If you’re a woman of a certain age with a phone, you’ve probably seen one of Melani Sanders’ We Do Not Care Club posts. In a fleecy dressing gown with reading glasses hanging off her like Christmas tree baubles, a sleep mask wonkily on her forehead, Sanders stares deadpan at the camera. “We are putting the world on notice that we simply do not care much any more,” she says. She uncaps a highlighter with her teeth, spitting the lid out of shot, then starts flatly listing stuff members of the We Do Not Care Club, her virtual community of menopausal women, don’t care about. “We do not care we have to go to therapy weekly; you are probably the reason we are there.” “We do not care if we asked you the question 13 times. We do not remember the answer; say it again.” “We do not care if you realise we are not wearing a bra: this, my friend, is freedom.”

Sanders laughs when I show her over Zoom (she’s in West Palm Beach, Florida) the highlighter tucked into my bra strap in her honour. Since she first suggested starting a “we do not care club” on 13 May 2025, it has become more than a series of brilliantly funny videos about how the midlife hormonal rollercoaster leaves women bereft of fucks to give. It is a worldwide sisterhood of 2.2 million followers on Instagram and 1.5 million on TikTok. But when Sanders, 45, sat frazzled and sleep-deprived in her car, fetching the supplements that kept her (somewhat) sane since entering surgically induced perimenopause, she was wondering if she was alone. Pre-hysterectomy, she was a perfectionist, running her home, family and life with military precision; no more. Her sports bra was skew-whiff; her hair dishevelled. “I said: ‘Melani, you really just don’t care any more … Is it just a me thing? I just hit record.’”

Twenty minutes after what she calls her “hot mess moment”, she had her answer: it wasn’t just a her thing. Sanders was a seasoned content creator – “I’ve had viral content; I know what that looks like” – but this was different: her post was everywhere, all at once. “I honestly got scared,” she says. “I actually cut my phone off for a little while.” She turned it back on to post again the next day – already in her signature list format (“We don’t care about being on time – baby, be happy I showed up because I don’t even want to be here,” was one highly relatable item). Thereafter, whenever she looked at her phone, hundreds of thousands more women who found her hilarious, but who also finally felt seen and understood, had joined the club. It was overwhelming, she says. “I cried a lot during this time – impostor syndrome. I did not think I was enough. I felt everyone was looking at me to continue this, but I’m in perimenopause, I don’t know what I’m doing from day to day. I don’t even know who I am from day to day!”

What shifted, Sanders says, was seeing other women saying they were starting their own “chapters” of WDNC, taking on the mantle of not caring in their own areas, or communities. “I said thank you, Jesus – this is a sisterhood.” Still, Sanders remains WDNC’s beating heart, and it has been an intense ride for a woman dealing with a grab-bag of perimenopause symptoms and a full life with a husband and three sons. There’s been an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show with Halle Berry; Ashley Judd filmed a tribute post; Sanders regularly receives deeply heartfelt messages from women going through the menopausal wringer. She has even written a book, the imminent (and extremely funny) The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook. “What got me to the point of just embracing it is hearing women saying: ‘I feel seen now. You’re saying the things we want to say.’ That is what strengthens me.” Perimenopause can be, as Sanders says, “extremely isolating”. Women’s symptoms are minimised; misinformation – and medical indifference – is rife. Feeling part of a community, sharing frustrations and symptoms (“I have a saying, if our sister’s coochie is dry, then we all have dry coochie,” Sanders says, winningly) and, above all, having a laugh, is precious. Her pinch me moment, Sanders says, wasn’t the celebrity stuff, but when a woman spotted her shopping for groceries: “She started to cry and she said I’ve been following you – I’m going through a divorce right now, I’m in perimenopause and, watching your videos, you’ve given me the strength to keep pushing through.” Because she does care, hugely – not about laundry or chin hair, but about the stuff that really matters.

• The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook by Melani Sanders will be published on 13 January by HQ (£12.99).