The Freak-Out Artist: Julian from Real Social Dynamics takes gaslighting to a new level
I’ve read and watched and listened to a lot of creepy pickup artist crap over the past few years while writing this blog, but in some ways this little video, from PUA “coach” Julian of Real Social Dynamics, one of the bigger and better known of the commercial “game” marketers, may well be the creepiest. Essentially, Julian provides tips to young men on how to “get” the girl of their dreams by temporarily driving her out of her mind.
No, really: he recommends that men overwhelm their female targets with confusing and contradictory stimuli to throw them so off-balance they’ll reflexively turn to their mental tormenters for support (and, maybe later, reward them with sex). This isn’t pick-up artistry so much as freak-out artistry.
The one thing about this video that is vaguely reassuring is that Julian’s examples of his technique in action are so crude and hamhanded I seriously doubt they’d actually work on anyone “in field,” as the PUAs like to say. What’s not so reassuring is that anyone would actually come up with something this predatory and perverse in the first place. Also, you know that at least a few of the video’s 32,000 viewers have actually tried out this technique on annoyed and bewildered women around the world. The world doesn’t really need any new ways for dudes to be assholes in clubs.
Posted on September 30, 2013, in bad boys, crackpottery, creepy, douchebaggery, emotional abuse, gaslighting, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, PUA and tagged emotional abuse, gaslighting, misogyny, pick-up artists, pickup artists, PUA. Bookmark the permalink. 469 Comments.
@ Fi, thank you! My girl just started crawling and one of the things she likes to do is crawl over and lay her hand on my big toe. She doesn’t squeeze or pull or dig in, she just lays her hand on it and then sits up, like a swimmer slapping the side of the pool after her last lap.
@freemage
Maybe I’ll have to check out that film, with that recommendation
@dustydeste
You’re fine, worry not.
I can’t believe there are people here who make macaroni and cheese in a pot. I simply cannot be associated with such people.
:: flounces dramatically, twirling petticoats ::
:: immediately returns, and pretends she never flounced at all::
So hey, what’s up?
Can you hold on to that eyeball for me? I’m sure it’ll go wandering again later, and I wouldn’t want it to get lost.
Hmm, maybe I’ll watch it then. I like vampire movies, or at least I used to, until The Books Which Shall Not Be Named happened.
I was actually recently reading a book called Fat White Vampire Blues, which is pretty much a guy from New Orleans cheerfully smashing Anne Rice-style vampire books ala Confederacy of Dunces. It’s kind of an interesting cultural oddity, in that the book is VERY powerfully New Orleans, while at the same time predating both Katrina and Twilight by a few years.
That said, I had to stop reading because of the rampant transphobia. Yes, I get it, it’s a book in the style of O’Toole, no character is intended to be sympathetic, but STILL. If you’re hurting trans people, I ain’t laughing.
Cloudiah::: immediately returns, and pretends she never flounced at all::
So hey, what’s up?
No worries, s’Good.
Marie - Avocado smoothies are delicious! You just put in avocados, milk, and condensed milk in a blender and blend until smooth. SO MOTHERFUCKING GOOD.
A lot of recipes call for ice. My best friend and I don’t use ice. Just don’t forget to refrigerate it if you’re not going to eat it right away! Cover it with plastic wrap touching the top of the smoothie to keep the air out.
(I don’t use measurements in general, so we do it by taste. We use a decent amount of condensed milk though. NOMS)
Actually, the worst with those peppers? Yeah, the bathroom incident was bad, but the shower is Right There (and yes, I did immediately make use of it, because HOLY FUCKING SHIT MY NETHER REGIONS ARE ON FIRE)
The worst? I ate some with my previous winter gloves on (not the frankengloves thankfully, I doubt they’d take washing well)…the next winter I rubbed my eyes not realizing I still had habanero on my gloves. Yes, a year later. And nowhere near water of any sort!
Cute little orange peppers OF DEATH!
@argenti aertheri
Wow habanero stuff lasts a long time O_o Also, I shamefully did not think to take a shower because I wanted to finish what I was cooking, so…I kind have a bad habit of not thinking of obvious solutions.
Argenti, when I was a toddler, my grandma showed me her pepper garden. While she wasn’t looking I smashed them in my hands, and then started sucking my thumb… I was not a happy baby that day…
Jesus
There was a bar in Seattle that used to put Thai chillies in its bar snack mix. It was delicious.
I like ALL the mac-n-cheese, but baked is probably my favorite.
Since we’re already on food as a topic - favorite bar snacks? Mine is wasabi peanuts (goes well with vodka drinks).
At El Quixote in MYC, they had some delicious crispy chicken and some kind of omelet thing that was to die for that they brought out for happy hour.
Other that that, nuts and/or Chex mix type nibbles are good.
There’s a Czech bar in San Francisco that used to offer this snack that was like bruscetta, but a bit spicier? Not sure what it’s called, but it was tasty.
Bruschetta: Now there’s something that anyone with a broiler can make, and probably should.
Hm… While I certainly encourage checking out A Vampire in Brooklyn, I should also note: I last watched it maybe 10-15 years ago. I can’t guarantee it aged well, especially since that goes back to the era when my privilege blinders were still pretty much surgically attached. (These days, I can at least usually manage to remove them when I’m reminded that they’re there.) So it’s quite possible, given the era it was made in, that I’m only remembering the parts that still appeal to me now, and there might be something secretly awful lurking in the bits between those.
@freemage
I’ll keep that in mind should I get around to seeing it. (my too-see list of movies is ridiculously long :p)
Note to self: I should purchase disposable gloves (like what they’d use in labs) before messing with peppers.
Ah… this reminded me of a conversation conducted on my LJ, some years back, on the “proper” way of making macaroni and cheese. It started from a general discussion about how to write about food.
So how DO you make mac and cheese? Also, stovetop or baked?
I do both. I grew up with baked. I am of the opinion it ought to be something one can slice when cold. It should make a decent breakfast/lunch when a slice is fried.
I like it baked because of the way the layer of cheese you sprinkle on the top melts in the oven.
Baked, and with a crunchy topping of panko and parmesan. Now I really want mac & cheese for dinner, but I have to eat some leftover turkey bolognese before it goes off. Darn you all!
Pecunium, this is a thing I must have. I haven’t had proper baked mac and cheese since my grandmother died, and if I can get him a recipe for cut-able mac and cheese, my brother will owe me at least a few rides to/from the train station ^.^ (which reminds me, wonder if it’s unfucked yet)
Do you use an egg, pecunium? I have never used an egg, but I noticed that was part of your LJ discussion. I just make a bechamel with grated cheeses stirred into it.
Half unfucked? Looks like coming back over the weekend is going to be a fucking joy >.<
Not baked mac & cheese for me tonight, but probably tomorrow night.
I’m having leftover veggie chili — onions, serrano peppers, red bell peppers, zucchini, fresh tomato and canned tomato sauce, black beans, chili powder, cumin, mushrooms, etc.
It’s basically Emeril’s veggie chili but I couldn’t afford a pound and a half of portobellos and I have debased it with shreddy cheese and HORROR OF HORRORS Fritos.
Mmmm, the sliced avocado on top is yummy (YMMV).
On second bite, there’s so much flavor here that the avocado kind of disappears. :/
Baked mac & cheese, sliced the next day and fried?! Who needs arteries, anyway?
Now I want to make mac and cheese… baked, you say?
*puts baking dish on shopping list*
Oh, Alice! I wanted to share my recommendation for a not-too-expensive rice cooker, which is to say, this is the rice cooker that I bought a while back and it hasn’t broken yet and cooks some mean rice and comes with a steamer tray and has a delay timer and keep-warm function. If you’re creative you can use it pretty similarly to a small crockpot!
Falconer — idk, in pecunium’s case that many calories might be a good thing, he’ll blow away in a strong breeze ^.^
dustydeste - Ooh, thanks! How would I use it like a crockpot?
Mmm, mac’n'cheese… mine is fairly convoluted but it ends up as an entire meal in itself.
If I’m using bacon, I cook it first, and save the fat. In said fat (or olive oil) I saute a soffritto/mirepoix thingie of diced celery, carrot, garlic and onion (leeks or little red shallots too, depending on availability). The cheese sauce is a pretty basic bechamel (I pre-infuse a bay leaf in the milk) with heaps of tasty cheddar; when it gets too thick it’s thinned out with Greek yoghurt which adds extra tanginesss. When the pasta’s cooking I put a steamer with chopped cauliflower and broccoli over the pot (already the dishes are mounting up!) When that’s all in hand I cut up the bacon and add it and some chopped mushrooms to the stuff in the frying pan. Then it all gets mixed up, chucked into an oven dish, covered in grated cheese (and crumbled-up potato chips if I’m feeling devilish) and baked until melty.
And now I’m hungry.
P.S. Every time I read “freak-out artist” I think about Homer Simpson becoming a hippie and taking his mother’s old friends into town to mess with the squares. Homer’s idea of freak-out music is “Uptown Girl” so the ultimate freak-out artist is obviously Billy Joel. Ew.
Alice - It takes some getting used to exactly what the various settings do, and depends on what exactly you’re cooking, but if you stick some meat, veggies, and brothy liquid in, turn it on to steam for 10-20 minutes depending on what you’ve got and how long you think it should be boiling for, and then leave it for 2-8 hours, you’ll come back to a nice warm stew-type thing. It’s not like a really nice fancy crockpot or anything, and it’ll lose a bit more liquid to steam (so you should always fill it up really well with liquid if going the “stew” route and planning to leave it for hours and hours), but it works and comes with the added benefits of “steamer basket” and “makes some damn fine rice.”
That said, rice cookers are maybe more versatile, but if you want to slow cook things a lot then an actual slow cooker might be better, depending on your needs. I think you can get them cheap, too? I went with the rice cooker because my kitchen is the size of a dorm-room closet so everything has to be as versatile as possible if it’s going to be kicking around and taking up space, and also because I just really like rice a lot. Mmmmm rice.
Baked for me. Basic béchamel with browned butter, nutmeg and paprika, add 3-4 different types of cheese off heat (if you add it while on heat the sauce can “seize” and you’ll ruin it), undercook pasta and toss together, add any veggies or extras at this stage, throw panko and parmesan crumbs on top and bake at 350 for 40 mins until golden.
I typically don’t add veggies to it, I toss broccoli, cauliflower, and/or green beans with garlic, oil, and maple syrup and bake or broil that instead for a side dish.
You can get a smaller Crockpot for under 30 bucks if you want a slowcooker, and there’s always tons of them at Goodwill.
I spent a while in Kuala Lumpur a few years ago, and came across some real fancy-pants rice cookers that you could do just about anything in, including baked goods! Our basic rice cooker was brilliant for soup. Of course, nobody I knew there had a conventional oven and to be perfectly honest I imagine you’d have to crank the air-con way up to be comfortable in the same room as one.
Also, crockpots are awesome and make the best rice puddings.
The rice cookers my in-laws have are all the super fancy ones. It’s HI, rice comes with everything there too.
Mr. HK just has a tiny one, because I’m not much of a rice person. When he cooks the jasmine rice, it smells like feet to me.
There are some really fancy rice cookers! I wish I had money to blow on a Fuzzy Logic cooker, but alas, we are not-so-gainfully unemployed over here at the moment, and saving up for baby-making mode, besides.
Dustydeste: Where is here?
Here is Vancouver. We’ve still got my husband’s employment insurance for a while, so we’re doing fine, and he’s optimistic about finding a job before it runs out. I can’t work until at least May unless I move back to the US, because I’m on a tourist visa until my paperwork for PR is done being processed. Really, we’re fine, just trying not to spend unnecessarily!
Ok. If you were in the US I could offer to help a bit, but I can’t do a shipping over the border.
Thanks for being concerned, I really appreciate it
We really are fine, though, and lucky enough to be able to borrow from our families if we really need to. They may not like our opinions on basically everything, but we’re still family and they’d pitch in if we were in dire straits.
Pecunium — if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, just ship it to me and I’ll send it on it’s way!
In other news, my last batch of cat anger consequences has healed, so she gave me a new batch. At least I don’t seem to be bleeding this time.
It’s good to know they care.