My Thoughts on the NYT Article

**Reposted from the first Lair, original date: 1/24/04

Okay, I read it, and I got a lot of mixed feelings about it.  I thought the author of the piece did a good job trying to appear fair and balanced, but on the whole, the article came off making the entire community and those at it’s head look like pathetic losers or money grubbing opportunists.  I don’t know if that’s from the way the author wrote the piece, or if that’s what it ended up being after the editors got their ignorant little hands on it, but that’s the feeling I got after I read it.

A few comments:

First off, the title is HORRIBLE!  Just flat out lame.  I know that journalists usually don’t have control over the headlines, so my guess is that this was some lame attempt by the editors at the NYTs to burry the article and hope no one reads it.  If they actually WANTED people to read the damn thing, they could have easily entiled it ”Secret Society Teaches Seduction” or some other sexy title like that.  My guess is the rocket scientists they got running things at the NYTs didn’t take the article seriously, and might even be a bit embarassed they’re printing it.

Second, Mystery does NOT come off looking very good, in my opinion.  And this probably touches on what pisses me off about the article the most, which is that the wole community comes off as looking lame.  There’s no mistaking the rather ”Politically Correct” female slant on the whole article.  Where guys who do this are all virgins or losers who need people to teach them how to talk to girls, and the gurus who teach them are somewhat faking it for a quick buck.  The whole reference of Mystery’s sarge with the girl at the Standard was a joke, with her saying ”He seems like a nice guy who was trying too hard.”  Riiiiiiiight.  Why give so much importance to her words anyway?  I thought Herbal’s post about the pick-up was much more revealing about how out of all the guys hitting on her, she gave Mystery her number.  No mention of that, was there?  Of course not.  Yet another reason I hate the New York Times as a paper — they are about pushing their PC female-centric agenda rather than reporting the FACTS.  This is the same paper who brought us Jason Blair, after all.

The author is way too hard on himself.  He’s an incredibly skilled PUA who gets laid A LOT, and he’s still hung up on his looks.  I’ve seen the guy in person, he doesn’t look THAT bad.

Only 1 mention of Tyler Durden.  I heard that Tyler’s part in the article was cut for space, but how can you ignore such a driving force in the community so easily?  I mean, he’s out there constantly teaching guys how to pick-up women, and in a way that puts him on the cutting edge of what we’re doing.  It seems odd that he could be so easily removed from the article.

Juggler’s girlfriend.  Don’t know the guy or his girl, but now I guess it’s obvious why he’s left the community.  She sounds like a bit of a bitch to me.  Fact of the matter is that most girls don’t understand the necessity for something like this community to exist, because they can have sex whenever they want and it’s not in their reality to know the trials most guys go through just to experience the most fundamental act of nature.  If this were an article about a group of women teaching other women how to find a man and get them to marry them, would it have come off as sad and pathetic?  No.  It would have been celebrated as an interesting little ”sowing circle” and I have NO doubt that they would have included web addresses for that, as opposed to this article which conveniently left any mention of the websites in this community out.

The article has no ending.  It just ENDS!  No wrap up, no final redeeming factor about the community, just the author talking about how he’s no longer an AFC.  The thing is, if he REALLY wanted to hammer home how great this community is, how about talking about a few REAL field reports instead of a stupid # close?  Too racy for the NYT I suppose.  Or maybe the author is just shy.  In any event, I don’t feel the article captured ANYTHING about what this community is really about, and rather succummed to some type of journalistic pressure to be too PC.

I know a lot of people in the community are relieved that not too many of the tactics we use were revealed in the article, but at what cost?  I guess it’s cool that most AFCs out there won’t be able to track down Fast Seduction.com and find out all about our little ”secret society.”  That the article paints us as a rather small and pathetic group of 20, 30, and 40 year old men who are virgins and have exhausted all other avenues with women, so we can remain living ”under the radar” of society’s judgement and attention.  But I guess I’m just disappointed that someone who is so involved in the community, who is so talented with these skills, who I respect probably more than anyone out there, would write such a bleek view of what we do.  Again, I don’t know what changes happened with the article between leaving the author’s hands and getting printed in the paper.  But I do know that if this is a sign of things to come, I would be very worried about how some of my friends in the community are going to be portrayed.

Thundercat