Pickup Artists Research Articles

Daria Dayter & Sofia Rüdiger, The language of pick-up artists: Online discourses of the seduction industry. London: Routledge, 2022. Pp. 226. Hb. $136.

Daria Dayter & Sofia Rüdiger, The language of pick-up artists: Online discourses of the seduction industry. London: Routledge, 2022. Pp. 226. Hb. $136.

'The Language of Pick-Up Artists: Online Discourses of the Seduction Industry' Daria Dayter and Sofia Rüdiger (2022)

The Language of Pick-Up Artists: Online Discourses of the Seduction IndustryDaria Dayter and Sofia Rüdiger (2022)Routledge, 217pp.

Misogyny and the construction of toxic masculinity in the Spanish Manosphere (Burbuja.info)

The anonymity of the Manosphere has provided a fertile breeding ground for the spread of misogyny through increased hate speech on the Internet. In recent years, this virtual space composed mostly of men, has been the subject of numerous studies aimed at identifying the discursive mechanisms of identity constructions that underlie the denigration of women. This paper takes the findings from international research on the subject to address a phenomenon still little explored in Spain through the analysis of misogynistic comments on Burbuja.info. Economic forum. The analysis sample comprises 4,281 messages that include the lexeme “woman” posted over 2.5 years, 761 of which contain expressions that ridicule, disparage, or insult women. Thematic analysis demonstrates the repetition of misogynistic topics and tropes common in the most radical Reddit and 4chan subforums, such as hypergamy, objectification, and the constant disparagement of the world of women, not to mention criticism of feminism, left-wing political parties, and legislation on gender violence. The results obtained show that the “male identity crisis” is narratively constructed in the messages on Burbuja.info using the motif of sacrifice –the cornerstone of a monotypic story in which the purpose of the hero-man-victim’s journey is to punish the villain-woman. Furthermore, we also found that there are different configurations of identity related to attitudes toward women; these match up with the four most prominent masculinist subcultures identified in the leading literature on the subject: Men Rights activists (MRA), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), Pickup Artists (PUA), and Involuntary Celibates (Incels).

Book Review: Daria Dayter and Sofia Rüdiger, The Language of Pick-Up Artists: Online Discourses of the Seduction Industry

Book Review: Daria Dayter and Sofia Rüdiger, <i>The Language of Pick-Up Artists: Online Discourses of the Seduction Industry</i>

The representation of gendered social actors across five manosphere communities on Reddit

This paper investigates the representation of gendered social actors in a specialised corpus of 10.9 million words, collected from five Reddit communities associated with the so-called ‘manosphere’: incels (involuntary celibates), Men Going Their Own Way (male separatists), pick-up artists, men’s rights activists, and a group dedicated to wider discussions of ‘red pill’ philosophy. Thirty-four gendered social actor terms were identified as key-key-words across the manosphere corpora. Both male and female social actors are referenced using relational terms, while the latter are also referenced using derogatory terms and the former are referenced using terms for kinship and in-group identification. We then analysed the consistent collocates ( Baker et al., 2008 ) of the four most frequent gendered social actor terms ( women, girls, men and guys), to establish the topics, descriptions and actions associated with the social actors across the five groups. Gendered social actors were constructed in essentialist dichotomies, with women and girls, although objectified and passivated in dating/sexual contexts, being represented as violent towards male social actors and as holding a privileged position over men in wider society. The anti-feminist ideology reflected in manosphere discourse can be seen as a more extreme version of mainstream discourse. To the extent that manosphere discourse spreads beyond dedicated forums and websites, its views will be re-imported into the mainstream, leading to a wider radicalisation.

Attribution of Responsibility for Pick Up Artist Issues in China: The Impacts of Journalist Gender, Geographical Location, and Publication Range

Pick-up artists (PUAs) apply strategies from evolutionary psychology to exploit women emotionally, sexually, and financially. In China, PUA issues have been garnering attention from journalists and news media. However, scholars have yet to explore how such issues have been portrayed in Chinese online news media, in particular the attribution of responsibility. The current study content-analyzed 115 Chinese online news articles related to PUA issues to explore whom the responsibility for causing and solving the issue is attributed, and investigated the influence of journalist gender, geographical location, and publication range on the attribution of responsibility. The results indicated that (a) the responsibility for both causing and solving the issue was attributed to perpetrators and the society frequently and to victims sporadically and (b) the attribution of responsibility differs across geographical locations or when the news websites are national as opposed to provincial. Directions for future studies were discussed.

Breaking an Eagle and Pick-Up Artists in a Chinese Context

In this paper, I analyse a thought-provoking 1986 novella concerning falconry from a contemporary perspective. Breaking an Eagle depicts a process during which a recalcitrant and adamantine wild falcon is tamed into an acquiescent hunting tool through a series of manoeuvres that annihilate its willpower. I propound this is analogous to a phenomenon dubbed ‘PUA’ that is permeating every section of contemporary Chinese society. As a cultural import from the US, the terminology PUA (Pick-up Artist) in the Chinese context preserves its original meaning regarding heterosexual courtships and entanglements, yet more significantly, it constructs novel connotations pertaining to emotional coercion and exploitation in the workplace. Parallel to the mentally manipulated and physically abused falcon depicted in the novella, the confidence and assertiveness of victims of interpersonal and workplace PUA are extirpated, bombarded with perpetual censure and nefarious carrot-and-stick approaches.

The men and women, guys and girls of the ‘manosphere’: A corpus-assisted discourse approach

This study investigates how the lemmas woman, girl, man and guy are used to discursively represent and construct gender identities in an anti-feminist forum on the discussion website Reddit. The lemmas were analysed using corpus-assisted social actor analysis and appraisal theory. Similarities and differences within three sub-communities of the TRP subreddit were considered: Men’s Rights (activists who believe that men are systemically disadvantaged in society), Men Going Their Own Way (who abstain from relationships with women), and Red Pill Theory (primarily pick-up artists). The corpus was characterised by bare assertions about gendered behaviour, although the masculine gender role was less well-defined than the feminine one. Women and girls were dehumanised and sexually objectified, negatively judged for morality and veracity, and constructed as desiring hostile behaviour from male social actors. Conversely, men were constructed as victims of female social actors and external institutions and, as a result, as unhappy and insecure.

Manbragging online: Self-praise on pick-up artists’ forums

This article investigates the use of self-praise in an online community of pick-up artists (PUAs). The male community of practice engages in speed seduction of women, drawing on a shared repertoire of techniques and scripts. The field reports, which are produced to process the experienced interactions and posted online for evaluation by others, are at the centre of our investigation of positive self-disclosure. We find that PUAs rely on three kinds of self-praise: brag statements, proxy brags, and evidential brags. Self-praise (of any type) is by no means a rare occurrence as revealed by a quantitative breakdown of self-praising speech acts in the data set. The analysis of the reactions towards self-praise, as evidenced in forum replies, shows that self-praise is not censored as it is part of PUA interactional norms. The self-praise iceberg which emerges in this paper posits that self-aggrandizing discursive behaviour is more widespread, and less censored, than previously assumed.

Clueless: An ethnographic study of young men who participate in the seduction community with a focus on their psychosocial well-being and mental health.

In the last decade, a cross-national community of like-minded young men has emerged, commonly known as ‘the seduction community’. This community is led by professional ‘pick-up artists’ who teach these young men a variety of techniques and mindsets with the stated aim of improving their success with women, or ‘game’. There has been little research on the men who participate in this community, and none from a mental health angle. As such, this study is propelled by two specific objectives, namely documenting and understanding (i) the reasons why young men join the seduction community; and (ii) the impacts of community involvement on participants’ lives. To meet these aims, we used an inductive qualitative methodology giving ample scope for bottom-up understandings to emerge. Specifically, we recruited young men participating in the seduction community for an in-depth qualitative interview (N = 34) to explore self-reported motives and impacts. Interviews were augmented by lengthy participant observation, and data was analyzed by content analysis techniques. The results reveal that men often join the community to address a range of psychosocial deficits, and that community involvement successfully equips participants with numerous valued social and communication skills. The community appears to fill a void in providing a place of hope, fellowship and learning for young (often immigrant) men. The findings are summarized in five themes (i) loneliness and social inclusion; (ii) lack of male role models and need for guidance; (iii) mental health and well-being issues; (iv) skill acquisition and personal development; and (v) the dark side of pick-up. Interestingly, some of the practices commonly taught and utilized within the community resemble aspects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and mental health peer support. This may explain its evident appeal. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of the findings for official mental health service provision for young men.

Drinking male tears: language, the manosphere, and networked harassment

While popular discourse often frames online harassment as an issue of individuals engaged in abhorrent behavior, harassing behavior is often networked in that it is coordinated and organized. When feminists and female public figures experience harassment, it often originates from members of a loose online network known as the manosphere, a set of blogs, podcasts, and forums comprised of pickup artists, men’s rights activists, anti-feminists, and fringe groups. While the particular beliefs of these groups may differ, many participants have adopted a common language. This paper explores the discourse of the manosphere and its links to online misogyny and harassment. Using critical discourse analysis, we examine the term misandry, which originates in the manosphere; trace its infiltration into more mainstream circles; and analyze its ideological and community-building functions. We pay particular attention to how this vocabulary reinforces a misogynistic ontology which paints feminism as a man-hating movement which victimizes men and boys.

Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age by Donna Zuckerberg

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 405 them. The sections on Australia and the United States also raise the issue of introduced species and the impact they have on native ecosystems, as well as the ethics surrounding their treatment as feral populations. The final chapter (“The Donkey’s Tale”) summarizes the main arguments that run throughout the book. Mitchell explains how we can use donkeys to study human history, as well as the potential risks of such study. One risk is anthropocentrism, which results in viewing the donkey as simply an agent that benefited humans. This does not allow researchers to fully study the human-donkey relationship, as it makes the donkey a human tool rather than a being capable of influencing actions through its own decisionmaking process. Finally, the author presents the reader with avenues for future research, indicating that this text is not meant to be the final word on donkeys in history, but rather the beginning of a dialogue on the topic. This book is a valuable addition to the fields of animal studies, zooarchaeology, history, and anthropology. Mitchell’s writing is clear and succinct, and the language used appealing to both specialists and newcomers to the topic. The text is lavishly illustrated with black-and-white images as well as colour plates. One puts this book down with a new perspective not just on the donkey in human history, but rather on how much of human history was possible because of the donkey. Mount Royal University Carolyn Willekes Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age. By Donna Zuckerberg. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2018. Pp. 270. In this book, Donna Zuckerberg tackles head-on the relationship between some contemporary forms of misogyny and the classical world. It is a short, readable work combining scholarly approaches, analyses, and citational habits with an accessible narrative, tone, and style. It explains both the ancient and the social media world where necessary, while giving a nuanced and thoughtful account of the intersections between them that will be enlightening to classical scholars and savvy social media users alike. Zuckerberg clearly lays out the various groups connected to the most virulent expressions of online misogyny, where they have come from, what their views are, and how they use classical texts as justification, support, and inspiration for those views and their dissemination. Her aim is to uncover the mechanisms by which antiquity is used and mythologized to perpetuate patriarchal and white supremacist ideology; she hopes both to combat that ideology and to point towards a “vibrant, radical, intersectional feminist classics—one that uses the ancient world to enrich conversations about race, gender, and social justice” (188). The book is divided into four chapters, with a brief Introduction and Conclusion. It has extensive endnotes, a glossary, and a detailed bibliography. The first chapter, “Arms and the Manosphere,” outlines the online world of toxic masculinity, with terms and definitions and a sketch of what she often refers to as the “Red Pill community,” a collective term for a number of online groups whose membership is primarily or exclusively male and mostly white, and whose views centre around misogyny and opposition to feminism. Even those readers with some familiarity with the terms “Red Pill,” “MGTOW” (“Men Going Their Own Way”), “pickup artists,” and so forth will find this section clarifying, as the aims, ideologies, and memberships of these groups intersect in complicated ways, 406 PHOENIX while for many readers this chapter will serve as an essential introduction to an important subset of the online world. Zuckerberg delineates how the actual misogyny of the ancient world provides resources for modern misogyny, bolstered by the social and cultural capital of classics. This chapter demonstrates how easily some ancient texts, and the traditional approach to studying them, can be used to support extreme positions today. Zuckerberg also points out some similarities between the manosphere’s use of antiquity and attitude toward classics and feminism and the views and attitudes of some classical scholars—not only in the past, but also in the present. In the second chapter, “The Angriest Stoics,” the main topic is the appeal of Stoic philosophy and ancient Stoic writers for the Red...

Feminism’s Flip Side: A Cultural History of the Pickup Artist

This paper provides a historical account of the ‘pickup artists’ (PUA) phenomenon, tracing the origins back to the early 1970s when more liberal attitudes towards sexuality were on the rise in the West. Today PUA advice not only includes information about seduction techniques, but also programs about self-improvement or so-called ‘inner game’. Seduction and dating gurus can be found across the internet—from individual bloggers to dating coaches and relationship experts—all providing niche services and products on how to seduce and/or have fulfilling relationships with women. By addressing the moral panics around the PUA discourse, the paper seeks to illustrate the connection between second wave feminism, as a discourse increasingly interested in the idea of ‘gender egalitarianism’ and the popularity of seduction techniques for men based on emerging scientific research.

Hacking ‘the Natural’: Seduction Skills, Self-Help, and the Ethics of Crafting Heterosexual Masculine Embodiment in ‘Seduction Communities’

Close relationships between men and women have been theorized from feminist, psychoanalytic, and political economic perspectives. In seduction communities, dating coaches and pickup artists act as expert mediums in scripting norms of heterosexual courtship between men and women. Based on an ethnographic analysis of intimate labor between coaches and male clients in seduction communities based in New York City, this article suggests three things. First, that apprenticing in techniques of heterosexual seduction is about masculine self-fashioning; second, that men experience culturally-based ambivalences around norms of self-help—including ideas of freedom, dependency, and addiction—in ways that fashion their bodies, speech acts, and identities as objects of desire for women; and third, that practices of seduction complicate heteronormative masculine identities by creating intimate spheres of dependency and self-disclosure among men. This article follows men’s trajectories of learning seduction skills, and finds that men rely on competing rhetorics of authentic expression and technical self-presentation that seek to manage (in ways that also reproduce) a range of social, economic, and gender-based inequalities.

The ethics of researching unlikeable subjects

AbstractThis article explores ethical conundrums in linguistic research on online platforms populated by ‘pick-up artists’ (PUAs), a community that learns and practices speed-seduction for short-term mating. Originally a male heterosexual community, PUAs encourage men to use manipulative strategies to select, pursue, isolate and sexually conquer women (Hall, Jeffrey A. &amp; Melanie Canterberry. 2011. Sexism and assertive courtship strategies. Sex Roles 65(11). 840–853). Using so-called ‘field reports’ – detailed accounts of interactions with women – from Anglophone PUA forums as our data, we investigate the narrative stance devices that PUAs use to impose the game frame on their activities. Unavoidably, sampling language in an environment where risky topics are under constant discussion presents ethical dilemmas. The article focuses on how conducting research in a hostile community may influence traditional methodological decisions. Through the example of the PUA community, we discuss the vulnerability of subjects and potential harm in linguistic research, and whether anything gives the researcher the freedom to forego informed consent, especially when dealing with publicly available data in an open forum. We also address the myth of the unbiased researcher that is prevalent in contemporary social science, arguing that an analysis should benefit from the fact that the analyst inevitably takes part in the “fight to construct reality” (Latour, Bruno &amp; Steve Woolgar. 1979. Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

The Casanova-Myth: Legend and Anxiety in the Seduction Community

The word Casanova is often treated as a synonym for womaniser, variously interpreted in a positive or negative light depending upon the audience. The Seduction Community (SC) largely comprises young heterosexual men who follow and adapt the teachings of commercial pick-up artists, typically in an effort to embody the Casanova-myth. This paper reports and analyses findings from a qualitative study of the SC. Drawing from life history interviews ( n =29) and understandings generated during fieldwork in California in 2009 and 2013, the paper explores the meanings of the Casanova-myth qua urban legend. As explained in studies that view modern society as a ‘folk community’, urban legends help mediate anxieties following the Great Transformation in American community life. However, this paper contends that such legends may also produce the same gender anxieties they aim to ameliorate. Lascivious myth-making, which finds clear expression within the rationalised SC, constitutes a double-edged sword under conditions of rapid social change comprising confluent intimacies and the potential marketisation of everything.

Socrates as Pickup Artist: An Interpretation of Xenophon's Memorabilia III 11

In all the Socratic literature—by Plato, Xenophon, or Aristophanes—Socrates is shown conversing with a woman in only one instance: the conversation with the hetaira (or courtesan) Theodote presented in Xenophon's Memorabilia, book III, chapter 11. This puzzling passage is often interpreted to be a metaphor or parody of Socrates’ effect on his circle of philosophically minded friends. Without disputing that interpretation, this article argues that attention to the surface—Socrates’ only conversation with a woman in the entire literature—yields insights into Xenophon's thought on the nature of sex differences and the causes of erotic attraction. More specifically—drawing not just on the Theodote passage but also on the “gynaikologia” passage of the Oeconomicus and the Panthea episode recounted in the Cyropaedia—this article argues that certain of Xenophon's insights are strikingly similar to assertions made in our time by self-styled “pickup artists.”

The Dating Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Emerging Science of Human Courtship

In the New York Times bestselling book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (2006), the world was granted its first exclusive introduction to the steadily growing dating coach and pick-up artist community. Many of its most prominent authorities claim to use insights and information gleaned both through first-hand experience as well as empirical research in evolutionary psychology. One of the industry's most well-respected authorities, the illusionist Erik von Markovik, promotes a three-phase model of human courtship: Attraction, building mutual Comfort and Trust, and Seduction. The following review argues that many of these claims are in fact grounded in solid empirical findings from social, physiological and evolutionary psychology. Two texts which represent much of this literature are critiqued and their implications discussed.

Inequity in the pursuit of intimacy: An analysis of British pick-up artist interactions

The data presented here come from a collection of surreptitious audio recordings of naturally occurring talk-in-interaction between previously unacquainted women and male ‘Pick-Up Artists’ (PUAs) in the UK. Our approach draws on close observations of these interactional data to demonstrate how PUAs move from a state of unacquaintedness towards more ‘intimate’ forms of interactional involvement.A prototypical PUA is a male who seeks to be successful at ‘seducing’ women. ‘PUA’ is not a category label given to the individual, but is one that he claims for himself within an existing PUA Community of Practice. A common community belief is that the means of seduction are not rooted in physical attractiveness, social status or wealth, but in the interaction. The claimed ‘art’ in pick-up artistry may be seen in the relative speed with which the protagonist may gain intimacy with their fellow interlocutor. The PUA operates, as Goffman (1967b) describes it, “where the action is”; they are every bit the gambler in a high-stakes game where risky plays – which include issues of im/politeness and in/equity – can have high payoffs. The focus of this paper is how PUAs actually play the game.

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewsFull AccessThe Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup ArtistsAlan D. Schmetzer M.D.Alan D. Schmetzer M.D.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 May 2006https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2006.57.5.736AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail The book The Game is another of Neil Strauss's biographies, but this book is partly autobiographical and a brief history of a group of self-styled "pickup artists"—people who essentially make a full-time career of trying to achieve multiple sexual conquests. The book has a thin, leather-like cover, gold lettering, and a bound-in ribbon bookmark, much like a Bible. The symbolism is intentional, as the book chapters are based on specific techniques and "moves" that form a "bible" of the art of seduction—how to "select a target," "approach and open," remove "the obstacles," "create an emotional connection," and so forth. Although "men will deny it" and "women will doubt it," Strauss declares this to be a true story and asks that the reader blame not the players but The Game. The book features a number of theories or "schools" of seduction. The running thread throughout is the author's search for his own perfect pickup technique and for a sense of satisfaction in life. The Game's goal is to be able to pick out a random "target" person in any setting, no matter how many competing companions are already present, and by virtue of the right combination of behaviors, body language, and words develop an attraction that ends with a phone number, a kiss, or the ultimate prize—a sexual encounter. Strauss arranges to meet various instructor-mentors, the "gurus," from whom to learn along the way. Each guru has had to study the art of the pickup as a set of behaviors to be analyzed and reduced to a given formula that he can both use and teach to other "nerdy" types, as they are called, during weekend workshops.The author goes from one guru to the next, perfecting his own style, and, in fact, he renames himself "Style." But by the end of the book, Strauss tires of The Game and does not like the way his new perspective has objectified women. Because of his new-found techniques, though, he finally finds one woman who is more than a conquest to him.The journey is liberally sprinkled with cameo appearances by celebrities, like Heidi Fleiss, Tom Cruise, and Paris Hilton, to name a few, and both domestic and foreign exotic locales. Strauss is able to laugh at his own foibles as well as describe the despair that can come with a narrow or shallow approach to life.This book has sufficient psychological and social subtext to be of interest to psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals, both as a diversion and perhaps as a warning of how boundary violations could begin. Many of the described techniques sound plausible, and, for people so inclined, they might even work!Dr. Schmetzer is professor and assistant chair for medicine in the department of psychiatry at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 57Issue 5 May, 2006Pages 736-736PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES May 2006 Volume 57 Number 5 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 May 2006 Published in print 1 May 2006