So at this point you presumably all know about James Franco’s less-than-successful attempt to text his way into the pants of a 17-year old fan — which, if it wasn’t just a publicity stunt for his latest movie, which happens to be about a creepy teacher preying on a student, was pretty creepy for real.
You might have been struck by the, er, bluntness his approach, which could be summarized as the “I’m James Franco, are you technically of legal age in New York State, can I get you alone in a room with me right now, no I’m really James Franco, really” technique.
But what you haven’t seen yet is an analysis of Mr. Franco’s TEXT GAME by a recognized expert in the field. And by expert I mean our new friend Christian McQueen, the Alpha Playboy with the Obviously Fake Name.
Mr. McQueen asks the timeless question: Was Mr. Franco’s TEXT GAME desperate or just direct?
To some it may seem like he’s being ‘thirsty’, but is he really? Or his text game actually the type of game that high value men use?
After going line for line through Mr. Franco’s conversational gambits with the wary teenager — which, you may recall, not only failed to convince her to come to his room but also created a bit of an embarrassing scandal for him — McQueen concludes that Franco’s game was …. “solid.”
No, really.
You see, when you’re James Franco, you can just go ahead and behave like some dude straight out of the CreepyPM subreddit, because you have “so many options, that [you] can go Ultra-Direct in [your] text game and many players who are on a great level utilize this.”
Don’t bother with small talk. Don’t bother with charm. All you need to do is state your famous name, determine if she is of legal age in the state you are in (and she was, in New York), and then proceed to work out the logisitics. And BAM, you’re in like Flynn. (Though one imagines that the real Erroll Flynn actually tried to work some personal charm into his approach with women.)
McQueen sums it up for us mere mortals:
[H]is ’game’ was not ‘thirsty’, but simply Direct. While not great, it was solid.
He is a celebrity, so it’s less about him using Game and more about him asking questions as though they are completing a transaction. She gets to fuck a celebrity and he gets her pussy. Simple.
Yeah. Except that none of that happened and now a guy who could have slept with any one of literally millions of enthusiastic volunteers over the age of 18 is now the poster boy for celebrity creepiness.
He could have been smoother and possibly gotten the bang, but he probably does not care.
Yeah. Unless this is all a publicity stunt, I’m thinking that he probably does care just a little bit now.
This is classic I Don’t Give A Fuck Game.
When your value is high and your time is precious, you don’t give a fuck if she rejects you. This is Next Level.
Well, if by “Next Level” you mean “an approach so crude and creepy that it not only squicked out the 17 year old fan that it was directed at but also millions of female fans who’ve now seen the texts online.”
He put out minimal effort to prove it was him, which was understandable considering she doubted it was him, and when she balked, he ejected quickly.
I guess he’s got a point here. It would have been even worse if Franco had stuck around and tried to pressure the fan to see him.
Remember gents, when your Game is tight and you have High Value, you can go Direct. Men of High Value don’t have time to be wasted. You may get rejected immediately, but you also won’t waste time with girls just seeking attention and validation.
You may, on the other hand, be exposed on the internet as a creepy predator. But I guess Men of High Value don’t care about that, which is why Franco didn’t go on Live With Kelly and Michael shortly after this broke to apologize for it all. Oh wait. He did.
Huh. That doesn’t sound High Value at all.
If I were a celebrity I would hire someone to manage my social media accounts. And since I’m not a celebrity, I am so glad I don’t have to twitter.
The problem with RVF is all of the posters there think that they are also “High Value.” LOL
His Game was solid. It failed terribly. Therefore
Game is bullshityou should buy my book about how to get better at it!This “high value alpha male” nonsense is just getting ridiculous. These kids take themselves way too seriously. If that’s solid game, then I am proud to say I have shot down a countless number of high value alpha men with solid text game – go me.
By seriously, “solid” is the last thing that was. More like, pathetic, boring, and weak.
I’m fascinated by these guys’ obsession with “social value.”
Doesn’t the game say that men actually demonstrate social value by, like, being interesting and fun in social settings? And not just through bullshit like, “I’m James Franco.”?
Seriously, I used to think this was one of the least idiotic ideas that came out of PUA- the idea that people want to spend time with, and tend to find attractive, other people who are, y’know, fun to be around.
Oh, silly me, thinking things like, “women are the same as other people and are interested in people who are interesting” is such a beta move, and that certainly isn’t how I’ve met like, 75% of my s.o.’s.
I’m trying to work out how the “expert advice” boils down to anything other than either:
a) be a celebrity, cos lots of people will want to be alone with you and sexytime activities might well occur, except when they don’t
b) claim to be a celebrity, cos some people may believe you and have at least a few sexytimes with you before they realise you’re not
(Obviously don’t claim to be James Franco – I mean, not even if you actually are – until all this dies down and people stop scorn-laughing at him).
So if someone buys the book, will it tell them how to get to be a celebrity? That seems to be the key in Mr McQ’s “analysis”.
Welp, there goes the usual MRA creep-ologist whine about how “She wouldn’ta called it creepy sexual harassment if it’d been Brad Pitt (insert other famous handsome celebrity, like, say, James Franco?) instead of me!”
This is sadly no more offensive than the mess that was in the comments on the Gawker article.
It creeps me out how many men think hitting on minors is OK. It isn’t a surprise though. Considering how many times I got harassed in public as a teenager.
The pathetic PUA wanna-bes and their cheesy, made-up buzz words are so lame. I can’t believe that any of them buy that shit. They truly can talk themselves anything. The superior intelligence is laughable.
And who is kidding who here? James Franco isn’t sorry; he’s sorry it went public. I’m willing to bet that if he thought he could get away with it, he would have met her. Good for her for going public with it.
Weirwoodtreehugger, yes. Being a teenage girl in public sometimes felt downright scary
“Reality didn’t work as planned, but let’s keep talking like it did anyway!”
Surely you can also do this if you don’t have “High Value” – it’s a time saver for everyone!
Poor PUAs. Their attempt to market their Game as some sort of consistent or reliable system is wearing a bit thin. The whole point is that all women are the same and therefore you can learn a specific set of manipulation techniques that will guarantee you lots of sex with women, and if you’re not getting enough sex, it’s not because women are people with preferences and internal rationales of their own, it’s because your Game isn’t tight enough.
But if the system doesn’t work even when you’re James Franco and your Game is “solid”, then what’s the point? The end result always seem to be some girls will want to sleep with you, some they won’t. That’s not Game, that’s just life.
My brain melts every time I read these guy’s comments. I just can’t take the level of asshole they spew out.
1) I don’t give a shit that James Franco tried (maybe, unless publicity stunt, blah blah blah) to get it on with a fan. She’s legal, I read her texts too, she has agency, whatever, don’t care. Wouldn’t care if she fell for his schtick either, cuz it’s not my business, and I don’t care.
2) I also don’t care that he was creepy, because I don’t know if anyone has noticed this, he’s JAMES FUCKING FRANCO, he is ALWAYS creepy.
3) If by “text game” you mean “desperate” and “generic” and “predictably creepy”, then yeah, it was solid awright.
4) Can I emphasize any more clearly that this entire thing is a non-story and I don’t care?
5) There’s no such thing as Game. There’s also no such thing as an alpha male, a beta, a “high value” alpha, or any of that shit. These guys are beyond pathetic. They make Franco look slick.
6) You might not want to give Errol Flynn too much credit, btw. Dude was, from all accounts, a walking grin and accent with No Means Yes for a brain.
Ah, the pleasures of being uninterested in and unaware of so many Names in popular culture … I have no idea who James Franco is and it sounds like I’m not missing anything.
“High Value” men don’t prey on teenagers.
The whole thing is just nasty.
Lili Fugit – I do find it creepy that a man is hitting on a woman half his age given that half his age means a teenager. At some point age difference doesn’t matter but when we are talking teens, I think it does.
Hit post too soon but the Flynn comment was brilliant.
Anyone who uses the word ‘tight’ to mean anything other than ‘fixed, fastened, or closed firmly; hard to move, undo, or open.’ is to be laughed at.
Also, the ‘Game’ is crap, ’cause I’ve seen a million guys do this same crap and get nowhere. Most likely because women are not vending machines; just ’cause you put in the proverbial coin doesn’t mean you gonna get something.
Also, how the heck is this supposed to be good game anyway? She rejected him, and anyone who thought he was hot can now see ‘Ugh, major creepy’ and be less attracted to him. (However much appeal he had before this.)
And I had a minor fight with the boyfriend because he said ‘creepy’ is a gendered slur? Thoughts, anybody?
Tell him to stop being an MRA?
Can we please stop calling his behavior “creepy” and start calling it predatory? He didn’t have “a bit of an embarrassment”, he got caught preying upon a teenager. I know as a celebrity he’s immune from justice, but I don’t understand why you’re minimizing his behavior as a faux pad instead of as the revelation of what is almost certainly a longstanding pattern of sexually victimizing adolescents.
…well, I meant if anyone thought that the word ‘creepy’ was gendered, but that’s a good suggestion too, cassandrakitty. I mean, he’s intelligent and kind and treats me with respect, so I don’t think he’d fit in there, but some of his ideas worry me.
I would personally like to respond like this:
You know what’s gendered? Telling women that they can’t use a word to describe the behaviors and attitudes of people (not just men) who violate women’s boundaries and make them feel unsafe – just because some men think the word sounds mean.
He can really only have picked up the idea that creepy is a gendered slur from hanging out in spaces that are kind of MRA-adjacent, which would certainly worry me if he was my friend/boyfriend/family member. Does anyone remember any of the thread (not just here) about that idea? Might be worth giving him some links to read.
trans_commie, I will use that if the topic comes up again. ‘Cause that’s pretty much how I use the word; I’m just more likely to use it when it comes to men because men are more likely to trigger my ‘creepy-not safe-danger’ signals than women are, but it’s not because I assume only men can be creepy.
I would appreciate it if anyone knows where the thread is, because I will send it to him. We get on really well and I want us to work, so I would like to steer him away any MRA adjacent spaces.
He is for frank discussion of sexuality and safe spaces and sex education, and is respectful of my boundaries, so at least I have a good framework. …and I have totally derailed the comments from the original topic.