Manosfera e pick-up artists
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7413/2281813819602Keywords:
Manospehere, Antifeminism, Pick-up artists, IncelAbstract
Manospehere and Pick-up artists
This article analyses pick-up artist (PUA) communities within the manosphere. Pick-up artists (PUAs) are communities of self-proclaimed seduction experts or wannabes who use a set of routines, techniques and 'scripts' that men must follow to achieve sexual success with a woman. After defining the key terms, the article describes the ideologies, beliefs and discourses that animate PUA groups, including a comparison with other groups in the manosphere (incels). The reconstruction of academic contributions from recent years, especially from the Anglophone world, provides a chiaroscuro analysis. The changes in PUA narratives and practices, especially in the European context, call for new theoretical and empirical analyses capable of intercepting the new forms of masculinity that are thickening on the border between neoliberalism and patriarchal backlash.
References
Banet-Weiser S., Miltner K. M. (2015), “#MasculinitySoFragile: culture, structure, and networked misogyny”, Feminist Media Studies, 16(1): 171–174.
Bratich J. Banet-Weiser S. (2019), “From pick-up artists to incels: con(fidence) games, networked misogyny, and the failure of neoliberalism”, International Journal of Communication, 13: 5003-5027.
Cameron D. (2009), “Sex/Gender, Language and the New Biologism”, Applied Linguistics, 31(2): 173–192.
Connell R.W. (2005), Masculinities, Cambridge, Polity Press (2nd edition).
Dayter D., Rüdiger S. (2014). “Speak Your Mind, but Watch Your Mouth: Complaints in CouchSurfing References”, in Bedijs K., Held G., Maaß C. (eds.), Face Work and Social Media, Zürich/Berlin: LIT, 193–212.
Dayter D., Rüdiger S. (2016), “Reporting from the Field: The Narrative Reconstruction of Experience in Pick-Up Artist Online Communities”, Open Linguistics, 2 (1): 337–351.
Dayter D., Rüdiger S. (2019), “In Other Words: ‘The Language of Attraction’ Used by Pick-Up Artists”, English Today, 35 (2): 13–19.
Dayter D., Rüdiger S. (2020), “Talking About Women: Elicitation, Manual Tagging, and Semantic Tagging in a Study of Pick-Up Artists’ Referential Strategies”, in Dayter D., Rüdiger S. (eds), Corpus Approaches to Social Media, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins, 63–86.
Dayter D., Rüdiger S. (2022), The Language of Pick-Up Artists: Online Discourses of the Seduction Industry, New York and Abingdon, Routledge.
DeCook J.R. (2021), “Castration, the Archive, and the Incel Wiki”, Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 26, 234–243.
Demetriou D. Z. (2001), “Connell’s Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity: A Critique”, Theory and Society, 30 (3), 349.
Denes A. (2011), “Biology as consent: Problematizing the scientific approach to seducing women’s bodies, Women’s Studies International Forum, 34(5): 411–419.
Dewey C., (2014a), “The only guide to Gamergate you will ever need to read,” Washington Post, 14 ottobre (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/10/14/the-only-guide-to-gamergate-you-will-ever-need-to-read/)
Dewey C (2014b), ‘Inside the ‘manosphere’ that inspired Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger’, Washington Post, 27 maggio, (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/05/27/inside-the-manosphere-that-inspired-santa-barbara-shooter-elliot-rodger/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.45117fb7100d).
Dordoni A. Magaraggia S. (2021), “Modelli di mascolinità nei gruppi online Incel e Red Pill: narrazione vittimistica di sé, deumanizzazione e violenza contro le donne”, AG-ABOUT GENDER”, 10(19): 35-67.
Doyle S. (2018), “The deadly incel movement’s absurd pop culture roots”, Medium, 6 giugno, (https://gen.medium.com/the-deadly-incel-movements-absurd-pop-culture-roots-e5bef93df2f5).
Gibson M. (2014), “Is this the most hated man in the world?”, Time, 12 novembre,(http://time.com/3578387/julien-blanc-feminism-real-social-dynamics/).
Gill R. (2009), “Mediated intimacy and postfeminism: a discourse analytic examination of sex and relationships advice in a women’s magazine”, Discourse & Communication, 3(4): 345–369.
Ging D. (2019), “Alphas, Betas, and Incels: Theorizing the Masculinities of the Manosphere”, Men and Masculinities, 22 (4): 638–657.
Glasstetter J. (2014), “Shooting Suspect Elliot Rodger’s Misogynistic Posts Point to Motive”, Southern Poverty Law Center (https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014/05/23/shooting-suspect-elliot-rodgers-misogynistic-posts-point-motive).
Górska A. Kulicka K., Jemielniak D. (2022), “Men not going their own way: a thick big data analysis of #MGTOW and #Feminism Tweets”, Feminist Media Studies, 23 (8): 3774-3792.
Greig A. (2014), “I will slaughter every single blonde s*** I see”, Daily Mail, 25 maggio, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2638049/7-dead-drive-shooting-near-UC-Santa-Barbara.html.
Guo C, Yin H. (2021), “Localized PUA Culture and Gender Politics in Contemporary China”, Journal of Gender Studies, 30 (5): 609–620.
Hambling-Jones O., Merrison A. J. (2012), “Inequity in the Pursuit of Intimacy: An Analysis of British Pick-Up Artist Interactions”, Journal of Pragmatics, 44 (9): 1115–1127.
Hoinsky K. (2013), Above the game: a guide to getting awesome with women, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Jasser G., Kelly M., Rothermel A. (2020), Male supremacism and the Hanau terrorist attack: between online misogyny and far-right violence, The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) (https://icct.nl/publication/male-supremacism-and-the-hanau-terrorist-attack-between-online-misogyny-and-far-right-violence/).
Koehler D. (2019), “The Halle, Germany, Synagogue Attack and the Evolution of the Far-Right Terror Threat”, CTC Sentinel [online], 12(11): 14–21 (https://ctc.usma.edu/halle-germany-synagogue-attack-evolution-far-right-terror-threat/).
Krendel A. (2020), “The Men and Women, Guys and Girls of the ‘Mano-sphere’: A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Approach”, Discourse & Society, 31 (6): 607–630.
Lana Massi (2014), CNN interviews Julien Blanc (17 novembre), online video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPT5dFHK3wo).
Lees M. (2016), “What Gamergate should have taught us about the ‘alt-right’”, The Guardian, 1 dicembre (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/01/gamergate-alt-right-hate-trump).
Lin J. L. (2017), “Antifeminism online. MGTOW (men going their own way)”, in Frömming U.U, Fox S., Köhn S., Terry M. (eds.), Digital environments. Ethnographic perspectives across global online and offline spaces, Bielefeld: Edition Medienwissenschaft, 77-96.
Lyons M. N. (2017), Ctrl-Alt-Delete: The Origins and Ideology of the Alternative Right, Somerville, MA: Political Research Associates (www.politicalresearch.org/2017/01/20/ctrl-alt-delete-report-on-the-alternative-right/).
Mamié R., Horta Ribeiro M., West R. (2021), “Are Anti-Feminist Communities Gateways to the Far Right? Evidence from Reddit and YouTube”, arXiv:2102.12837v2.
Marwick A. E., Caplan R. (2018), “Drinking Male Tears: Language, the Manosphere, and Networked Harassment”, Feminist Media Studies, 18 (4): 543–559.
Mystery, Odom C. (2007), The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
North A. (2009), “Gunman murders gym-going women; Misogynists approve”, Jezebel, 5 agosto, (https://jezebel.com/5330560/gunman-murders-gym-going-women-misogynists-approve).
O’Neill R. (2015), “The Work of Seduction: Intimacy and Subjectivity in the London ‘Seduction Community’”, Sociological Research Online, 20 (4): 172–185.
O’Neill R. (2017), “The Aesthetics of Sexual Discontent: Notes from the London ‘Seduction Community’”, in Elias A. S., Gill R., Scharff C. (eds), Aesthetic Labour. Dynamics of Virtual Work, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 333–349.
O’Neill R. (2018), Seduction: Men, masculinity and mediated intimacy, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Oesch N., Miklousic I. (2012), “The Dating Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Emerging Science of Human Courtship”, Evolutionary Psychology, 10 (5): 427-440.
Osman S. L. (2013), “Token resistance to sex scale”, in Fisher T., Davis C., Yarber W. (eds.), Handbook of sexuality-related measures, London, Routledge.
RAN (Radicalisation Awareness Network) (2021), The Incel Phenomenon: Exploring Internal and External Issues Around Involuntary Celibates (https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-08/ran_cn_incel_phenomenon_20210803_en.pdf).
Ricard A. (2018), “How sad boys get angry”, Medium, 28 maggio, (https://medium.com/@alexjricard/how-sad-boys-get-angry-8c4a2d781936).
Roark H. (2018), ‘Sweden is forcing its young boys into homosexuality’, Return of Kings, 16 aprile, (http://www.returnofkings.com/168668/sweden-is-forcing-its-young-boys-into-homosexuality) (archiviato dall’originale il 18 ottobre 2018).
Roth L. M. (2009), “Woman-hating and the LA Fitness massacre”, Huffpost, 7 settembre, (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/woman-hating-and-the-la-f_b_254020)
Rothermel A. K. (2023), “The role of evidence-based misogyny in antifeminist online communities of the ‘manosphere”, Big Data & Society, 10 (1).
Rüdiger S., Dayter D. (2017), “The Ethics of Researching Unlikeable Subjects: Language in an Online Community,” Applied Linguistics Review, 8 (2/3): 251–269.
Rüdiger S., Dayter D. (2020), “Manbragging online: Self-praise on pick-up artists’ forums”, Journal of Pragmatics, 161(1): 16-27.
Scotto di Carlo G. (2023), “No Does Not Always Mean No”: The Discursive Representation of Female Sexual Rejection as “Last Minute Resistance in Pick-Up Artist Communities”, International Journal of Communication,17: 5108-5127.
Schutzbach F. (2018), “Dominante Männlichkeit und neoreaktionäre Weltanschauungen in der Pick-Up-Artist-Szene”, Feministische Studien, 36 (2): 305–321.
Schuurmans J., Monaghan L. F. (2015), “The Casanova-Myth: Legend and Anxiety in the Seduction Community”, Sociological Research Online, 20 (1): 94–107.
Strauss N. (2005), The game: Penetrating the secret society of pickup artists, New York, ReganBooks.
The Week staff (2021), “Terror in Plymouth: what motivated Jake Davison?”, The Week [online], 19 agosto, (https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/uk-news/953864/terror-in-plymouth-what-motivated-jake-davison).
Tranchese A., Sugiura L. (2021), “I don’t hate all women, just those stuck-up bitches”: How Incels and mainstream pornography speak the same extreme language of misogyny”, Violence Against Women, 27(14): 2709-2734.
Valizadeh D. (2015a) "What Is Neomasculinity?", rooshv.com, 6 maggio, archiviato dall’originale il 23 marzo 2022.
Valizadeh D. (2015b), “How to stop rape”, Return of Kings, 16 febbraio, (http://www.rooshv.com/how-to-stop-rape), archiviato dall’originale il 18 aprile 2022.
Valizadeh D. (2017), “27 attractive girls who became ugly freaks because of feminism”, Return of Kings, 14 febbraio (http://www.returnofkings.com/114644/27-attractive-girls-who-became-ugly-freaks-because-of-feminism), archiviato dall’originale il 23 marzo 2022.
Verloo M. (2018), “Gender knowledge, and opposition to the feminist project: Extreme-right populist parties in the Netherlands”, Politics and Governance, 6 (3), 20–30.
Vingelli G. (2019), “Antifemminismo online. I Men’s Rights activists in Italia”, Im@go. A journal of the social imaginary, 12: 219-247.
Wayne C. (2014a), How to be a 3% man: Winning the heart of the woman of your dreams, Self-published eBook (https://understandingrelationships.com/).
Wayne C. (2014b), What women really want, online video, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH-9ZVE6pJ8).
William J. (2018), “The #metoo movement has ruined my sex life”, Return of Kings, 27 marzo (http://www.returnofkings.com/162403/the-metoo-movement-has-ruined-my-sex-life), archiviato online il 18 aprile 2022.
Wilson C. (2022), “Nostalgia, entitlement and victimhood: The synergy of white genocide and misogyny”, Terrorism and Political Violence, 34 (8), 1810-1825.
Zimmer B. (2018), “How ‘Incel’ Got Hijacked”, Politico, 8 maggio, (www.politico. com/magazine/story/2018/05/08/intel-involuntary-celibate-movement-218324/).
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
