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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   25102 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 2023

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I am not sure how "suppressed" you can claim it is when there are still large communities and people still talking about it, even if mostly negatively.

Another aspect is that most of the PUA material the curious are familiar with was written before smartphone use became common among Western women, before Instagram, Facebook, TikTok etc. even existed, and as such, it is by now largely useless.

No, it was already becoming played out before then.

I actually read Neil Strauss's The Game (published in 2005) and one of the things he describes towards the end is how over-franchised PUA material was, until women in all the hot spots like LA and Las Vegas were just openly laughing at PUAs because every dude was using the same sad routines and they all knew the game by now.

large communities and people still talking about it, even if mostly negatively.

So you mean mainstream online feminists and their normie hangers-on, basically? Because that, i.e. when an entire cultural phenomenon (let's call it that) is only permitted to be openly discussed in mainstream culture (without repercussions like cancelling, that is) only by culture warriors dedicated to, or at least sympathetic to, its suppression, delegitimisation, cancellation and banishment, is how social suppression normally works.

So you mean mainstream online feminists and their normie hangers-on, basically?

No, I mean pretty much everyone except the PUA community. If a "cultural movement" is widely unpopular, it may be because there is some vast feminist media conspiracy against it, or it may be that it's...unpopular, because of the people in it.

That's not how any culture has ever worked.

PUA isn't a culture. It's a movement. Why are hippies or feminists or Nazis or Democrats or furries unpopular with a lot of people?

I find it a bit curious that you included Nazis on that list, as they are an obvious outlier, but anyway.

Why do you think pick-up artistry is more of a movement than a social trend or cultural phenomenon? (Especially today and not, say, 20 years ago.) I see no evidence of that. Do they engage in any sort of activism? Do they have organizations, structure, advocates etc?

Are there any media platforms whose shtick is entirely or partially is ridiculing, shaming, condemning furries, feminists or Democrats, with the tacit or open approval of the mainstream? Please keep in mind that this is an enormous qualifier.

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