Pickup artists, classy fellows that they are, are using Elliot Rodger’s killing rampage as a marketing ploy. In the comments to one of Rodger’s videos on YouTube, a company called Strategic Dating Coach offered their solution to prevent similar shootings in the future: send disturbed young men who can’t get dates to one of their coaching sessions!
While this response to Rodger’s mass killing is uniquely crass, the argument that “Game saves lives” is hardly new. To PUAs like Heartiste and Roosh Valizadeh it’s practically an article of faith.
In the wake of George Sodini’s murderous shooting spree in a Pennsylvania gym in 2009, Heartiste (then known as Roissy) wrote
If Sodini had learned game he would have been able to find another woman and gotten laid after his ex dumped him. He wouldn’t have spent the next 20 years steeped in bile and weighed down by his Sisyphian blue balls, dreaming of vengeance. Game could have saved the lives of the women Sodini killed.
The fact that Sodini had in fact imbibed in the alleged wisdom of pickup artistry, going so far as attending a pricey seminar from old-school pickup guru R. Don Steele, a self-proclaimed expert on dating young women, didn’t lead any in the pickup community to reconsider this position.
Nor has it this time. It is clear that Elliot Rodger was steeped in “red pill” thinking about women. And while he wasn’t himself a PUA, he was certainly aware of the basics of “Game.” Indeed, he subscribed to a number of PUA channels on YouTube and was a regular commenter on PUAhate, a sleazy forum devoted to criticizing “game,” not because it is manipulative and misogynistic but because it doesn’t work.
On the Roosh V forum earlier today, Roosh acknowledged that Rodger knew at least a little about “red pill” ideology – noting that Rodger referred to himself as an”alpha” – but still went ahead and argued that Game was the solution to massacres like this:
He is self-delusional and massively entitled, but exposing him to game may have saved lives.
In a followup comment, Roosh expressed his concerns for the real victims of this tragedy – Pickup artists:
I’m trying to think of ways our enemies will come after us because of this, but if anything, we’re the solution to this sort of murder rampage. This is the society that progressives wanted, where women are fully able to choose the top 10% of alpha males while shaming masculinity, leaving beta males with modest resources in the dust. Of course they will simply push a ban on guns, but this wholly neglects the cause. Seven people died because this guy couldn’t get laid … .
Other commenters were quick to agree. According to someone known as Moma,
Roosh has a very valid point. This will continue to replay over and over again. As human beings, our wiring is very basic yet primal. …
When have you last heard of a porn star shooting up a place? How many have emptied their balls in a hot lizard and then felt the urge to go and smoke 50 strangers?
According to Samseau, the problem wasn’t that Rodger hadn’t heard the Game Gospel; the problem was that he had rejected his salvation:
He knew about Game. If he had an account on PUAHATE then he knew about game. He was just a denialist. There was no helping this dude.
Roosh seconded this bit of wisdom, seeing it as clear evidence that “game denialism kills.”
Michelin, for his part, hoped that PUAs would be able to use the massacre as a publicity bonanza and a great “told you so” to all the haters.
One should write a mainstream article about this case. The argument that game could have saved lives can be an eye-opener and a smash in the face to haters of game.
Tuthmosis, the man best known for a Return of Kings post on the “5 Reasons to Date a Girl With An Eating Disorder,” reported his joy that PUAhate was getting bad press:
Seeing your enemies fall is a delicious treat you only get to taste a few times in your life. I’m savoring this delicacy with a cup of freshly brewed coffee. It’s a shame real people had to lose their lives, but I can’t help but think this will discredit a horrible website, PUAHate–and a way of thinking–that could have harmed even more men and innocent people. Beta losers will never go away, but this will wake up a few men and, more importantly, scare others.
Zelcorpion blamed “girls” and MGTOWers for giving Rodgers bad dating advice:
I bet a few girls told him that he only needs to be himself, be nice, be a gentleman, have a nice car, looks etc. – only to realize that it mattered shit. Instead of learning from the PUA-community he chose to listen to PUAhaters and some of the anti-female comments of the MGTOWs who themselves are often refusing to accept Game or even basic concepts like Alpha/Beta. I think that problem will become way worse, since hypergamy and promiscuity will only increase and most men will be left in the sexual wasteland.
But it took a relative newcomer to the forum by the handle of thedavidgt to raise the obvious logical objection to the Game-for-everybody solution to incel rage:
If every sexless beta in the world took it upon himself to learn game, approach girls, lift, dress well etc, would it not simply feed women’s egos and entitlement? So instead of occasionally getting awkwardly hit on by skinny fat, poor-dressed chumps, the average 7 would then be approached several times a day by extremely high value men. We’ll have a society of men working to improve themselves for women who will get lazier and lazier while at the same time demanding more and more.
In fact, the “Game saves lives” mantra is dead wrong, but not for this reason. First of all, there is no clear evidence that “game,” per se, works, except insofar as it encourages men to pursue large numbers of women and numb them to the pain of rejection. It’s possible that a few of the conversational ploys invented by various PUAs may work better than having no conversational ploys at all. But there are no magic cheat codes to “getting with women.”
There is one more disturbing way in which “game” may increase “success” with women for unscrupulous men: many of the standard techniques of “game”– invading a woman’s personal space, touching her repeatedly, trying to “isolate” her from her friends – may serve as “tests” to find women who are less likely to resist violations of their boundaries. In this way, “game” may serve as a quite effective enabler of date rape. Indeed Roosh himself has admitted to raping a date too drunk to consent.
So how much of a solution is training a guy who is already filled with a toxic mixture of entitlement and self-loathing (yes, these strange bedfellows do often go together) in some techniques that might help him to tamp down his insecurities enough to manipulate some willing or not-so-willing women into bed?
You might have simply turned a mass killer into a serial rapist, or possibly a serial killer. Ted Bundy was quite the charmer. Somehow this didn’t make him a decent human being.
Even if “game” were the beneficient form of “self-improvement” that some of its proponents like to claim it is, teaching Rodger how to be a better dater would not make him a better person. Would having a girlfriend solve all his problems? Hardly. Relationships require patience and compromise and mutual respect, and Rodger seems to have had none of these qualities. Instead of directing his narcissistic rage at “girls” at large, he would likely have ended up abusing a string of girlfriends.
The problem wasn’t Rodger’s lack of “Game.” It was his lack of humanity.
marinerachel – Yeah, but that’s honestly not worth giving a cookie for. Not killing people is just the basic standard of decency.
I know. That’s what makes it so bad – that’s literally the best they could do.
Wow, talk about completely missing the point. 6 people died because someone’s boner was unhappy; should it matter how “blonde” the school was? Of course not.
The idiots quoted in the OP, I hope they’re being watched.
Sorrry, I think they’re dangerous. They’re enablers, man.
I should not have left this site and gone to others.
I am so sick of the trend these days of blaming people on the autism spectrum for everything.
Fuck the people who want to sidestep the misogyny because Asperger’s.
Fuck the people who want to avoid talking about gun control because Asperger’s.
My gentle, non-misogynistic asshole brother that all the cats and dogs adore because he’s so sweet to them is not a shield to protect sexist racist pieces of poo and gun fellators. People really need to stop with that bullshit.
Sorry. Needed the profanity filled vent. This is upsetting me a lot obviously. I can only be grateful neither my brother or parents spend enough time on the internet to see most of this fuckery.
weirwoodtreehugger – Seriously, are they going to pull that card again?
Fuck ableism. And fuck using any mental disorder/illness as an excuse for a shitty culture and a shitty mentality that tells men that they’re entitled to women. Fuck trying to use mental disorders/illnesses as a “get out of tackling the bigger issue” card. Fuck trying to hide away the fact that this dude was entrenched with misogyny and toxic masculinity and entitlement. Fuck that bullshit.
It seems like whenever a tragedy like this comes up, people just want to shift blame and sweep it under the rug, and I wish that would stop happening, too. We need something substantive to happen with gun control, with anger management and having the police take online threats and manifestos seriously (and not just from teenagers, who are also unfairly stigmatized ever since Columbine) and with telling men that women are people, too.
The manosphere summarized in a paragraph:
“Waaaaaaah! I want secks! Im a perfect Nice Guy superior to everyone so women owe me secks! Women shouldn’t be allowed to not have secks with me! Im fat and have no job and live in my parents basement, but i shouldnt have to lower my standards, im entitled to a supermodel. Its all because of feminism. Women are really stupid evil hypergamous bitches who only want Bad Boys and dirty niggers, so they need to be enslaved. They shouldnt be allowed to have jobs. They should be forced to marry and have secks with Nice Guys like me in order to survive. Western civilization will collapse otherwise. The communists/Jews/Freemasons/Satanists started and promote feminism (as well as socialism, gay marriage, race-mixing) to destroy it. Well, I dont care! I hope it does! Then those bitches will be sorry! BWAHAHAHAHA! George Sodini is my hero! GameNegsHB10SexualmarketvalueEnjoythedeclineAlphaBetaBARGLEBARGLEBARGLE…” *rambles on for twenty pages before embarking on a shooting rampage*
Bunch of fucking ignoramuses.
My mom uses intelligence and development and mental illness as excuses for bad behaviour. It’s embarrassing. The middle child of a very close friend of hers is terribly behaved, treating her mother wretchedly. Instead of “Wow, what an unkind woman. How sad for her mother” my mom CONSTANTLY pushes “Oh, but she’s mentally ill so it’s different!”
a) The mental illness doesn’t CAUSE the behaviour and
b) even if it did, it would be her responsibility as an adult to manage her illness and the symptoms, which she does not.
Whether it’s used to demonise people or excuse their shitty behaviour, I am SO sick of crazy-blaming!
David (and others),
There’s a lot of hay to be made here about PUAs, but I think you’re mistaken in drawing the connection in this case. I think this post is correct that “Game” would not have saved Rodger, but it’s mostly because I think Rodger was deeply mentally disturbed. I encourage you to read his manifesto – it’s 140 pages, it’ll take you about three hours (you can skip the parts about WoW), and given the amount of shit this incident is going to set flying in this particular corner of the Internet, I think it is worth doing.
This was a sick individual. The tail end of his manifesto concludes with his desire to kill his little brother – this was part of his plan for the “Day of Retribution” – because his little brother was socially successful, had a girlfriend, and was probably going to lose his virginity before Elliot. This has nothing to do with PUAs; it is just psychosis. Reading websites did not make him like this.
There is a long bit in his manifesto where he describes how he spent thousands of dollars purchasing Powerball tickets, again and again, each time convinced that he would win and become fabulously rich (which would give him access to the sex with beautiful blonde girls he so desperately coveted), and how he is shocked and dismayed every time he fails to win, because he is SO SURE that winning the lottery is his destiny. Again, this has nothing to do with him reading misogynists; it is purely psychosis.
The focus of his anger was on women (and on the men who got to have sex with them), but it’s not reasonable to conclude that because he hated women, he’s merely a misogynist. And, while I don’t wish to excuse anyone’s misogyny, let’s at LEAST be fair enough to admit that Roosh (et alia), despite being an awful person, is not a psychotic mass-murderer.
PUAHate.com makes a brief appearance in his manifesto – he discovered it in 2013. But his obsessions, and his problem with women, men, sex and relationships, long predated that discovery. He found some comfort in the fact that they confirmed his deep-seated hatred for women, but he also chides them for their weakness in not being able to act on their knowledge. I.e., he is willing to commit mass murder, while they are not. Seems a crucial distinction.
Did PUAs feed his psychosis? Perhaps, in some small way. But read what he wrote; it’s pretty clear that he was far along on the path to a terrible end without any help from their corner. Shortly before this happened, his psychiatrist prescribed him Risperdal, an anti-psychotic (he never took it).
I’m still not clear on what produced this individual. As far as I can tell he lived an ordinary life – somewhat troubled by his parents’ divorce, but nothing terribly unusual. Maybe his brain was just broken; maybe nothing could have saved him. But I don’t think it’s fair to suggest, as much antipathy as we might have towards them, that he was substantially shaped by MRAs or PUAs.
David, everything you said in this post is brilliant, and spot on.
I have been so sad all day, my sister has ordered me to do something cheerful, like watch a scary movie, because even that is better than this.
I’m going to play with my Sims now and see if I can make someone platinum-happy. Goodnight all.
And thank you for reading that stuff, so I don’t have to.
Fantastic post! I’m working on an article about Elliot Rodger and masculinity/game right now and I’m so glad you wrote this article, it articulates so many of the points I’m struggling with!
Saurabh,
Yet again with the ableism. Stop internet diagnosing OK?
Yes there is evidence that the MRM/PUA added fuel to the fire. In addition to his misogynistic rants, he was a member of several manosphere websites. Stop bending over backwards to excuse the misogyny at the root of this crime.
Thanks, paradoxy!
Oy, that Steve Sailer thing.Elliot Rodger was actually a pretty straightforward old-fashioned racist. You know, the kind that hates people who AREN’T white.He targeted white girls because he idolized them. (Well, while at the same time hating them. You know how misogynists are.)
I’m about to sit down and read the manifesto. I have to say, though that the excerpts of it I’ve seen look an awful lot like stuff I see in the manosphere every day.
I want to relax a moment in the balm of a site where ableism isn’t the fsking name of the game. Even my usual favorites are playing the “crazy people, amirite” game today. Fuck them.
I first heard about this, somewhat ironically given the prevalent narrative, from someone who lives in housing designated for people with mental health diagnosis. His approach was to then go into five minutes about Jesus saving us all, making me late for my appointment with a client (cutting those off are always so awkward).
Now I’m just kind of numb. This is so horrifyingly expected. There’s a point where being able to see the hatred of women which pervades society becomes so heart-numbingly inevitable, and I just hurt and ache and I’m not sure what I feel. I’m sort of knee-jerkingly responding with “stop being ableist – this is why you’re wrong” and “this is about sexism, and it’s bigger than this guy” and waiting for the emotional blowback to hit.
I hate being scared of men.
@Saurabh
David provides a good description of negative narcissism, which is definitely at work here. There’s nothing to base you claim that Roger was psychotic, in fact his organized planning, writings and video show that it’s very unlikely. When I stop in delis and bodegas I see people blowing tons of money on lottery tickets all the time, are they psychotic? Or just gambling addicts making poor money decisions? I assume it’s the latter.
*your claim
brooked: And that’s the thing I think a lot of people are overlooking when they say “oh, this guy must be crazy lol”…the sheer amount of planning that went into this is not indicative of a psychotic break. When did anger and misogyny become mental illnesses, anyway?
Seriously, the “violent = crazy” meme comes up every time we have a tragic shooting, and I’d love to know how it started.
brooked,
Again, I suggest you read the manifesto to get a better idea of what I mean. I would quote it directly, but it’s difficult to do that off scribd. But to describe what I mean:
Rodger lays out how he systematically purchased lottery tickets in increasingly larger quantities as a desperate act to buy himself a way out of his despair. He is convinced that winning the lottery is the only way out of his “living hell” (i.e., still being a virgin and not being worshipped by blonde women). Moreover he is convinced that he WILL win the Powerball, because it his destiny. Every time he is absolutely devastated when he does NOT win, because it means the universe has let him down – he has been prevented from achieving his true fate.
In other words, he is delusional. It is pure delusion to think that you are fated to win the lottery. The people at your bodega, when they lose, probably throw away their ticket. They don’t rage and cry, slashing around wildly with their pocket knife, because the universe has struck them down. This is a person who is unable to perceive that his perspectives are not rational, healthy, or valid.
To give another example: he gives many examples of seeing young couples walking around, happy, and his response to this is *extreme rage*, to the point where he follows couples he does not know to throw his coffee/latte/iced tea at them (he does this on several occasions). He is unable to percieve that his pure anger at the happiness of total strangers is not rational, healthy or valid.
I’ll also point to his first victims, his roommates, whose only crime was that he could no longer tolerate the presence of any witnesses to his frustration and pain. These people were not killed because of misogyny.
His hatred is definitely directed at women. He is overcome by rage when two women he does not know fail to acknowledge his smile as he passes them crossing the street. His rage is so great he pursues them down the street and hurls his coffee at them.
But it’s also directed at men. He is constantly exploding in rage whenever he is confronted with the fact that another man or teenager (e.g., his roommates) has had sex, especially if they are younger than him or “ugly” or “low-class”, hurling insults at them and alleging that they are lying before running off to his room to scream and cry and punch the wall.
Yes, Rodger was a misogynist. He was also a racist. He hated more or less everyone. But he was suffering from some definite delusional beliefs, and these delusions deepened over the course of his life. His conclusion is that the world is sick and wrong, that humanity is bestial by nature, that sex is evil by its nature because it allows some people to be happy while others are not. He believes that he is simultaneously fated to be great and that women will never be attracted to him, cursing him to be lonely. He imagines being a dictator over the world, and lays out a nightmare vision of mass enslavement and total genocide of women, and a complete eradication of sexuality.
This is the definition of psychosis: when you are out of touch with reality. This is *substantially* different from the misogyny that we find in other people, and I don’t think it is helpful to ending the latter to conflate the two.
>the sheer amount of planning that went into this is not indicative of a psychotic break. When did anger and misogyny become mental illnesses, anyway?
Since when does psychosis mean you’re unable to plan? People with paranoid delusions can maintain them for a long time and act on them. Also, the fact that his psychiatrist prescribed him Risperdal, an anti-psychotic, is at least some independent confirmation that the problem here was psychosis.
That’s what misogyny IS. It’s a spectrum, not something different. Christ on a pogo stick, all these people squirming to find any way at all to avoid putting the blame for this where it lies: hatred of women.
Take your ableism and excuses and shove it. PUA doesn’t “save” anything and nobody here is saying it would: the whole point is that PUA is about encouraging rape.
“All the men out there are violent brutes and all the women are irrational, and I’ll show everyone by shooting random people!”
Fuck that guy, and fuck the people who can go with “he’s crazy” to dismiss the very real effects of the growing reactionary-sexist side of the internet (sure, it’s always been sexist, but previously more in an oblivious way and now in more of a pseudotheoretical ideological way).
>Take your ableism and excuses and shove it. PUA doesn’t “save” anything and nobody here is saying it would: the whole point is that PUA is about encouraging rape.
I’m really not sure what you mean by my ableism, so perhaps you could explain or point me to a suitable reference.
In any case, my point is that this guy’s problem went well beyond misogyny; his misogyny may have been the cause of this behavior, but it did not explain everything he did, and it was primarily the product of delusion, not ideology. And since it substantially preceded his exposure to PUAs and related manosphere types, it can’t be due to that exposure.
Again, I’m not legitimize PUAs or suggesting they don’t encourage rape. I am merely saying that the place their misogyny comes from is different from the place this guy’s misogyny comes from. I’d hope that part of dismantling misogyny is understanding its origins. I don’t think it helps us understand what produces the typical misogyny that we encounter every day by clouding it with this particular individual’s delusional reasons for hating women.
FFS, haven’t you read this thread at all? Or the other thread about Rodgers? Go and fucking read them before asking us to repeat ourselves about what the hell ableism is.
Also take your oh-so-removed academic “where did his misogyny come from?” attitude away. Frankly I don’t give a shit right now, when society is STEEPED in the attitude that men are entitled to women’s bodies, and yet another man has murdered women because of his entitlement and rage.
Just go away.