Well, I have to give the terrible, terrible fellows at PUAhate credit for one thing: it was thanks to a post there that I ran across the videos of the exceedingly creepy pickup “artist” and minor Youtube celebrity that I’d like to bring to your attention today.
Meet George Godley, possibly the world’s worst pickup artist. Actually, I’m being a bit generous in my description here, because there is no artistry at all to what he does, just a gimmick: he carries a small video camera with him as he wanders the streets of London, apparently thinking that this gives him an excuse to waylay every attractive young woman who’s unfortunate enough to wander into his field of vision.
Godley apparently wants us to believe he’s “flirting” with the women he so awkwardly approaches, but flirting, like the Tango, takes two, and all but a few of the women in his videos make it abundantly clear from the get-go that they want nothing to do with him. This doesn’t seem to faze him much, and he plunges ahead, trying his best to keep up with them as they endeavor to escape his presence as quickly as possible.
Take the unfortunate woman who catches his eye at the start of this video, and who finally manages to make her escape a little short of the one-minute mark.
In this next video – skip ahead to about 50 seconds in to avoid some rather pointless wandering about — we see two failed “flirts.” His first attempt, if we can call it that, consists of nothing more than him standing in the vicinity of an attractive woman while surreptitiously filming her. After giving up on her without saying a word he runs smack into the “beauty” of the video’s title, and pesters her for about a minute until she manages to get away.
After a brief and awkward attempt at conversation punctuated by her nervous laughter, Godley gamely tries to convince “Beauty” that he’s “doing a movie for the festivals.” When she asks which festivals he’s talking about he unconvincingly stammers something about “Cannes, Sund – the usual circuit.” Even though she clearly wants to put as much distance between herself and him as she possibly can, he tries to force his card on her and plaintively asks “do you want to meet again?” The answer, a nervous “no.”
This next encounter – in which our hero barges into a restaurant to pester a woman who apparently looked briefly in his direction as he walked by outside — even Godley recognizes is a flat-out failure.
Godley has posted literally hundreds, maybe even thousands, of these “flirt” videos. None of the ones I’ve seen have gone well. Once in a while an exceptionally tolerant woman will chat with him briefly without actively trying to flee; that seems to be about as good as it gets. The rest document what is essentially serial street harassment, with Godley approaching woman after woman, none of whom give him any indication that they want to talk to him, and “flirting” with them until they can get away from him. It’s the same story, again and again and again.
Why does he do this, making video after video of these so-called “flirtations” and posting them on Youtube? Is he simply a masochist, approaching women he surely knows have no interest in talking to him, much less “flirting,” and posting evidence of his humiliating failures to Youtube for all the world to see?
Perhaps. But even more disturbing than the masochism is Godley’s obvious sadism. Despite his social awkwardness, it’s clear from the videos that Godley knows full well that the overwhelming majority of the women he “flirts” with just want to be left alone; it’s clear from their body language before he approaches them, and from everything they say and do after he starts talking to them. If a woman literally flees from you, that generally means she’s not into your shit.
But Godley doesn’t really need to be reminded of this. He’s well aware that he makes women uncomfortable — in this video he asks a woman if she’s really talking on her phone or just trying to get rid of him. But that doesn’t stop him.
He’s not missing the social cues; he’s deliberately ignoring the clear “noes” these women either tell him outright or telegraph with their facial expressions and body language as clearly as if they were shouting “no” to his face. Were he to approach random men on the street in a similar way, he would almost certainly get himself punched on a regular basis.
Luckily for him, he’s approaching women, and they’re much smaller than he is. It’s telling that he almost always approaches individual women, not the “sets” of two or more favored by most pickup artists, and that he seems to prefer approaching the supposedly more pliable Eastern European women also favored by so many manosphere assholes and creepy pickup artists.
Godley’s not-so-well-hidden hostility towards the women he approaches comes to the surface at the end of this video, in which he attempts to “flirt” with a woman photographing a tree and then then asks for her phone number as she tries to get away, an all-too-common ending to his videos. SPOILER ALERT: She doesn’t give it to him. SPOILER ALERT NUMBER TWO: He pretends he didn’t really want it anyway.
Even if Godley has managed to collect a few genuine phone numbers or email addresses along the way – and I’ve seen nothing to indicate that this is a regular or even an irregular occurrence – his alleged “success” in this endeavor comes at a steep cost. Not just to his pride – I don’t actually give a shit about that – but to the hundreds if not thousands of women he’s harassed along the way.
George Godley, a terrible pickup artist and an even worse human being.
I know an australian cattle dog named Hank.
Here’s an ACD puppy
Hank — we’re being cruel? Because I started with a perfectly level headed response to your comment about BDSM (well, the s/m part anyways) — on the assumption you just didn’t know what you were talking about. Since then you’ve not just insisted that you’re right, but denied the experiences of kinksters, called us monomaniacal, and asked personal questions about hellkell’s personality? sex life? Cuz most kinkster sadists and masochists (or switches) don’t go around perpetually dominating or submitting. Which you’re probably about to find out the hard way, because now I’m not going to be nice. Be happy though, you haven’t yet been offensive enough for me to be cruel.
So let’s start with a kink 101 lesson! And I’ll make it nice and easy for you! Now, I assume you have either been in some sort of relationship, or at least have a concept of how healthy relationships work — non-kinky ones, for comparison. You know, where you or your partner likes something sexytime related, and you either like it and do it, or don’t and don’t. Simple enough right?
“Argenti – masochist/sadist – both think they’ve got the power. Good luck to them both for being so monomaniacal.”
So why’s it break your brain that when someone expresses interest in kinky sexytimes, or makes a request, the other partner either goes “sounds good, let’s work out the details // do it” or “sorry, I’m not interested in that”. Sounds familiar right? Different strokes for different folks, but the principle’s the same. Either non-kinky partners are monomaniacal for thinking they have the power to both make requests, and refuse to fulfill them, or kinky partners aren’t. Because specific acts aside, the dynamic is really rather similar.
“Hellknell: Sigh – kinky is as kinky does. So – bring it on (masochist/sadist side speaks). Which side of you is speaking?”
Fuck off, no seriously, go pet a cactus, step on a Lego, whatever curse is the favorite one this week (petting a cactus right guys?). Hellkell’s “side” is none of your damned business. And anyways, if we all have masochist/sadist sides, which of yours are we seeing?
And yep, kinky is as kinky does, you have sexual deal breakers like everyone else right? Mine are just less common than yours! But hey, I’m entirely sure your display of mockery just got you blacklisted by at least a few people here, if not most of them. We’ve all got our preferences, wtf do you care what they are as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult?
“Mdubz – what you know is not all of what is to be known. Did you know that?”
Trying to get philosophical? Or trying to say that mdubz may not know about…what exactly? Because we all know that kinky relationships can be abusive, just like non-kinky ones. So yes, responsible kinksters do not engage in abusive behavior disguised as kink, and find it gross (with a side dish of “seriously, we have enough public relations issues, don’t go around conflated abuse with consensual kink”)
You, currently? You’re proving why I just said “we have public relations issues”. And being far crueler, crosser, and generally annoying, than anyone else here. Let me repeat this: you do not get to ask about people’s sex lives, not even when it’s only implied.
What is with the trolls recently being all “I’m commenting with an obviously male name and wish to register how offended I am that you all use male pronouns for me. No, I won’t tell you what pronoun I prefer. I just want you stupid liberals to feel bad”?
Dude, we think you’re a “he” because “Hank” is usually a guy’s name. If you’d prefer we use a different pronoun for you, please feel free to speak up. People do it here all the time. We’re cool with it.
He calls himself a vlogger and his street harassment flirting, so I’m guessing no to the pick up and also to the artist.
Argenti – I haven’t read last post but thankyou for the effort.
Speaking of puppies, I met an adolescent Husky yesterday! It was hanging out in the back of a pickup truck waiting for its person. It was named “Killa”, which I assume was ironic since when I looked at it from across the parking lot and started cooing it went into full-on “give me attention please!” mode, and kept headbutting me for more pets as Mr C and I were talking.
Behold my pitiful inpup state. I want a Husky or a Malamute but my landlord won’t let me, and also I’m worried that it might eat my cat unless I get a puppy.
I’m so sorry you’re inpup, Cassandra 🙁 I was very recently incat, but my landlord finally let me get one! But now I want to get another one. So I am inmultcat now, and am angry at the world. RAWR.
1) Page break while typing!
2) *bets on Hank sock*
3) Your preferred pronouns then Hank? Because folks around here do respect those
4) Safe words are not optional. Safe words are not optional. Safe words are not optional!
I’ll settle for a good old green/yellow/red, but you need something!
5) I have to run out, please keep the chew toy fresh (though um, can we not call Hank a chew toy? TMI!! I’m my not-an-ex’s chew toy… XD )
Hank — do us all a favor and read my comments before you continue, either that, or google BDSM 101 or something. No one here wants to debate with someone who clearly has no idea what ze’s talking about.
I think Husky and Malamute puppies are quite expensive too, and I’d probably need to get one from a breeder since none of the local rescue orgs seem to have puppies and I’d want to train it to be OK with cats. Why is the government not funding my puppy-seeking efforts?
Also please note that I could probably get away with having a small dog, since my neighbor does and she’s allowed, but since I actually want a big dog (a Husky is the smallest dog I’m interested in) I am still officially inpup.
@CassandraSays
Klee Kais! My boyfriend introduced me to them and OMG dinky huskies!
*gratuitious posting of cute doggies*
I bet if you call the police on your parents the government would provide you with a husky puppy and train it to be cat-friendly, too.
PUPPIES (so much better than jerky dudes)
No such thing as gratuitous posting of cute videos. Unless you’re using that in the sense of “free of charge.” 😀
Socky troll is very socky.
Argenti – always read others direct comments before typing – do not know what ‘sock’ in this context means. Hank is a nick-name which I like – because others like (that’s called kindness). Safewords are optional if negotiated to be so. You can call me what you prefer if I answer so be it – if I don’t you’ll have to live with it – does that hurt?
This probably makes me a terrible person, but I laughed my head off at these videos.
I’m sort of stunned Godley hasn’t come to the attention of police or at least of local businesses — like the one he barges into to film that “fail” video.
One of the best bits in that video is at the end, where he briefly tries to pretend he came in to buy something, and not just harass the customers, by going up to the counter and scolding the server for not having the carrot juice he wanted. The server points out that they do have carrot juice, and he gets all flustered and leaves.
The video with the woman with the camera perfectly sums up what makes PUA stuff so insulting and dehumanizing. He makes some creepy comment about her photographing him while he’s photographing her, and she sensibly points out that she’s not photographing him (she obviously isn’t), she’s photographing a tree. He demands to know why she’s doing that, and she has an interesting answer! Anyone who was trying to have an actual conversation would comment on it and want to hear more. Instead, he ignores her entirely and blunders on to his next dumb PUA talking point.
It’s kind of mind-boggling. I mean, not only is this a woman doing something cool and interesting, it’s something related to his own hobby. And he just doesn’t care. The fact that she’s recognizably female is the only thing about her that registers.
I love Camera Woman.
Hank wrote: I haven’t read last post [directed at Hank] but thankyou for the effort.
Hank also wrote: always read others direct comments before typing
Hank is confused.
Thanks for that summary. I can’t watch the vids because they make my belly churn, but I am curious about the content, about why on earth this guy is doing this.
nerdypants – Keep up. Arrff. You wag.
Regular: Hey dude, knock it off.
Troll: Ah! Who says I’m a dude?
Regular: …
Regular2: You’re an entitled shit that thinks just the act of flapping your gums means the vibrations in the air that are produced are solid gold. So, you’re a dude, aren’t you?
Troll: … yes.
Every. Single. Time.
o.O
Speaking of dogs, those vids are awesome Creative Writing Student. The fact that people are working on smaller versions of the Siberian Husky makes me very happy indeed 🙂
Argenti: Okay, so we need something more suitable than “chew toy” for trolls…. Hrm. Drawing a blank at the moment. Should be something that is fun to (verbally) slap around for awhile, then gets boring, and is easily discarded when we’re done with it. Slinky, maybe?
It’s kind of comforting that the top comments are the ones that say, “Holy shit, stop harassing the women you creep!” Seriously. Even Youtube commenters find him awful!
I’ve been reading that reddit thread, and apparently he has come to the attention of the authorities. In response to someone who asks him if he has ever received a violent response, he writes:
no violence coz i dont approach violent looking people at least not that way, maybe the occasional warning, a couple detainings in greece you can see it on geogodley youtube channel some hottie complained lol