Pickup artist

A pickup artist is a man who trains in the skills and art of finding, attracting, and seducing women.^{[citation needed]} Such a man purportedly abides by a certain system deemed effective by that community in his attempts to seduce women.

The use of pickup in this context, slang for making a casual acquaintance with a stranger in anticipation of sexual relations, dates from at least World War II, as attested by antiprostitution posters,^[1][2] and is again attested in the 1970 book How to Pick Up Girls by Eric Weber.^[3] The phrase was also popularized by Pick-Up Times, a short-lived 1970s magazine and the 1987 semi-autobiographical film The Pick-up Artist, written and directed by James Toback.^[4]

Long used,^{[citation needed]} the term "pickup artist" was the title of a 1987 film, The Pick-up Artist, a romantic comedy starred Molly Ringwald and Robert Downey Jr.. More recently was the publication of Neil Strauss's book, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, and in 2007, the reality television series, The Pickup Artist, shown on VH1, starring pickup artist Mystery (Erik von Markovik) .

The term pickup artist is also associated with the seduction community, a heterosexual male subculture which strives to improve sexual and romantic abilities with women.^{[citation needed]} Routines and gambits are developed to stimulate purported "attraction switches" often combined with techniques derived from an alleged form of hypnosis called neuro-linguistic programming.^[5] They aim to improve their seductive capabilities through the development of different lifestyles. The culture surrounding pickup has spawned an entire industry servicing those who want to improve their social and seduction skills with consultations and in-field training.^{[citation needed]}

Pickup artists receive mixed to negative responses from the press and general public, with many regarding both the practice and theory immoral, sexist and ineffective. The pickup artist has also been parodied, as in the March 2011 The Scott Mills Show, and BBC Radio 1 debated Neil Strauss' The Game in many shows.^[6] And, also parodied and portrayed by the YouTube channel, Simple Pickup.^[7] A comic strip parody was also released in 2013 with the title "the Pickup Pros" showing a humorous approach to pick up professionals.^[8]

Roosh V, described as a pickup artist, has self-published 14 books offering advice and tips on techniques to pickup and seduce women. He has turned picking up girls into a self-supporting lifestyle.^[9] According to Salon, such books are the "cash cow" of the pickup industry.^[10]

Pickup is often devided into diffrent styles, which diffrent coaches in the industry focus at. Outergame is a very tactical style of picking up women and was most common in early stadges of the community. Innergame has it focus on your internal development as a person.

Different ways of approaching a women is also divided into "direct game" or "indirect game" ^[11]

Criticism as pseudoscience

The Pickup Artist diverse systems purport to be scientific, psychological theories, in the sense that they claim to provide empirically-testable claims about the nature of human sexuality. (Each variation of the system claims that using the techniques propounded by certain "pickup artists" is on average more effective than not using them in one's attempts to seduce women.) However, the claims of Pick Up Artists are not made in peer-reviewed psychological or social science journals, and central figures in the community such as Mystery and Neil Strauss have no formal training in psychology or the methodologies of the social sciences.

Professional psychologists who have examined one older Pick Up Artist technique referred to as Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), ridicule it as pseudo-science; psychiatrist Roderique Davis has called it a "cargo-cult psychology." According to Tom Chivers from The Telegraph, social psychologist Dr. Petra Boynton said in 2010 that she was not aware of any objective evidence of effectiveness for any claims of Pickup Artists.^[12]. However, as of 2013 there is no objective study disproving the effectiveness of the Pick Up Artist technique.

See also

• Dating
• Dating coach

References

General