The pick-up industry and bodybuilding share more layers and mechanisms than it appears at first sight. Like wood and stone, they have different structures, but if the colors are flowing, the elements compliment each other nicely.
It’s not a coincidence that the scholars of each craft collaborate frequently. After all, men seeking self-improvement for one primary reason, to appeal to women, form the cores of both specialties.
Bodybuilding and strength training can technically occupy another context, but for most men, external admiration is the most common motivation to join the legion fighting gravity.
In this post, I will present 10 spectacular similarities between bodybuilding and the pick up industry.
1. They offer you a path to an alternate reality but deliver…..
The pick-up and the muscle industry want to seduce you with surreal images. They promise you stunning girls and barbaric muscle mass.
The average pick-up apprentice lives a life fully opposing to that of a regular brah. The suave masters have created a reality for themselves that you could only dream of. All the girls that you see, they can have them. Ok. Maybe not all of them but most.
While you are playing LoL or WoW, they are practicing a different kind of game – the one that gets you the warmth you have always wanted. And if you are willing to do what they tell you, you might just get it.
Sounds familiar? With a few different words, the copy above could find itself in a bodybuilding advert.
Muscle construction is also based on the idea that you can have something larger than life – something that neither your family nor the average losers around you can touch.
The gatekeepers promise you a physique capable of producing glorious admiration. The average kid sees a solution to everything in the muscle shield and invests.
In both cases, we observe alternate realities that appeal heavily to the ordinary male suffocated by monetary and social depression.
The sexual adventures and the respect that pick-up techniques and large arms can produce feel like a logical cure. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. One thing is certain, though – those alternate realities manifest only for a small minority of people. In both cases, the actual conditions that will lead to the promised results are different than the originally presented blueprints.
Your success as a pick-up artist is based on two fundamentals:
a. Your appearance – the more attractive you are physically according to the built-in beauty meter in the average female, the more they love you;
b. Money – the richer you are, the easier it is to arrange the necessary material ecosystem (e.g., apartment, car…etc.) for grand sex.
The popular principles of pick-up like “negging”, “holding frame” and others could be helpful, but they are details rather than foundation. They cannot compensate fully for shortages in the previous departments. They are similar to bodybuilding supplements – additions rather than workhorses.
When it comes to bodybuilding, steroids and genetics play the respective roles of money and looks. The men with the nicest physiques are those who have good genes and take drugs.
The average natural man does not enjoy the status of celebrities. For him, the original strategy produces neither a harem nor the body stats of a fitness model or a bodybuilder. There is an effect in the desired direction, but in both situations, it is not nearly as massive as the reports suggest.
2. The plan allegedly works for everybody except it doesn’t.
The sellers of hope will tell you to ignore the lines above. They prefer the crowd to be of the opinion that a properly executed routine in the gym or in front of a girl results in extremely satisfying results for everybody. This simply isn’t the case. You can’t equalize people. There isn’t a factory that can turn anything into everything.
They keep this a secret because despair does not multiply their clients. Hope does that. It’s all business. The plot maximizes profit while remaining politically correct.
Just like the personal trainer feeding you silly exercises to activate some ultra-secret fibers, the pick-up coach spams you with his sexual conquests while lying to you that you can compensate for your poverty or looks by negging some girl.
To keep the dream alive, the mainstream muscle media relies on images of men on steroids. The pick-up industry is also artificially conditioning you to believe in miracles. They do it with help of hired actors, paid fiction writers and psychology based reassurance.
In both cases, the natural reality is far different than the promises made to you.
3. Both resemble a pyramid scheme
The pyramidal structure of the muscle industry is presented in this post.
The pick-up community operates similarly. It creates the illusion that the average man can ascend to phenomenal heights in his quest for attracting partners. He can improve to the point where women throw themselves at him. Those who master game will have the ability to rotate bitches like shoes.
There are videos showcasing men kissing random women a few minutes upon meeting. It wouldn’t take you a long time in the approach game to realize how impossible that is except in two situations:
a. A staged environment.
b. Ultra-rare conditions e.g., a super attractive male meets a super horny girl at the right place.
And while very few buy this nonsense, the imagery still has an impact on your subconscious mind just like the photos of pro bodybuilders. Many boys sign up for the self-improvement classes that can make you a “slayer”.
Once they are in the pick-up system, the masterminds try to exploit their naivety, ignorance and wishful thinking by selling them products with varying effectiveness. Among those are fiction books presented as true stories, dick pumps, penis enlargement systems, over-thought texting manuals…etc. Some of those products may have some value, but they are not part of the fundamentals – money and looks.
If members of a community start to criticize it, they are silenced and ridiculed by individuals occupying the higher levels of the pyramid.
Those at the top have stopped deploying the tactics they are selling long ago because they realize how ineffective they are. But since they benefit from the work of the minions below them, they let the circus go.
Every year, new recruits join the camp and try to become “gangsters” by buying the right clothes.
4. Weakness catalyzes the effect.
In both cases, the primary “investors” are vulnerable men up for the taking. Selling protein powder to kids who haven’t tasted the real nastiness of life is easier.
Ultimately, both industries need you in a state of ignorance, distraction and weakness to trick you. You can never con a man who knows what’s up.
5. Those who profit the least, try the hardest.
A mesomorph feels the least need to lift. He is big by default. Yet he is also the one enjoying the most compliments and attention once he enters the gym.
Meanwhile, the skinny ectomorphs do “hardgainer” routines and break their bones to lift barbells that their frames were never designed for only to be asked frequently whether they even train.
The same property describes the men who benefit the most from “red pill” pick-up tactics. Those would be individuals who are already high-value thanks to their looks and money.
Ultimately, the men who invest the most in their pick-up careers are those who profit the least. You gotta love this world.
6. They sell useless products.
Every fitness sensation launches a supplement line eventually. The new powders are supposed to be different than the older generation but are not. There may by some improvement in flavor and mixing, but the end result is still the same – protein powder is protein powder; creatine is creatine; The signature of a pro on the box does not change that. When you add the five-page e-books telling you how to do biceps curls, you have a recipe for garbage return on your investment.
7. They focus on variables that don’t matter.
I don’t have the nerves to tolerate training videos. I have heard the secret one too many times. Some things in life are fun only the first 100 times you do them. Listening to a pro explaining how to do a lat pull-down is one of them.
The scholars constantly talk about training and nutrition for one reason only – it’s safe [politically correct] and easy. Very few dare to touch the dark subjects. They prefer to continue with the baby talk about hip drive, muscle activation and other baloney. It suits the agenda. If they were to focus on the real force, their empires would collapse.
They sell you a different way to achieve the same thing – a good body. The barbell elitists push barbell training; the bodybuilders push machine and pump; the bodyweight guys give you push-ups and pull-ups. Those are just details no different than political candidates. People can elect whoever they want. The controllers win regardless of your choice. They don’t gamble. They are the house. And as you know – the house always ends up on top.
Pick-up is not very different. The masters would tailor your text messages, tell you what kinds of clothes to buy, maybe even give you a discount on a new “alpha” perfume, but they won’t make you fundamentally more attractive or richer. In fact, they will make you poorer.
8. They always criticize the user rather than the program in case of failure.
If a program succeeds, it’s genius.
If a program fails, the user is doing it wrong.
Sounds familiar? Yeah, we have already seen the movie – a kid starts doing the latest routine only to stagnate at mediocre numbers and bath in criticism coming from those who “did it right”.
This is one of the reasons why many programs implement multiple requirements. They want to create more opportunities for you to fail and blame yourself rather than the creators. It works.
The same applies to pick-up. If an approach ends up in rejection, it’s always YOUR fault. You didn’t do what you were supposed to. You said the wrong thing at the wrong time. You are not wearing the right clothes. You are letting emotions surface. You are not holding your composure.
It’s always you. It’s never them.
Ironically, when you win, they always explain your success with their phenomenal programs. More often than not the program is nothing special, but the user still gets results thanks to his genetics and perseverance.
9. A strong population of loyal house slaves.
Some slaves betray their own brothers for a marginally better treatment e.g., sleeping in the stable instead of in the field. The tense of the verb is correct since those people exist to this very day.
The same concept finds an interpretation in bodybuilding and pick-up. There are many natties who would never reach the level of their idols and yet continue to buy questionable products and defend the masters from criticism. Those men are ridiculed by the industry just like everybody else but for some reason keep serving the agenda.
What is the benefit for them?
Some don’t get anything. They do it because they don’t know any better and would rather believe the oppressors than their own class. Others are affiliates and receive some form of remuneration.
10. Lots of fake stories
On the Internet, everyone is boosting their stats – from lifts to girls. If you don’t believe me, just go to the gym and observe. Where are the people benching 225lbs on their first day? Where are the uncles deadlifting 700lbs naturally?
In the digital age, people take great pride in their online image. We want to look as good as possible for the strangers stalking us. People are afraid to be themselves (average) online. Offline you can’t hide it, but the Internet gives you an opportunity to change your story.
The dudes constantly reminding you of their harems are lying too. Can you imagine a guy who is consistently getting girls dwell on multiple pick-up forums?
Ask yourself this – who are those places attracting? They appeal primarily to men who are actually struggling with women. The success stories resembling porn scripts are as true as people’s e-lifts.
You don’t have to believe me. Years ago, I was a dreamer too.
Both prey on naive weak men.
So much of the world, across industry and even the government and military work much like fake faith healers.
The placebo effect is real and so is natural recovery from disease, sometimes even serious diseases can spontaneously reverse themselves. Additionally stress can make the healing process difficult, or create phantom symptoms, and stress can be relieved through a kind of “trust therapy”. That’s not even including the plants a fraud healer will use to show miraculous healing, or tricks such as electrified plates, etc., to create an experience.
So, you can get many people for whom the fake healing “works”, loads of lovely testimonials. But here’s the killshot, when someone doesn’t heal it’s because they “didn’t have enough faith”(!). It’s perfect, it either correlates to working or you have a wonderful excuse for it not working.
Didn’t get swole? Didn’t want it bad enough, work hard enough, have what it takes, etc. It’s all tough guy horseshit. It’s beautiful. Any system you choose, as long as it’s painful, some men will thrive on, because some men will thrive on anything, some will cheat to get through, etc. If it doesn’t work, no problem, the trainee didn’t “want it bad enough”.
Sales is the worst in industry but much of business has the same kind of magical thinking, it’s actually comforting in a way because you think you have more control than you do. Even in many military selections, it’s “essential” to force recruits through all kinds of injury causing madness heavily unconnected to anything the serviceman will do on a mission, to filter out who is “worthy”. Ironically these are all things that the founders of many of these forces (David Stirling, Laycock, etc.) and other great soldiers never actually did. Academia can be just as bad or worse, no real standards for demonstrating mastery of the material, etc.
And remember you’ve got no right to talk because you didn’t experience it personally and don’t have enough “faith”.
The underlying question is: If you’re unsatisfied in life, can girls or muscle mass change that. I think I found my answer to that and I will try my best to shift my life in a more positive direction, with or without female company. 🙂
I really don’t understand why are we having this discussion. It is a lot simpler than it is being presented here.
Should steroid and other enhanced users be condemned? Are they preventing any one of us from making the same choices that they make to alter our physiques? Who is stopping any one of us from taking drugs? It’s very simple. You want to take drugs to get bigger? Who is stopping you from doing so? Are alcoholics and heavy smokers preventing us from drinking alcohol and smoking? We are all free to make our own decisions in life.
If the argument is that they are “hiding the secret” to beyond naturally possible muscle gains, they are also hiding from us all the negative side that drugs bring. Whatever is hidden from the naïve young lifter, not only the positive is hidden. It could also be interpreted as a warning for future side effects.
I don’t know, but that’s my take on this matter.
I think what’s criticized here, is the *fraud* presented to us:
Bodybuilders saying, you just need to train right and eat properly to get big muscles, PUAs telling you, you just need to improve your game in order to get girls, successful entrepreneurs trying to convince you that you only need to work hard to become rich, while in reality it’s all just a minor term in the equation.
It’s fraud since they know what really counts, but tell you otherwise.
Completely off-topic but have you read The Gervais Principle by Venkatesh Rao? It’s a long ass read but I found it utterly brilliant. Plus it’s one that I keep coming back to, which is rare for me. I think you’d like it, if you haven’t already read it. Also, I just bought A Hater’s Synthesis and I’m loving it so far. Been a fan since I was 14 (5 years ago now) so I really do owe you for looking out for me through my awkward years. So many people are going ever further astray into fantasy and delusion, and I have to thank you for keeping it (and me) real.
Stay frosty my friend!
Just checked it on goodreads.com. Sounds interesting.
Thank you for the support, Regan.
For how long have you been training and dieting properly, Truth Seeker, if I may ask?
A Hater’s Synthesis is a good read. Loved it when I read it 2 years ago – got it on the first day and still go back to it sometimes.
Extremely relevant as always. I wonder what are all the things you’ve figured. I guess there are many others beside bodybuilding and pick-up.
We talk about other things on the forum. You can join us and see 🙂
Great article. These false-hope industries also have the benefit of a built-in immune system in the form of their adherents. When a product or belief system requires its intended user to believe it works in order to have any perceived effect (game, fitness, Alcoholics Anonymous, equality of all groups of people) , its followers will viciously defend any criticism thereto. Go on any random Athlean-X video and post some mild criticism or disagreement, and legions of wannabe fitness models will descend upon you with vitriol seldom seen anywhere outside politics or religion. That’s not because you’re attacking the product itself, you’re attacking the hope that its users attach to it. On some level, they know that the foundation for their beliefs are a lie. This creates cognitive dissonance that must be brutally extinguished.
Usually love your blog, but here’s 1 reason why this post is BS:
Pickup actually works.
I’m not saying it’s easy, or that it’s instant – but it does work.
You’re always 100% on point about bodybuilding and PEDs, but apparently you lack the personal experience to talk about pickup – so I’d recommend you commit to it for 1 year and come back to share your results. You WILL get results.
It works but the ROI is incredibly low, especially in countries that don’t have a pickup culture.
Most men are rejected 100s of time to get a date. But yes – it does work if you are willing to suffer. The more attractive you are, the less you suffer, of course.