September 28, 2011 • 28 mins
What are pickup artists, exactly? In this podcast, Caroline and Cristen explore the practices, tactics and theories behind pickup artistry. Tune in to learn more about the pros and cons of pickup artistry.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From house Stop Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. Caroline. I would
(00:20):
like to wish you a happy National Single and Unmarried
Americans Week. Just a week? Huh, just just a week?
Thank you before we came to you record today. And
I should go ahead and say that, Um, the date
is September, so by the time this publishes, it will
(00:41):
no longer be National Single and Unmarried Americans Week. I'm
just gonna make a month of it, real party. Yeah,
bad decisions. We could make it a month and change
so it can it can end in Halloween. That would
make sense. Yeah. Um, but according to the New York Times, Uh,
it is indeed National Single and Unmarried Americans Week. Um.
(01:03):
Snazzier title I vote for, but the acronym gets crazy. Yeah,
but I felt that it was appropriate that we are
recording this episode on pickup artists Daring National Single and
Unmarried Americans Week. Yeah, because it's all about these single
(01:25):
heterosexual guys looking for some ladies to serge. Yeah. Wait,
wait what, Well, yeah, serge. Um, I'm gonna try to
toss out as much pick up lingo, pickup artists lingo
as I can during this episode. And sarge is a
word that comes up a lot when pickup artists are
talking to each other, and it means to strike up
(01:47):
a conversation with a woman that you don't know. So
and that's really the whole point. Uh well, not the
whole point, not the endgame, but the initial hurdle these
guys have to get her is the sarge actually conversing,
exchanging words, dialogue with a female they've never met. Right. Um,
(02:11):
A lot of these guys who participate in the seduction communities,
so to speak, these pickup artists, a lot of them
are insecure guys who want to develop confidence. Um. It's
not that they seek to objectify women, but that does
end up being a big part of it a lot
of the time, because if you are trying to get
(02:32):
over your insecurities of talking to someone of the opposite sex,
you might use some defense mechanisms to make that make
it seem easier. Yeah, if you, and especially if you've
had bad luck in dating. You know, if you've been
rejected a number of times. Uh, it can um, you know,
it can be scary to go out there and and
(02:54):
swing the old bat one more time, worried that you
might strike out. Um. But just to back up for
a second. Pickup artists, um, for anyone out there who
who has not heard of of pickup autistry. Pickup artists
really came into the pop culture stratosphere in two thousand
five when a guy named Neil Strauss published a book
(03:16):
called The Game, and The Game was all about his
journey into this secret world of the seduction community. And
then from that there was this spinoff reality show about
this guy named Mystery. Who's this famed pickup artist who
(03:37):
had the interesting sartorial choices where those of top hats
and feather boas and nail polished, nail polish and um oh,
the platform boots and that's all part of peacocking, the
strategy they use. Yes, um, And this v H one
reality show focused on Mystery teaching these hapless young men
(03:58):
how to starg and peacock their way to uh to
to dating success. Well it's actually not even dating success,
pickup success. And they successfully talk to a woman, impress her,
get her number, maybe take her home, but really the
goal it's sort of strange because the goal is not
(04:18):
necessarily to take a woman home. I mean it is
in a way, but a lot of the goal is
just get over your insecurities and talk to somebody. Yeah,
it's all about approaching as many women as possible. The
the Mystery Method because there are a lot of different
methods to pick up artistry, and the Mystery Method really
focuses on approaching women. He has this Mystery outlines this
(04:44):
plan for guys who are trying to hone their pickup skills,
and he says that you should go out like four
times a week and make a certain number of approaches
for a certain number of hours, all of which adds
up to a sum total of two hundred approaches per year.
We're supposed to talk to twenty four hundred different women
(05:07):
in a year, right? Could we do that in Atlanta?
I don't even know how. I have no I and
a pick up kind of like the energy for that,
I'm not I mean, I'm I'm an awkward, cheesy person,
but I don't know if I'm not cheesy, I don't
know if I want to go up to the people
in a year. Can you things to do and hitting
on that have a job. I don't know how they
(05:27):
have at the time, but yeah, Mystery a k a.
Eric von Markovic a a k a. Eric James Horvat
markovic Um honed his skills by going out every night
he was down on his luck. I think he had
to move back in with his parents at some point.
He wasn't aspiring a magician in Toronto. Let us also
add I have a skeptical eyebrow. Um, but yeah, he
(05:49):
went out every night and developing his m O, trying
to see what worked, what attracted women, what got their attention,
and after all of his hits and misses, he settles
on the alienation method. He basically would first ignore the
women he might approach a group, and he would ignore
the woman that he actually wanted to hook up with,
(06:10):
and he would joke around and and try to impress
the other people in the group so that the woman
that he had his eye on would be like, oh no, wait,
but talk to me right. And it all focuses around
this idea of negging someone. And this is all again
part of the mystery method, because there there are other
other methods to pick up artistry that that I'll mention
(06:30):
a little bit. But a neg is when you when
you first talked to a woman, like if you're in
the group and there's you know, let's say you're sitting
there in the middle, Caroline, and I want to pick
you up, right, I'd like to get a number clothes,
which means, as you would imagine getting your number right
at the end of the night. I would not walk
(06:50):
up to your break into your group and saying, well, lady,
you are a lovely in the face. Oh my god.
I would not say that. I would wait, would be successful.
I would wait for you to maybe say something in
one of your your voices that that you do you know,
(07:11):
and I'd be like, what's up with that voice? Yeah,
I would neg you. I would criticize you. So you
would be like, but I'm beautiful. I know, but let
me show you. Wait, this isn't just me, No, I'm
I'm very turned on by your high boots, right. Oh god. Well.
The example that they use a lot is hair and nails, like, oh,
(07:32):
you have really nice hair, is that real? No, well,
you're pretty anyway. Yeah, And he suggests doing this to
women who are attractive and who are probably used to
getting nothing but praise rehatoration because you'll stand out more. Yeah,
and once you tossed out the neck and you get
the woman's attention and you isolate her from the group,
(07:56):
and then beyond that you start to d v or
masture your value, usually in the form of magic tricks,
handwriting analysis, esp. Things like that, Yeah, I, um, I
thought I would walk away, Well I would, I wouldn't, Okay,
I don't know, Caroline. They refer to that in pickup
lingo as chick crack because you know, we take to
(08:19):
it like chocolate on our periods. Stereotype. Stereotype and at
that point you would probably toss out to me the
the suave pickup artist in this hypothetical situation, an io
I or an indicator of interest, your flipping my hand
(08:40):
or maybe sensually rubbing your neck. Well, you know, my
neck heard a lot so to anyone out there. Yeah,
me rubbing my neck has nothing to do with whether
I'm interested in you putting that out there. Um, that
is good to know. But yeah, anyway, um, talking about
mysteries method you know, you you mentioned stereotypes and this
(09:05):
sort of kind of connects to the misogynistic undertones of
some of this stuff because basically his method appeals to
maybe women with low self esteem, yes, and you're basically
exploiting their low self esteem. And it's interesting because there's
um in the in the research would be read about this,
because there isn't that much academic research on pickup artists,
(09:28):
probably because they have been caricatured so much in pop culture.
But if you go, if you go online, I mean,
these these communities maybe not so much anymore, but the
deduction community as it's called, really was thriving for a while.
All of these guys who obviously had self esteem issues
(09:49):
going out and trying to talk to women, having to
use this these misogynistic tools to, like you said, Caroline,
exploit other women's low self esteem thereby texting themselves from
you know, the pain of rejection, right, it's uh yeah, well, well,
(10:10):
I pick up artists might have the same in goal
as any other cheesy dude hitting on you in a bar.
Um it almost seems. And we talked about this how
the girl is almost secondary to the goal of feeling
better about themselves and the woman is actually both the
end and the means to the end. Because pick up
artists are instructed to go forth and conquer. There's a
(10:31):
lot of like battle image, sports metaphors and things, and
they have to talk to as many women as possible
and over to get over their fear of rejection and
in the process just sort of reduce women to objects.
But even though we only trace back, you know, the
seduction community and the pop culture landscape back you know,
(10:52):
a few years with mystery and Neil Strauss in the
game and reality television and all of that, it actually
he goes back to the nineteen seventies when first we
have Eric Webber, who published the book a bestseller, I
might add how to pick Up Girls, and that's with
an exclamation point, how to pick Up Girls. And then
(11:15):
things really start to pick up with a guy named
Ross Jeffries who was down and out comedian who are
comedy writer who wrote how to Get the Woman You
Desire Into Bed, And it's all about his his idea
of just the unfair practices of dating, wherein he says
(11:37):
that it's, you know, it's a choice for women to
sleep with someone, whereas for men it's a chore, like
they have to go out and they have to pursue
and follow all of these dating roles, gendered roles, and
that's just a bunch of malarkey. Yeah. He I read
a chunk of of his writing and he basically just
goes on and on about how it's unfair and women
(11:57):
blah blah, just so much hanger. It's a lot, it's
a lot of anger. And um yeah, I I wrote
the article for how stuff works dot com about pick
up artists, which is why we decided to do a
podcast on it. And I tell you what, immersing yourself
in books like how to pick Up Girls exclamation Point
and how to Get the Woman you desire into bed
(12:19):
in the game it made me not want to go
out and have content any men. I was like, can
I I need to go to like an an animal
shelter where men are volunteering, like seeing something something nice. Well,
at least now you're educated enough in this area, in
this realm to know when you go out in someone's
(12:40):
being a creeper. Okay, are you a fan of Ross Jeffreys?
And if he gives you a dumbfounded look, you can
just use that opportunity to just walk away. I could
just deflect the negs, right, And he's like, oh, you're
a podcaster that's almost like radio. Yes, exactly, and then
you can keep a mention I'm anticipate and dissipate the insults.
(13:01):
We will be tossing my way. UM. So yeah, we
have Ross Jeffries and then everything really takes off thanks
to the Internet, when finally these guys who are reading
books at home start all these message boards UM based
around Ross Jeffries tactics, which is referred to UM kind
of like the Mystery method. Ross Jeffries tactics are referred
(13:23):
to as speed seduction, and he emphasizes this thing called
neural linguistic programs. This is ridiculous and a lot of
actual real scientists have said it's ridiculous and that these
people don't know what they're talking about. It's a pseudoscience.
Not to be you know, too insensitive about it, but basically, uh,
it's an approach to psychotherapy that uses language patterns and
(13:45):
metaphor to communicate with the unconscious mind. So, Kristen, if
I were trying to pick you up at a bar, um,
I wouldn't just slatter you or just use negs. No,
that's too simple. I would pepper our conversation with sig
JUSTI words such as hard penetrate, would et cetera, but
not necessarily use them in a suggestive way. Just put
(14:08):
these words in your mind so that eventually you start
thinking about sex. So so you would be you know,
like you're really hard to talk to in front of
this at this wooden bar stool I'm sitting on like that. Sure,
I think you've almost got it. What this reminds me
of not to go off on a total tangent, but
this whole neuro linguistic programming angle reminds me of this
(14:29):
episode of Say by the Bell about subliminal messaging, when
Zack Morris master's subliminal messaging to get all these these
girls to like him. But then then he comes around
and realizes that you shouldn't manipulate people. Yes, exactly, Ross
Jeffreys did not come to did not come to that conclusion.
Now he also has great the great advice of listening
(14:51):
to women. Yeah, actually pay attention to what they say.
Although I will give him this UM. Body language comes
up in a lot of pick up artist tactics, especially
things like mirroring UM, where you you mirror the other
person's body language, you give a sense of being in
sync with them. And I do notice in conversations. You know,
(15:14):
when you are really invested in a conversation with someone,
say you're on a date, or just say we're sitting
here talking to podcast, but when somewhat you know, when
you're both leaning in, or if one person's leaning in
and the other person's leaning out. I mean, that kind
of body language I think is relevant. But if you
are doing it intentionally mirroring, um, because you're hoping to
(15:36):
uh to close in and pick up artists parlance, just
be careful you're not so obviously mirroring that you seem
like you're making fun of the person, like scratching your
face and they scratch their exactly. Things like that you
mentioned Kristen. Um. The popularity that the stuff is gained online. Um,
(15:56):
It's given so many people access to can you nity basically,
and that in and of itself can grant a lot
of confidence, um in in yourself as a as a
guy who maybe doesn't have a lot of luck and
love right. And I mean, and I also think about
it compared to you know how women have a little
more social license to sit around and talk about relationships
(16:17):
and dating and tactics and all of that. Yeah, whereas
with men, the you know, they might not at least
an experience that I've had with with guy friends. It
is rarer for a group of guys to sit around
and say, but how do we how do we talk
to her? You know? But the Internet offered this like
nice cloak of anonymity. But there's also offline community organization
(16:43):
that goes along with it as well. Yeah. Elina Clift,
in her thesis picking up an acting out politics of
masculinity in the seduction community, compares the seduction community to
nineteenth century fraternal organizations because all of a sudden, with industrialization,
you had a lot of men leaving their families and
striking out on their own, going and living in apartments
(17:05):
far away from all that they've known before, and that
can even if they're seeking independence, they still missed that
family connection, and so a lot of them would end
up living together, creating these organizations around common interests, et cetera,
and so um. Yeah. Cliff compares the seduction community to
(17:26):
this because strong male friendships can develop out of shared experiences,
and Neil Strauss points out that the point was women
and the result was men and his experiences and experiences
that he witnessed in the seduction community that all these people,
you know, they were trying to go out and get women,
but they actually just hung out with each other a lot. Yeah,
there is one. Um. Elena Clift wrote this theas is
(17:48):
partially because her brother becomes involved with this pickup artist community,
and at first she is kind of turned off by
it and sort of concern because her brother or had
always been sort of an introvert, and why would he be,
you know, getting together, um with this supposedly misogynistic group
of of guys. But um, in her experience, she was UM.
(18:10):
She kind of comes around to understanding that for her
brother at least, and for some of the guys that
she interacted with, it was more about that community, like
you said, Caroline, than it really was about going out
and sleeping with as many women as possible. And she
talks about going to a party at the I think
they're called seduction layers, which are sort of like the
(18:32):
their equivalence of the frat house. She goes to a
party of the seduction layer and she's one of like
three women. So they're all playing video games right now,
And going back to that comparison, of the seduction community
and the nineteenth century fraternal organizations and and moving out
(18:52):
of the home. With the rise of industrialization. Along with that,
you had a complete dismantling of the mating system of
the time time where people used to come hang out
on the front porch, you would come courting at a
girl's house. Yeah, and there was a script for them
to follow. But then once, um, once industrialization takes off
and they have the choice and the agency to you know,
(19:15):
take a woman out if they want to, it sort
of changes. So it makes sense that you know that
they were looking for some kind of community to help
figure out what's going on. And you could argue that
a similar thing was going on in the mid two
thousand's when the seduction community really takes off, where all
of these dating norms are topsy turvy, with women being
(19:37):
you know, more educated than men on average, making at
least in our age bracket, making comparable money. Um. So
I think that Cliff really brings up a good point
with that. So, well, it's good that these guys are
developing these close friendships and relationships and maybe helping each
other get out there on their own. Um, they're they
(19:59):
actual we kind of have difficulty maintaining a relationship because
they put so much emphasis on just hitting on women
and picking up women, and Strauss says that UM, basically,
in his experience, all the techniques that help a relationship
blossom end up violating every principle necessary to maintain one
browying out all the time, treating women as objects, not
(20:22):
valuing them for who they are, just treating them all
is one two dimensional character that has certain insecurities that
can be exploited. Right, Because success is not getting to
know someone. Although with UM the authentic man approach, which
is one of the fringe forms of pickup artistry that
focuses a lot more on just kind of basic conversation
(20:43):
and social skill building, UM, but the object isn't typically
to get to know someone, it's to get a number.
Get They will come back with field reports saying like
this many numbers, I had this many approaches, I got
this many io eyes from h b s, which are
hot babes, which is why they're pseudonyms are so beneficial, Right,
(21:07):
Like that would be unfortunate, they were well unfortunate for
them if they were using their real names and giving
these field reports of all their colm quests and their
their lady friends found them. And the kind of ironic
thing about Neil Strauss who wrote the game, um, because
you're just saying, Caroline that like all uh actual monogamous
(21:27):
dating and relationships violates, um the major tenants of pickup
artistry and uh spoiler alert, at the end of the game,
he basically quits playing because he finds a woman who
a he basically negs him in terms of not eating
up all of this pickup artist garbage that he's sending
(21:48):
her way. She's smarter than that, and therefore his interest
is piqued because then not taking all of his and
then he starts flipping his hair and rubbing his neck exactly,
and then she finally comes around says all right, and
so he is up um in a relationship. So kind
of the point of the game is to is to
lose it really at some point. Um. But again it's like,
(22:13):
I mean, it's through the vehicle of such blatant misogyny
and sexism, which is one main reason why pick up
artists have been uh, you know, buffooned in pop culture
but also vilified as well. And then you have the
cases of people like gun which that's his pick up
(22:33):
artists handle this guy gun which his method is to quote,
escalate physical contact until the woman stops him, basically make
her say no. Basically, we're talking about sexual assault. And
it was reported earlier this year that gun which this
guy was UM was arrested for shooting a woman in
(22:54):
a in the face at a party. And who knows,
I don't know if he was necessarily hitting on her
and she wasn't accepting the gun which method, But that's
when you get to the to the extremes of this
kind of behavior that Strauss actually told Clarissa Thorne, who's
a writer and interviewer UM. He told her that he
was surprised at something like this hadn't happened before, with
(23:15):
men putting so much stock in you know, I'm going
to get better with women, and I'm going to go
out there and I'm gonna get me one, and you know,
there's obviously going to be inevitable rejection. He was just
surprised that with the underlying misogynistic tendencies and the anger, right,
I mean just the anger, that that it hadn't happened already,
that they even had to go to any trouble to
(23:37):
pick up these you know, basically sex objects. At this point,
um and and Strauss, you know, he does to his
to his minor credit, because I am you know, I
have a hard time giving any credit at all to
pick up artists, but to Neil Strauss's minor, miner credit.
(23:59):
He does emphasize in a number of interviews that the
point of the game is to not only hone your
outer gain game, which would be your flotation skills, but
also your inner game, which is the self esteem foundation.
And and he refers to it as this major men's
self help movement that was ruined by pop culture, right,
(24:25):
I mean, of which he was a part. Yeah, he
started the whole thing. He started with an article in
the New York Times in two thousand four and then
had a best selling book. So it's like gam on Niels,
rous you really do you really care that much? So,
I mean, I do, you know, I do think it's
possible that this system could benefit people if they go
about it the right way. If you go into it
(24:46):
thinking I'm going to better myself, I'm going to gain confidence,
I'm going to learn how to talk to women. That's great.
But if you use I know, and I know hate
I'm saying this, then I'm playing Devil's advocate. But just
I I feel in reading all of the materials that
we read, I feel that the majority of people in
the seduction community end up reacting to women with anger
(25:10):
because women are the thing they want, women are the
thing they can't have. But it's also a thing of
like it's it's to me. The question to ask a
that we haven't talked about is does this ever work?
You know an anecdotally, um, yes, you know, well Caroline,
that's an excellent question, thank you. Because there was a
study recently published in August from the University of Kansas. Uh.
(25:35):
These psychologists were looking into what type of women actually
fall for these these incredibly sexist pickup tactics flow and
behold thee The psychological profile of women who sleep with
pickup artists are women who are a sexist toward other women. Uh.
This is a quote. Women with a preference for no strings,
(25:56):
no strings attached sex and negative attitude toward other women
are more likely to take the bait of these very aggressive,
you know, objectifying pick up artist angles. Yeah. I feel
like I knew bars full of both of these types
of people in college. Well, and again. Yeah, and like
(26:16):
you pointed out the fact about the low self esteem,
you know that that can be the men will just
prey on um. And that's why I think it's so
revolting to see in action, because you see what's going on,
and you want to take that that woman and shaker
and tell her that she's worth more than that. She's
a guy with a first hat and nail polish. Yeah,
(26:38):
the feather boa um. But you know, I'd like to
hear from some men on what they have to say. Yeah.
I really want to know if any of you out
there have given this given this a shot, whether seriously,
you know, in earnest pursuit, or whether you've just read
some of this material and thought, hey, i'll take some pointers. Yeah.
Have you have you ever negged a woman? Yeah? Have
(27:00):
you picked up on any io? I So let us
know our email addresses mom stuff at how stuff works
dot com, and we have an email to share about
our podcasts On Voices, Daphne writes that she was listening
to our podcast about what your Voice says about you,
(27:21):
and she says, I giggled when I heard what you
said about teenage boys changing their voice when a pretty
girl is around. A friend recently told me that when
I'm on the phone with a guy that I am
dating or interested in, my voice changes. This is what
she told me. Your voice gets a little higher. That's
how I know you're talking to whomever it is that
you're dating on the phone. I told her I didn't
believe her, but I doubt she would lie to me
(27:41):
about it. It must be a subconscious thing to try
and sound more feminine. Maybe. Thanks for the podcast, Thanks
for the letter, yes indeed, and all of all of
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From house Stop Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. Caroline. I would
(00:20):
like to wish you a happy National Single and Unmarried
Americans Week. Just a week? Huh, just just a week?
Thank you before we came to you record today. And
I should go ahead and say that, Um, the date
is September, so by the time this publishes, it will
(00:41):
no longer be National Single and Unmarried Americans Week. I'm
just gonna make a month of it, real party. Yeah,
bad decisions. We could make it a month and change
so it can it can end in Halloween. That would
make sense. Yeah. Um, but according to the New York Times, Uh,
it is indeed National Single and Unmarried Americans Week. Um.
(01:03):
Snazzier title I vote for, but the acronym gets crazy. Yeah,
but I felt that it was appropriate that we are
recording this episode on pickup artists Daring National Single and
Unmarried Americans Week. Yeah, because it's all about these single
(01:25):
heterosexual guys looking for some ladies to serge. Yeah. Wait,
wait what, Well, yeah, serge. Um, I'm gonna try to
toss out as much pick up lingo, pickup artists lingo
as I can during this episode. And sarge is a
word that comes up a lot when pickup artists are
talking to each other, and it means to strike up
(01:47):
a conversation with a woman that you don't know. So
and that's really the whole point. Uh well, not the
whole point, not the endgame, but the initial hurdle these
guys have to get her is the sarge actually conversing,
exchanging words, dialogue with a female they've never met. Right. Um,
(02:11):
A lot of these guys who participate in the seduction communities,
so to speak, these pickup artists, a lot of them
are insecure guys who want to develop confidence. Um. It's
not that they seek to objectify women, but that does
end up being a big part of it a lot
of the time, because if you are trying to get
(02:32):
over your insecurities of talking to someone of the opposite sex,
you might use some defense mechanisms to make that make
it seem easier. Yeah, if you, and especially if you've
had bad luck in dating. You know, if you've been
rejected a number of times. Uh, it can um, you know,
it can be scary to go out there and and
(02:54):
swing the old bat one more time, worried that you
might strike out. Um. But just to back up for
a second. Pickup artists, um, for anyone out there who
who has not heard of of pickup autistry. Pickup artists
really came into the pop culture stratosphere in two thousand
five when a guy named Neil Strauss published a book
(03:16):
called The Game, and The Game was all about his
journey into this secret world of the seduction community. And
then from that there was this spinoff reality show about
this guy named Mystery. Who's this famed pickup artist who
(03:37):
had the interesting sartorial choices where those of top hats
and feather boas and nail polished, nail polish and um oh,
the platform boots and that's all part of peacocking, the
strategy they use. Yes, um, And this v H one
reality show focused on Mystery teaching these hapless young men
(03:58):
how to starg and peacock their way to uh to
to dating success. Well it's actually not even dating success,
pickup success. And they successfully talk to a woman, impress her,
get her number, maybe take her home, but really the
goal it's sort of strange because the goal is not
(04:18):
necessarily to take a woman home. I mean it is
in a way, but a lot of the goal is
just get over your insecurities and talk to somebody. Yeah,
it's all about approaching as many women as possible. The
the Mystery Method because there are a lot of different
methods to pick up artistry, and the Mystery Method really
focuses on approaching women. He has this Mystery outlines this
(04:44):
plan for guys who are trying to hone their pickup skills,
and he says that you should go out like four
times a week and make a certain number of approaches
for a certain number of hours, all of which adds
up to a sum total of two hundred approaches per year.
We're supposed to talk to twenty four hundred different women
(05:07):
in a year, right? Could we do that in Atlanta?
I don't even know how. I have no I and
a pick up kind of like the energy for that,
I'm not I mean, I'm I'm an awkward, cheesy person,
but I don't know if I'm not cheesy, I don't
know if I want to go up to the people
in a year. Can you things to do and hitting
on that have a job. I don't know how they
(05:27):
have at the time, but yeah, Mystery a k a.
Eric von Markovic a a k a. Eric James Horvat
markovic Um honed his skills by going out every night
he was down on his luck. I think he had
to move back in with his parents at some point.
He wasn't aspiring a magician in Toronto. Let us also
add I have a skeptical eyebrow. Um, but yeah, he
(05:49):
went out every night and developing his m O, trying
to see what worked, what attracted women, what got their attention,
and after all of his hits and misses, he settles
on the alienation method. He basically would first ignore the
women he might approach a group, and he would ignore
the woman that he actually wanted to hook up with,
(06:10):
and he would joke around and and try to impress
the other people in the group so that the woman
that he had his eye on would be like, oh no, wait,
but talk to me right. And it all focuses around
this idea of negging someone. And this is all again
part of the mystery method, because there there are other
other methods to pick up artistry that that I'll mention
(06:30):
a little bit. But a neg is when you when
you first talked to a woman, like if you're in
the group and there's you know, let's say you're sitting
there in the middle, Caroline, and I want to pick
you up, right, I'd like to get a number clothes,
which means, as you would imagine getting your number right
at the end of the night. I would not walk
(06:50):
up to your break into your group and saying, well, lady,
you are a lovely in the face. Oh my god.
I would not say that. I would wait, would be successful.
I would wait for you to maybe say something in
one of your your voices that that you do you know,
(07:11):
and I'd be like, what's up with that voice? Yeah,
I would neg you. I would criticize you. So you
would be like, but I'm beautiful. I know, but let
me show you. Wait, this isn't just me, No, I'm
I'm very turned on by your high boots, right. Oh god. Well.
The example that they use a lot is hair and nails, like, oh,
(07:32):
you have really nice hair, is that real? No, well,
you're pretty anyway. Yeah, And he suggests doing this to
women who are attractive and who are probably used to
getting nothing but praise rehatoration because you'll stand out more. Yeah,
and once you tossed out the neck and you get
the woman's attention and you isolate her from the group,
(07:56):
and then beyond that you start to d v or
masture your value, usually in the form of magic tricks,
handwriting analysis, esp. Things like that, Yeah, I, um, I
thought I would walk away, Well I would, I wouldn't, Okay,
I don't know, Caroline. They refer to that in pickup
lingo as chick crack because you know, we take to
(08:19):
it like chocolate on our periods. Stereotype. Stereotype and at
that point you would probably toss out to me the
the suave pickup artist in this hypothetical situation, an io
I or an indicator of interest, your flipping my hand
(08:40):
or maybe sensually rubbing your neck. Well, you know, my
neck heard a lot so to anyone out there. Yeah,
me rubbing my neck has nothing to do with whether
I'm interested in you putting that out there. Um, that
is good to know. But yeah, anyway, um, talking about
mysteries method you know, you you mentioned stereotypes and this
(09:05):
sort of kind of connects to the misogynistic undertones of
some of this stuff because basically his method appeals to
maybe women with low self esteem, yes, and you're basically
exploiting their low self esteem. And it's interesting because there's
um in the in the research would be read about this,
because there isn't that much academic research on pickup artists,
(09:28):
probably because they have been caricatured so much in pop culture.
But if you go, if you go online, I mean,
these these communities maybe not so much anymore, but the
deduction community as it's called, really was thriving for a while.
All of these guys who obviously had self esteem issues
(09:49):
going out and trying to talk to women, having to
use this these misogynistic tools to, like you said, Caroline,
exploit other women's low self esteem thereby texting themselves from
you know, the pain of rejection, right, it's uh yeah, well, well,
(10:10):
I pick up artists might have the same in goal
as any other cheesy dude hitting on you in a bar.
Um it almost seems. And we talked about this how
the girl is almost secondary to the goal of feeling
better about themselves and the woman is actually both the
end and the means to the end. Because pick up
artists are instructed to go forth and conquer. There's a
(10:31):
lot of like battle image, sports metaphors and things, and
they have to talk to as many women as possible
and over to get over their fear of rejection and
in the process just sort of reduce women to objects.
But even though we only trace back, you know, the
seduction community and the pop culture landscape back you know,
(10:52):
a few years with mystery and Neil Strauss in the
game and reality television and all of that, it actually
he goes back to the nineteen seventies when first we
have Eric Webber, who published the book a bestseller, I
might add how to pick Up Girls, and that's with
an exclamation point, how to pick Up Girls. And then
(11:15):
things really start to pick up with a guy named
Ross Jeffries who was down and out comedian who are
comedy writer who wrote how to Get the Woman You
Desire Into Bed, And it's all about his his idea
of just the unfair practices of dating, wherein he says
(11:37):
that it's, you know, it's a choice for women to
sleep with someone, whereas for men it's a chore, like
they have to go out and they have to pursue
and follow all of these dating roles, gendered roles, and
that's just a bunch of malarkey. Yeah. He I read
a chunk of of his writing and he basically just
goes on and on about how it's unfair and women
(11:57):
blah blah, just so much hanger. It's a lot, it's
a lot of anger. And um yeah, I I wrote
the article for how stuff works dot com about pick
up artists, which is why we decided to do a
podcast on it. And I tell you what, immersing yourself
in books like how to pick Up Girls exclamation Point
and how to Get the Woman you desire into bed
(12:19):
in the game it made me not want to go
out and have content any men. I was like, can
I I need to go to like an an animal
shelter where men are volunteering, like seeing something something nice. Well,
at least now you're educated enough in this area, in
this realm to know when you go out in someone's
(12:40):
being a creeper. Okay, are you a fan of Ross Jeffreys?
And if he gives you a dumbfounded look, you can
just use that opportunity to just walk away. I could
just deflect the negs, right, And he's like, oh, you're
a podcaster that's almost like radio. Yes, exactly, and then
you can keep a mention I'm anticipate and dissipate the insults.
(13:01):
We will be tossing my way. UM. So yeah, we
have Ross Jeffries and then everything really takes off thanks
to the Internet, when finally these guys who are reading
books at home start all these message boards UM based
around Ross Jeffries tactics, which is referred to UM kind
of like the Mystery method. Ross Jeffries tactics are referred
(13:23):
to as speed seduction, and he emphasizes this thing called
neural linguistic programs. This is ridiculous and a lot of
actual real scientists have said it's ridiculous and that these
people don't know what they're talking about. It's a pseudoscience.
Not to be you know, too insensitive about it, but basically, uh,
it's an approach to psychotherapy that uses language patterns and
(13:45):
metaphor to communicate with the unconscious mind. So, Kristen, if
I were trying to pick you up at a bar, um,
I wouldn't just slatter you or just use negs. No,
that's too simple. I would pepper our conversation with sig
JUSTI words such as hard penetrate, would et cetera, but
not necessarily use them in a suggestive way. Just put
(14:08):
these words in your mind so that eventually you start
thinking about sex. So so you would be you know,
like you're really hard to talk to in front of
this at this wooden bar stool I'm sitting on like that. Sure,
I think you've almost got it. What this reminds me
of not to go off on a total tangent, but
this whole neuro linguistic programming angle reminds me of this
(14:29):
episode of Say by the Bell about subliminal messaging, when
Zack Morris master's subliminal messaging to get all these these
girls to like him. But then then he comes around
and realizes that you shouldn't manipulate people. Yes, exactly, Ross
Jeffreys did not come to did not come to that conclusion.
Now he also has great the great advice of listening
(14:51):
to women. Yeah, actually pay attention to what they say.
Although I will give him this UM. Body language comes
up in a lot of pick up artist tactics, especially
things like mirroring UM, where you you mirror the other
person's body language, you give a sense of being in
sync with them. And I do notice in conversations. You know,
(15:14):
when you are really invested in a conversation with someone,
say you're on a date, or just say we're sitting
here talking to podcast, but when somewhat you know, when
you're both leaning in, or if one person's leaning in
and the other person's leaning out. I mean, that kind
of body language I think is relevant. But if you
are doing it intentionally mirroring, um, because you're hoping to
(15:36):
uh to close in and pick up artists parlance, just
be careful you're not so obviously mirroring that you seem
like you're making fun of the person, like scratching your
face and they scratch their exactly. Things like that you
mentioned Kristen. Um. The popularity that the stuff is gained online. Um,
(15:56):
It's given so many people access to can you nity basically,
and that in and of itself can grant a lot
of confidence, um in in yourself as a as a
guy who maybe doesn't have a lot of luck and
love right. And I mean, and I also think about
it compared to you know how women have a little
more social license to sit around and talk about relationships
(16:17):
and dating and tactics and all of that. Yeah, whereas
with men, the you know, they might not at least
an experience that I've had with with guy friends. It
is rarer for a group of guys to sit around
and say, but how do we how do we talk
to her? You know? But the Internet offered this like
nice cloak of anonymity. But there's also offline community organization
(16:43):
that goes along with it as well. Yeah. Elina Clift,
in her thesis picking up an acting out politics of
masculinity in the seduction community, compares the seduction community to
nineteenth century fraternal organizations because all of a sudden, with industrialization,
you had a lot of men leaving their families and
striking out on their own, going and living in apartments
(17:05):
far away from all that they've known before, and that
can even if they're seeking independence, they still missed that
family connection, and so a lot of them would end
up living together, creating these organizations around common interests, et cetera,
and so um. Yeah. Cliff compares the seduction community to
(17:26):
this because strong male friendships can develop out of shared experiences,
and Neil Strauss points out that the point was women
and the result was men and his experiences and experiences
that he witnessed in the seduction community that all these people,
you know, they were trying to go out and get women,
but they actually just hung out with each other a lot. Yeah,
there is one. Um. Elena Clift wrote this theas is
(17:48):
partially because her brother becomes involved with this pickup artist community,
and at first she is kind of turned off by
it and sort of concern because her brother or had
always been sort of an introvert, and why would he be,
you know, getting together, um with this supposedly misogynistic group
of of guys. But um, in her experience, she was UM.
(18:10):
She kind of comes around to understanding that for her
brother at least, and for some of the guys that
she interacted with, it was more about that community, like
you said, Caroline, than it really was about going out
and sleeping with as many women as possible. And she
talks about going to a party at the I think
they're called seduction layers, which are sort of like the
(18:32):
their equivalence of the frat house. She goes to a
party of the seduction layer and she's one of like
three women. So they're all playing video games right now,
And going back to that comparison, of the seduction community
and the nineteenth century fraternal organizations and and moving out
(18:52):
of the home. With the rise of industrialization. Along with that,
you had a complete dismantling of the mating system of
the time time where people used to come hang out
on the front porch, you would come courting at a
girl's house. Yeah, and there was a script for them
to follow. But then once, um, once industrialization takes off
and they have the choice and the agency to you know,
(19:15):
take a woman out if they want to, it sort
of changes. So it makes sense that you know that
they were looking for some kind of community to help
figure out what's going on. And you could argue that
a similar thing was going on in the mid two
thousand's when the seduction community really takes off, where all
of these dating norms are topsy turvy, with women being
(19:37):
you know, more educated than men on average, making at
least in our age bracket, making comparable money. Um. So
I think that Cliff really brings up a good point
with that. So, well, it's good that these guys are
developing these close friendships and relationships and maybe helping each
other get out there on their own. Um, they're they
(19:59):
actual we kind of have difficulty maintaining a relationship because
they put so much emphasis on just hitting on women
and picking up women, and Strauss says that UM, basically,
in his experience, all the techniques that help a relationship
blossom end up violating every principle necessary to maintain one
browying out all the time, treating women as objects, not
(20:22):
valuing them for who they are, just treating them all
is one two dimensional character that has certain insecurities that
can be exploited. Right, Because success is not getting to
know someone. Although with UM the authentic man approach, which
is one of the fringe forms of pickup artistry that
focuses a lot more on just kind of basic conversation
(20:43):
and social skill building, UM, but the object isn't typically
to get to know someone, it's to get a number.
Get They will come back with field reports saying like
this many numbers, I had this many approaches, I got
this many io eyes from h b s, which are
hot babes, which is why they're pseudonyms are so beneficial, Right,
(21:07):
Like that would be unfortunate, they were well unfortunate for
them if they were using their real names and giving
these field reports of all their colm quests and their
their lady friends found them. And the kind of ironic
thing about Neil Strauss who wrote the game, um, because
you're just saying, Caroline that like all uh actual monogamous
(21:27):
dating and relationships violates, um the major tenants of pickup
artistry and uh spoiler alert, at the end of the game,
he basically quits playing because he finds a woman who
a he basically negs him in terms of not eating
up all of this pickup artist garbage that he's sending
(21:48):
her way. She's smarter than that, and therefore his interest
is piqued because then not taking all of his and
then he starts flipping his hair and rubbing his neck exactly,
and then she finally comes around says all right, and
so he is up um in a relationship. So kind
of the point of the game is to is to
lose it really at some point. Um. But again it's like,
(22:13):
I mean, it's through the vehicle of such blatant misogyny
and sexism, which is one main reason why pick up
artists have been uh, you know, buffooned in pop culture
but also vilified as well. And then you have the
cases of people like gun which that's his pick up
(22:33):
artists handle this guy gun which his method is to quote,
escalate physical contact until the woman stops him, basically make
her say no. Basically, we're talking about sexual assault. And
it was reported earlier this year that gun which this
guy was UM was arrested for shooting a woman in
(22:54):
a in the face at a party. And who knows,
I don't know if he was necessarily hitting on her
and she wasn't accepting the gun which method, But that's
when you get to the to the extremes of this
kind of behavior that Strauss actually told Clarissa Thorne, who's
a writer and interviewer UM. He told her that he
was surprised at something like this hadn't happened before, with
(23:15):
men putting so much stock in you know, I'm going
to get better with women, and I'm going to go
out there and I'm gonna get me one, and you know,
there's obviously going to be inevitable rejection. He was just
surprised that with the underlying misogynistic tendencies and the anger, right,
I mean just the anger, that that it hadn't happened already,
that they even had to go to any trouble to
(23:37):
pick up these you know, basically sex objects. At this point,
um and and Strauss, you know, he does to his
to his minor credit, because I am you know, I
have a hard time giving any credit at all to
pick up artists, but to Neil Strauss's minor, miner credit.
(23:59):
He does emphasize in a number of interviews that the
point of the game is to not only hone your
outer gain game, which would be your flotation skills, but
also your inner game, which is the self esteem foundation.
And and he refers to it as this major men's
self help movement that was ruined by pop culture, right,
(24:25):
I mean, of which he was a part. Yeah, he
started the whole thing. He started with an article in
the New York Times in two thousand four and then
had a best selling book. So it's like gam on Niels,
rous you really do you really care that much? So,
I mean, I do, you know, I do think it's
possible that this system could benefit people if they go
about it the right way. If you go into it
(24:46):
thinking I'm going to better myself, I'm going to gain confidence,
I'm going to learn how to talk to women. That's great.
But if you use I know, and I know hate
I'm saying this, then I'm playing Devil's advocate. But just
I I feel in reading all of the materials that
we read, I feel that the majority of people in
the seduction community end up reacting to women with anger
(25:10):
because women are the thing they want, women are the
thing they can't have. But it's also a thing of
like it's it's to me. The question to ask a
that we haven't talked about is does this ever work?
You know an anecdotally, um, yes, you know, well Caroline,
that's an excellent question, thank you. Because there was a
study recently published in August from the University of Kansas. Uh.
(25:35):
These psychologists were looking into what type of women actually
fall for these these incredibly sexist pickup tactics flow and
behold thee The psychological profile of women who sleep with
pickup artists are women who are a sexist toward other women. Uh.
This is a quote. Women with a preference for no strings,
(25:56):
no strings attached sex and negative attitude toward other women
are more likely to take the bait of these very aggressive,
you know, objectifying pick up artist angles. Yeah. I feel
like I knew bars full of both of these types
of people in college. Well, and again. Yeah, and like
(26:16):
you pointed out the fact about the low self esteem,
you know that that can be the men will just
prey on um. And that's why I think it's so
revolting to see in action, because you see what's going on,
and you want to take that that woman and shaker
and tell her that she's worth more than that. She's
a guy with a first hat and nail polish. Yeah,
(26:38):
the feather boa um. But you know, I'd like to
hear from some men on what they have to say. Yeah.
I really want to know if any of you out
there have given this given this a shot, whether seriously,
you know, in earnest pursuit, or whether you've just read
some of this material and thought, hey, i'll take some pointers. Yeah.
Have you have you ever negged a woman? Yeah? Have
(27:00):
you picked up on any io? I So let us
know our email addresses mom stuff at how stuff works
dot com, and we have an email to share about
our podcasts On Voices, Daphne writes that she was listening
to our podcast about what your Voice says about you,
(27:21):
and she says, I giggled when I heard what you
said about teenage boys changing their voice when a pretty
girl is around. A friend recently told me that when
I'm on the phone with a guy that I am
dating or interested in, my voice changes. This is what
she told me. Your voice gets a little higher. That's
how I know you're talking to whomever it is that
you're dating on the phone. I told her I didn't
believe her, but I doubt she would lie to me
(27:41):
about it. It must be a subconscious thing to try
and sound more feminine. Maybe. Thanks for the podcast, Thanks
for the letter, yes indeed, and all of all of
your letters again. The email addresses mom Stuff at how
stuff Works dot com, and if you can forget the
email address, you can find it on our Facebook page.
You can also follow us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff podcast,
(28:03):
and you can check out our blog during the week,
It's stuff Mom Never told You at how Stuff Works
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