Is The Pickup Artist Dead?

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By Ryan McKee

After reading The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss, I experienced the same epiphany thousands of men had: “I’m an AFC.” Suddenly, I felt let behind a velvet rope and allowed to romp in a VIP area previously reserved for celebrities, millionaires and homecoming kings. Openers, negs and demonstrations of worth became tools in my previously empty bag. My girlfriend of two years, an intelligent feminist who takes pleasure in destroying obvious PUAs, admits my Neil Strauss tactics worked on her. She didn’t even realize they were happening until I told her later.

Old News?

That is exactly why I’m writing this article. For PUA devices to work properly, the woman should not realize they’re happening. It’s been nearly five years since The Game was published and Mystery has become a celebrity with two seasons of The Pickup Artist on VH1. Women know about canned openers that aren’t supposed to sound like canned openers. They know all to well about negging — it’s become a sitcom joke (recently seen on The League). Neil Strauss has addressed this dilemma himself. He said if a woman calls you out, just laugh it off, say you just read The Game, and you wanted to see if it worked. Then start a conversation about that. However, now even that move has been overused.

Teaching Old Tricks To  A New Dog

The PUA building blocks are still solid: self-improvement, self-confidence, physical fitness, fashion savvy, and strong conversation skills. However, “the tricks” have been spilled from the patent leather satchel. Do a card trick to demonstrate worth and you’ll be accused of being a Mystery wannabe. Wear a large hat to peacock and you’ll be overlooked for the guy with the subtle, yet well-tailored jacket. Invite a woman into your place at the beginning of the date so she’ll be comfortable coming inside at night’s end and she’ll red-flag you because her male friends mentioned this technique.

Undesirable men will never stop trying to outsmart women out of their league, but the tools need to be updated. When Mystery was parodied on Saturday Night Live, the movement became cartoonish, and those who cling to it too closely have become clichés. You don’t want to be the high school quarterback who hangs around the parking lot three years after he graduated. This isn’t to say the movement was a failure. It taught thousands of men they don’t have to settle for the homely office copy girl. However, it is time to move into the next era of seduction, just like when punk rock took the reigns from garage rock.

PUA DOA

The recent trend toward men with androgynous characteristics may be due to women’s subconscious rejection of the previously celebrated alpha males. Some PUAs already wear the Adam Lambert-manliner. Is the next logical step to blend more feminine attributes into their alpha to make it more easily digestible? Or possibly the same techniques may appear fresh again if presented in a bumbling Seth Rogen-esque manner? The bromantic comedy boom could inspire a new wave of PUAs that look like AFCs. You could be a Trojan Horse of seduction. The woman thinks she’s gotten the gift of a new unintimidating male friend when suddenly a secret chamber bursts open and from it pours sublime seduction skills. Before she knows it, she’s Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up (hopefully without the pregnancy part). 

Can you predict the next generation of PUAs and their new bag of tricks? Or do you think the era described in The Game is still in full effect?
 

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9 thoughts on “Is The Pickup Artist Dead?”

  1. I agree with most of the PUAs that say the seduction arts are moving to the natural game method, which is to say men are being taught to be comforable with who they are and the value they have as people. Mystery’s game has it’s place. It’s much like training wheels on a bike. Many men need Mystery’s framework to begin to work from. Then men like Lance Mason, Carlos Xuma, and robert Greene move you from training wheels on a bike, to a motorcycle to a Harley. And we all know women like men on harleys. *chuckles* So no PUA is not dead, as seduction never dies.

    And to the Ladies who think they can spot a PUA, maybe you can, but often the story begins “Our eyes met across the room and I could feel the chemistry…..”

  2. PUA isn’t dead and never will be. If you take it as improvements to your core personality, it will always work. If you just learn a bunch of lines and spit them randomly – no wonder you will get caught out. Remember, they want a MAN and not an actor who learns some lines from a book.

  3. PUA is not dead. It’s simply CHANGING – or rather, a different part of the movement is dominating the movement as a whole.

    Mystery Method was just ONE SCHOOL out of hundreds of different PUA schools and seduction methods. It got overhyped and commercialized, and it was a very narrow-target method – it’s only meant to be used on arrogant, surgically enhanced high-maintenance women that most guys call “10s”. Mystery Method is respectively very fake as well.

    There are FAR better PUA methods and schools, and while the Mystery school may well be dying, the “Natural Game” school is very much alive and always has been. And these guys don’t write big novels about their techniques, in fact most of the time they don’t teach canned lines at all, so their game/students can’t be “hacked” by women.

  4. Very interesting article, fortunately here in Italy the PUA community is still well hidden even though we have other “problems” since the opinion openers won’t work in the clubs packed of models that come from all over the world and if you would wear one of Mystery’s hats they won’t even let you in. That’s why in Project Milano we adapted peacocking to Italian fashon and developped the High Impact method which allows you to have the attention of the whole place in within the first 15/20 minutets and then choose your targets which, at that point will be already attracted to you and most of the time will open you

    Keep up the good work

    Boss

  5. Nice article. Even though I have never been and never intend to be a pick-up artist (or rookie) for that matter, but I do love to learn and implement a lot of methodology that is taught by various innovators like Zan, Deida and Hypnotica. I have never liked the idea of using a canned opener or a tactic as I believe that if I am not congruent with what I say, a smart person/woman (and I only like to choose smart) can see right through all the bullshit and tell that I am trying to do or be something that I can\’t or am not. I believe instead that if I get in touch with my inner self and know what I want then I can work on how I can express it in the best way that I like. This way anything that I say is passionate because it is actually what I AM saying. I am being present, I am in my reality and I am welcoming her into my reality. I see it as a sensual dance (expressing what I feel is the most important part of fore-play and it never is limited to bedroom) and I am leading her all the way holding her hand. I am involved with her and I am felling what she is expressing as well.

    All the tactics described in the GAME are not bad but I look onto them as the experiences of the particular individuals on their road to growth. All the people mentioned in the GAME have moved on to bigger and better things and I think that is the message. A true pickup-artist (or as I like to say LOVER) will never die because he can just walk into any situation and have a great conversation with anyone – not just a pretty woman – but even with an 80 year old and leave them with higher energy and enthusiasm than they were before they met him. That is the essence of charisma and if I have that I can be put in any situation, I can have a great time and people will love to hang around me. I may not be the pimp in the room with 20 hotties hangin\’ off my arms, but I will be the one with whom people would genuinely love to connect and women will geuninely love to be open without any head games. I will be the one who will leave them with memories that will bring smile to their faces and whose fragrance will turn them on even months and years later 🙂

    Just my two cents.

    Palwinder 🙂

  6. I honestly think its who the men are that is the problem or the paridimes they live by , its the nice guy which most men entering the community are to a T that is the issue of them being bad with women . In the book no more mr nice guy or as the community calles it AFC it explains lots of things that nice guys do and it is exactly like most men on the forums i can see thats the problem their ” niceguys ” . If the community focused on changing mens beliefs etc . A number one trait of the nice guy is seeking womens approval , well once you approve of yourself and accept yourself as you are your alot more secure in yourself . The community stuff is telling men who they are isent good enougth and that they have to behave in a certain way because themselves isent what women want alot of it proved to be a hinderance to me and caused me more issues than ever i went from believing women wanted me to feeling useless screw the community i say its not the right direction , change the guys paradimes and beliefs and their perspectives is all whats needed , im really comfortable in myself now i accepted who i am and approved of myself . Yeh so innerwork is the way these techniques are to restricting for most people ecspecially left brained smart people .

  7. Well, mystery method is just one frame, in my opinion. And still, lot of things like emotional progression model, catstring theory are still very valuable.You know there were guys like David X, In10se, Hypnotica, Steve P who get laid A LOT, without any mystery method. Here in eastern europe most are not attracted to feminine guys, but still we can use mystery method because nobody knows that, but i only think that thinking about routines a not about principles is just still thinking in a box.

  8. Pickup isn’t about walking up to women and negging them or asking them about straight guys dating bi girls. That’s just the part the media sensationalizes. The most important part is inner game, which is your internal attitudes regarding life, women, and yourself. Which of course the media doesn’t care about because self-helpy stuff isn’t as cool as supposedly getting with a woman by repeating arcane lines (by the way, not even Mystery runs routines from start to finish, there’s just so much that can go differently. And even ‘naturals’ have a few routines they use).

  9. I realized from this product that it doesn’t matter how far away you are or what you look like; it’s all about having the right attitude and spitting out the right lines when you are
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