How Melani Sanders Turned the We Do Not Care Club Into 2025’s Loudest Midlife Movement
A car-filmed confession about perimenopause sparked a global community of millions, reshaping how women talk about aging, identity, and freedom.
Trenton, December 3 EST: What began as a throwaway Instagram confession from Melani Sanders in May has, by early December, matured into one of the most unlikely cultural touchpoints of 2025. The We Do Not Care Club, a jokey label Sanders slapped onto a video about struggling to find a “proper” bra while navigating perimenopause, has snowballed into a global community anchored in humor, honesty, and a distinctly midlife kind of fatigue.
According to People Magazine, the original video, posted on May 13, captured a candid Sanders sitting in her car, confessing to her followers that she was “officially done” pretending to meet expectations that no longer fit her life. The clip reportedly drew nearly 200,000 likes, and something about its tone resonated far beyond her usual audience. As it turns out, tens of thousands of women felt the same way.
By the time summer arrived, roughly 24,000 followers had contributed their own “we do not care” declarations. The posts, often delivered with a wink, covered everything from messy kitchens to skipped social obligations to the deliriously freeing act of abandoning underwire bras. Still, behind the jokes, a deeper chord was vibrating.
A Movement Rooted In Midlife Realities
Coverage from The Boston Globe and Katie Couric Media has framed the movement as something larger than a viral meme. Their reporting notes the clear emotional and cultural through-line: a sense that midlife, menopause, and identity have long been plastered over with silence or euphemism. The WDNC community, by contrast, brings it all into the open.
That said, Sanders didn’t set out to lead a midlife rebellion. In multiple profiles, including her newly announced People Magazine Creator of the Year recognition, she has described the club as an accident. But the hunger for shared language around perimenopause and menopause was already there, quietly simmering.
By December, the “accident” had eclipsed 2.1 million followers worldwide. Women in their forties, fifties, and sixties, from Boston to Brisbane, have filled Sanders’s comments with their own stories of hormonal chaos, shifting priorities, and the unexpected liberation of dropping the performance of constant self-maintenance.
Humor, Heat, And The Harder Questions
What gives the WDNC its staying power is the balance of comedy and candor. Visuals of chaotic laundry rooms or captions about choosing sleep over societal approval are as central to the club as heartfelt posts about anxiety, rage, and physical change.
Still, the virality has invited scrutiny. As noted in critiques referenced by The Guardian, some columnists worry the “don’t care” framing may wander too close to nihilism. They argue that while shedding external pressure is empowering, unchecked apathy risks obscuring issues that do demand attention, including health care access and workplace inequity for aging women.
Sanders’s supporters counter that the WDNC is not about abandoning responsibility. Instead, they say it is about excising the unnecessary burdens that block women from tending to their actual needs. The joke, they argue, functions as a doorstop: it wedges open space for a conversation that has been locked shut for decades.
The Cultural Climate That Allowed WDNC To Flourish
The movement also arrives at a moment when midlife visibility is expanding. In recent years, coverage from major outlets and public figures has chipped away at the once-taboo nature of menopause. That said, many women still report feeling isolated or dismissed when grappling with symptoms that affect their bodies, jobs, and relationships.
The We Do Not Care Club taps directly into that gap. It reframes menopause not as a slow fade-out but as a renegotiation of self. Some academics quoted in lifestyle and health reporting describe this phase as a psychological reboot: a point when personal priorities harden into focus, often with startling clarity.
Sanders, for her part, has leaned into that interpretation. Her videos shift fluidly between silliness and seriousness, sometimes in the same breath. That duality is part of the appeal. The club acts as both pressure valve and mirror, offering what many fans describe as permission to stop chasing standards built for someone else’s comfort.
A Digital Clubhouse And A Coming Book
By late fall, the WDNC had expanded beyond Instagram into a fully formed ecosystem. There are community threads, satellite discussion groups, and user-led meetups in several cities, according to reporting from lifestyle editors tracking the phenomenon. The shared language has grown, too, with recurring in-jokes about “chaos corners,” “menopause brain,” and the unexpected triumph of simply deciding not to pretend.
For now, Sanders appears to be steering the movement into its next phase. People Magazine reports that she will release The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook in January 2026. The project is described as part manifesto, part survival guide, aimed at codifying the ethos of the club while maintaining its irreverent edge.
Early descriptions suggest the book will blend Sanders’s signature storytelling with practical reflections on identity, aging, and bodily change. Supporters see it as a natural extension of the community’s spirit. Critics, meanwhile, question whether formalizing a movement rooted in spontaneity might dull its spark.
A Joke That Landed Exactly On Time
From a newsroom perspective, what makes the WDNC compelling is not just its scale but its timing. Social media cycles often reward extremity or conflict. Sanders’s success cuts against that grain. Her candid, often chaotic dispatches skip the gloss in favor of something messier and more grounded. It feels human. It feels tired, in the way so many midlife women feel tired. And that fatigue, delivered with humor, has become a rallying cry.
The movement’s durability will be tested in the months ahead. Viral communities rarely sustain momentum without evolving, and Sanders’s upcoming book marks a pivot point. Still, the WDNC has already carved out a cultural niche that few predicted in the spring. A simple, joking caption has turned into a shared language for millions who were long overdue for one.
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Korean-American minimalist living in Hoboken, Ren blends aesthetic writing with deep dives into wellness, home design, urban routines, and the pursuit of the good life. Think Monocle meets MindBodyGreen.
