REQUIEM for a Muppet Hat

Sigh. Last night was the finale of The (aforementioned) Pickup Artist. Kosmo won: Ladies, this man is a sweet, shy boxer with washboard abs and top-notch kissing skills. This is not exactly empirical proof that Mystery can transform any AFC (Average Frustrated Chump).

That's the main flaw in this show; they had to cast people who were particularly bad at picking up ladies, and then make them particularly good. I can't think of any other shows like that. (My roommate suggested The Biggest Loser...which is a title that could be applied to TPA in several ways, actually.) It's really hard, in 8 short lessons, to turn dorks into chick magnets, and the show was disappointing because no one made enough progress from episode to episode--Mystery would send them out for challenges, and one person would succeed TOPS. It should be that a bunch of them succeed, and he'd have to choose the best. The only suspense each episode was as to who got booted, not as to who got the first runic medallion. (No joke. Runic medallions.) The two hottest guys ended up as finalists. It was anticlimactic, and you left most episodes wondering how good a teacher Mystery actually is. I liked to imagine him going home after a miserably executed challenge and punching a wall.

Also, Mystery's wingmen (Matador and the questionably British J-Dog) were totally useless. And let's be honest--they're more in love with Mystery than with any of the "targets" they "isolate."

But alas, it was still a good time. It was a wild ride--we laughed, we cried*, we hated Pradeep. I don't know if there'll be another season (or indeed if I want there to be), but the legacy will live on in my heart. (And in my friend Colin's Halloween costume--I think I've convinced him.) So now for a trip down memory lane, with some of Mystery's weird outfits:

And one last time, my favorite:

Oh sweet Eric von Markovik, you fake-lipstick-tattoo-wearing stud. You will be missed.

*Okay, they cried.

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Ode to a Muppet Hat

As promised, it is time for a discourse on my current favoritest show: The Pickup Artist. Most of you probably know the premise--a bizarrely dressed (yet conceivably sexy) guru named Mystery teaches a bunch of losers how to score chicks, eliminating the loseriest losers along the way. The main draws of the show: the oddness of the lingo (IOI, gambit, bounce, kiss-close), the thrilling horror of realizing the techniques work, and Mystery's ridiculous outfits:




And, my personal favorite:


But here's the question: why do I really like this show? The truth is, I was interested in Mystery and the underground "seduction community" before the show aired. I've never actually read The Game (Neil Strauss's book on the seduction community, with Mystery as a prominent figure) or The Mystery Method (what it sounds like), but I confess I've read as many online excerpts as Amazon would let me. Do I wish I were a pickup artist? I suppose, in a way...maybe I just want to be picked up? Or perhaps, less embarrassingly, it's my general interest in psychology, especially the psychology of sex? Especially before the show started, the party line was always, "ew, these guys are gross, the techniques could only work on morons." But I always believed they worked. It made a certain sense to me.

[Of course, the method is targeted at phenomenally hot women--for women like me who have normal insecurities, all those negs might get a guy in trouble. But while I'm not particularly attracted to Mystery, I assume he could pick me up if he wanted to--I am a human, with human psychology, and I'm sure he could successfully manipulate me into wanting to bone him.]

The only comparable Method for women is, of course, The Rules. Those concepts never appealed to me. Maybe it's because they seemed passive (or rather, passive-aggressive), whereas Mystery's method is a balance of active and passive. (The Rules says never to approach first; Mystery teaches how to approach first without seeming like you're approaching.) And while the Rules are colorless and mundane, Mystery makes life and love seem like an adventure, in which you dress like a swashbuckler, have a cool name, and control your destiny. And since Mystery himself started as a hopeless nerd*, he represents that tenacious dream of transformation.

Two of my good friends--a couple--are obsessed along with me. The guy of the duo recently procured a Mystery-esque fuzzy hat and sported it on his birthday; I will try to get him to go full-out for Halloween. But will I just be living vicariously through him?


*And let's be honest, he still is one--but he's co-opted his own nerdiness and channeled it towards getting laid.

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