O tempora, o mores

On life between two Johnsons

Hey there, fellow traveller, didn’t expect to see you here! What are you doing wandering around purgatory, have you missed the turn to Eden? Are you still stuck dealing with pain, fear, and boredom? How old-fashioned of you, my poor soul. Follow me, I’m actually headed that way myself, I visit paradise every single day.

Our Father, Bryan Johnson, the all-powerful and all-merciful, praise be to his never-ageing face, presides over the garden, overflowing with almond milk and vegan cookies, inhabited by the crowds of women with smooth foreheads and men with aggressive abs.

Here, the sun is always either rising or setting, but we don’t call it golden hour, we call it rose gold. There are no seasons, only changing aesthetics: spring is a wild hippie with flowers in her hair, running through the meadows; summer is a diva in Chanel shades, sweating deliciously by the pool in sync with her alkaline mojito; autumn is a shy bookish girl in a merino wool jumper, sipping on her pumpkin spice latte in a cosy cafe; and winter is a Carnival dancer, a Valentine lover, and a Christmas mother. All of them are alive and happening all at once, covered in rose gold sunshine, surrounded by rainbows;

and they are us, and we are them.

Fig. 1. Instamarta: smooth, pleasing, and free of suffering.

Forget that nonsense about the soul and sins, and having to earn your place in paradise; your virtual self is so much better than a soul, and you can have it in an instant, you don’t even have to die! Our idealised selves are already living their best lives not only without wrinkles, but also without worries, their problems and shortcomings a thing of the past. The imperfections were just a fluke of the ordinary analog reality—now, that we’re all in heaven, they have been carefully collected by the Holy Zuck and placed back in Pandora’s box, where they belong.

Our digital souls do not know pain or death, except as a carefully crafted spectacle, ritually performed out of respect for the memory of our old, mortal selves. They cry sometimes, but only for likes, with the sweet tears of those who know they will live forever, as their pixelated feet twirl into eternity to the newest EDM banger, faces frozen in a blissful smile.

You think that’s egotistical? But not at all! Just think about it: why wouldn’t you inject acid into your face if that could elevate the single-second experience of seeing your photo for thirty thousand strangers; that’s 500 minutes more joy in the universe, more than eight hours of human happiness, and that’s just per one photo! Truly effective altruism, if you ask me.

So what if the fillers make you look a little bit silly in real life, real life people can’t even double tap you. Real people are zombies anyway, poor mortal shells of their vibrant alter egos in the parallel reality.

We’re almost there, in fact, the peace you’re looking for is right around the next bend; just tread carefully and don’t fall for the tricks of the Evil One, the reprehensible Brian Johnson, King of Livers; he will try to lure you in with his perfect biceps, but he really only wants to eat your alive, nose-to-tail, inject you full of testosterone and infect you with conspiracy theories; there’s no peace in that kind of life, it’s a virtual inferno, even worse than the Earthly reality. So let him be, ignore the call and come with me to safety.

You, me, and the influencers, we understand: why would we ever want to slip back into our imperfect, unfiltered bodies, only to relive Adam and Eve’s original trauma and rediscover shame, death, and glucose spikes every day of our lives. It’s so hard not to hate yourself as a physical being. Better to sell your ordinary face to the filters and your free will to the algorithm; inject your skittish heart with Botox and fill your inner void with Mounjaro.

A reel is so much better than a soul; who needs a soul when a soul can hurt.

Enter. Relax. Nothing can hurt you here, and if it does—just swipe left.