When tens of millions of fans idolize their virtual stars or digital avatars, which are created thanks to computer animation and human actors, where every virtual idol has a real soul, each with their own personality traits, likes, and dislikes.
Business owners couldn’t care less whether “Virtual Idolatry” is “Vanity 2.0” or “Idolatry 3.0” as long as there is a lot of money to be made in the booming industry, which is estimated to be worth about US$230 million in China within the next two years.
The grindset is a contemporary ideology of self-exploitation disguised as strength, deeply tied to the aesthetics of the “sigma male” and to new digital forms of patriarchy. It promotes the idea that human worth depends on productivity, economic success, absolute emotional control, and the ability to work endlessly, turning vulnerability, rest, community, and tenderness into signs of weakness. Beneath its rhetoric of discipline and power often lies a profound inability to relate healthily to pain, fragility, and human interdependence.
“That’s the grindset, brother. While weak men sleep and complain, sigma males stay disciplined, work in silence, suppress emotions, and build power while everyone else wastes time chasing comfort.”