each has faced as they’ve grown older: ill-health, isolation, the expectation life might start to contract.
“I imagined the rest of my time a certain way,” says Robert. “Living quietly, alone, making art in my studio. Now I barely have time for my artwork. And we’re all certainly better off financially than we used to be.” The others nod – the brand deals are lucrative. For Bill, the money has been transformative. Back in 2008, during the financial crash, he’d lost his house and moved into social housing. “I thought that would be me forever,” he says, “until the Old Gays starting hitting its stride and I was making so much that I was set to be kicked out.” It’s far from the only change. “Between 2008 and 2018,” Bill continues, “before the Old Gays, I was celibate. I was at a low place in my life; I had no self-confidence. Then all of a sudden I started reading these comments: people saying I was cute or attractive. Over the last few years, that’s all changed. Turns out I’m pretty popular with the boys.”
“I think I’d probably be dead without the Old Gays,” Mick says. “I’ve got lots of health issues. I’m kept alive by an infusion every two weeks. All of this…” he looks towards the friends surrounding him, “is the icing on the cake. What keeps me going; the reward for sticking around.”
With time running out, I ask a final question: the book dishes out endless life lessons, but, if pushed, what single, standout piece of advice would they share? “Be passionate about everything you do,” offers Bill. Robert is next: “Take the time to understand who you are, not who other people tell you to be.” Mick usually tells people to floss, “and also do your very best. Don’t hold anything back.”
Before Jessay answers, he takes a breath, then smiles. “Be free,” he says, “I didn’t know how to be until the Old Gays. I was trying to please everyone all the time, not taking care of me. All of this? It’s taught me to love and respect myself. To be exactly who I am and to enjoy every second. Trust me, don’t wait until you’re our age to do the same.”
The Old Gays Guide to the Good Life, published by William Collins, is out 23 November (£16.99). Buy a copy for £14.95 at guardianbookshop.com
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