Improving the Reward to Effort Ratio

Johnny, a reader of my blog, brought up some interesting points in reply to my post Reddit.com Q&A Afterthoughts.

I feel day game in general has very low reward to effort ratio. Street game is just downright pathetic in this regard. I was initially sold on the idea that not every chick goes to bars/clubs but everyone definitely has to, say, do grocery shopping. Very quickly, after getting my first 10-15 numbers (and all of them flaked), I realized that it is a complete waste of time. You have zero control over the variables involved.

I completely agree with this statement. What is particularly questionable about street game is that you often can’t even make a good guess about basic compatibility because most people have to dress in a certain way for work. Obviously, you’ll do a lot better if you are able to style yourself for a particular audience.

Exclusive Pictures of Mystery

I'm currently going through a backlog of emails, and I'm surprised what some people have dug up. For instance, one guy who requested to remain completely anonymous sent me some nice pictures of Mystery. Well, I'll just repost them and you can form your own opinions of it. I think he looks a bit goofy, though. On the other hand, if I accidentally end up in a mainstream club with one of my "obscene" T shirts and skinny jeans, I'll probably look just as out of place.

Something serious and something funny

I've gotten quite a few emails lately in which people pointed me towards strange videos or articles.

The first one is from a US TV show named "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!". The hosts debunk pseudoscience and popular beliefs. Personally, I can't stand TV shows with very few exceptions, and the big issue with informative formats is that there is usually precious little actual content, given the length.

Anyway, one of this show's recent episodes was on "Teen Sex" and how US society tries to prevent it from happening. As if this country wasn't uptight enough yet. Have a look:





The other video is an old one by Mystery. It came with this email:

I was browsing the puahate forum and I found this hilarious video with Mystery. Maybe you have seen it already but I thought I would share anyway.

I just love the girls body language.
I can`t believe I once thought this guy was cool.

I fully agree. It's an interesting study of awkwardness:

Putting the Fun back into Pickup

Given the rather high comic value of the pickup community, I always wondered why there aren't many people openly mocking fun of it and parody it. Admittedly, PUAHate is sometimes great at displaying the nonsense of the scene, but as far as parodies are concerned, not much has been around.

There were some attempts such as the hilarious article "Fast Seduction 101 and wikiHow" on Something Awful, which, among other things ridiculed the bizarre acronyms in use on mASF, and cited from retarded to downright scary posts. (Too bad they didn't cover some of the sickening "rape reports" such Gruenfeld's Hottie Hardcore LMR day2, but such is not funny but tragic and I hope that karma has gotten this a**hole by now.)

The article on Something Awful appeared over three years ago, but it didn't seem to catch on. Back then idiocy was about as rampant as it is nowadays, and Mehow had yet to appear on the scene.

Back then I also wasn't aware that developing an "insider vocabulary" was part of the marketing techniques, and it is actually part of the content of the products of fraudulent Internet marketers. For instance, convicted felon Frank Kern (who cut his teeth in the Internet marketing business by running a pyramid scheme) draws plenty of examples from the seduction industry. But people watching those programs apparently take it too seriously since they have paid serious money for it, or, in case of the US, just took out some more loans.

I also remember a parody of Mystery and Style in which a dude in horrible make up who calls himself "Misery" is teaching some geeks a couple of concepts from Mystery Method. His assistant has the name "Stylus". This was when the Nintendo DS was on the height of its popularity. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the video on Youtube.

What I did find, though, was this hilarious "tribute" to my favorite Polish PUA, Mehow:



I haven't heard anything from Mehow in a while. Rumors were that he wasn't doing that great these days, financially speaking. Then again, has he ever?

But none of this reached the extent of a thorough parody, but recently once guy crossed this threshold. He calls himself OGFurious. At first I wasn't sure whether he really is serious, but thankfully he has this message at the end of his videos:

Here is one of my favourites:



Indeed, unlike the other PUA videos which are unintentionally funny (again, Mehow comes to mind), this is a guy who makes parodies on purpose, and it's not bad at all.

Also check out this one:



Keep smiling. :)

(Thanks to JonniD for telling me about OGFurious).

The Marketing Syndicate and the Business Cycle of the Seduction Industry, Part I

Salty Droid recently ran a couple of very interesting posts about a syndicate of Internet marketers. Given the close relationship between “gurus” in the seduction industry and Internet marketers --- it is often said that Internet marketers are the gurus of the seduction marketers ---, those findings are indeed revealing and can be used to draw many parallels. If you have followed the seduction industry for a while, a lot of it will sound eerily familiar to you.

Here is Salty Droid’s take on the Syndicate:

The Syndicate is a cartel at the center of the get rich quick world of Internet Marketing. Each of the members tries to pass himself off as a freewheeling entrepreneur. (…) Each sells a version of this easy freedom in a bottle to seekers … the sadder the seeker … the better. But the dream :: like the cake :: is a lie. Success in “the industry” correlates not with value :: individuality :: or effort … but with proximity to a toxic core whose basic operations constitute a serious felony and moral failing.

In plain language this means that we have Internet marketers A, B, C, …, N who all have their own special products that cater for a certain problem. But the seduction industry does not have people worrying about improving their “click-through rate” but instead minimizing the number of flaky phone numbers, which then gives rise to a 3 DVD set with the title “No Flakes!”, co-created by Vin DiCarlo, one of my long-time favourites. Maybe Vin should start to work out if he gets too many flakes.

Of course this level of specialization only started after the big categories like “routines-based game” and “direct game” were filled, in addition to whatever it is that Real Social Dynamics is advocating. Then there was a focus on “day game” and the online game fraction is getting bigger, too.

If you have been around for a while, you might have noticed that there was always a release to look forward to. Neil Strauss aka. Style released his “Annihilation Method”, Venusian Arts their “Mind of Mystery”, and Mehow had his “Infield Exposed”, which is easily the most bizarre stuff I have ever seen. Then another crop of people turned up. Suddenly PUATraining and “Gambler” were pushing products. By that time people were telling me that if you have signed up for one guy’s newsletter, you suddenly got bombarded by emails in which other products were being pushed as well. This was arguably the phase when cross-promoting (affiliate marketing) got popular.

By that time people seemed to slowly wake up to all the nonsense those companies spout out. Of course, if there is a ton of competition you better differentiate yourself and find your own niche. However, for the amount of money some people charge for a scaminar seminar on “how to pickup strippers” you could directly spend it on the strippers yourself --- and have sex with them until you are getting sick of it.

But back to “The Syndicate” and Salty Droid:

The Syndicate keeps prices high :: and dissent low. The Syndicate all but eliminates marketplace competition. (…) The Syndicate uses tough :: tasteless :: and intimidating tactics to defend against what it sees as threats to its unrightful domain.

The comment about price-fixing was true at least until recently. While Neil Strauss wanted to sell his “Annihilation Method” DVDs for close to $4.000, which is downright obscene, others were a bit more modest and just charged the comparatively modest sum of two grand. Unfortunately for our sad bunch of seduction gurus, the Seduction Market is much smaller than the market the Internet goo-roos want to serve, which presumably includes a lot of wannabe seduction gurus. For this reason you still have the Internet crowd trying to charge two grand for their "products", but the seduction gurus either stopped producing DVDs or lowered the prices drastically. Some people now sell their DVD sets for less than $200, which is still an extremely high figure given production costs. Others such as Real Social Dynamics have stopped releasing “programs” altogether, which is a shame since I was so eagerly looking forward to the stuff that was supposed to be released after the “Blueprint” and “Flawless Natural”. RSD claimed it would “really blow your mind”, but I guess it won’t anymore. Shame on all those "piratefags".

To be continued...

PUA Comic

A friend (thanks, Neill!) pointed me towards a website named PUA Comic, which makes fun of the community via comic strips. I like the idea, which is why I support it via a link from this blog. Besides, it has made me laugh twice so far, which is at about the same level as Vin DiCarlo's recent newsletter.

Here's a snippet:

...and here's the rest of this particular comic strip if this piqued your interest.

Keep an eye on PUA Comic! I sure will.

I feel like posting one of my unreleased "lay reports"

As I was browsing some sites today, I came across this quote by Mystery:

The amateur will hit on a woman right away. We wait 8 minutes.

I chuckled and thought what you can do in eight minutes. One of the projects I want to finish this year is the sequel to Sleazy Stories, and it features plenty of encounters that found their natural completion in less time.

But that's enough mouth-watering since my (free) ebook "Debunking the Seduction Community" is not out yet. It is currently on the desk of my editor and if everything goes as planned, it will be out next week.

Call: Bogus Community Concepts

I will soon release a (free) ebook based on my talk "Overcoming the Seduction Community". The people I have mentioned this to thought as well that this was a great idea. Some suggested to discuss some particularly harmful community concepts. As a consequence, I have expanded the draft to include examples of the mental masturbation that is so rampant in the community.

One section will be on Mystery's "Seven Hour Rule". One guy commented:

Also, do me a favor, dedicate an entire chapter in your ebook bashing the 7 hour rule and why it is bullshit. I've read field reports from guys who had a girl in their bedroom dripping wet, but didn't fuck her because they didn't want to break the 7 hour rule and have "fool's mate". Mystery is by far the worst guru in my opinion. 

What is your favourite nonsense concept? Feel free to send me an email or comment below.

A first draft should be out next week. I intend to regularly update the ebook, so feel free to email me any time.