{"id":12888,"date":"2020-08-21T17:16:32","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T21:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=12888"},"modified":"2020-09-04T23:25:08","modified_gmt":"2020-09-05T03:25:08","slug":"papa-pua-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/papa-pua-the-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Papa: PUA Creates New Business, New Tactics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Who was Papa the PUA? Who was he within the pickup artist community, and how did he know Neil Strauss?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a PUA, Papa initially took Mystery’s workshops. Eventually, Papa developed his own PUA strategies and began to take over Mystery’s followers. Here’s how Papa’s PUA strategy worked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Papa: PUA That Trained the Next Generation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Style wasn\u2019t the only one who\u2019d undergone a transformation\u2014just about every student who took a workshop with Mystery started dressing better and carrying himself with more confidence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The seduction game was based on the premise that everything standing between you and picking up a woman was within your control. <\/strong>Mystery and Style felt that they could help men reach their full potential. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The workshops made such a profound impact because Style and Mystery were brutally honest. Being successful with women had nothing to do with good looks or innate ability\u2014men simply had to correct bad habits and learn new ones, from their posture to their clothes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Typically, their workshop students fell into one of three categories: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Regular guys with average social skills who simply wanted to improve their ability to pick up women<\/li>
  2. Men who studied the information and techniques, but who were so uptight that they seldom implemented any of it <\/li>
  3. Men who were socially awkward but who were fast learners. These men improved quickly, but they failed to internalize the principles and the confidence behind the lines, and thus they struggled if they had to go off-script.<\/strong> <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Papa\u2014a PUA and college student who paid Mystery $1,500 for a private workshop, instead of the standard $600 fee for a group lesson\u2014was the third type. When he first met Style and Mystery, he asked to record their conversation so that he could study the information later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Papa the PUA was an excellent student, immediately correcting every error and applying the lesson to his next pickup. Style was impressed at Papa\u2019s progress throughout the three-day workshop, and he reflected on the transformational effect that just a handful of scripted lines could have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    However, Mystery and Style didn\u2019t realize that there were some drawbacks to teaching the same lines and routines to student after student: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. The scripted routines substituted genuine connection<\/strong>, which made every pickup and every woman less meaningful. <\/li>
    2. Mystery and Style were inadvertently creating clones of themselves<\/strong>, instead of coaching men to be their best selves and helping them develop an inner confidence.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Later, Style would discover the full consequences of training an army of pickup clones\u2014and Papa would be a leader<\/a> of the clones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The Community\u2019s Downturn<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

      Mystery wasn\u2019t the only one in the community floundering. Many of the men had become addicted to picking up women, constantly determined to improve their game.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Their obsession was more potent because most of the men had struggled to pick up women all their lives, which was what drew them to the seduction community in the first place. Not only were they enjoying unprecedented success, but they had a built-in community they could brag to. Some men had left their jobs and quit school in order to spend more time sarging<\/a>.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Papa the pickup artist told Style that he\u2019d become consumed in the game. He was failing school and his father was worried about him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Style was no exception: He\u2019d all but stopped taking writing assignments, and he was neglecting his family and friends outside of the community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Style, Papa, and several other members of the community decided to take a step back from seduction and regain control of their lives\u2014but it wouldn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Papa and Tyler Durden: New Top PUAs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      Tyler Durden was a 22-year-old college student who dove head-first into the seduction community, reading thousands of pages of archived posts on the message boards and relentlessly emailing Style for tips. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Nonetheless, Tyler\u2019s brazenness and constant presence on the seduction message boards helped him become well-known within the community<\/strong>, and soon he became Papa\u2019s wing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Tyler Durden and Papa Go Rogue<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

      As green as Tyler Durden was, the seduction message boards were full of impressive reviews of Tyler\u2019s work in Mystery\u2019s workshops. In fact, students were so enthusiastic about the workshops that there was a demand for more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      After teaching his workshops in England and Amsterdam, Mystery flew home and left Tyler Durden and Papa behind to run a few more workshops to meet the demand. Papa and Tyler were supposed to simply continue teaching the Mystery Method<\/a>, but, one night, they went off-script and invented AMOGing.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      AMOGs\u2014the alpha males of the group\u2014are obstacles to PUAs. While most PUAs were nerds and outcasts in high school, most AMOGs were popular jocks. When a PUA tried picking up a girl in a group, the AMOG<\/a> usually cut him down with insults. Tyler and Papa created the tactic they called AMOGing in order to deflate AMOGs who stood in their way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Tyler Durden and Papa Create Their Own PUA Company<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

      Tyler Durden and Papa didn\u2019t stop at inventing the AMOG strategy\u2014they built a company around it. Their company was called Real Social Dynamics<\/a>, and it offered a website and in-field workshops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      For Mystery, this was adding insult to injury: Not only did Tyler and Papa use his workshops as a platform to develop and promote AMOGing, but the name of their competing business was one word off from the name of Mystery\u2019s seminars, Social Dynamics.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      In addition, the format of Real Social Dynamics workshops mirrored Mystery\u2019s setup: <\/p>\n\n\n\n