Meta, K-Pop , Gangnam style and the not only South Korean beauty madness of self-optimization – nothing new since the classic body cult, Leni Riefenstahl and Nietzsche´s Übermensch, but also a debate about Genderism

Meta, K-Pop , Gangnam style and the not only South Korean beauty madness of self-optimization – nothing new since the classic body cult, Leni Riefenstahl and Nietzsche´s Übermensch, but also a debate about Genderism

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is perhaps very trendy if you want also to introduce digital avatars in social media in addition to profile pictures, which optimize themselves visually and with brand accessories. I’m sticking with my popcorn and keep away from Instagram. Squidgames, K-Pop and the Economist  article “„Why young South Koreans are posing in their underwear“shows how mentally ill this supposedly fit and healthy self-optimizing society is, not only in South Korea. Time that the CCP in the face of K- Pop, fan and consumer idiotism and all the trash in social mediat pulls the rip cord. Conversely, the CCP wants to do everything so that the youth thinks and acts neototalitarian in the mindset and the personality cult of Xi Jinping and his thoughts, just as the CCP is not oppsoed against apolitical consumer idiots, especially , wants no growth criticism, but  then more fitness and sports and then yes maybe body cult again I  the future, although China is propandistically and in terms of the bodies still a long way off from Leni Riefenstahl’s hard-like Kruppstahl-nimble as a greyhound aesthetic, as demonstrated by Rammstein in their video “Stripped”or Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Conan, the Barbarian”. .They would actually be the brilliant video clips for the Beijing Olympics.

Leni was already before Instagram and all this junk. And the Lagerfelds and Joops have advocated the hunger racks as a model and ideal of beauty, including eating blokes and chronic throwing up, that France has now banned this ideal of beauty – and rightly so. But as extreme as we in North Korea, where Kim Yongun specifies 10 haircuts for his citizen slaves, as well as the whole other lifestyle, it will probably not come to this point in China, but in this direction.

“Beauty craze in Korea: When the surgeon on the subway tells you that you are ugly

There is a strict cult of beauty in Korea. More and more young people are now posing in underwear in pictures on social media. They want to show how much money they have invested in fitness. Lee Ji-hoon’s younger clients have had unusual requests recently. “People in their 20s and early 30s came up to me and asked me to come up with these exaggerated exercise and diet plans,” says Lee, who works as a personal trainer in a posh gym in Gangnam – the upper class district of South Korea’s capital, Seoul. There is a common goal among the predominantly female clients: To look hot for the „body profile“. An Instagram search in Korean for the hashtag “body profile” yields more than 2.5 million hits. Most are high-gloss full-body portraits of men and women in underwear that are posted on personal accounts (even if there are a few celebrities among them). Some of them are draped over chairs and beds, or emerge from pools and rivers. Others pose with champagne and canapés or with foliage. South Koreans pose in underwear: photo shoots for 1,1000 euros As with so much on Instagram, this is all about impressing others. The 27-year-old Joo Sohyun from Seoul says that she booked a “body profile” photo shoot out of boredom because she had nothing to do other than work. “I wanted to have the identity of someone who kept fit,” she explains. The recordings for her profile were a way to prove to the world her hard training to achieve the precious goal. The whole thing, including the training program and the photo session, cost her more than 1.5 million won (approx. € 1,100). Others spend even more. Lee’s offerings start at 2.5 million won, with programs costing as much as 7 million won. Yoo Hyun-jae, who studies youth culture at Sogang University in Seoul, believes the trend reflects an obsession with looks and social status. The attention young people pay to their online image reflects everyday life, where it is considered polite to do your best in public and the common practice of commenting on the looks of others and suggesting improvements. Beauty cult in South Korea: the body is criticized on advertising posters As in other countries, advertising makes use of the associated fears. A diet company is paving cinemas across the country with posters urging visitors to „rethink their popcorn.“ Serious-looking cosmetic surgeons admonish commuters on banners in the Seoul subway: “You think you’re pretty? You thought wrong. ”Star culture also plays a role, says Yoo. The first to publish “body profiles” were the pop stars, to whom many young people orientate themselves. Some observers fear that this trend is damaging the mental health of young people and promoting bad eating habits. Lee is also concerned. „I was so proud when they showed me the pictures, but some of them came back a few weeks later and looked worse than they did before training,“ he recalls. Yoo is less worried: „These body awareness problems are not caused by the fact that people are now taking photos of themselves while they are exercising.“ “Houses are too expensive and jobs are hard to find. Exercise is one of the easiest and healthiest ways for young people to experience a sense of achievement, ”she says.“

However, China expert Professor van Ess brings the essential point, because he sees it not only as a body cult and beauty issue, but also as a question of genderism, which has its reaction in China with its masculinity campaign:

“Yes, in addition to territorial issues, the issue of“ gender ”is the main wedge that has been struck between East and West. Even if nobody in this country really wants to admit that, it is the central issue that drives societies. And of course one suspects the influence of the USA behind these unmanly men. “

But it is not only a split between East and West, but also within the West, when the old traditional feminists fight with thenew gender feminists, the traditional left with the gender lifestyle left, as recently Sarah Wagenknecht with her book “The Selfrighteous“/ „Die Selbstgerechten”. But Alice Schwarzer versus Judith Butler, among other things, on the question of whether sex / gender is a biological question or just a social construction and then also the question of whether one does not see Muslim machos and headscarf women more as standard bearers of political Islam, but as oppressed minorities of white angry men, as postcolonial, postmodern gender feminists claim, plus the discussions about the whole man / woman dichothomy versus all the transgender and LIGBTIQ queer groups, where everyone repeats their position against the angry white man and machos. In short: It is not just a question of the beauty madness alone or of the body cult, now on social media, of competitive capitalist and social Darwinian self-optimization, but also of gender roles and Genderism. Hence the CCP’s campaign for more masculinity.

The comment by a former German ambassador to South Korea also makes it clear that this trend towards self-optimization also goes beyond the purely physical dimension and genderism:

“Cosmetic surgery is an incredible business. But there is a deep, serious background to self-optimization. A Korean acquaintance, philosophy professor and Nietzsche specialist, held a chair at a renowned Korean private university that had a clear humanities profile. Then he received a call to POSTECH, the leading Korean research university, for graduate and postgraduate students only. Cutting edge! I ask him, astonished, why he of all people was appointed to this position as a philosopher and Nietzsche specialist. He looked at me astonished and answered with one word: „Übermensch“.

In other words: Of course, the Koreans and probably also the Chinese are working on self-optimization that should correspond to the ideas of Nietzsche (and maybe also Leni Riefenstahl): biogenetics, robotics, combining human intelligence with AI, genetic modifications, etc. There are no limits!

So: what the corrected nose is for the girls in Gangnam, for the researchers at POSTECH is the Übermensch beyond what we have previously imagined. „

The South Koreans as Zoroastrians. That’s a very interesting point. The superman and Übermensch is also propagated by the US side in Silicon Valley. Avantgarde froerunner in this direction is Ray Kurzweil. And if you look at the American superhero comics and all the Marvel blockbusters, the superman and Übermensch is celebrating a vivid life. Nietzsche is dead? No way!. It is no coincidence that eugenics is also very popular in the USA. The Übermensch lives.

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