Joseph Lloyd examines the bizarre and abnormally influential ‘Pickup Artist’ subculture you probably have not heard of.
“She’s got the blue eyes of a swede, the soulful depths of a Latina, yet the lure of a Vietnamese hooker, She’s got the waist of a Romanian, the legs of a Russian, the skin of Spaniard, …and tits like a Californian porn star”.
This may be the first, and most probably the last, time I open an article with a quotation like this. I am also, almost definitely, the only person typing something so gorgeously gynocentric in the Hallwood library as well.
Yet this quote, deliciously lustful, pining and cliqued in a sort of Biggles style, colonial-adventure-story sort of way, sums up the unique world of pickup artistry in a nutshell: a male, quasi-adolescent pathway of anecdotal intrigue and adventure.
PICKUP ARTISTRY IS A – MOSTLY ONLINE – SUBCULTURE, CONSISTING OF (PRESUMABLY WHOLLY) HETEROSEXUAL MEN SEEKING MUTUAL ADVICE ON THE SEDUCTION OF WOMEN
Indeed, there is a sort of Orientalist mysticism about the Pickup Artist community, no one can really pinpoint where they originated, no one really knows where they emerged.
The phrase itself is rather broad and contains multiple strains. Pickup artistry is a – mostly online – subculture, consisting of (presumably wholly) heterosexual men seeking mutual advice on the seduction of women.
Due to click baiting titles (`the perfect woman`, `how to become more dominant in bed`), they largely echo one another, to the extent that all vines entwine and bare similar fruit.
This can be seen in the ecosystem’s shared vocabulary; examples of such the participants’ referral to their activities as `game`, or their common aspiration to become an `alpha male`.
Similarly, those outside the movement’s vanguard are dubbed `beta males` – a phrase denoting effete, surrendered weakness.
Winds of change?
Pickup artistry is a relatively new phenomenon, and it seems to coincide with the reworking of social norms in the aftermath of the explosion of social media, direct messaging and the myriad of unwritten rules that bind them.
Just how influential is pickup artistry? Due to the flexible, digitised nature of their universe, it is difficult to gauge their outreach.
Certainly, some have managed to commercialise their operations, to the extent that they at least appear to be wholly reliant on them for income.
Matt Forney for instance, author of a travel guided entitled `bang the Philippines`, seems to rely on revenue from advertising and royalties.
Pickup Artistry, itself, is not overtly political but it often holds deterministic, mildly authoritarian overtones.
Perhaps, it was this that drove Elliot Rodgers, a troubled young man with a history of social awkwardness, into a downward spiral of radicalisation, peaking in his 2014 mass shooting.
A sign of the times?
Pickup artistry is a relatively new phenomenon, and it seems to coincide with the reworking of social norms in the aftermath of the explosion of social media, direct messaging and the myriad of unwritten rules that bind them.
The clique is obviously ridiculously obsessed with cherry-picked, evolutionary biology; pop-psychology and pseudo intellectualism.
Naturally, any query in search of the `secrets` of seduction will enter in bitter disappointment; you can`t programme reality to produce a plethora of yonic delights.
There is no `secret` to having more sex or success with women. Believing otherwise is foolhardy.
Joseph Lloyd
Featured image courtesy of Justin Tung via Flickr. No changes made to this image. Image license found here.
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