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.
@vaiyt – true, Franco struck out mightily and they’re all talking about what great style his swing had. He totally should have scored! Never mind that he didn’t! It just proves how well his style works and we should all emulate it!
For some reason, the description of Franco’s game as “solid” is reminding me of the Bristol stool scale. Are the other types of Game “liquid”, “loose”‘ and “watery”?
Yes, if you pair each word with “stools”.
So let’s introduce “the Bristol opener” for both day and night game. Your solid and regular habits will make a good Presentation of High Value. Go with some negs like “You think you have a tight body, but I bet you Stools are quite loose” Escalate with something like “You know, I know a thing that will make wonders for your bowel habits”
Always, keep a consistent Shit Game
My older son turns seventeen next week. I’m imagining someone of whom he’s a fan running Franco’s ‘game’ on him. It nauseates me.
Also, reminds me of this thought experiment: what if Polanski’s crime had been the same, but his victim had been a boy? How many celebrities would still be defending him?
@Robert: I’ve felt for a long time that if the Catholic priests had only been molesting girls and no boys that we would never have heard about it. For that matter, I’m fairly sure the reason we haven’t heard nearly as many stories of girls being molested compared to boys has absolutely zip to do with the relative numbers of boys vs girls being molested 🙁
Off topic: Game of Thrones starts in 4 hours! So excited!
Here’s proof that the furrinati is behind the show’s success
Off topic, but thanks to everyone who posted links and talked about the ‘creepy’ issue. I especially appreciated the Captain Awkward post.
I get where my boyfriend is coming from, that ‘creepy’ may be brushed off by guys that don’t care about boundaries and just hurt guys who are really well intentioned and just awkward as hell, but in the end it’s not the victim’s job to explain or cater to the person creeping them out. I think he’s sympathetic because he does have Asperger’s, and has trouble with social cues. I think he doesn’t get that guys like him shouldn’t be a shield that protects guys who don’t care about the people they’re harassing. ,
I hope he does, ’cause I find him to be a better person than that. Who likes cats and puts up with my insane Lab/hound sock thief of a dog who keeps eating his lip balm.
Coke bottle glasses are sexy.
If “Hi, I’m famous. Are you old enough to have sex with? Have sex with me” is “tight” game, then what does not-so-tight game look like? Running naked down the street shouting “Somebody have sex with meeeee!!!!”
JJ: Maybe share some of those links with your bf? It could be a way to get a discussion going and getting him thinking about things.
Love it!
J.J. – does your boyfriend get that if person A creeps out person B, they just need to apologise and not do it again? If they keep doing it, they’re ignoring someone else’s boundaries, and that’s not okay for any reason, however good or benign the intentions of the person doing it. Surely if a person’s told “This behaviour is making me uncomfortable/frightened/disgusted” that’s not something a person with Asberger’s is unable to process?
Which is more important: his confusion or hurt feelings over having his intentions misunderstood when he creeps someone out, or the safety of people (mostly women) who are harassed and worse by actual predators, the ones using him and others as cover?
Does he ever think of the women with Asberger’s who get creeped on and have so little defence against it, whose victimisation is hand-waved away?
So the new game if you are of “high value” is to be direct with your sexual intentions, and when the woman says no, accept the refusal and don’t persist?
It’s still not perfect (Being direct with sexual intentions would probably mean “Wanna fuck-boobs are nice!”), but if it has guys accepting rejection and moving on without entitlement or aggression, it’s a step in the right direction, as long as they chose people over age. What a shame it’s only apparently for guys of “high value” not the majority of PUA’s.
I can’t speak for JJ’s bf, but as a fellow Aspie my guess is that what makes him uncomfortable is that most people don’t actually say “You need to stop X”; they give various social cues, often with body language and facial expressions, to indicate that X needs to stop and if JJ’s bf is anything like me, body language and facial expressions (and possibly verbal cues as well, tho that’s not usually a problem for me) are fairly close to meaningless.
Good point, Leum. It sounds like something where a person with Asberger’s friends need to explaing things – if the person being creeped out doesn’t know the person doing it, they’re not going to know they have Asberger’s, are they?
And that’s not “explain things” as in “Oh X has Asberger’s, zie’s totally harmless, you’re getting upset over nothing!” to the person made uncomfortable, but “explain things” as in “This behaviour made Y really uncomfortable/feel unsafe; you need to stop it.” The former is too often the sort of cover that predators get.
I (am fairly certain I) don’t have Aspberger’s, but I still like it a lot better when people tell me direclty what’s bothering them directly instead of hinting at it. I’m much more likely to stop doing what’s bothering them that way.
Something these guys always seem to overlook is that when people fancy famous actors it’s *not* just because of how they look and that they are rich. They are being judged on the personality they are felt to have based on their acting roles they’ve had. Caveat – MRAs/PUAs and similar probably do judge women solely on their appearance which would be why they assume everyone does.
Even if they know intellectually that an actor is not his character, they’re still going to feel it emotionally if his performance affected them. So before meeting said famous person they might be keen on the idea of sleeping with him… but that can be destroyed pretty quickly if he shows himself to be a charmless jerk – or even just a regular person not at all like their characters.
Leum, you summed it up pretty well. A lot of those cues go right past him and it’s like ‘Um, babe, don’t lean so far into that person’s space when we’re on the subway.’ And that he gets. I think further discussion is needed.
Part of the problem, I think, is that we (women especially) are conditioned to use soft noes, and that saying ‘Back off, creeper’ is considered rude or bitchy. So we don’t, so for people who don’t get it, they don’t realize they’re doing something wrong. For the people who can read body language and ignore it, they can go step on a Lego, ’cause that’s not cool.
Also my boyfriend has apparently met some PUAs, and found that they get drawn in because they find feminist materials on dating and not creeping to be condescending and incomplete. PUA don’t do that. They are, to use his words, reprehensible, but they make the person reading feel like they’re doing it right.
And I think we’re arguing now, because he just did the ‘some people can do a thing and it’s creepy but someone else can do it and it’s not creepy.’ thing. Sigh.
People need a manual.
Another thought for him – percentage wise, how many guys are on the autism spectrum? Does he really think that the majority of the guys being called creepy are on the spectrum? Because given how often women report feeling creeped out, the relatively small number of men who’re on the spectrum would have to be spending a whole lot of their time walking around creeping women out to account for the frequency with which the creepy behavior occurs. I mean, I guess it’s possible, numerically, but it would probably require them to make it a full-time job.
Jayzuz. Does he think to turn it around? You and he could do stuff to each other that’s not creepy because you’re in a relationship, but it’s not stuff you’d do to other people – acquaintances, friends, strangers. It’s not the person doing it, it’s the person receiving it who gets to make the call.
Does he realise he’s veering into the “She consented to sex with one guy once, ergo she’s consented to sex with any guy who wants it ever” territory with this? It’s not that complicated, surely.
Also, does he realise PUAs are about date rape? Forcing women to have sex when they don’t want to? How much of their shit has he read and comprehended?
Why is it “condescending” for women to say what sort of behaviour they’ll accept? Given how many men – neurotypical ones – absolutely DO know what a soft no is, what body language means, but refuse to hear the answers, and push, and push, to have sex with women who don’t want it, then the messages can’t be stated too clearly or too often.
Has he read Yes Means Yes? I highly recommend it.
15 minutes till Game of Thrones! Sorry for the off topic fangirling. I’m just excited.
I’m going to watch with the lights out and light a scented misandry candle for atmosphere 😉
Enjoy! 😀
I have never watched Game of Thrones but I am watching the premiere and I’ll catch up and read the books and such. And now he’s trying to equalize creep shaming with slut shaming, as if they’re equally bad. I don’t think he gets it.
Gawd, he’s absorbed far too much MRA shit. Does he really think women are people? Does he really get that he’s equating calling out someone (usually but not always male) for predatory behaviour with abusing women for having a sex life?
Also, does he grasp that men will call women sluts for not having sex with them? One can be a virgin and get called a slut. It’s abuse and has nothing to do with what a woman’s actually done; it’s about control.