| My problems with The Pickup Artist (either season) are threefold:
One, reality TV, if you know anything about it, is anything but reality. It's a carefully edited, tailored-for-maximum-interest thing. The OP already posted some of the criticisms of the first season (awful lot of actors posing as both PUA candidates and targets in that show, etc). You can't ever be sure that what you're seeing is actually what most of us define as "reality."
Two: the elimination angle of the show, lifted from Survivor and many other reality shows, is counter to the spirit of seduction. The community as I know it is pretty inclusive. Anyway, eliminations make for good TV, but it does a disservice to the spirit of the community.
Three: the elimination angle wouldn't be so bad if Mystery eliminated the guys who need the LEAST help. This stuff is supposed to help your average guy (and even some below-average guys) get girls, but every week, Mystery eliminates another guy who actually NEEDS his help the MOST, while the guys who need the least help (and are the youngest, prettiest and thinnest) stay on. I mean, please--Kozmo? I would have been a LOT more impressed with the first season if an older or heavier or more socially retarded (can you say Pradeep?) guy had transformed and won the show. But no, a thin, young, very good looking guy, who probably really needed only the least amount of coaching to become successful with women won the first season. I bet that is the way it will be this season too.
Seduction is supposed to be about leveling the playing field, but The Pickup Artist is not about that at all. It just pretends to be.
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