Why the 50-Plus Audience Is a Growth Segment for Creators

Americans over 50 now account for 43% of US economic activity, and solid majorities of them use YouTube and Facebook.

Adults aged 50 and older generated $12.5 trillion in US economic activity in 2024, according to AARP’s Longevity Economy Outlook 2026. That was 43% of GDP, up from $8.3 trillion and 40% in 2018. The report, built on methodology from Economist Enterprise, put their consumer spending at $10.7 trillion, more than half of the national total.

For creators in lifestyle niches such as travel, food, home, fashion, wellness and relationships, the useful question is whether that audience can be reached through the channels they already work in. The evidence says it can, with some differences between platforms worth knowing before planning a content calendar.

Where the 50-plus audience already spends its time

The cleanest platform data comes from the Pew Research Center, which surveyed 5,022 US adults between February and June 2025. In Pew’s social media fact sheet, 85% of adults aged 50 to 64 said they use YouTube, and 74% said they use Facebook. Among adults 65 and older the figures were 64% and 57%.

The picture changes on the image-led and short-video platforms. Instagram and TikTok are thinner territory. Pew found 40% of the 50 to 64 group on Instagram and 30% on TikTok, falling to 19% and 12% among those 65 and older. For comparison, adults aged 30 to 49 reported 62% on Instagram and 44% on TikTok.

One caution on the headline of this article: Pew’s age bands do not isolate adults in their forties, so 50 is where the data becomes clean. Facebook is the notable case. Use among adults 50 to 64 (74%) sits only six points below the 30 to 49 group (80%), a gap that is simple subtraction on Pew’s numbers and the smallest of the four platforms listed. YouTube’s gap is seven points, TikTok’s is 14 and Instagram’s is 22.

Attention is not the same as spending

Reach matters only if it turns into action, and the best public data on that is older. A Pew survey of 6,034 adults in July 2022 found that 69% of adults aged 50 to 64 had bought something online using a smartphone, compared with 48% of those 65 and older.

The same survey asked about creators directly. Among social media users aged 50 and older, 29% said influencers or content creators affect their purchasing decisions at least a little. Following creators was more common in the lower age band: 26% of social media users aged 50 to 64 said they follow influencers or content creators, against 12% of those 65 and older.

Those are modest numbers, and “at least a little” is a low bar. They also predate 2025. What they support is a narrower claim than the economic headline: a meaningful minority of older social media users already follows creators, and a larger share is comfortable buying on a phone.

How people look for creators by category

Audiences do not find every creator through a feed. Many type a category into a search box, which is why directories organize listings by label. MILF models is one such search term, and a listings page on OnlyGuider carries the same name. Like any category label, it describes how audiences search, not who any individual creator is.

OnlyGuider is useful here as a window into that behavior. WKRN described it as “a third-party search engine for finding OnlyFans creators” that reportedly used search traffic, population data and revenue filings to rank US cities and counties by 2025 spending. The station also reported that Americans spent approximately $2.6 billion on OnlyFans in 2025. Those are modeled estimates, not audited sales, and WKRN’s account of the method is secondhand.

For a creator in any niche, the lesson is practical rather than tied to one platform. Search demand shows what audiences call the thing they want. A creator who describes their work in the terms people actually type is easier to find than one who relies on a feed to carry them.

What the data does and does not support

A content plan built on this evidence starts from measured reach, not from assumptions about who is watching.

The numbers support a plan built around reach and format. YouTube and Facebook have the deepest penetration among adults 50 to 64, so video that works on both is the logical starting point. Instagram reaches four in ten of that group, so it is a secondary channel rather than an afterthought.

They do not say anything about taste. Neither AARP nor Pew reports what older audiences prefer to watch, and treating tens of millions of people as one preference would be a mistake. Creators who serve this group well tend to start from the subject they know and the questions their own audience asks, not from an assumption about age.

AARP’s report also looks ahead. It projects that spending by adults 50 and older will reach $22 trillion by 2060, more than 61% of total consumption. That is a forecast, and forecasts shift, but the direction in the 2018 to 2024 data is already visible in the share rising from 40% to 43%.

Creators who treat this audience as a serious segment, with the right platforms and the right search terms, are building toward the part of the market that already accounts for more than half of consumer spending.