Dylan was a DJ with asymmetrical hair and over-sized glasses. I had the same hair with confetti crosses and rhinestones glued to my face, so it wasn’t so weird that our mouths collided in a club. What was weird was learning that this kid I’d made out with a few times was on a reality TV show…about the “art” of picking up women.
“Pick-up artists” are clans of straight men who use techniques like wearing furry hats or studying psychological cues to seduce women. “The Pick-up Artist” was a show on vh1, hosted by PUA “guru” Mystery, who trained “inept nerds” to become pick-up artists. Here, Dylan tells us all about being on the show, how the hell he got there and what his inside look at PUA taught him.
Okay, so we made out. But you were on a show about not being able to get women?
*Laughs* I mean the cast was made up of a lot of people in the entertainment industry. In the interview process I knew what they wanted to see. I was pulled through a casting agency, back in those days I fancied myself an “actor”. I just magnified traits that were already part of my personality: nerdy, wacky, funny and tried to mold them into a narrative that made me easily labeled as “undateable”. That being said they actually were interacting with real people and getting genuine responses.
When I booked the show I was pretty sure it was Beauty and the Geek because of the description, I didn’t know the show was for the art of pick up or I might not have done it. To be honest, I needed the money.
You went through casting, made up a character, what happened next?
So ultimately they sent me back home, I just missed the cut. They said they would contact me if something changed. Then in the middle of a rehearsal for a stage show I was managing with the Neo-Futurists, I got the call . I found out at I was going to be the “Final Challenge.” I had done such a good job with my interview they had deemed me the grand prize of unfuckability.
So, you got schooled on how to act in order to get women to sleep with you?
So the first night they had me stand against the wall at the side of the club, they were supposed to get shots of women ignoring me and me looking like a total wallflower. This was before I was “trained”. But women kept coming up to me, talking about my sweater or my glasses or my haircut so it was funny the next day when my Mentor explained I needed to develop something that makes me stand out, he showed me gaudy jewelry, ridiculous hats, how he bleached his hair and spiked it. I asked, how’s that was any different from what I was already doing?
My guy seemed serious, but the other guy Cosmo was CLEARLY an actor and a fake and I could sense from the second we were all in the same room that the producers already knew they wanted Cosmo to win and that it would make for the best story line.
Did they teach you to “neg”?
They explained all the basic concepts of Pick Up: false time constraint (always acting like you have somewhere to be, something more important to do), separating your target from the pack, identifying the mother hen.
They only have me on tape saying two openers. I wouldn’t say the others, they were racist and sexist. I remember one of them used the term “africa titties” and one was just a shitty gay joke like “what do you call a gay dinosaur”– “a dino-sore-ass” So i stuck with the palatable one “do you think Herman is an unfuckable name?”
And you were also a new made-over you.
My make-over: I ended up looking like super producer JR Rotem. Black and purple corduroy blazer, dbag jersey vomit jeans, a dino tooth necklace spikey bro hair and white 100$ sunglasses. So gross.
So, what happened on the show?
They took us to an unz unz club, they had columns with hidden cameras. I was told my objective was to get women on “the VIP couch” and it was pretty easy to convince women to go to VIP. There, you signed a waiver– basically your release.
Cosmo and his inept nerd ended up winning the 50,000 dollars, they had told us different objectives and were able to edit it together in a way that made sense. But I got recognized for 2 years, amazingly. One episode about 10 minutes of airtime–2 YEARS.
Does pick-up work?
Why pick up works is that a lot of women seem to have a hard time turning a guy down, or saying they don’t want to give their number out, as if they owe it to his feelings, or want to spare him the embarrassment.
So what is your take on art of pick-up, after getting this window into the world?
They say that you’re just trying to give these ladies “a really fun night”. They have so many weird justifications for why you as a dude have the right to completely interrupt and insert yourself into a woman’ s night. They’ve created process in which a dude breaks down a woman’s sense of self worth by preying on her insecurities while simultaneously lying or inflating the truth to heighten his own “value”.
The most pervasive and cancerous plight Pick Up has brought American bro culture is negging. And the dark Jedi shit is when you get into assigning consent based on “IOI’s” Indicators of Interest, so if she touches her hair twice and puts on lip gloss after she blinks then its OK for you to touch/kiss her. It’s a pretty terrible system that can lead to problematic outcomes. But the ideas on body language itself, posture, deciphering verbage… That’s actually interesting and can be worthwhile to think about. I just don’t get why, as a culture, we abandon asking for consent.
12 Comments
Hearing that you were going to interview someone that was on a show like this, I went into it thinking he would be a jerk. The guy seems very likable, smart, and knew exactly what he was getting into (except for the actual show).
Yeah, I think what made it so interesting to me was that Dylan was so cool, an yet, wait you were on what show?!? Meeting him and then hearing this is kind of one of those brain explosion moments.
This was awesome and completely different to what I expected.
Dylan sounds awesome & it’s an interesting perspective – as someone who did this but was skeptical about it. The interview made me laugh in a couple of places (like when he describes what he looked like after his makeover!).
I knew about negging, which is bad enough, but didn’t know about the IOIs. That’s beyond fucked up. Yuck. Consent should never be “assigned” to anyone, it’s given or it’s not.
in defense of negs
great interview. it is always amazing to see how much staging there is behind reality shows.
about negs. i was first introduced to this concept when I read the book “The Game” by Neil Strauss. it seemed counterintuitive and so i tried it out and was amazed by the results.
my concept of a neg is entirely different from the one dylan is talking about. the thing you have to realize is that there are a lot of men out there who are genuinely nice guys and have internalized the idea that women are these frail little flowers you always have to compliment, whose feelings you have to anticipate and satisfy, and whose egos are so weak that if you ever actually say what is on your mind they will be devastated.
so we compliment, we listen, we self deprecate, and women get bored and start looking around the bar. they are actually tired of some stranger coming up and putting them on a pedestal just because they look good in a skirt or a pair of doc martens.
any reasonably attractive women has men doing this all the time, offering to do things for her, help her with stuff, whatever. the whole point of the neg is to say, i am sexually interested in you, but not a pushover.
it makes no sense to neg a girl on something that might really be hurtful. that’s just stupid. it is banter. sexualized teasing. and a lot of nice guys have no idea how to do it or that women really like it.
it is much more accurate to say that it is the man who is insecure. the woman isn’t all trembly, she has guys playing up to her all the time, and this never happens to most guys. the neg just levels the playing field. you aren’t trashing the woman, you can compliment her or show appreciation, but if she does something bratty or entitled, you call her on it in a playful way. you are showing her she isn’t above you, yeah she is attractive, but for you to want to spend time with her, she will have to show you more.
in case you haven’t noticed, women do this all the time to men. women are the master neggers. you tease us about our word choice or our coordination, or make fun of our clothes. it isn’t mean! it is just showing conditional interest, playfully poking fun.
once i figured this out it transformed how i interacted with women. i remember my first neg: a cute girl who worked at starbucks came out on the patio to sweep and i said, “so, doing some work for a change?”
ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, i was amazed at the response, she laughed, she lit up, she began to expand on all the ways in which she was truly lazy. she was relieved! finally, talking to a guy with a bit of spirit, and not some other guy asking her major or saying she was cute.
negs are what provide the sexual tension to an interaction, and keep them from becoming bland and boring. and women with good self esteem love them. (you don’t use them on women with low self esteem. duh.)
no doubt there are guys out there who do prey on women’s insecurities, and this is obviously all wrong, but a lot of these guys who call themselves pick up artists are in reality just picking up social skills and it is a good thing, i think.
i will leave you, finally, with a clip of a neg, flawlessly executed, by a nebbishy guy talking to a movie star. with just a few words, he wipes out all the advantages she has as a beautiful woman, and a celebrity in relation to him. and after that, they just talk, as equals. and look at the expression on her face. she is fascinated. )if you don’t want to watch the whole clip, start at 3:40)
a well executed neg is a thing of beauty.
Ooh, counter perspective.
“I knew about negging, which is bad enough, but didn’t know about the IOIs. That’s beyond fucked up. Yuck. Consent should never be “assigned” to anyone, it’s given or it’s not.”
IOIs are not about assigning consent. They are about reading consent/interest. In a culture where direct verbal inquisition is often seen as awkward, moment-ruining, and timid (“may I touch your shoulder briefly as a way of nonverbally communicating rapport and a hint of attraction?”) especially in the early flirty stages, nonverbal communication rules. IOI discourse is nothing more than training wheels to help get guys started on paying attention to and understanding those nonverbal cues.
You have to understand that the guys that find IOI discourse useful are the awkward guys who have difficulty reading social situations. They are not predatory guys who are looking for an excuse to rape someone, and later say “but she flipped her hair and stirred her drink and smiled!” (Our culture already does that for rapists, no?) No, they are guys who probably even need to be told that if a woman touches you then it is okay to touch her back, much less be told how to gauge whether or not someone is probably receptive to you initiating a minor escalation.
IOIs are all about learning to read nonverbal cues and body language. Not in a manipulative way, but in a responsive way. The guys that are trying to bypass consent do not give a rats ass about IOIs, because they are irrelevant to them. IOIs are training wheels to get guys started on reading nonverbal cues, not assigning consent despite the intent of the woman.
Good god.
Certainly there is plenty of misogynistic, manipulative, problematic, nasty stuff in PUA culture. I am not denying that. But of all the things to criticize, IOI discourse is probably the least deserving. If anything, IOI discourse will make guys more aware of consent/nonconsent, and less likely to cross boundaries. That was certainly my experience, in any case.
Again, I realize there is a lot of problematic stuff in PUA culture/teachings. But do not throw the baby out with the bath water.
(Also, co-signing what Skeet said. Negs can absolutely be problematic. But I interpret negs-done-right to basically be synonymous with teasing banter, and not pedestalizing women as delicate wilting flowers.)
We abandon consent because some folks still think giving consent isn’t sexy. The idea that a good girl has to be pushed past her no because she can’t say yes is still alive and well. By good I mean good to pursue, it’s all about the chase for the hunter.
I was prey bagged by such a liar and a thief because I wanted to believe the lies. This one wanted to see if he could create a real pair bond. He actually showed me the books and told me about the techniques and I still fell for it because he seemed so geeky that using anything seemed valid. Geeks deserve love too.
It works because of rank desperation. Yours, his, hers…it’s all that pathetic meeting up in a club and hoping to find real love. The funny thing is when you find it you run the other way. Neg all you want but someone needs to write a book about how to actually inhabit the relationship.
I think I met skeet apnea’s Swedish cousin at a club once, a club I like to call “The U.N. of Douchebags.” This guy ushered me outside to talk and then went in for the kill: “All of the women in Sweden are blonde and beautiful. What do YOU have to offer me?”
He sounded really serious, so I’m not sure that he actually expected me to laugh, but I did— with one loud, obnoxious “HA!” And then I asked, “So, wait, is this how you expected this interaction would go: I would be charmed by your stupid, casually racist statement about Aryan beauty ideals and then offer up some reason why you should waste your precious time with me, like ‘I give great blowjobs even though I have this *ugly* brown hair’, am I right?” And then I just walked back inside, because waiting for him to recover enough to give me an answer was rather a waste of *my* precious time.
Oh, but if only I’d realized he was just trying to take away all of that *social power* I have as a pretty lady in a club full of dudes trying to grope me, I would have been so much nicer to him!
LoriA:
Mystery does say that the reaction to a neg should be laughter.
“Oh, but if only I’d realized he was just trying to take away all of that *social power* I have as a pretty lady in a club full of dudes trying to grope me, I would have been so much nicer to him!”
There are different areas of social power. The groping you experienced is certainly not power on your part. Such an assertion would be ridiculous. But I think the kind of social power he is talking about is more along the lines of what Norah Vincent describes in “Self-Made Man” when she posed as a man and tried to approach women:
“We don’t have to do the part where you cross the room and you go up to a stranger that you’ve never met in the middle of a room full of people and say the first words. And those first words are so hard to say without sounding like a cheeseball or sounding like a jerk.”
From the male perspective, women have a great deal of power in that kind of interaction. Being the initiator is actually a role of submission by default (think: applying for a job) and you have to be particularly confident and have a lot of social chops to break out of that. As as guy, you are put in the position of having to prove yourself to her (not necessarily by her, but at least by social norms/indoctrination).
And I think negs-done-right can, indeed, be helpful in breaking out of that dynamic. Although I agree it is problematic to try to flip the dynamic and put the woman in that position. No one should have to be in that position, woman or man. Because it is a shitty position to be in. It is an asshole move to try to put someone in that position, regardless of your or their gender.
It should just be people having a good time, getting to know each other, enjoying each other’s company… and if there is an attraction there, things can go from there. Unfortunately, that is completely unactionable as a piece of advice (along the lines of “just be yourself”). Many people need training wheels and practice (during which they will screw up sometimes) to build up the mindset and social skills to allow that to happen.
@Xakudo
I’m loathe to turn this woman’s awesome blog into a site of insipid debate, so I’ll make this quick.
1. Laughter is not always a sign of joy. Sometimes it’s a sign of exasperation. I have enough things in my life that exasperate me, and I don’t need another one walking up to me on a night I’m trying to enjoy myself.
2. You don’t get how these ‘patriarchy’ and ‘privilege’ things work, do you? Here: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=feminism+101
3. The idea that ‘being yourself’ doesn’t work can be disproven by any man who’s hooked up with me… or any other intelligent, self-respecting woman. And, yes, some of those men are socially awkward, but *decent* human beings.
LoriA:
My apologies; my remark that sparked your point #1 was intended to be humorous. Of course I agree with everything you said there. Tone of voice is notoriously difficult to communicate in plain text.
As for FF101, I have read it quite thoroughly, and have been reading/participating in the feminist (and broader social justice) blogosphere for quite some time, and was fairly well read on feminism even before then. So if I have a disagreement with you, it is unlikely to be due to broad ignorance of any major areas of feminist thought. (I am thoroughly familiar with privilege discourse, for example. I simply disagree that privilege is a one-way street on the axis of gender, though I think it generally is one-way on most other axis’. But that is, indeed, a discussion for another time, and another space.)
Finally, the problem with the advice “just be yourself” is that it is not actionable advice. I agree that it is good advice. Really, I do. But it is the kind of advice that leaves one wondering, “How the hell do I do that?” Especially, for example, if (as was the case with me) the part of yourself you are trying to reveal/express is your sensual/sexual side. Both men and women have a lot of nasty double binds in this area of self expression, and it can be intensely difficult to navigate whilst still being true to yourself.
But even just in general “just be yourself” is difficult advice to follow, especially if one has not already developed the self-confidence to do so in a given context. And there is substantial interplay between “just do what comes naturally” and “follow appropriate social norms/scripts”. And how much of which to pay attention to, in which situations, and which parts of yourself to show in what contexts, and to what granularity… it is really difficult.
And not just for men, but for women too. Which is part of why it is so confusing to me when people fail to recognize how difficult and nebulous “just be yourself” is as a piece of advice. It provides zero tools to the person receiving it. It is really more of a heading, under which one expects to find sub-items that one can then actually act upon. In fact, I would say that “be yourself” isn’t so much a piece of advice as it is a goal. You still need advice to help you achieve it.
“Just be yourself” is a lot like telling a beginning art student, “Just express yourself!” without further instruction. It is good advice. But it also is not terribly helpful or meaningful to most people without additional advice to help them accomplish it.
That is what I mean when I say that it is not actionable advice.
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