A podcast created by people over 90 is a hit in Argentina

[cbabe]

https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-05/a-podcast-created-by-people-over-90-is-a-hit-in-argentina.html

A podcast created by people over 90 is a hit in Argentina

Every two weeks, the hosts of ‘Noventa y Contando’ address their concerns about healthy living, the role of women, love and sex

DIEGO JEMIO
Buenos Aires - APR 05, 2025 - 00:00 EDT

The Thursday ritual takes place every two weeks. In a building’s meeting room, a group of people meet up to share their thoughts. Sometimes, there’s a theme. Other days, the conversation is free-flowing. “We talk about important things that have changed our lives. They can be ordinary things, or ones we never talk about,” ventures 97-year-old Alberto Chab on a sunny afternoon in the Belgrano neighborhood of Buenos Aires.


The two-hour meeting, which is attended by a dozen people, will be captured by Noventa y Contando (Ninety and Counting), a podcast and digital community created by nonagenarians. The project was inspired by Chab’s video of a simple dinner attended by others from his age group that was designed for them to have a place to chat and make friends. He posted it to TikTok. What happened next was unexpected.

In just a few days, Chab received some 2,000 emails about the post. The experience led him to take an interest in media, and eventually, the gatherings became a podcast. “I wasn’t just surprised about what happened. I’d say I was shocked. It seemed like a tsunami of messages. More than a tsunami, it was like Iguazu Falls. I couldn’t keep up with all of them, so we set up a Zoom group so more people could join. I think I touched on the very important issue of longevity in a way that hadn’t been done before. We talk about our stuff, what happened to us, what we eat, about rest and how we relate to everyone else,” says Chab, who is a psychoanalyst and continues to see patients.

The podcast’s first season — which is available on YouTube and Spotify in audio and video formats — consists of 11 episodes with subjects like tango, healthy habits, the role of women, children’s games, love and sex, and motivation, among others. Now, they are recording the second season’s episodes. Along with Chab, Guadalupe Camurati, who is 26, is a co-creator and host of the podcast. “We began to record with the themes that they were suggesting. The group format was impossible for a podcast, so my proposal was to record Albert with one of the group’s members. I show up not so much as an interviewer, but as a moderator. It transmits being active in your 90s and the idea of changing the concept that many have of aging.”

“Let’s talk about important things. For example, how do you get along with your family? How do you rest? How do you feed yourself? Is there anything you didn’t get around to doing and that you can still do? What each person says has an impact on the others and there really is a great deal of cohesion between us. At our age, the worst thing that can happen to you is loneliness. Being alone, which can be creative, is not the same as loneliness, which really becomes an illness. The people around us die and we are left very alone. This group combats that loneliness,” says Chab, who was invited to the Festival of Ideas in Puebla, Mexico as a result of the project.

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(Spanish video at link)