A lot of the observations are true but it's really funny to me to frame this through the "21st century" post-pandemic, lens in particular the part about self-op

A lot of the observations are true but it's really funny to me to frame this through the "21st century" post-pandemic, lens in particular the part about self-optimization, "secular monks" as the article calls it. Immediately reminded me of Baudrillard, (America 1989): "The skateboarder with his Walkman, the intellectual working on his word- processor, the Bronx breakdancer whirling frantically in the Roxy, the jogger and the body-builder: everywhere, whether in regard to the body or the mental faculties, you find the same blank solitude, the same narcissistic refraction. This omnipresent cult of the body is extraordinary. It is the only object on which everyone is made to concentrate, not as a source of pleasure, but as an object of frantic concern[...] This ‘into’ is the key to everything. The point is not to be nor even to have a body, but to be into your own body. Into your sexuality, into your own desire. Into your own functions, as if they were energy differentials or video screens. The hedonism of the ‘into’: the body is a scenario and the curious hygienist threnody devoted to it runs through the innumerable fitness centres, body- building gyms, stimulation and simulation studios that stretch from Venice to Tupanga Canyon, bearing witness to a collective asexual obsession. " He was one of the first people to point to the irony of a health and beauty obsessed culture that doesn't actually use their health or beauty for anything, because they've removed any real social contact from their life, just existing in isolation in front of a screen. This is the gym goer / instagram influencer who Baudrillard would have compared more to a corpse in a morgue than an actual person.