Social Game

As a result of some deep procrastination, I’ve been spending far too much time reading junk in the manosphere, which I only recently discovered. These collection of blogs promote topics such as MGTOW (men going their own way), MRA (men’s right activism), and PUA (pick-up artistry). I think most of these guys get recruited into the manosphere through Game, the practice of explicitly using social techniques such as negative compliments, overt flattery, confidence projection, kino escalation, etc. to attract and bed females. I’m fortunate to be gay, because I can completely bypass all of these theatrics, and just use the Grindr app.

The most fascinating part of Game is how well it’s been developed. Sure the social/behavorial theories are rife with over-generalizations and biased by first-hand account, but these guys have built those theories on actual data. Some experiment daily, allowing the Game to orient their life. In my opinion, this is just about as hard and practical as social sciences can get.

I don’t practice Game, nor do I really pay attention to people around me. For example, while some of my friends keep spotting hot people in a crowd, I just churn through useless chatter in my head and look at my feet. I also take what people say at face value, and fail to read the many other clues that reveal their motivations, such as body language and intonation. In manosphere terminology, I have to honestly classify myself as a Beta, because I have absorbed about 22 years of state schooling. I might also be Gamma, because I’m so damnably aloof about social interaction.

Just to highlight the things that I fail to pick up on, Western Cancer at Return of Kings has highlighted a good example of Alpha behavior in the comedian Russel Brand. The social dynamic analysis is pretty well in-depth, as Cancer expands the whole subtext of each of Brands short quips and actions into words and roles that I can understand. When he remarks that “from then on this host is uncomfortably squirming around in a puddle of her own sexual juices” he’s completely right!

0:12 Just over ten seconds into the interview Brand begins showing his disinterest for being there.
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0:35 Brian, your outfit is fucked. You have no originality and you are a product of your superiors and nothing else.
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0:55 “You’re a fellow Englishwoman…” With one sentence Brand frames it so that this woman is ‘on his side’ since they share a commonality.
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1:13 The last thing Brand does is spark the attraction of the most dominant interviewer, Mika. Brand has her help him put the table back to her.

I watched Brand’s performance, and found it awful. In my opinion this whole interview was a colossal failure, I don’t know very much more about Brand or his play/act/whatever than when I started. He spent a quarter of the time directing the camera at people in the background and chatting nonsense with the hosts. He did successfully dominate the scene, sure, but I’m not inclined to watch what he was supposed to be advertising. It’s only though Cancer’s explanations that I even had a clue as to what’s going on in this scene. Left to my own interpretation, I’d recall only annoyance and no information.

Though Game techniques might be crass and geared toward sex, I think that learning the social behavior scripts would prove very useful for building social capital and advancing one’s career.