“The Pickup Game” is an inside look at the emergence of the ‘pickup’ industry – a business where self-styled seduction coaches travel the world, charging a small fortune to teach men skills they claim will guarantee success with women.
The million-dollar Pickup Artist industry that teaches men how to easily seduce any woman they desire began in the 1980s with a man named Ross Jeffries who learned how to apply the art of persuasion after constantly being rejected by women. Jeffries stumbled upon the conversational hypnosis art of persuasion and began studying these teachings and applying them. He eventually became known as the Godfather of Seduction, sleeping with as many beautiful women as his heart desired. Before social media, he began sharing his teaching in a small online community and it kicked off a chain reaction for other men to follow in his footsteps.
I was always curious about these techniques as this entire community is rampant on YouTube. I mean, a man can say a few words and a woman ends up sleeping with him? What?! Of course, men are enticed. What kinds of words hold such power I wonder as these pickup artists have never had any success with me. So one of the main strategies pertains to creating a character and having women believe it, such as confidence. Another is to have them think of you as high value and once she believes you are a top quality man who can get whoever he wants, this will have the women chasing him. They also teach to never compliment women and this leaves her begging for the man’s approval, apparently putting the male in the dominant position so he can manipulate the woman into doing whatever he says. The seminars and boot camps do not come cheap, they can cost up to $25,000 dollars, a price many young men are willing to pay, especially those who’ve been rejected their whole life and see this as a way of gaining their power back.
An undercover journalist, Neil Strauss, secretly lived amongst a group of pickup artist instructors in Hollywood and exposed all of their strategies in his book called ‘The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists,’ which opened up the industry in a way big way. Many men began studying the strategies and capitalized off those with low self-esteem desperate to be in the power seat with women. As a few of them wear glasses with secret cameras, they record their interactions with these women to share with their students. It gets scary as many of the men are not just looking for ways to get a pretty woman to fall for them, they are out for revenge for every woman that has ever turned them down. Footage of men getting women drunk and taking them back to their apartments and having their way with them crosses the line to sexual assault. Many men become downright predators as they hunt down as many women as they can, disregarding any emotions or respect. Video footage uploaded online by a pickup artist landed him in trouble with the law as he records grabbing a woman by the head and facing her face onto his crotch. When women took to social media exposing these men in outrage, justice was served. A woman who studied psychology working in the business herself reveals that the techniques prey on insecure women. They are designed to put a woman in a mind-frame of being continuously flattered then rejected so she can keep coming back for approval, wondering what’s wrong with her. But it also attracts men who are desperate and seeking validation and false hope. It creates a brotherhood where they can talk about their problems and get support from one another.
An ex pickup artist explains that the lifestyle leaves you feeling numb and very unhappy because in order to be successful with many women in this manner you must become emotionally detached which means you never feel love. What a terrible way to live! But the documentary is exciting and now I can spot one of these fools a mile away.
“The Pickup Game” recently had its U.S. Premiere at DOC NYC
