If Books Could Kill - The Game

00:00:00.000 Michael. Peter. I know that you've, you must have heard of the game.

00:00:04.220 Yes, this is the book that taught me how to neg.

00:00:21.000 You know, one of the books I'm reading for this podcast is The End of History,

00:00:26.120 a book about the ascendance of liberal democracy after the fall of the Soviet Union.

00:00:31.460 But first, I thought it was critical to discuss The Game by Neil Strauss, 0.99

00:00:37.160 a book about how to get the most pussy. 0.99

00:00:40.960 About dudes getting their dicks wet in L.A. in the 1990s. 1.00

00:00:47.280 The subtitle of The Game is Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. 0.97

00:00:52.740 How did I not notice the penetrating thing?

00:00:55.200 Yeah, that's search engine optimization, baby, you know?

00:01:00.800 So the basic gist is that it's this story about how the author joins a group of so-called pickup artists, guys who study the art and science of picking up women.

00:01:11.920 Yes.

00:01:12.440 The aesthetic of the book, quite interesting.

00:01:15.320 The OG print edition is leather bound.

00:01:19.980 I forgot about this.

00:01:21.760 And it's got one of those like built-in ribbon bookmarks, like a bright red one, like the

00:01:27.020 Bible.

00:01:27.400 Oh my God.

00:01:28.020 There are many quotations throughout the book from famous authors and thinkers.

00:01:34.180 Can you guess, Michael, who the first quote comes from?

00:01:38.320 It's going to be someone horrible like Tony Robbins or something.

00:01:41.120 No, no.

00:01:42.220 You're going in the wrong direction, my friend.

00:01:43.900 The first quote is from Betty Friedan.

00:01:46.280 What?

00:01:48.140 The Betty Friedan quote is,

00:01:50.020 Men weren't really the enemy. They were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine

00:01:54.880 mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill.

00:01:59.580 That's actually, yes, that's a good quote.

00:02:01.780 I'm telling you, there are some great feminist quotes all throughout this story of banging as 1.00

00:02:07.640 many chicks as possible in LA. So have you read this book? Have you read the game? 1.00

00:02:13.400 So I actually read this, I think shortly after it came out or a couple of years after it came out,

00:02:18.880 when i was in kind of a pickup artist curious phase i've always been slightly fascinated by

00:02:26.360 this because first of all i always struggled to get laid yeah and second of all this whole thing

00:02:31.480 always seemed very like straight dude to me like this was always wrapped up in this weird the the

00:02:38.420 dating norms of straight people which i genuinely find fascinating and totally baffling where for

00:02:43.700 gay men, it's like 90% attractiveness. So there's not a lot of like game to be done in like my 0.83

00:02:49.840 world. Whereas in straight world, it seems like there's this dance of confidence and kind of the

00:02:56.760 vibe that you give off. And I was always kind of fascinated just because it seems like it's harder

00:03:01.320 to date as a straight guy than a gay guy somehow. Yeah, I think that's right. Unfortunately, women, 0.97

00:03:08.060 they've got all kinds of standards you know uh and uh the first problem it's a big downer for dudes

00:03:14.000 which actually my my memories of the book it's been a very long time since i've read it

00:03:18.420 is that he seems to toggle back and forth between a kind of anthropological dissection of this world

00:03:24.960 like look at look at the men and how they are broken and how they are dealing with their

00:03:29.100 brokenness and then like one paragraph later he'll switch to basically advice yeah how to be

00:03:35.420 one of these pickup artists. And it seems like the author himself couldn't really decide or was

00:03:41.120 trying to have it both ways. Yeah, that's exactly right. He it's very clear that he goes into this

00:03:47.420 a dorky guy that struggles to get laid and he finds out how to get laid. Right. He finds he 0.95

00:03:54.000 finds these techniques that help him get laid and they work. And part of him is smart enough to know

00:03:59.600 that this is weird and manipulative and and demeans women on the other hand he is very

00:04:07.820 impressed with himself and very happy about these developments right and he's constantly 0.58

00:04:12.000 it's the struggle of two neils all throughout the book did you ever have a pickup artist phase

00:04:17.840 no um i have never had any any sort of phase like this um i definitely had a phase where i was

00:04:24.420 dorkier and not doing well with women I've never enjoyed even when I was better at it like going

00:04:31.900 out to bars and like talking to random women and trying to hook up with it I don't have like a ton 0.95

00:04:36.940 of interest in being like oh could I sleep with that random stranger right but now I was I was 1.00

00:04:42.420 never intrigued by this you know I certainly when I was like you know in college and had a couple

00:04:48.060 years where I wasn't super successful with the ladies I think that it was probably like loosely

00:04:54.280 intriguing to me but never enough to be like i'll read the book you know so this was your first time

00:04:58.920 diving into this this was yeah um i hadn't even you know there's a whole bunch of pop culture

00:05:04.960 that descends from this and i hadn't really absorbed any of it until i uh until i did for

00:05:11.300 this podcast and uh changed my brain forever it's too it's too bad um i'm now i'm now locked

00:05:17.000 down for the rest of my life because i if you had put me in la in 2004 i could have slayed using the

00:05:23.820 tactics I learned from Neil Strauss. Now you're tooled up. Now you're equipped. Yeah. To trick

00:05:31.540 some like out of work actress into having sex with you. And then both of you waking up feeling 0.98

00:05:36.300 bad about it the next day. That seems like the, uh, the, the experience that he's trying to

00:05:42.300 replicate in this book. So let's, let's, uh, kind of set the table here. Neil's a journalist,

00:05:48.020 right and he as part of his job first dives into this online community of pickup artists and we're

00:05:55.880 in the early 2000s here they use all sorts of like cult-like lingo um sarging is going out and

00:06:03.320 picking up women oh my god uh groups of girls are called sets so like if there's three girls that's

00:06:08.800 a three set oh my gosh io eyes are indicators of interest so it's never like she seemed like

00:06:16.140 she liked me it's always right i was getting some ios from this girl right number closing is when 0.97

00:06:22.040 you get someone's number peacocking i do you know what peacocking is oh this is from that fucking tv 0.93

00:06:26.740 show where it's like you're supposed to wear at least one very flashy item of clothing yeah like 0.98

00:06:32.980 bright purple sunglasses in a bar or something and isn't it so like people will comment on it

00:06:38.560 as like a conversation starter or something right that's right so yeah you're wearing like

00:06:42.880 intentionally over the top loud things in order to attract attention and uh pretend that you're

00:06:49.300 interesting or whatever oh my god so neil becomes fascinated by this stuff and he decides to meet

00:06:55.120 some of these guys in person so he signs up for a pickup artist workshop put on by the most

00:07:01.180 prominent guy in the community mystery mystery the the now famous mystery that's right made

00:07:08.620 famous by this book mystery's real name is eric horvat markovich uh for some reason he hasn't

00:07:16.020 legally changed to eric von markovich which i guess he just thought sounded cooler he's right

00:07:20.800 he's a prolific writer online about picking up women well known within the community his aesthetic

00:07:27.760 is just fully chris angel right pale dark hair soul patch nail polish big earrings he embraces

00:07:37.120 like a aggressive form of peacocking so he'd be wearing large top hats all the time he's six five

00:07:45.980 and wears boots with six inch platforms no way you throw in the top hats and this guy is like 0.97

00:07:53.620 towering in the club well over seven feet tall he's like the fucking chrysler building everywhere 0.92

00:07:59.380 he goes yeah he wears vests and large coats and numerous watches on each arm at a time also my 0.87

00:08:08.260 memory of this guy from the eventual vh1 show is that he's also quite like conventionally attractive

00:08:14.240 you know it's interesting neil describes him as like a very mediocre looking dude i think he's a

00:08:19.620 pretty good looking guy he's got like you know tall cheekbones he's tall he's in decent shape

00:08:24.500 he's a good looking guy um it makes you wonder it makes you wonder why he needed everything else

00:08:30.620 yeah when they first meet mystery hands neil a manila envelope containing pictures of the

00:08:35.080 hottest girls he's ever dated wait really that's a real detail from the book yep yep

00:08:42.520 imagine having that imagine having a manila folder to be clear that wasn't like at the

00:08:50.240 workshop neil spots mystery like in the hotel lobby and mystery just hands him the envelope

00:08:55.500 so neil is like reasonably self-reflective about all of this uh he describes signing up for this

00:09:06.320 workshop as quote acknowledging defeat inferiority and inadequacy so like you know he's starting from

00:09:13.500 this place of like yeah like i'm a big loser who can't get laid and i'm gonna sign up for a 0.81

00:09:19.980 workshop and pay someone five hundred dollars and i understand that that is pathetic so i guess i 0.81

00:09:26.620 should teach you some strategies right yeah teach me give me the give me the wisdom and the knowledge 0.97

00:09:31.880 a lot of it is like very stupid icebreakers like my friend was invited to be on maury like should 0.98

00:09:38.640 he go on or is it going to be too embarrassing uh okay some of them are things that you do to sort 0.99

00:09:45.180 of like build a little artificial bond between you and the gal so one of them is you're in the

00:09:51.000 middle of a desert in a box describe the box to me well well let me describe your box michael

00:09:57.920 wait what i don't even understand this one yeah me neither um but the point is that when someone

00:10:04.040 will describe their box they'll be like okay um it's like big and they're like oh big that means

00:10:09.300 you have like a large ego oh right so it's almost like a palm reading thing but yeah yeah you don't

00:10:14.280 it's a little fake psychoanalysis thing most of this is just ways to sort of make people confident

00:10:21.680 in what are traditionally the most awkward parts of a conversation yeah yeah another part of it is

00:10:27.600 just a recognition that women have a sex drive and like want to hook up but again it's like

00:10:31.460 less socially acceptable for them you know there are these artificial barriers that you need to 1.00

00:10:35.740 sort of work through wait can i can i tell a story yeah yeah i was in a bar with a female

00:10:41.480 friend of mine and we were hanging out and i i left to go to the bathroom and i came back and

00:10:45.940 there was this guy talking to us he had come up to her and said hey me and my friends are trying

00:10:51.680 to name all of the oceans and we got pacific atlantic indian i feel like there's another

00:10:57.200 one isn't there another ocean she's like oh arctic and then sort of before she knew it

00:11:02.240 she was like in a conversation with this guy yeah and then the next day i like googled like

00:11:07.680 something felt fishy to me about it. And I Googled around and there was literally like an article

00:11:11.880 of like pickup artist strategies. And one of them listed was pretend you don't know the names of all

00:11:18.440 the oceans. I don't think that's in the book, but it sounds exactly like a ton of their openers.

00:11:23.400 Yeah. Yeah. You're just sort of engaging someone off the bat in a really natural sounding

00:11:28.460 conversation. Right. Another thing they do is little sleight of hand magic tricks. Oh, yeah.

00:11:33.840 So Mystery is like a magician as like one of his little gigs.

00:11:38.300 And Neil like spends a couple of like plane flights learning little sleight of hand things.

00:11:44.420 You know, it's basically what it sounds like.

00:11:45.660 Like, check this.

00:11:46.160 Look, I can make this beer bottle levitate.

00:11:48.080 Okay.

00:11:48.380 There's something called soul gazing, which is when you're a few minutes into a conversation,

00:11:51.860 you just have a girl stare into your eyes and you stare into hers.

00:11:57.100 And you sort of, you know, you give it a little intro like, oh, there's like technique I'm trying.

00:12:00.740 So like, let's try it out.

00:12:02.020 and the whole point is that like there is research showing that if you like stare into someone's eyes

00:12:06.780 for long enough you start to feel more comfortable with that that sounds fake but sure there's also

00:12:10.340 the prop bag i'm gonna send you a couple of screenshots okay and the prop bag is literally

00:12:16.760 what it sounds like many pickup artists carry around a bag full of props that they use in the

00:12:23.580 course of picking up women wait like literal physical props like carrot top you'll see not

00:12:28.840 to that level um all right i just let me know when you get it okay and feel free to read out 0.98

00:12:35.040 your favorites you've sent me a page you sent me three pages of this fucking book the prop bag is 0.97

00:12:40.400 very full so one of them is a pack of gum wrigley's big red a pack of condoms it's starting 0.99

00:12:48.380 off somewhat normal a piece of dryer lint for the lint opener walk up to a woman stop wordlessly

00:12:56.180 remove lint hidden in the palm of your hand from her clothing ask how long has that been there

00:13:02.100 then hand her the piece of lint

00:13:04.200 that would work on me i would feel small if somebody did that i'm i'm in this works uh okay

00:13:16.320 one digital camera it's it's 2005 at the end of the day take a photo of yourself and a girl smiling

00:13:22.140 then another one striking a serious pose and finally one kissing in the final photo say we

00:13:28.280 make a good couple don't we if she agrees you're in oh that's a high risk that's a high risk

00:13:34.140 strategy master of psychology if you take a picture of you kissing her and she's like yeah

00:13:38.320 that was that was fun we make a good couple then she likes you uh what else one set of wooden runes

00:13:45.660 in cloth bag for rune readings okay i'm not gonna ask you what that is well i'm not sure i could

00:13:51.180 explain it but for some just like i said there's a lot of magic going on uh there's a lot of

00:13:56.120 astrology for boys wait holy shit okay now i'm at the end of the list one small black light for 0.84

00:14:02.660 pointing out lint and dandruff on girls clothing a neg yeah that's only if you forget your lint 1.00

00:14:09.300 you should blast her with a black light this is something you would do to someone you fucking hate 0.99

00:14:13.720 this is like someone someone in college who you just absolutely loathe and you want to humiliate 1.00

00:14:19.260 them as much as possible like i'm gonna bring a fucking black light because like emma's gonna be 0.97

00:14:23.460 there and i also feel like any part of you that might be successfully negged would be outweighed 0.98

00:14:30.620 by the part of you that's like why do you have a black light right aren't you gonna ask that

00:14:35.280 question and then the guy's like uh what's your line where's the explanation for why you have a 0.95

00:14:41.640 bag full of shit including runes and a black light and like a 20-sided die yeah some of these 0.96

00:14:49.040 strategies are just gratuitous like there's one bit where a guy explains that when he has a girl 1.00

00:14:55.000 back at his place he'll ask for a massage and then tell her that she's doing it wrong and then tell

00:15:01.500 her that he'll give her a massage to show her the right way and then he sort of like transitions 0.80

00:15:06.020 that into sex and it's like bro she's at your place giving you a massage you don't need tactics

00:15:12.940 anymore right like this guy is experiencing one of like life's great pleasures you know getting a

00:15:19.520 massage from someone who's attracted to you while sexual tension builds and he cannot enjoy it

00:15:24.480 because he's like turned all of human interaction into this weird manipulative game and that's an 0.75

00:15:31.580 ongoing theme throughout this where like they cannot process human interaction except through

00:15:37.620 the lens of the game at one point mystery has a conversation with a girl he likes and he calls it

00:15:43.380 comfort building oh my god as in like trying to make her comfortable with him i'm like yeah that's

00:15:48.940 what getting to know someone is that's just like literally you're having a conversation yes right

00:15:54.800 this has always been my like deep melancholy whenever i hear about this stuff because it's

00:16:01.000 hard to find connections with other people. It's just hard, like as a human being. And it's the

00:16:05.480 thing that all of us want the most. But you can you can't just come out and say, like, I'd really

00:16:09.900 like to form a connection with you. Everything has to be done in this kind of between the lines

00:16:14.360 way. But you're gamifying it to the point where you're not even participating in these conversations,

00:16:20.220 it feels like. It's just how deep the insecurity runs, right? Like they have to imagine everything

00:16:25.640 as part of the game, because if it's not, then they're sort of like laid bare. There is another

00:16:30.940 guy ross whose primary game is quote technology okay which is a word for like psychological

00:16:39.080 techniques oh no it's like hypnosis adjacent he believes that he is a master of hypnosis

00:16:44.360 so he does things like try to get women to associate positive emotions with him at one

00:16:49.780 point he's talking to a waitress and he's like picture someone that you're attracted to

00:16:54.580 and like look at me and then later he tells neil like yeah now she's associating attraction with

00:17:01.500 me oh my you made her picture someone attractive like someone else and and and then you're like 1.00

00:17:08.980 now look at me now look at me it's like her stupid girl brain thinks i'm the guy from her 0.99

00:17:15.080 from her fantasies now when she hears the bell she'll think of me there's an incredible bit 0.99

00:17:21.420 where Neil is saying something that the hypnosis guy does not like and the guy goes stop and Neil

00:17:26.660 is like this was a hypnosis technique to interrupt your train of thought I was like yeah man a master

00:17:33.900 of human psychology using the advanced hypnosis technique of screaming stop when you want to 1.00

00:17:39.700 interrupt someone so obviously there are many things these guys do that are just scumbag shit 1.00

00:17:48.720 Just terrible things. 1.00

00:17:50.660 There are systems for getting around women who have spouses, right, or getting around the spouses so you can hook up with the women. 0.93

00:17:57.460 Love it.

00:17:57.900 There are a lot of tactics that involve, like, ignoring the person you're interested in or being mean to them in some way. 0.65

00:18:04.740 Wasn't this the thing if there's a hot chick, you should hit on her less hot friend?

00:18:08.980 Yes, yes. 0.98

00:18:09.720 Because, like, she's used to being the center of attention, but all of a sudden, Sheila is getting the guy hitting on her, and it makes her feel weird.

00:18:17.140 and then you can like scoop her up later or something that is correct uh that's a big part

00:18:21.160 of the book um there is one part of the book where there there's like diagrams that are drawn out

00:18:27.420 like fucking war plans like there's two girls at the bar and like i will move in from this direction 0.97

00:18:33.520 oh my god i'm gonna send you a diagram oh you're sending me the actual fucking diagram jesus christ 0.99

00:18:38.580 no no no not that one okay this is a different diagram the book is full of diagrams wait what 0.94

00:18:44.020 the fuck is this this is from mystery's workshop and it is a bunch of negs should should you explain

00:18:50.840 what a neg is yeah i guess so even though it's such a part of the culture now that i assume 0.99

00:18:55.240 everyone knows but a neg is when you intentionally say something rude with the idea being that they

00:19:03.940 will be a little bit offended and therefore sort of want to win your affection right so it's a

00:19:09.040 female diagram, like a woman, and then next to each, I guess, body part is like a neg. So like 1.00

00:19:16.160 a neg associated with each feature. Is that a wig? Oh, well, it looks nice anyway. I think your hair

00:19:23.820 would look better up. What do you call that hairstyle? The waffle? I like that skirt. Those

00:19:29.420 are really popular these days. Those shoes look really comfortable. And then another one is you

00:19:35.440 kind of have man hands which is that was just mean yeah some of them are like way too mean 1.00

00:19:41.540 where it's just like you look like a stupid bitch and i i don't understand how that's working i 0.98

00:19:47.260 a big theme of of nagging is that i don't know if this is a 2005 thing but they're like very 1.00

00:19:52.580 convinced that telling a girl that like another girl at the club is wearing the same thing will

00:19:57.620 just like devastate her oh yeah i i don't i don't know if that's true or not uh but they they seem

00:20:03.800 to believe very much that it is what's so frustrating about this is like there's a lot

00:20:08.180 of people that really struggle in these kind of interactions like talking to a person at a bar who

00:20:12.860 you don't know is the it's just the worst form of human interaction and it like it sucks that this

00:20:17.420 is what people have to do to date right so i get that like people would want to sort of systematize

00:20:22.660 this or have conversation openers that are more interesting than what do you do for a living or

00:20:28.360 like what's your name or something i sort of get the need for it but instead of guiding people to

00:20:33.460 like okay here's how to have like a meaningful conversation or like here's how to make somebody 0.90

00:20:37.300 comfortable it's like this shit where it's like here's how to manipulate somebody here's how to 0.98

00:20:41.880 seem like you're giving somebody a compliment but you're actually denigrating them and establishing 0.99

00:20:47.060 dominance in a conversation like this is where it goes from like oh they're helping people 1.00

00:20:51.320 into just like okay you're a huge piece of shit if you're telling people right you know there's 0.99

00:20:55.860 tons of like little shitty tactics they do but more than like any given tactic is offensive 1.00

00:21:01.620 There's just this general sense of sociopathy running through everything like they have

00:21:06.300 zero interest in the joy of other people except as a way to get things, zero concern for the

00:21:12.700 pain or discomfort of other people, except insofar as it interferes with their ability

00:21:17.200 to get things.

00:21:18.180 Right. 1.00

00:21:18.420 Sometimes it feels like there may be humanizing women, but then you quickly realize it's like 1.00

00:21:22.120 incidental.

00:21:23.200 Like they'll say things like, don't pressure women or make them feel unsafe.

00:21:26.960 but it's not like don't make them feel unsafe because they're human beings uh it's like don't

00:21:32.200 make them feel unsafe because then you might not hook up it feels like the the original sin of all 0.96

00:21:37.200 of this is a lot of people are just not well suited to pick people up in fucking bars right 0.64

00:21:42.640 it's an insanely difficult environment yes like i don't consider myself someone who has terrible 0.84

00:21:47.400 social skills or whatever but i have i like the the idea of just walking up to a stranger in a

00:21:52.320 bar and trying to like become their friend nightmare yeah total nightmare like a lot of

00:21:56.400 these guys should be like taking a cooking class or like learning french or something don't don't

00:22:01.860 give them new angles don't give them new angles think of all the opportunities for negging

00:22:06.140 in a cooking class a bird another one huh i guess he just didn't let it prove enough

00:22:13.160 you know and it's also not women alone who are treated poorly here like these guys are all

00:22:20.440 hanging out and a couple of them seem to be friends but their social dynamics are riddled

00:22:25.600 with jealousy and mistrust it's like they replicate all the toxic masculinity of like a 1980s high

00:22:32.900 school football team in a movie right but with none of like the male bonding yeah because some

00:22:37.220 of these guys would be better off just like making male friends like some of these guys

00:22:41.480 need intimacy the last thing i will say about like the strategies is that it's hard to divorce them

00:22:48.380 from like the age and type of the girls that they seem to be pursuing so they love the idea of like 0.71

00:22:56.640 the hot miami la club girl like blonde and big fake boobs they love fake boobs for some reason

00:23:03.220 okay this is the early to mid aughts so they're always being like bro this girl is so hot she's 0.99

00:23:08.840 got the flattest hair i've ever seen in my life you know but like the main thing here is that a 1.00

00:23:16.520 lot of these girls are super young and it's a thing where you're like are these great strategies 1.00

00:23:23.660 for picking up women or are these great strategies for picking up 21 year old women in la right in

00:23:32.520 2004 also should we mention the fact that because most people are drinking there's also like a level

00:23:39.480 of genuine questions of consent here too it's weird how little he mentions about that yeah at

00:23:45.980 no point is he like yeah this girl was a little bit wasted and yet they're all at clubs that you

00:23:51.540 know all the time yeah they're they're partying they're drinking obviously that's part of what's

00:23:56.780 happening here i would be a lot more like of a charming lothario if the person i'm trying to

00:24:01.400 pick up has had seven beers you don't have to have like a black light with you to get somebody like 0.90

00:24:06.720 that to go home with you imagine blood so you know some some poor girl is like at the end of 0.98

00:24:11.920 night just raging drunk and you just blast a black light in her face it's like wow what a lit

00:24:18.320 here oh no okay um so mystery and neil hit it off at this workshop right and mystery sort of like

00:24:30.140 makes him his protege they grow close they they ultimately end up traveling doing workshops

00:24:36.420 together and at one point early on mystery is like you can't just be neil bro you need to have

00:24:43.420 a seduction nickname why don't we call you style because neil i guess was like moderately well 0.92

00:24:49.780 dressed whatever that meant in 2005 okay all these dudes have stupid nicknames uh you've got mystery 0.96

00:24:55.720 and style there's sin juggler two-timer grimble that's that's a hobbit name yeah not everyone 1.00

00:25:04.900 has like a cool nickname right some guys just have stupid nicknames and you're like is that 0.96

00:25:08.820 getting you laid it also makes it extremely funny when someone involved doesn't have an insane 0.97

00:25:14.380 nickname like you'll have a dozen dudes with these with these crazy nicknames and they're like

00:25:18.580 and then also there was ross that's like uh that's like how you too is bono the edge and larry and

00:25:28.280 adam they weren't there that day when they were doing the names so are these guys introducing

00:25:35.000 themselves like when they meet women at clubs are they saying hi i'm style sometimes they do

00:25:39.560 sometimes they don't um but for the most part they are supposed to um they are like girls

00:25:45.260 throughout the book no neil as style these guys are like trying to have these entirely separate

00:25:54.100 personas and it's something that you like present to the chick oh my god you know what this is you

00:26:00.140 know how they deliberately write the nigerian prince emails to be like really bad so that they 0.90

00:26:08.860 don't waste their time with people who are like gonna check it and you want to get the real dummies 0.93

00:26:14.000 right yeah oh shit you're right part of this feels like this is fulfilling the same purpose 0.99

00:26:18.820 that like there's a huge number of people who the minute you introduce yourself as fucking 0.99

00:26:23.820 hi i'm grimble at a bar are just like okay have a good night right if you if you if some guy 0.90

00:26:30.360 introduces you himself as juggler after taking lint off your top and you don't break into a full

00:26:37.120 sprint in the other direction yeah maybe you're a more a little more susceptible to the tactics of

00:26:41.960 the game that's the thing and then it's this like survivorship bias where like anybody who makes it

00:26:46.960 past the grimble stage is like you don't actually have to be that charming at that point because

00:26:51.660 they're just like open to sort of whatever weird experience is going to come next it's true i mean

00:26:55.400 and they are you know they they are pretty explicit that although some of like the real

00:27:00.540 experts are like i can get any girl a big part of actually doing this is just like you approach a 0.93

00:27:05.660 lot of girls yeah and a lot of them are like fuck off yeah and eventually you find someone who

00:27:11.860 enjoys rune readings right i mean a lot of it is just numbers it has to be oh yeah for sure for 0.99

00:27:19.160 sure so we should probably talk about mystery himself uh because his personal troubles are a 0.99

00:27:26.860 big sort of b story in this book um he is a huge piece of shit uh he pressured his last girlfriend 1.00

00:27:36.920 into getting a boob job 1.00

00:27:38.160 and becoming a stripper 1.00

00:27:39.240 then dumped her 1.00

00:27:40.760 when she wouldn't have sex 0.99

00:27:42.220 with other girls. 1.00

00:27:43.280 Okay.

00:27:43.760 If you guessed

00:27:44.780 that perhaps someone like Mystery

00:27:46.520 is more interested

00:27:47.180 in controlling women 0.98

00:27:48.220 than attracting them, 0.98

00:27:50.100 congrats.

00:27:50.620 It is you

00:27:51.520 who is in fact

00:27:52.500 the master of psychology.

00:27:53.900 At one point

00:27:54.780 they are in Belgrade

00:27:55.780 and there's a little story

00:27:57.080 about Mystery

00:27:57.620 getting a girl at the bar

00:27:58.920 infatuated with him

00:28:00.320 and she starts calling him

00:28:01.620 and stuff like that.

00:28:02.680 And I think you're supposed

00:28:03.380 to be sort of impressed

00:28:04.260 that like this girl

00:28:05.360 met him for a brief period

00:28:06.780 of time and is now obsessed with him it is later revealed that she is 17 years old oh yeah yeah

00:28:15.100 mystery for reference is i believe in his late 20s at this point maybe a little older so yeah

00:28:21.040 i would say that it's actually uh not impressive to get a 17 year old to be a little bit obsessive

00:28:27.060 with you in fact every 17 year old is a little bit obsessive with everyone they have a slight 0.97

00:28:30.900 crush on crush on that's the whole point of being 17 yeah it's a big part of why it's so fucking 0.93

00:28:35.140 gross uh to uh to hit on 17 year olds yeah it's one of the reasons we don't do that at one point 0.65

00:28:42.100 neil is asking for advice on hooking up with a girl that he like actually likes and mystery's 1.00

00:28:46.720 advice is to get her alone and uh take his dick out just like take your dick out and uh and start 1.00

00:28:52.360 jerking off so what is there a prop for that i feel like that's probably in the bag of like what 1.00

00:28:59.340 like a little puppet uh this is only the props god gave you for this one

00:29:03.580 mystery is also very clearly emotionally unstable the book opens up with a flash forward of a mental

00:29:14.720 breakdown he's having uh there are scenes where he references his abusive father in ways that make

00:29:21.320 it clear he is like not well and could use some therapy at one point he snaps don't tell me what

00:29:27.260 to do my dad used to tell me what to do and he'll also say things that are like so on the nose

00:29:33.340 that it's hard to believe you're reading it he at one point he says i feel really bad about myself

00:29:38.780 and then a girl sleeps with me and i feel good again well that is sort of what i suspected mystery

00:29:46.700 you're in the right line of work mystery dudes will literally invent a system for seducing women

00:29:51.400 before going to therapy yeah let's talk about some of the other teachers the other pickup artist

00:29:56.560 teachers in the community of course they call themselves gurus obviously now style expressly

00:30:01.840 says that they all have one thing in common which is that they are obsessed with the idea that

00:30:06.060 they're the best at this and that the other teachers are like not as good oh nice and neil

00:30:10.900 describes like describes this as like a competing group of cults and you know each centered around

00:30:16.840 like one one weirdo yeah i'm gonna read you a quote from ross the hypnotist guy when he's sort

00:30:24.800 of like trying to bring neil into his crew you are being led into the inner sanctum of power my 0.96

00:30:32.320 young apprentice and the price for betrayal is dark beyond measure of your mortal mind

00:30:37.220 keep quiet and keep your promises and i will keep opening the door this man is like 29 this man has

00:30:44.120 a college degree why are you talking like this no i that guy is even older i think ross is one

00:30:52.220 of the older guys in the community it's like yeah it's very fedora era you know yeah these dudes who

00:30:58.220 are trying to be like i am i am a master of the dark arts it's like you're sleeping with buzzed

00:31:03.520 21 year olds and you know there's a running theme that a lot of these gurus not all of them

00:31:11.100 but some of them are fraudulent and are like only good at picking up anyone in very limited

00:31:16.940 conditions. Again, namely like very young and impressionable women in clubs who have had five 0.99

00:31:23.340 drinks. There's a point where style takes Ross, the hypnotist, to a fancy Hollywood party where 0.72

00:31:30.560 Ross just embarrasses himself repeatedly, including when he crawls around on all fours 1.00

00:31:36.980 pretending to be a dog sniffing Carmen Electra's ass. Oh my God. Wow. That's quite the 2004 cameo 1.00

00:31:44.580 as well yeah so the bulk of this book is just like tales of him trying to pick up girls or

00:31:51.980 observing other guys trying to pick up girls in various settings insanely boring i mean just yeah

00:31:57.360 super boring and he keeps it interesting in in part because they're in la and his neil's profile

00:32:04.640 is sort of rising as the book goes on not just within the community but also like with his

00:32:11.580 journalism because he's writing about this as it goes so he starts getting invited to cool parties

00:32:15.960 and shit so at one point he has a pickup competition with heidi fleiss the hollywood madam okay at one 0.99

00:32:22.280 point neil nearly gets his target uh intercepted by andy dick uh and then andy dick uh expresses 0.99

00:32:28.600 some interest in neil himself okay there's a night where everyone at a party is being super 0.98

00:32:32.580 nice to neil and uh telling him that they love him and stuff like that and he's like

00:32:36.300 sorry what's going on and then someone reveals that they that everyone thinks he's moby

00:32:40.000 there were only two bald white dudes in la at that time so i'm sure that happened a lot

00:32:50.360 he's doing interviews as his part of his job as a journalist and he's interviewing

00:32:55.420 celebrities like britney spears what and he's using like pickup artist techniques to get them

00:33:01.280 to like open up okay um and it's sort of working britney spears likes him he's like he's like is

00:33:07.100 that lint on your overalls just like i love you neil i'll tell you everything uh he meets courtney

00:33:14.020 love for a piece okay they end up hitting it off and she comes and crashes with him and his friends

00:33:18.620 for a bit okay and again this is like 2004 so i don't know if you recall but we're talking about

00:33:23.740 like the dead center of a very public struggle with addiction and mental health in courtney

00:33:29.040 loves life yeah but again for the most part the book is just countless variations of the same 0.82

00:33:34.340 basic dynamic like they show up somewhere there's a blonde hottie with fake boobs and someone tries

00:33:39.620 to pick her up with varying degrees of success there's also the thing where clearly neil strauss 0.91

00:33:45.280 is like a charming intelligent guy he starts off the book saying like i'm a i'm a dork who can't

00:33:52.080 get laid but he's also yeah i i think a very likable intelligent educated guy with a cool job

00:34:00.020 people will be interested in someone who's like confident and accomplished and all that right like

00:34:04.860 it's not like a total mystery why why neil is good at this after a bit right and it's not it's not

00:34:10.480 like the magic tricks that are doing it or the sort of like the gimmicky things or even like

00:34:15.840 the manipulation it's probably just a little bit of maybe practice or like little tips with like

00:34:22.080 how to make other people feel comfortable and build rapport yeah i think that's a huge part

00:34:26.180 of it and the rest of it is just replicating confidence until it turns into actual confidence

00:34:31.300 yeah and that's really all there is to it it never feels like there's a science here yeah so as the

00:34:37.300 book moves on the pickup artist industry is booming right like tons of different workshops

00:34:44.540 are springing up it's becoming more popular techniques are becoming refined neil is himself

00:34:51.700 becoming a bit of an icon within the community he's like writing on their little message boards

00:34:56.160 and stuff like that and he's just sort of having lots of sex and writing about it and trying to

00:35:01.260 make it interesting there's one bit where he like purports to be writing a few paragraphs

00:35:05.500 while having sex okay and the writing like devolves into gibberish and i was just like 0.97

00:35:10.800 i know you think this is cool neil but it is hack shit yeah absolutely hack yeah wasn't there also 0.99

00:35:17.860 one of my few memories of this book is that there's like an entire fucking chapter of him 0.96

00:35:22.680 having a threesome yeah and it's like really long and it it it didn't feel integral to the plot at 0.81

00:35:29.740 all it was just like you really wanted me to know about the threesome you had there are there are

00:35:34.780 several scenes where you're like i don't feel like this is driving the plot forward neil it really

00:35:38.700 feels like you wanted to tell me about this girl that you had sex with there's a ton of that and

00:35:43.100 yeah there's a threesome scene it's not interesting um it doesn't feel like the girls really wanted to

00:35:49.060 have a threesome and it's like congrats dude i guess you talked two girls uh into having a

00:35:54.420 threesome because they wanted to feel accepted awesome uh great so and you know again circling

00:36:01.820 back to the age of a lot of these women at one point he's dating a 19 year old okay he's in his

00:36:06.360 mid 30s nice and this is like one of the more serious relationships he has in the book and i'm

00:36:12.140 like are you like i can't even fathom this like i i talk to 19 year olds the same way i talk to

00:36:17.240 seven-year-olds you know like are you having fun at school great it's also it's like this probably

00:36:26.880 isn't true but isn't there something that like if you're a black belt in karate and you get in a bar

00:36:32.020 fight it's technically assault with a deadly weapon because you have these like extra skills

00:36:36.100 i'm sure that that's not true you're a lawyer peter you should you should know every law

00:36:40.660 this this was something that kids said in like the schoolyard when i was when i was growing up

00:36:45.060 But if you're as good at manipulating people, especially women, as Neil Strauss is by this

00:36:50.320 point, it really feels like double unethical to be dating somebody who's 19. 0.55

00:36:55.560 Right.

00:36:55.760 Once you're this good at it, it's like your ethical requirement not to go after people

00:37:01.220 that are drinking or that are younger or that have like mental illness stuff where they

00:37:06.300 can't totally consent or whatever.

00:37:08.320 It just seems like there needs to be a lot more like thought put into this or at least

00:37:13.240 more than he was putting into it at the time absolutely i mean this this particular story

00:37:18.540 felt like a little like the girl lives with her parents and she has like a one-year-old baby that

00:37:24.780 you know the father's out of the picture and you're just sort of like is this like neil are you 0.94

00:37:29.920 are you fucking kidding me with this are you fucking kidding me with this neil it's it feels 0.98

00:37:34.040 really gross but her shoes looked really comfortable that's how he got her so as this 1.00

00:37:40.320 as the book goes on the guys are becoming like more and more consumed with the lifestyle of

00:37:46.880 running game and again like it just keeps leading to all of their interactions and experiences being

00:37:52.520 viewed through the game framework there's a situation where he has a beef with a guy nicknamed

00:37:58.620 papa and a mutual friend is like hey neil papa's using tactics on you and tactics is just like

00:38:06.060 slang for psychological game okay and neil's like okay well what's he doing and the guy's like well

00:38:11.420 he's telling everyone not to talk to you okay well is that what tactics is that's a high school

00:38:16.600 that's a high school conflict i'm pretty pretty sure i saw some uh girls at first grade recess

00:38:21.760 running tactics in that case he's calling someone else but you're on the line but they don't know

00:38:28.880 that you're on the line yeah it's really sophisticated stuff he and mystery and some

00:38:34.080 of their buddies set up a sort of clubhouse

00:38:36.160 in LA which they call Project

00:38:38.200 Hollywood. It ends

00:38:40.200 up being like less of a party spot which

00:38:42.080 is what they envisioned and more of like a hub for

00:38:44.180 aspiring nerdy pickup artists.

00:38:46.680 That all falls apart when a 0.99

00:38:48.160 girl moves in and

00:38:49.860 she and Mystery fall in love and

00:38:52.060 they fall out of love and then she 0.76

00:38:54.100 and another housemate fall for each other.

00:38:56.140 The ensuing drama destroys

00:38:57.960 the household.

00:39:00.660 And that sort of brings us

00:39:02.060 back to mystery, we should put a wrap on his story, at least for now, because the book is sort

00:39:08.060 of following his ups and downs, and they are intense. His ups are pretty wild, and his downs

00:39:14.940 are pretty crazy. I told you he had a sort of mental breakdown that the book opens with. When

00:39:21.960 he is sort of entering that breakdown, he says that he plans to go to Eastern Europe, find two 0.96

00:39:28.640 young bisexual women get them visas bring them to canada to be strippers and magicians assistants 0.92

00:39:34.040 and neil is like okay well you know my quest for self-improvement has led me to white slavery 0.82

00:39:40.620 and that's where we are right now as plans go it's not great and to be clear just so everyone 0.52

00:39:49.880 feels better at no point does mystery take any steps towards that plan uh it's less of a serious

00:39:55.760 plan and more of just a signal that he's falling apart a little bit he starts giving away his

00:39:59.980 possessions including his like bed to his sister he's like my sister needs a good bed he's fairly 0.96

00:40:05.420 openly contemplating murder suicide of his father he does not do that because neil gets his family

00:40:11.860 to intervene and put him in the hospital it is wild that vh1 read this and was like let's give

00:40:17.480 this guy a show you know what i i was gonna say the producer who read this book and was like you

00:40:24.720 know what let's take this guy who has an obvious wide array of severe mental health issues that

00:40:30.900 he's burying inside a shallow pickup artist persona let's give him a tv show glorifying 0.83

00:40:37.100 that persona right i mean that guy is a a psychopath unmatched by anyone you read about

00:40:43.840 in the pages of this book itself yeah because mystery on some level is like kind of a tragic

00:40:47.940 figure yes but then the people who are like exploiting him and are like let's share his

00:40:53.060 lessons with the world this like broken man right that's so much worse because it's cynical oh god

00:40:59.620 the the fact that this book it sort of ostensibly wraps on this sort of like well you know what

00:41:07.040 this wasn't very fulfilling i guess you know i mean neil falls for a girl who likes him for like 0.96

00:41:13.720 his actual self and is like not impressed by this pickup artist shit and he's starting to doubt

00:41:19.100 whether like pickup artistry is the answer to his problems right and so like the last like 40 pages 0.95

00:41:24.720 of this book and it's a 450 page book yeah it's absurd the last 40 pages or so are just him being

00:41:32.380 like you know that was fun but like it wasn't very fulfilling and you know tale as old as time right

00:41:38.540 someone feels a void in their life and they try to fill it with some shallow pursuit or another

00:41:43.800 And then they realize that they misdiagnosed the void and can't find fulfillment in the

00:41:49.220 shallow pursuits.

00:41:50.340 Um, it almost, it's trite to the point where it feels like hacky and really disingenuous

00:41:54.480 because like his, his self-awareness, again, it feels a bit performative at times.

00:41:59.400 Like he knows that he's too smart to be taking this all too seriously and he needs to show

00:42:04.260 some self-awareness.

00:42:05.480 So like he'll talk about how shallow this is, how this is all an outgrowth of insecurity

00:42:11.420 and doesn't address the underlying problems. 0.99

00:42:13.360 but like yeah you just wrote for like 250 pages about all the pussy you got and it was like very 0.98

00:42:19.240 clear that you enjoyed yourself uh writing about it you know he's giving himself an arc right but 0.98

00:42:24.720 ultimately he's essentially publishing a guide to how to do this yeah and i think like to some

00:42:30.040 degree it's hard to tell whether the arc was real or whether he was like well i just wrote about how

00:42:37.120 i turned myself from a dork into a cool pickup artist right you don't want to end it end the

00:42:42.420 book with like well that was cool and i'm cool now see you later like that's right you have to

00:42:46.760 have something a little deeper and of course like the marketing is all about just like here's how

00:42:52.120 you pick up chicks right yeah yeah and it gets glommed onto by pop culture and they of course

00:42:57.980 skip over any life lessons or moral implications they glorify the pickup artist concept mystery

00:43:05.160 gets his tv show right the tactics that they um talk about throughout the story become so popular

00:43:12.080 that they're like no longer effective even in the course of the book like there's one point towards 0.97

00:43:17.100 the end of the book where they're in LA and they they use one of their stupid lines on some girls 0.95

00:43:22.760 and it's like one of those dumb questions like the the like you know name an ocean kind of thing 0.98

00:43:27.160 and the girls are like why have five guys asked me that same question in the past hour yeah

00:43:33.080 nice so as we get into the 2010s a lot of this stuff ages pretty poorly and so Neil spent a lot

00:43:42.020 of the last decade distancing himself from the game a little bit and like sort of half

00:43:47.280 apologizing.

00:43:48.480 Penancing.

00:43:49.200 He did an interview with The Atlantic in 2015 where he said, obviously, I was a journalist.

00:43:54.720 This community already existed and I went in to describe my experience of it.

00:43:59.160 But because no one had even heard of this world and the techniques, let's face it, are

00:44:03.260 so objectifying and horrifying that the book became the Bible of what it was trying to

00:44:07.740 chronicle in a more neutral way.

00:44:10.000 He's trying to be like, I was just reporting, right?

00:44:12.980 Yeah. 0.96

00:44:13.380 It's like, bro, you wrote a whole thing where you're like, I'm having sex right now. 0.95

00:44:20.220 It's like, come on, man.

00:44:22.340 Not only that, but a couple of years later, he follows it up with a book called The Rules

00:44:26.260 of the Game, which is just like a straightforward pickup artist manual.

00:44:32.100 Let's get all this stuff about how all of these men are like emotional husks out of here.

00:44:36.620 Get rid of the filler.

00:44:37.960 I just want the tips.

00:44:38.860 Right. And look, I get it. Right. Like there's only so many chances to cash in in your life as a writer. And, you know, some publisher was like, Neil, I got a million dollars for you. So like maybe it's not quite an endorsement. But like at that point, you have to you have to admit I sold my soul for this shit. Right. You can't you can't try to walk the tightrope of I was just a journalist or whatever.

00:45:01.800 Also, even if it was a journalistic account, I feel like the journalistic thing to do would 0.61

00:45:05.940 be to actually follow up with some of these women. 1.00

00:45:08.100 Right. 0.59

00:45:08.600 Be like, oh, yeah, you know, you went home with mystery last night.

00:45:11.740 How do you feel about it afterwards?

00:45:13.120 Like, do you feel tricked?

00:45:14.220 Do you feel deceived or manipulated?

00:45:16.080 Like, I have friends who've fallen for this.

00:45:18.640 Right.

00:45:18.900 And they sort of, they wake up the next morning and they're like, that guy didn't need to

00:45:22.720 feed his puppy.

00:45:23.500 He just wanted to get me to his house or whatever.

00:45:25.860 Like, the manipulation, once you're sober, once it's the light of day, you're like, that

00:45:30.760 was not a good faith spontaneous hookup right it feels like theater so like a journalist would 0.97

00:45:36.920 actually tell those fucking stories like really really basic journalism like what is the cost of 0.99

00:45:42.020 this yeah but he was trying to tell the unspoken tale of the male you know of how much sex the men 0.99

00:45:47.900 were having so what's the vibe i mean we've talked about this as we went but is your general vibe 1.00

00:45:53.600 these guys are disgusting assholes or these guys are just pathetic losers or even there's a third 1.00

00:45:59.600 way to you there's a much more sympathetic way right you can say like these guys are just trying 1.00

00:46:02.960 to better themselves and it came out wrong or it came out bad i think all three are true yeah it's

00:46:10.200 impossible to ignore the misogyny at the heart of this you're basically tricking women into going

00:46:19.160 home with you and right you're doing this not for the benefit of the women in any way you're

00:46:25.200 basically doing this to seek status among men. I think that there's like a critique of the critique

00:46:31.980 of this book that's like, oh, you think pickup artists are bad? Oh, I guess you think women 0.83

00:46:37.360 shouldn't be having sex. As a gay guy, I have had periods of my life where I go to bars and I hook 1.00

00:46:43.980 up with people. And I also get on some level that like, that's a fairly messy process and like a

00:46:50.060 little bit of help to like fake confidence or have a comfortable, fun conversation with a stranger,

00:46:55.680 I actually think is fine. Like on some level, it's okay to sort of help people get through

00:47:01.360 these interactions. But also that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about

00:47:06.580 bringing a fucking piece of lint with you to a club and like putting it on somebody and taking 1.00

00:47:12.060 it off of them to damage their self-esteem and make them vulnerable to you having sex with them 1.00

00:47:17.400 so you can brag about it later. 0.99

00:47:19.160 Yeah.

00:47:19.640 I mean, I do think that you could potentially veer

00:47:22.740 into being a little bit paternalistic,

00:47:25.180 a little bit puritanical

00:47:26.440 if you find yourself fretting that like,

00:47:29.180 oh, these women are being manipulated 0.86

00:47:30.960 into giving up their honor or something like that. 1.00

00:47:33.780 Right, right.

00:47:34.260 You're right.

00:47:34.660 There's almost like a light and polite dishonesty

00:47:37.460 that's part of hookup dynamics, right?

00:47:39.540 You puff yourself up a little bit.

00:47:40.880 You might make yourself a little bit more interesting.

00:47:44.580 You know, if someone, if you're not into hiking

00:47:46.420 and someone you're very attracted to says they love to hike, you might be like, yeah, me too.

00:47:50.120 Yeah, Peter, I live in Seattle. I do this all the time.

00:47:52.220 Yeah, I think I was a month six of my relationship with my now wife when she told me that she does 0.93

00:47:59.460 not like to work out, actually. But you know, what makes the pickup artist strategies so gross

00:48:06.680 is this like complete embrace of inauthenticity and the gamification of social interaction.

00:48:14.600 You know, it just ensures that whatever relationships ensue, whether it's casual sex or something more, there's this wall of inauthenticity between you.

00:48:24.280 You're just playing a game and the other person is the dehumanized object of the game.

00:48:29.020 Right.

00:48:29.200 And I think in a world where we are all constantly searching for human connection, there's something like particularly awful and sad about that.

00:48:38.340 The whole idea of it is misogynistic to its core.

00:48:42.060 Right.

00:48:42.300 On the other hand, I do think that, like, there's a large reservoir of insecure dudes in society who, like, don't really know how to do this stuff and are desperate for intimacy. 0.87

00:48:53.860 And we live in a culture that tells them that, like, it's impossible to form intimacy with other men because, like, that's gay, bro. 0.84

00:49:01.000 Yeah.

00:49:01.320 You know, it's hard not to have some sympathy for, like, the basic plight.

00:49:05.040 Yeah.

00:49:05.220 There's a lot of social pressure on men to have sex and to be cool, to be someone who women want to be with.

00:49:13.360 And society views sex as like something men earn and women give up. 0.77

00:49:19.000 Right.

00:49:19.220 A dynamic that is like unhealthy for everyone involved and has caused untold strife from negging to wars.

00:49:25.800 and if you squint hard enough at this stuff you can see this group of guys who maybe got like a

00:49:32.100 raw deal banding together and trying to figure out how to work their way out of it and it's almost

00:49:38.400 nice it's just sort of unfortunate that the only angle they could figure out is latching on to like

00:49:43.980 a mix of manipulation tactics and misogyny it's a little bit like i sort of get the people who join

00:49:50.820 like the proud boys or whatever yeah on a purely subjective level it feels like an attack on you

00:49:57.600 that like the world is changing and your position in society is less secure than it used to be 0.98

00:50:02.640 on a human level i get it but also at the end of the day you join the fucking proud boys 1.00

00:50:07.380 you're a huge piece of shit for doing that and i'm not i'm not going to retreat to being like 1.00

00:50:13.640 oh but they did the piece of shit thing for good reasons okay but yeah look at the destination 1.00

00:50:17.720 where they ended up a lot of other people have these concerns and don't end up like tricking 0.99

00:50:22.760 women into having sex right there's a difference between being like you know i i can see how

00:50:28.980 these tendencies might develop and being like so it's okay that you joined the proud boys right 0.61

00:50:35.420 no like you're you're a uh a rational living human being yeah you need to be able to recognize when

00:50:42.740 you're crossing those lines right when you're like i'm taking these frustrations and i'm

00:50:46.740 stepping into something awful and dangerous as you place your black light into your fanny pack

00:50:52.840 at 10 p.m. and head out to the bar you should you should have a little moment of reflection

00:50:59.660 should we talk about incels i was just because you mentioned the proud boys and i was gonna say

00:51:05.940 in a lot of ways as gross as some of this stuff is it feels really quaint i know when you look

00:51:13.720 at like modern incels i suppose male sexual frustration manifests differently and like

00:51:19.380 every generation each has its own strategies and philosophy about it like unique to the times

00:51:25.720 and the only thing they have in common is the steadfast refusal to envision women as uh living

00:51:31.460 breathing human beings yeah right yeah i do think it's fascinating that that incels began as a

00:51:37.780 reaction to the pickup artist right community right that it was like pua hate pickup artist hate

00:51:43.500 was the original incel subreddit yes the whole premise was that pickup artists are telling you

00:51:48.420 that you can change your lot right that if if you do this peacocking and negging and all this kind

00:51:53.060 of stuff you can score chicks and then the incel response was like no it's never gonna get better

00:51:58.960 right the pickup artists are saying like look we're dorks but with some strategies we can move up in

00:52:04.800 the social pecking order we can become cool dudes who get girls and the incel generation's nihilistic

00:52:11.320 right yeah they are like accepting that their society's losers and instead of trying to break

00:52:16.960 out of that they just dwell in their rage about it towards women and towards society yeah it's

00:52:22.260 a sense of entitlement right it's like very literally they're they're saying like these guys 0.98

00:52:27.260 are trying to give us these elaborate systems for hooking up with women why the fuck should we need 0.84

00:52:32.540 that yeah like why do we have to do this right which by the way is like not the worst most 0.99

00:52:37.140 unreasonable question it's not an unreasonable question because men are entitled to sex it's

00:52:42.160 more that like you're gazing out upon this like kind of bizarre social order that governs sex 0.99

00:52:48.000 in our and relationships in our society and being like what the fuck is all of this and i do think 0.96

00:52:52.800 that's kind of a normal reaction you know you just have to take it to a healthy place this is how i 0.99

00:52:57.500 look out on like straight dating norms i'm like what is this this this is like a fucking nature 0.82

00:53:04.160 documentary to me right yeah so yeah i mean both of these groups are holding out their lack of 0.89

00:53:11.180 sexual success as a grievance but the incels believe that it's an injustice right yeah and

00:53:17.760 so their solution is not to improve themselves to like develop some game or whatever but to lash out 0.81

00:53:24.380 violently yeah so you have elliot roger who murders women um because he's an incel mad that he didn't 1.00

00:53:31.960 get laid and he writes a fucking manifesto about his like entitlement to sex he says that he 1.00

00:53:38.740 deserved sex because he was a descendant of british aristocracy sure and it's like it's 0.99

00:53:45.840 just incoherent because they're grasping at like anything they can to like intellectualize this 0.97

00:53:51.840 anger they're feeling right they believe that they're owed sex and attention from women

00:53:55.940 and yeah no need for self-improvement all you do is just stew in your anger about not getting what

00:54:02.860 you believe that you're owed it's really bleak that we're at this point with like relations

00:54:07.940 between the sexes and especially the crisis of i think like straight white dudes where it's like 1.00

00:54:14.800 yeah i'll take the raging misogynists because the other option is fucking mass shooters oh god yeah 0.99

00:54:22.540 It's where, you know, you look at something like negging and you're like, wow, that is 1.00

00:54:27.480 just an awful way to look at, like, human communication. 0.91

00:54:32.620 And then you look at the incels and you're like, actually, maybe it's OK.

00:54:35.980 I don't know.

00:54:36.760 Keep negging, guys. 0.97

00:54:37.780 You're fine out there. 1.00

00:54:38.820 Maybe we let them nag. 1.00

00:54:39.680 I don't know. 1.00

00:54:41.100 The only truth is that whatever solution men come up with for these problems, it will 0.91

00:54:46.240 not be good for women.

00:54:47.540 Yeah, it's just a matter of where on the spectrum it lands. 0.55

00:54:50.440 Do you have a sense, Peter, of like why you never got sucked into this world?

00:54:54.060 I don't know.

00:54:54.580 I don't think that I was in the situation that a lot of the guys that are drawn to this are in.

00:54:59.640 Were you in cooking classes?

00:55:00.680 Were you learning French? 0.99

00:55:01.820 Maybe that's the secret. 0.99

00:55:03.100 No, I had one move and it's you see if a girl likes to smoke weed and then you're like, do you want to smoke weed? 1.00

00:55:13.460 That's actually much more effective than most of the props. 0.72

00:55:16.080 No, I'm the classic dude where it's like, I've got weed and I'm going to make you watch season three of The Sopranos.

00:55:21.500 And if we don't hook up, it's because I got way into The Sopranos.

If Books Could Kill - December 01, 2022

The Game

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