STAY COOL

Judi Jupiter, a 76-year-old social media star, is Gen Z at heart

- ALEX VADUKUL

On a brisk afternoon in Washington Square Park, a petite 76-year-old woman wearing Versace sunglasses and a hoodie studied the scene around her. She goes by Judi Jupiter, and as buskers strummed guitars and New York University students read books on benches, she was searching for something.

“It’s just a feeling,” she said. “When I know, I know.”

She spotted a tall young man wearing a red Balenciaga hoodie and Timberlands. She raced up to him, phone in hand, and started filming.

“Oh, look at you,” she said.

She pelted him with questions: What's your name? What's your Instagram? What do you do?

He said he was a 21-year-old model named Waylon Rose.

Jupiter hit him with her signature question: “Want to do a spin for me?”

He twirled for her with a catwalk flourish.

“I love these baggy pants,” she said.

“You're Judi Jupiter, aren’t you?” he said. “I recognise your voice from the videos. Your posts have been getting around. I guess I've been hoping one day I might run into you and that you'd stop me.”

Among the Instagram and TikTok set, Judi Jupiter has emerged as one of New York’s most improbable chroniclers of downtown street style. With an approach that's one part Bill Cunningham and one part Studs Terkel, she has broken through the algorithm with her affable manner and borderline invasive curiosity. She's just as compelled by a model-skater wearing Rick Owens as she is a philosophy major in a thrift shop scarf.

“I love the Gen Zs,” Jupiter said. “I love their attitude. They think the world is in a bad place and that we've got to make it better. That's their thing. They're into making things better.

“I'm a Gen Z, too,” she added. “I moved to New York from Detroit at 24, and I’m still 24 in my head, so they're my people. The Gen Zs only like talking to people their own age, and since they can tell I’m like them, they talk to me. If someone looks over 30, I don’t even interview them.