I don't bother much exposing PUAs these days since the damage has been done and the old scene almost completely imploded. Any PUA that is still around is trying to position himself as a life coach of sorts. The old anti-PUA posts on this blog still get some traffic, though. Quite recently, "Trageliv" left a comment on BradP, I'm onto you!Have a look. One issue I have not previously talked much about, but which I have noticed, is that PUAs seem to exploit, deliberately or accidentally, exploit certain personality traits. That reader, for instance, seemed to have been trapped in a "cult" due to a certain void in his life. After all, you don't start looking up to some "guru" for answers if your life is going well. The original post follows. Feel free to comment below.
Brad P definitely engages in fraudulent behavior.
The newsletters are being written by someone else, but signed Brad P - fraudulent (source: one of the coaches). After knowing this is Brad Ps character, who knows if it's even Brad P that has been posting on the forum?
After being named the worlds #1 PUA by some organization back in 2007 - 9 years ago ! - he still uses it in marketing - perhaps not directly fraudulent but shady. Definitely creepy and self-boosting. The danger is a lot of people on the forum actually think brad p is the #1 PUA in the world. I did too. But the only source I've heard this from is himself.
Posts weren't replied to and when they were it was very few times useful advice. And this for a very high USD price/month! The marketing was misleading, for that high amount I expect good coaching, that's the reason I'm paying. Marketing made it out that I would get coaching - fraudulent.
There was one good coach who actually had a conversation and took the time to help me out. But he just disappeared one day. I wonder why, the coaches probably don't have good enough incentive. Maybe they live under the delusion that they will get better at picking up women if the coach online themselves. This is one of the first things that is mentioned in the workbook, that you too can become a coach! So the circle continues, a cult is always looking to recruit.
Yes, a cult. I feel like I've been indoctrinated into a cult for years with the subscription based forum. I'm obsessed with the forum. The first thing I start thinking about on in the morning is the forum and the brad p logo. Not how to talk to girls, not concrete things I'm going to do to better my life. Trying to break free now. I've become more weird socially over the years of listening to PU, totally fucked me up.
That's the word I was waiting for while reading this post: Cult. Like Scientology, this cult of snake oil marketing is looking for people with voids in their life so they can act like they're filling it instantly for cash, and that you too can help people just like yourself. This marketing strategy is as old as evangelism.
ReplyDeleteAaron, what is your take on the recent shift of many of the big names in the PUA community shifting their focus to "entrepreneurship" training? I know it has been going on for a while now in the form of ex-PUA's shifting their focus to self-help and David DeAngelo went back to being Eban Pagan, but now RSD is really starting to go the whole entrepreneur skills route and now we have all these psudeo-entrepreneurs popping up that know everything about marketing but close to nothing about how to read and interpret financial data. It's like MLM without the opportunity to get paid and instead paying thousands of dollars more for training.
ReplyDeleteI think that would be worth a separate post. Coming up.
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