It's the product of a ritualized society. People select one person, bump that person up, then hit it like a piñata.
If you dress someone like a piñata, people will hit it for the candy inside. One of the ways of doing that is shaming the piñata, like comparing it to an asshole, or portraying it as a weak troubled loser, or sexualizing it.
The article proposes we don't hit piñatas anymore. I agree. Furthermore, we should not make human piñatas in the first place. Let the geniuses and celebrities and leaders fade to normality and cease to exist as a thing.
Of course this implies many of our societal systems are piñata-based. Hierarquies, celebrities, leaders and so on.
I agree that collaboration is a key aspect to solving this issue. It seems, however, that human collaboration is very hard where there are piñatas everywhere. It's hard when kids want to grow up to be piñatas.
I am sorry that many cultures have this ritual so heavily ingrained as part of their whole identites.