Cheryl Wischhover

Social Media’s Midlife Makeup Guru

My first piece for the NYT, on Erica Taylor! www.nytimes.com/2025/09/27/s...

The Beauty Industry Is Suddenly All-In On Gen X After ignoring us for years

The beauty industry suddenly wants in on the over-40 consumer. I wrote about it:

open.substack.com/pub/heywhate...

OK, hear me out.

Pedro Pascal.

Viola Davis.

Much Ado About Nothing.

Broadway.

License to print money.

Blue-winged Warbler in the Hudson Valley, NY (a bit blurry- practicing my digiscoping skills!)🪶

Tree Swallows, the second best bird to have nesting in my bluebird box 🪶

Kinda terrible phone pic, but here is the Central Park leucistic White-throated Sparrow 🪶

Selling Our Childhoods + An ‘80s Power Suit Resurgence From lunchboxes to Star Wars + what is 'boom boom' fashion?

Perhaps you had a metal lunchbox? A Wonder Woman doll? Garbage Pail Kids? Right this way for how our nostalgia is being sold and the lingering viral Grimace effects:

open.substack.com/pub/heywhate...

Don’t Buy What the Hollywood Menoposse Is Selling + Gen X Commercials Using beauty industry tricks to sell menopause products + Super Bowl ads

I find it pretty dystopian how celebs are selling grifty menopause products. So I wrote about how they are using the beauty industry playbook to do it
open.substack.com/pub/heywhate...

The waterfall recently seen in “Severance,” as snapped by me a few winters ago. It’s in Minnewaska, my favorite NY state park

Hello from Panama, where I am having a prettyyyyy good time 🪶

Clubbing for Old/Tired People + Lisa Lisa Gets a Biopic A new nightlife phenomenon for middle age + freestyle fans, rejoice

“Finding joy among the shit” is pretty much what I need right now. Our latest: clubbing for old people open.substack.com/pub/heywhate...

Same but when I open the news app I’d like to be greeted with chickpea recipes and then ease into everything else

So, how do I set the cooking section to be the home page of my NYT app?? I really can’t click into that headline mess everyday

Therapeutic wren butt

My woo woo belief is that I think those toe separator things can fix a lot of problems

Love this so much. My parents lived near there and we visit it every year

Best of 2024:
A pair of mulga parrots, male on the left, from one of my trips to Gluepot Reserve this year.
These small parrots are insanely colourful. I always joke that they look like they got stuck in a paint factory 😄
🪶 #birds

Dreamy

Holiday Movies and Music Recommendations + '90s Hair is Back From Nicole Kidman in 'Babygirl' to Gen X celebrity memoirs to winter skincare.

Are you even a Substacker if you don’t make recommendations? Behold, our first recs newsletter, including skin care thoughts from moi (it is NOT a gift guide🤪) open.substack.com/pub/heywhate...

The pigeons of Australia?

Oh my god!!

One of my fave weird ducks

‘OMG, Why Is Pedro Pascal on Teen Beat?!’ An exhaustive investigation into how Pedro Pascal's career, his online fans' horniness, and the dying magazine industry collided

So @fawnianewyork.bsky.social and I turned an unhinged text exchange into a dual byline, fully reported story about Pedro Pascal and bookazines. I’ve never had so much fun open.substack.com/pub/heywhate...

‘70s Kenny Loggins: surprisingly hot! (Loved the yacht rock doc)

Watching years-old videos to explain to me how to decide if someone is “babygirl.” Maybe it’s time I left the internet for good

A life affirming documentary to watch, with tons of ‘80s nostalgia as a bonus

Need fun and campy? Recommend

I’m annoyed I didn’t watch Somebody Somewhere sooner. What a kind, beautiful show

Oh

Ripping Off the (40th Anniversary of) Band Aid + Idris Elba x 'Masters of the Universe' Confronting the problematic fave holiday song + Idris hangs with He-Man

And an early, supersized news edition of Whatever Nevermind, feat. my ode to Idris Elba, a very Gen X-y ep of Las Culturistas + a take from @cherylanneny.bsky.social et moi on a childhood holiday song that didn't age well (and wasn't great back then either): open.substack.com/pub/heywhate...