I used to hear about pickup artists all the time—books, forums, “negging,” the whole thing. Now it seems like they’ve vanished, and the only people left are “alpha male” influencers selling courses. Did the pickup artists go extinct, rebrand, or achieve enlightenment?
I know a few guys and even a dating coach who did that when it came around. The common thing that they said was that they didn’t like how they felt doing it. They also noticed that at the end of the techniques, there was just you, and you would get found out.
Now the common trend is for authenticity and openness/vulnerability. In addition to approaching and that sort of stuff, it’s less about learning a technique and more about the other positive things.
Sigh. This is embarrassing to admit. I dipped my toes in those waters for a year or so but decided it wasn’t for me. Those grifters are preying on guys, like me, who struggle in relationships, which I do. I tried out their tactics and found one of two things. 1) it didn’t work at all like expected or 2) it worked like they said but it made me feel like total shit. I gave it up. That’s not the kind of person I wanted to be.
The ends didn’t justify the means, at all. Additionally, the ends weren’t even what I wanted. The end goal for most PUA types is sex with the girl. I do like sex, but not to just get off. Call me sentimental, but I’m after a best friend who I can also have sex with. Negging someone doesn’t make them your best friend. It makes them a pawn to your manipulations.
All that said, in short, I would guess a lot of guys tried it out and realized that they’re not sociopaths like the grifters are and decided that it’s not what they actually wanted.
Isn’t this basically what turned into the “Manosphere” with people like Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate, and Charlie Kirk.
Basically moving away from explicitly “dating” to general “manliness/Alpha” stuff, but still preying on typical male insecurities.
Public misogynists posing as ‘self help’ have been around forever and the only thing that changes is the nomenclature.
The movie “Magnolia” (1999) features a character that does the whole manosphere shtick back when those grifters had to sell their merch on stage at conference centers because Youtube wouldn’t even be a thing for 5-6 more years.
It was a two step plan:
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Give young boy the worst possible advice
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Blame women for not liking it.
That how we got all these incels.
I was just gonna say “they became incels, who then bought alpha male culture”
So it was a conspiracy to turn men into incel? Sorry but I don’t buy it.
Teach a man to attract women, and he’s not going to keep watching you’re shitty videos…
So you give bad advice, knowing that it won’t work, hoping the stupidest still come back for more advice, then pivot to “you’re great bro, it’s everyone else’s fault they don’t see it”.
And then you have a Stan that will watch all your videos, because everyone else calls them an idiot except the other people following that shit.
Like…
You say “conspiracy” like it’s some convulated crazy plan…
It’s grifting 101…
Good lord, that’s it in a nutshell, isn’t it… Ugh.
Maybe I’ll finally learn what grifting means.
It’s not hard, just gotta give it a lil chin wiggle
I’m sure they weren’t intending to make an army of lonely women hating young men, they were just trying to make money off of lonely women eating young men.
Once you’ve created a market for a very specific demographic, you make sure they stay in that demographic so you can keep making your money. That and it’s a lot easier to convince someone that being a piece of shit is ok than to convince them to be better.
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In the early 2000s there was seemingly infinite television studio budget to pick a random subculture or even individual sociopaths, and just give them a reality show. I just assumed as broadcast and cable viewership declined, these types of grifters also went away or were forced to get real jobs.
My quick take is that all that stuff mattered when people had to go out to find other people: to parties, bars, concerts, and other public places. They had to actively attract people to initiate a conversation. Now all those third places are dying, and most couples meet online, which means they have done all the superficial selection stuff already, which changes the game.
They’re still in the online space but they’re not pick up artists, they’re tinder profile experts or whatever they call themselves.
In the 80s they were called PUAs.
I met a similar type of low-empathy guy in the 2000s, who talked the same trash with regard to picking up women, he called it ‘Sarging’.
A cringe and disgusting meeting.
They all became maga when women refused to sleep with them, because that shit doesn’t work. lol
That always worked - on a minority of women. There are only a few men willing to descend to those disgusting levels so it worked out for them. (if it was any more society as we know it would break down).
The men who did it crossed the political spectrum trying to blame people you don’t like for everything does your side no favors.
Honestly lots of them grew up and realized that what they were doing wasn’t healthy for anyone including themselves. Neil Strauss wrote a second book detailing how PUA exacerbated his trauma and poor mental heath.
