‘Biohacker’ Bryan Johnson, who claims he wants to live forever, has garnered much attention on social media after announcing his search for eternal youth by means such as injecting himself with his teenage son’s blood plasma.
Johnson spends an eyewatering $2million a year on the quest – which began after he sold his tech company, Braintree Venmo, to PayPal for $800million in 2013.
He has named the challenge ‘Don’t Die’ and states on his X page that “conquering death would be humanity’s greatest achievement”.
The multi-millionaire’s infatuation with cheating death has drawn plenty of interest – including his own Netflix documentary, aptly named ‘Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever’.
Johnson has racked up close to 450,000 followers on X and another 250,000 on TikTok where he explains his reasoning and methods for trying not to die. A lot of the comments he receives on both platforms are less than encouraging for his pursuit – and he’s trying to understand why.
The biohacker has taken to X and finally confronted those who disagreed with his ambition – as well as those who flatly expressed a distaste for the man himself.
“Haters, what’s your beef with me?”, He asked his near half-a-million followers. And he didn’t have to wait long before they let their opinions known – as the post racked up more than 2,500 responses.
“Your unscientific refusal to get any sun.” One user replied, referring to Johnson’s admission that he tries to “avoid the sun” due to its anti-ageing acceleration and risks of cancer – leading to some people calling him a “vampire”. However, he explained how he doesn’t entirely avoid the sun and acknowledges the many benefits of receiving sunlight.
“Sunlight helps the skin produce vitamin D. This is good for bones and immune health,” He accepted, “it can increase serotonin, a hormone that promotes mood and calmness. Natural sunlight helps regulate our circadian rhythm which improves sleep quality.”
Sleep, and the quality of sleep, is a key aspect of Johnson’s ‘blueprint’ to not die – which he shares with his followers. He has previously claimed to have “the best sleep in the world”.
Others criticised the wording of Bryan’s mission – a self-admitted follower of the ‘Don’t Die’ blueprint posted: “The biggest thing that keeps me from 100% is conscious language. I wish you’d study/measure the impact of language on the body and switch negatives (“Don’t Die”) to positives (“Live Longer”).”
The anti-ageing millionaire has addressed this previously by stating “It’s because humans have a long history of murdering each other over whose version of ‘living well’ is the best.” he affirmed.
Hundreds of followers also took issue with Johnson’s absence of religion in his quest. “I think if you added accepting Christ to the blueprint protocol your outcomes would be much better,” one of the more popular comments stated.
But either way, Bryan doesn’t seem to be taking these criticisms too much to heart. He has continued posting and it’s unlikely that he’ll be deterred from his extreme mission.