At 98 years old, she is a social media star

On a recent evening in Manhattan’s West Village, Dorothy Wiggins, a petite 98-year-old woman wearing a dark coat and a pink scarf, left her townhouse to visit Little Ruby’s Cafe, a chic new restaurant in her neighborhood. Inside she approached the hostess.

‘I remember this place when it was the other place, the RivieraMrs. Wiggins said. “It was so tacky besides that. you really brightened up the space.”

“It’s an Australian restaurant,” the hostess said.

“Australian?” Mrs. Wiggins replied.

While processing this information, the hostess asked if she had a reservation.

“I just live in the neighborhood, and my husband painted this house once,” Mrs. Wiggins said. “I was just curious.”

She said goodbye and walked back to her brownstone. She wasn’t the only one. Following behind her was Michael Astor, a freelance journalist who discreetly filmed her outing with a pocket-sized gimbal camera.

The scene he had just shot would be posted on the website soon TikTok And Instagram accounts he runs, both called @dorothylovesnewyork, making Ms. Wiggins an unlikely social media celebrity.

Tens of thousands of people are following the accounts, which chronicle Ms. Wiggins’ late 1990s as she navigates life in New York and the Hamptons, equipped with a wooden walking staff, vintage hats and a bone-dry sense of humor.

In a videoshe becomes frustrated when a waiter at a Midtown jazz club can’t get her drink order quite right (a shot of Dewar’s in an ice-filled long drink, with a water back). In anothershe complains about “terrible Montauk oysters” to the operator of an East Hampton seafood restaurant. The most popular clipswith more than nine million views on Instagram, shows her hitting a serve on a tennis court in Amagansett.

“Chrissie Evert commented on my service,” Ms. Wiggins said in the living room of her brownstone, where she and Mr. Astor, 59, sat next to a crackling fire. “She said it looked like her serve.”

Part of the accounts’ charm lies in its indifference to social media.

“I’m funny about becoming popular because I despise it all,” she said. “I hate walking down the streets and seeing people holding their phones like they’re holding their hearts.”

“TikTok feels stupid to me,” she continued. “You need more than something temporary. I recently watched ‘Casablanca’. That’s the perfect length for a movie. I just think it’s bad for concentration and makes people dumber. My husband could recite AE Housman’s poetry from memory.”

Guy Wigginsa painter and former Foreign Service diplomat, died three years ago, at the age of 100. Ms. Wiggins, who grew up in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens, met him in her early 30s, and they were married for 61 years.

“When my husband died, I was absolutely devastated,” Mrs Wiggins said. “All my life he was.” Referring to her social media accounts, she added: “My son started this because he thought it would take my mind off the sadness.”

Mr. Astor, a family friend and former reporter for The Associated Press, was commissioned in 2019 by one of the couple’s sons to make a short documentary about his elderly parents. After it was completed and Mr. Wiggins died, Mr. Astor continued filming. A year ago he started posting clips on social media. The account received its first publicity spot last summer The East Hampton Star.

“We never expected Dorothy to become Insta famous,” Mr Astor said. “What people see on TikTok and Instagram are all collages that I will eventually understand in a real movie.”

Mr. Astor documents Ms. Wiggins several times a week, editing the images in the library study on the second floor of the mansion. He keeps her informed of their most viewed clips and comments from commentators. (Ms. Wiggins has an iPhone, but doesn’t use TikTok or Instagram.)

“We’re always at odds with each other,” Mr. Astor said. “Everything after the sixties is a disappointment to her. I think TikTok is a medium through which I can draw people into something deeper in her life.”

“It’s also about someone dealing with growing older,” he added. “Especially an older woman – a person who often disappears in our society.”

Mrs. Wiggins rose from her chair and pulled out a self-published book, “Wiggins in Love,” which is filled with photos of herself and her husband, along with scans of birthday and Valentine’s Day letters he had sent her over the years written. . As she turned the pages, she came across a sketch of his that depicted them sitting on a couch with a drink.

“Our evening cocktail hour was sacred,” Ms. Wiggins said. “No matter what happened, we never missed our cocktail hour.”

One Friday evening, Mr. Astor filmed Ms. Wiggins as she entered the room Salmagundi Club in Greenwich Village, where she and her husband were regulars. She walked down the creaky stairs to the Wiggins Bar, named after her husband’s family; his father was the cityscape painter Guy Carleton Wiggins and his grandfather was the landscape artist John Carleton Wiggins. One wall is decorated with paint-stained palettes and photos of the Wiggins men.

“The usual, Mrs. Wiggins?” the bartender asked.

She sat at her Dewar’s as Mr. Astor scrolled through his phone, checking the responses to their last message. He relayed a roll call of updates: Comedian Ellen Cleghorne had just followed them and someone wanted to send her some oysters from Maine. He also said that they should start planning an event where some of her fans could join her for a drink at the Wiggins Bar.

“Dorothy and alcohol work really well,” Mr. Astor said. “Her followers love the idea of ​​someone being 98 and still drinking.”

But Ms. Wiggins seemed more interested in gazing at a hanging still life of oysters painted by her husband than discussing social media involvement.

“Like I said, I brush off the fame,” she said. “I love my fans, but I don’t attach much importance to them and think it’s all a bit stupid.”

Then she became thoughtful.

“Well, there was one comment that struck a chord with me,” Ms. Wiggins said. “Someone noticed when he felt that life was over for him. That they were depressed. But after seeing my videos, they were inspired to continue.”

“Now that I can understand it,” she continued. “If I can show someone that he or she should not give up on life, then I think that is important.”