Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/22/pick-up-artist-jailed-afte.html
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The “pick-up artist” community, a sexist self-improvement cult centered around manipulating and bothering women into sex, needs no introduction. And like many of its stars, Adnan “Addy A-game” Ahman is little more than an incel who graduated to sexual harassment.
Whatever part of the “manosphere” sector of the alt-right one is in, misogyny is the constant.
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i hate these people. I don’t like to use the word hate lightly but I hate them.
I am on the autistic spectrum , and I was deeply harmed in the 2000s because when i genuinely wanted to increase my social skils, all i found were shitty handwavy advice like “be confident, you’d great as you are” and… th PUAs.
The PUAs had a nugget of corn in their shit: they acknowledged that you should exercise, be more willing to talk to people, and that not always agreeing with folks can be more attactive. (Not “negging” but real, playful teasing in the right way can be a good flirt).
I deeply, deeply regret that I probably pushed away good people because I was mistakenly saw friendship and romance as a dichotomy that’s established extremely early in a relationship.
I feel like I had some of the best years of my life stolen by a toxic ideology.
Luckily I wasn’t off in bars in weird hats insulting women (or worse, like this asshole), but it took longer than it should to date in a healthy way.
And there’s no excuse nowadays. If you go to /r/fitness there’s plans. If you go to /r/depression there’s resources and guides. It’s not 2004. People like in the OP aren’t failing to find good resources, they’re actively rejecting them.
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There is STILL a vacuum of learning to be social. I’d say it’s even worse than it was 15 years ago. People are more isolated, usually online, and the dark forces that play in those dark corners are stronger than they were then. Sick fuckers like this guy need to be put away for years and “communities” of these incel types stamped out of existence.
Where are the groups of guys that get together socially and are not hellbent on wreaking havoc on women and humanity? Why has toxicity come in to roost?
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I just watched this video that touches on your questions. I’d also add in factors like the “Geek Social Fallacies” and the parallels with cult recruiting.
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I got through the first 36 seconds and then my stomach flipped and I almost had to puke so I turned it off.
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Yeah, I watched the whole thing. It gets worse in a lot of ways, especially since many of us know a “Gabe”. Still informative if you can stomach it, and he does put a warning on it at the start.
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“Not for the politically correct,” as he used to say.
Or for anyone with a shred of human decency for that matter.
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They consider human decency a political position which, since cruelty is the point, they have none. The Alt-Reich enjoy the suffering and misery of others, that’s the core of their entire way of life. The bigotry and preying on the vulnerable aren’t incidental to their outlook, they’re the key to it. Their entire raison d’etre is to make life worse for other people, even when it’s detrimental to themselves.
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That’s mostly because folks aren’t willing to give authentic advice.
They teach you to set boundaries and what appropriate behavior is. They don’t teach you things like “if the person violating your boundaries is powerful, it’s better to document the issue and quietly search for a new job”.
I sometimes struggle with being too blunt, rude, or aggressive because for many people I correctly intuit they will never be happy with me unless I let them treat me badly.
I look forward to the day I am financially independent so that I do not have to tolerate such behaviors.
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ugh. I know a few (near-)Gabes. This video should be obligatory viewing material for adolescents leaving home. Though it’s rather scary to watch.
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This is about white supremacists targeting white boys online, but it’s a lot of the same mechanisms:
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Adnan “Addy A-game” Ahman
That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about this guy.
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“Hi, my name is…”
[cringes audibly]
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That’s all well and good, unless the source of your social anxiety is practically knowing someone will misinterpret your well-intentioned gesture as an insult and will hold a grudge forever because of it. Or when you aren’t sending the right social cues, so people think you’re icy and aloof, then you overcorrect and they call you fake, cloying, and obsessive. It’s sure hard to be confident when you’re threading a needle you can’t even see.
Gag.
I thought I could learn social skills from them, but no, all they teach is how to be abusive. I came from an abusive family, so I can’t put enough distance between me and them.
This is just baby steps stuff. And then…
Here’s some authentic advice:
All advice on this subject is bullshit. It only works 50% of the time, max, and it’s highly context-dependent. And if you ask for help, you will get told that in the real world nobody will help you, or that they feel weird about helping you, or they will ridicule you for being a college graduate who doesn’t understand what their five-year-old understands intuitively. So, don’t expect progress, and certainly don’t expect linear progress, but do what works until it doesn’t, make a note of it, and prepare to fail. Prepare to fail a lot and to piss a lot of people off in the process.
It’s like navigating a maze. Some people have a map, and other people have to navigate the sharp corners blindfolded. We may come out the other side battered and bloodied, but we still come out the other side.
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the problem is there’s a narrow window where failing is ok. once you’re past grad school age it’s seen as weird and bad and the consequences are not as simple as “cute girl from psych class decides not to go on a second date” - it becomes not being invited to speak at conferences or being denied roles because the hire was given to someone who’s friends with the hiring manager.
for example i matched with somone on a dating app and sent them a nonshitty message (basically saying they seem cool, referencing a shared interest, and asking if they were also from south bay). later they ended up working the booth at a conference and were visibly uncomfortable when one of my friends walked me over to give a personal reference i be interviewed for a role.
i found out later she told her coworkers she didn’t feel comfortable around me and refused to elaborate.
now that i’m older i’d probably have spoken up to our mutual and produced screenshots to show they were basically sexually harassing me, but i was young and so afriad of offending people i didn’t even realize i was a victim.
there’s been other things like that, and while i’m really thankful i never descended into toxicity, i also feel lonely and fed up with people - i live in a low cost of living area and plan to retire early somewhere rural, away from people in the next 5-10 years.
i feel like if i was free of the stress of work / networking i’d be content to work on personal projects and socialize online.
(I regret not coming to the comments here sooner, you folks are a good bunch 
)
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