Hello!

I'm sorry it's been so long since I posted, but I wanted to share my new story on Men’s Health. A few weeks ago, I attended Bryan Johnson’s Don’t Die Summit in LA—an event dedicated to defying mortality, though I managed to survive it. Hope you enjoy the write-up! Jason

AS THE WILDFIRES continue to blaze, I am at a dark, cavernous event space 20 miles away in downtown Los Angeles on a mid-January morning, raving with several hundred mortals and Bryan Johnson, the 47-year-old tech entrepreneur widely known for his multi-million-dollar efforts to age in reverse.

When not posing for photos, Johnson, who has a broomstick-straight posture and pallid complexion, moves to the deep house beat with the frenetic precision of a teenager trying to win “Dance, Dance Revolution.” Outside the throng of people surrounding him, a private security guard with a linebacker’s build and a wired earpiece stands stone-still watching.

The hour-long morning rave, which began promptly at 10:30 a.m., is the kick-off session of Johnson’s Don’t Die Summit, a day-long event designed to build a community around his Don’t Die ethos, which, according to a pledge on its website, means being “at war with death.”

In 2024, Don’t Die hosted summits in San Francisco and Singapore and will put on two more this year in Miami (February 15) and New York (March 22). I attended the LA summit in January on a media pass, but around 600 people paid between $249 (general admission) and $599 (premium) for a schedule that includes a keynote by Johnson, a “biological age test,” and a longevity “amusement park.” VIPs shelled out $1,499 to attend an exclusive dinner with Johnson the night before.

The event takes place just three weeks after the release of Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, a Netflix documentary about Johnson directed by the filmmaker behind Fyre (2019) and Tiger King (2020). The doc is yet another significant step in the entrepreneur’s quest to get people to buy into the “Blueprint Protocol,” Johnson's overall program for anti-aging. In just a few years, Johnson has become the subject of numerous gawking magazine profiles and mainstream internet obsession by posting his extreme health regimens (no sugar or alcohol, no food after noon, bedtime at 8:30 p.m., 40 supplements per day) and controversial life extension tactics (immunosuppressants, gene therapy, stem cell injections).

At the very least, Johnson is transparent, sharing both his anti-aging victories and mishaps. To appear younger, he had a donor’s fat injected into his temple, cheeks, and chin, leading to an immune reaction that caused his face to swell up like an overfilled water balloon. He also exhaustively publishes his personal biomarker data on his website and X, alongside claimed superlatives like “the most measured human,” “the best sleeper on the planet,” and “the healthiest man alive.” (He also touts the less awe-inspiring distinction of having done “more MRIs than anyone in the world.”) As a result, his overall content ecosystem blends the authoritative certainty of a scientist with the brain-hacking appeal of clickbait—one video, where Johnson goes to check his sperm count, is titled “How I’m DE-AGING My Penis.”

I first encountered Johnson on social media when an algorithm shoved him down my feed. As a former Olympic fencing athlete, I couldn’t help but take an interest in a man who claims to be the gold medalist of health. Beyond the spectacle, Johnson’s self-optimization advice struck me as similar to other kinds I’d explored during my competitive years. I wanted to go to the summit not only to understand why the Don’t Die approach to health and wellness is catching on so quickly, but also to see if it’s legit—and what it might add to my own life.

Considering Johnson’s measurement-obsessed, ultra-quantified approach, I half-expected the Don’t Die crowd to be a horde of sweaty, male biohackers. However, since arriving at check-in, I’ve noticed that overall attendance seems remarkably gender-balanced (albeit predominantly white). And I’ve already met some very sensible-seeming people—an internal health physician, a functional nutritionist, and an executive in mainstream tech.

On the dance floor, an event staffer in a Grim Reaper costume shimmies past me, a prime example of how the event captures a tonal split in Johnson’s public persona—a dead seriousness about outrunning mortality and a wry awareness of how absurd his mission seems to many. Earlier in the reception area, I tried a pomegranate juice concoction called “Blood Boy,” a humorous reference to the 2023 media shitstorm Johnson created after publicizing that he’d swapped plasma with his then 70-year-old father and 17-year-old son.

The juice nomenclature isn’t the only way Johnson has responded with winking self-parody to his critics, who call him a confidence man eager to sell solutions to illusory problems. In 2023, he launched Blueprint, a longevity-focused brand that now offers supplements, meal delivery, and biological test kits. After receiving backlash for Blueprint’s first product—a $37 olive oil—Johnson renamed it “Snake Oil.”

The music softens, marking the end of the rave. Johnson takes the stage, sweaty and shirtless, showcasing his hard-earned, shredded physique. Much ado has been made over whether the man does, in fact, look younger, with many saying that he actually looks worse as a result of his life-extension efforts (the pejoratives “vampire” and “wax figure” are often thrown around). When I initially saw Johnson in person, I realized these labels were cruel and inaccurate. But describing his appearance as healthy, as far as the word is commonly understood, also feels like a stretch. My first reaction was to think of a supermarket apple—an object that is gleaming and genetically modified to appeal but also leaves you wondering if it’s real food.

“We are here to become friends!” Johnson says, before changing into a black Don’t Die T-shirt that says, “Be the Next Evolution of Human.” His 30-minute welcome speech is part wayfinding explanation, part hype session for the Longevity Park, where we can explore vendors marketing products and services such as hyperbaric oxygen chambers, stem cell banking, and genetic age testing.

Before dismissing the crowd, Johnson asks if people know where they are going.

“Following you!” a man shouts.

Read the rest on Men's Health