Should Pickup Go Mainstream?
When my best guy friend Lance confessed that he was getting into “pickup,” I must admit my first reaction was disgust. He sent me some field reports, and it just seemed so “clinical” and”awful.” We’ve been friends for years and I knew he was a great guy, but those reports gave me the willies. Once I put my gut reaction aside and listened, he made the (perfectly legitimate) claim that guys weren’t trained in the social arts the way women are in our society. If you accept that premise, then it makes sense that if these things don’t come naturally to you (as they don’t to most people), then you have to learn from somewhere.
The thing that still bothers me is how objective, even clinical, these field reports often are. Objectification of women is bothersome enough in and of itself, especially for someone like me who wrote her dissertation on women’s activism. However, objectification aside, how can anyone credibly make the claim that providing people with a vocabulary that enables someone to divorce themselves and their emotions from interactions fosters a more social frame of mind? That still doesn’t make much sense to me, though I get the impression that once you’re “better” at pickup, your game is instinctual enough that you can focus a little more on the person you’re talking to.
So should pickup go mainstream? Certainly there are millions of guys (and girls, for that matter) who could benefit from using a structured system of attraction to a) give them confidence in social situations, b) provide them with a vocabulary to analyze their successes and failures, and c) outline attainable goals and a trajectory for self-improvement.
Need for something doesn’t always guarantee success, however, and certainly pickup has quite a reputation to overcome if going mainstream is the goal. I think the key to deciding whether or not pickup should go mainstream is looking at the possible effects of doing so. I see one really important positive effect, along with two biggies that make pickup going mainstream a really bad idea.
On the positive side, taking pickup mainstream would force our society to devote resources to something we value, i.e., communication. Obviously, to succeed in life you have to be a good communicator. This means that your communication style has to be not only effective, but also appealing. I’ve taught at the university level for six years and I’m here to say that we’ve barely got the former down, let alone the latter.
If pickup went mainstream, people would realize how desperately we need these skills; there would be a public outcry to rectify the situation, and resources (time and money) would be devoted to helping the many people who need it. This is good for everyone”prominent PUAs sell more books and people stop wanting to shoot themselves in the face at bars because guys are so boring/crass/stupid/awkward/creepy.
Everyone wins, right?
On the flip side, the quality of the average PUA would almost certainly decline. I find myself comparing pickup to the educational system. For example, I’m getting a PhD in rhetoric, so the average student in my program is amazingly intelligent and hard-working. However, if you take an average of everyone who graduated from high school, that average looks quite different just because there are so many more people in the sample.
I’m totally down with the idea of multiple intelligences and believe me, there are plenty of things I suck at. Royally. However, the point is if every schmoe who buys a lady a drink at a bar is out there calling himself a PUA, then it only makes it harder for the true artists out there to be taken seriously.
Additionally, the perception that PUAs are “elite” would probably disappear. Education in general has that effect. Back in the days when America was made up of small farmers, just being literate was an achievement. Now Bachelor’s degrees are the new high school diplomas”necessary for even the most entry-level of jobs and, while the majority of people don’t have college degrees, it’s nothing to write home about, either.
If pickup went mainstream, then it’s my guess some sort of certification process would need to be created to regulate it. This would enable the field to separate the amateurs from the pros, weed out the con artists, and make people feel they’d gotten their money’s worth out of their pickup education.
A project like that requires central organization and even more public scrutiny than pickup receives now. Is that something the industry is prepared for? And we all know how little respect teachers get in today’s society”primary and secondary school teachers are underpaid and overworked, and even at the university level 70% of college courses are taught by adjuncts and graduate students without health care benefits or job security. Believe me, no one wants that fate.
One of the biggest things that I think contemporary pickup has going for it is that these are men (and women, to a lesser extent) who are driven”committed to self-improvement and willing to put in the hard work and many setbacks that it takes to achieve their goals. If pickup becomes just one more thing that people are pressured to learn, it takes the fun out. Not only that, but it also takes the wind out of the sails of those amazing people who make self-improvement, teaching, and the giving of value such a major component of their life’s work.
All best,
Honey Smith
photo by besighyawn
Thought of in that way…I see why pick-up going mainstream can diminish it’s appeal…while it will help make money… but it can ruin it’s credibility…. and still make the guy’s in the club stop looking so bad…. but all in all not only is this a run-on sentence but to many guys are holding onto their ego for their lives and it’s just to hard to let go unless they’re introduced to the game by someone who they admire.
How would Pickup go mainstream? By what means? How do we determine when it has happened? I consider it to be fairly mainstream right now. But maybe thats cuz its a central part of my reality.
Do you mean a mainstream fad (quick & huge) or a mainstream movement (slow & growing). An example of Mainstream huge & quick would be the new Dark knight movie. Its really big news right now, but its not going to remain that way for a very long time. An example of a Mainstream Movement would be like the gradual success of Apple Computer products. Generally, fads are lame, Movements are usually cool.
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Going mainstream benefits the product makers; the Guru’s and PUA companies. It doesn’t really benefit the everyday inhabitant of the community.
I would probably find it kind of annoying. People would join my local lair and act like total idiots. At least the way they get into it now is a bit more low key.
I think even if pickup would go mainstream it is just the way with learning routines and stuff
the natural game pcikup style is much more harder to learn. I think it will be like “alternative” or “indie” in the music buisness.
Everyone goes mainstream but we are still the cool “alternative” guys who rally rock
I think it has the possibility of increasing our mainstream visibility. We’re on Maxim Radio, developing more and more websites for major Fortune 500 companies, and doing TV, and that’s just The Art of Charm. The natural game movement within the community is slowly taking the lion’s share of the market, and will eventually expand beyond it. No longer are we guests in the circus of Dr. Phil, but getting our OWN shows, on TV and radio, even if Mystery’s VH1 show is still behind the laughter curtain.
-Jordan
http://www.pickuppodcast.com
I’m defining “going mainstream” as the moment when people who aren’t involved in the pickup movement consider it a credible, valid, respectable way for people/men to spend their time. Pickup may currently be “in the public eye,” and is becoming more and more well-known, but I don’t think the majority of people outside of the movement think of it as a legitimate career/method of self-improvement. This is part of the reason why supply currently matches demand, or nearly so–those who want to participate in the movement can (by attending workshops by well known PUAs, buying e-books, etc.).
If this movement were considered credible by the majority of people, you’d have a different situation (way more hacks trying to cash in on the movement leading to a certification process to guarantee quality, a general inaccessibility of the more well known PUAs, etc.). To use solid’s example, I bet Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were very hands-on when they were trying to make a name for themselves. Now that so many people own Apple Computers, they have become less and less accessible to the average computer user.