Why I don't care about "community drama" anymore

I was the first inside critic of the "seduction community". I have wrecked the reputation of several marketers who posed as masters of seduction, and I even spent a good chunk of time analyzing the fundamental problems of this industry in an ebook I released free of charge, Debunking the Seduction Community. I edited a related book, Johnny’s Journey: Critical Lessons from my Involvement with the Seduction Community, which is likewise freely available. Some of the topics these books discuss are the deceptiveness of the industry, an explanation of the pickup business model and why honesty doesn't pay if you want to make money in it, and also how even fraudulent "gurus" can portray an aura of competence with women. In short, if you are marketing to guys who are both very inexperienced with women and gullible, it does not take much to find another idiot. The problem, though, and this is why pickup companies don't last long, is that it's not so easy to get a steady supply of gullible idiots.


For me, the "seduction community", which is about financially exploiting men, and which also isn't a "community", is more or less done as a topic. It just bores me seeing the same nonsense carried out over and over. Doing  your research and drawing your own conclusions may be difficult for some, but, unlike before I had started my anti-community activities, nowadays you can easily find relevant information on the Internet, and plenty of guys do find my material. I still get the occasional email where guys tell me that they are glad that I kept them from wasting their money on some "guru", or wasting their time on dubious pickup methods that focus on "techniques" instead of the basics.

Yet, because of my somewhat prominent role as a critic of the "community", people also frequently reach out to me, asking for advice or help. Sometimes, if I receive a reasonably well-written email, I may just put it on my blog, if the sender approves. Other times, though, people ask me to chime in into ongoing fights, or want me to call out some guru on my blog. Sadly, those kinds of emails often come from people who are not very articulate, which means that instead of simply copy and pasting a text, I'd have to spend much more energy on attacking people who are about as intellectually engaging as your average six-year old. I called out several "gurus", and demonstrated that they are full of shit. Just because that there is some new guy who is trying to sell the old nonsense doesn't mean that he would provide any entertainment value for me. Calling out a guy like Vince Kelvin is fun for a while. Lambasting yet another wannabe guru is just more of the same. Picking apart a pseudo-intellectual book on pickup like Mark Manson's Models: Attract Women Through Honesty is a nice relaxing activity, good for unwinding after a day of genuinely intellectually challenging work. Being asked to critique every semi-intelligibly written book on pickup is not. Some people and products caught my attention first, which is why I spent some time on them. That I don't criticize other products, as a particularly misguided guy once claimed, does not mean that I support them. Sure, if I don't criticize it, it can't be bad. How dumb can people be?

The reason why I'm writing this post is that in recent weeks some people tried to drag me into community drama, and I'm just getting tired of it. I will just briefly go through three events, and point out why I just don't care enough to get involved in any big way.

First, some weeks ago someone discovered that Chris from Good Looking Loser was seemingly using actresses in some of his videos, or at the very least they came across some contradictions. Here's a hint, though: you cannot just videotape someone. So, whenever there is an "in-field video" that does not blur the face of a woman and possibly even distort their voice, you're dealing with someone who does not know about personality rights, or who simply hired actresses. Further, the more professional the setup is, the more likely it is that something fishy has been going on. I've seen videos of a professional quality, where a camera man must have been very close to the ongoing interaction between "guru" and victim, so there is no way the woman in question could not have been aware of it. So, use your brain, and keep in mind that a proper camera setup takes some space.

Second, there were two guys who emailed me about their experience with Justin Wayne. After they had been ripped off, they had the smart idea to google him, and then came across some old blog posts. One guy bought materials he thought weren't worth the money. He didn't pay with credit card (why?), and now Justin Wayne's "customer service" doesn't honor the promised money-back guarantee. The other guy paid for a boot camp and was very dissatisfied for some reasons. He thought he hadn't gotten much help and there were no demos either. Now, if you end up paying for a boot camp, then maybe discuss with your instructor exactly what you are paying for, and what you expect in return for your money. Paying, not complaining, and then trying to vent your anger afterwards through a third party (me) is hardly the right way to go about this. Then again, PUAs deliberately target meek men, so such experiences cannot be surprising. If anything, the take home message is that you have to learn to stand up for yourself because otherwise everybody, women, children, PUAs, will just walk all over you. Note that this is not an endorsement of boot camps. I do think that one-on-one instruction from a guy who actually gets laid and understands what he is doing can work very well; the standard pickup boot camp formula is flawed, though, which I have explained elsewhere ad nauseam already.

Lastly, some PUAs and manuresphere bloggers are getting their panties into a twist as well. I'm not informed too much about the details, so I will just quote a recent comment by 'Anonymous' on this blog:

This is getting weird. Apparently StrengthBySonny is ilovelamp who is promoting this thing about his blackhat SEO. Chris is indeed sending Social fucking Kenny emails threatening to sue him, lol wtf?

So basically, all of the "anti-puas" are getting into a huge pissing match, just like the old school PUAs used to be.

Meanwhile Roosh is busy getting into a war with the red pill/manosphere community.

And I've recently seen people trying to get D&P to engage in some crossfire as well.

I think Aaron is right to stay out of this mess. I don't know what's going on, but there seems to be a semi-coordinated effort to get all of these people in the "I want to get hot women" communities, in-fighting.

I don't agree with the conclusion. In my opinion, the reason why we see those fights is to generate attention. This is a clear parallel to the old "seduction community", where gurus also had their rivalries. Those were primarily marketing feuds, nothing more. In particular Roosh seems very adept at stirring the shit in an attempt to get attention. That guy made it into the international press and national TV with his venom. As the saying goes, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Sadly, I don't think there is much truth to it, so while, for instance, Roosh feverishly tries to piss off even more people, he is also turning himself into a pariah. The same happened with other PUAs, including some who were somewhat less confrontational.

In summary, the reason why I don't bother with contemporary community drama has several reasons: first, the combination of new faces and the same old nonsense is not very appealing for me. I've got other fish to fry. Second, there is enough information out there, so if you claim you've been scammed by deceptive marketing, then you should ask yourself why you didn't bother spending ten minutes on Google instead of swallowing dubious promises hook, line, and sinker. Third, I'm not even sure what the manuresphere is all about nowadays, but I do know that their leaders are often not particularly smart people. It's the seduction community in new clothing, with the same old deceptions, similar cult-like behavior, and kindergarten antics. We've been through this.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!
(Also, if you’ve got a comment that is off-topic or only tangentially related to this article, then please post in the most recent Open Thread. Thank you.)