pickup artists

Coming to a 3 a.m. near you! (YouTube)

The Paul Janka Experience: New York’s PUA Poster Boy Makes Cash Money, Infomercials (Video)

For those of you both old enough to have been reading Gawker during its “microcelebrity” phase–when being a huge jerk/desperate scenester in the city was enough to warrant 24/7 coverage–might remember the name Paul Janka. Paul Janka was a pickup artist, or a “PUA.” He wrote a 19-page PDF called “Getting Laid in NYC,” which just sort of ripped off tips from the seduction community at large, which is in essence just different forms of teaching men self-confidence but also Ladder Theory. Then he wrote a book, The Attraction Formula, which appeals to exactly the type of person who thinks sexual attraction can be explained and manipulated by this guy.

Anyway,for as many women as he claimed to have boned (250 or so) in his 2007-2009 heyday, he was also a creep who deflected some serious attempted rape charges and then bragged about it on Dr. Phil.

For the past four years however, Janka has been off the grid. We assumed he met an inevitable fate in a Thai prison, but the slick-haired stubble-puss love-child of Dylan McDermott and 80s soap star Don Diamont resurfaced last month in Austin, Texas, giving an interview to Highbrow Magazine. Obviously. Obviously that is the correct publication for Mr. Janka to make his comeback. So, what has he been doing for almost half a decade? Read More

books

Field Guide to Chicks in the United States by Joe Bonvino (FieldGuidetoChicks.com)

Field Guide to Chicks Reminder That Pop Culture Can Still Be More Racist Than Girls

Not to compare apples to really tasteless oranges that no one has ever heard about, but while we listen to Lena Dunham condemn herself on Fresh Air this afternoon for not putting enough racial perspective in her HBO series Girls, we might want to also take a step back and remember that there is a lot worse stuff out there right now. Like a Field Guide to Chicks of the United States, the new book by a PUA (pick-up artist) named Joe Bovino (who, even amongst his own community, is considered a douchebag), which is not only blatantly sexist but more than just “casually” racist. Chicks actually seems to go out of its way in its press release to be severely offensive to every “ethnic subculture” out there. What’s an ethnic subculture, you ask?

“Shhhh…” Joe Bovino would reply. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” Then he would tell you that you were being an “Afrodisiac,” which is definitely a thing. Read More