A short history of the pickup community

The pickup community began as a handful of men swapping notes on a Usenet newsgroup. Within about a decade it had a bestselling book, a reality TV show, and an industry of paid workshops. Here's the timeline, in order.

Before there was a community: the advice books

Two early books are cited as forerunners. In 1967, psychologist Albert Ellis and Roger Conway published The Art of Erotic Seduction. In 1970, Eric Weber published How to Pick Up Girls!, which pitched meeting women as a learnable skill rather than a matter of luck or looks. That idea shows up in much of what followed.

Ross Jeffries and Speed Seduction (late 1980s to 1990s)

The figure most often credited with starting the modern community is Ross Jeffries. He began studying seduction in 1988 and taught workshops in "Speed Seduction," which used neuro-linguistic programming (NLP): language patterns, anchoring, and guiding someone's imagination. His book How to Get the Women You Desire into Bed came out in the early 1990s. Paul Thomas Anderson has said Tom Cruise's seduction-guru character in Magnolia (1999) was inspired by him. More in Ross Jeffries and Speed Seduction.

alt.seduction.fast and the online era (1994 onward)

In 1994, Lewis DePayne, a student of Jeffries, founded the Usenet newsgroup alt.seduction.fast (ASF). Men used it to share techniques, post accounts of their nights out, and compare notes on what worked. The jargon grew here: IOIs (indicators of interest), sets, approaches, and later "lairs," local groups that went out together.

In the late 1990s, Clifford Lee started Cliff's List Seduction Letter, an independent newsletter. The term "neg" also dates to this period, according to dictionaries. David DeAngelo's ideas first circulated on Cliff's List before becoming the e-book Double Your Dating (2001); see David DeAngelo and Double Your Dating.

The coaching companies (early to mid 2000s)

Real Social Dynamics was founded in Los Angeles in the early 2000s (sources say 2002 or 2003) by Owen Cook ("Tyler Durden") and Nick Kho ("Papa"). It made the live, multi-day bootcamp its main product. See Real Social Dynamics and the rise of the pickup bootcamp.
Mystery Method Corp, run around Erik von Markovik, later became Love Systems under Nick Savoy, who has coached since 2004. See Love Systems and Nick Savoy.
Corey Wayne published How to Be a 3% Man in 2006, and Kezia Noble began coaching in the UK the same year.
PUATraining, founded by Richard La Ruina in London in 2007, grew into bootcamps and seminars worldwide.

The Game (2005) and TV (2007)

A journalist's book brought the community its widest audience. Neil Strauss, of Rolling Stone and The New York Times, spent time inside the scene as "Style," learning from the Canadian pickup artist Mystery. In September 2005, ReganBooks published The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. It follows Strauss through workshops and into "Project Hollywood," the Los Angeles mansion he shared with Mystery, Tyler Durden, Papa, and others. It reached the New York Times bestseller list. See Neil Strauss and The Game.

Mystery's own book, The Mystery Method, written with Chris Odom, came out through St. Martin's Press in 2007, and Strauss followed with Rules of the Game the same year. VH1's The Pickup Artist premiered on August 6, 2007, with Mystery coaching contestants through approach challenges. It ran two seasons, through 2008. See Mystery and the Mystery Method.

Directness and mindset (2010s)

2008. Matthew Hussey moves from coaching men to coaching women.
2011. Mark Manson self-publishes Models: Attract Women Through Honesty, which drops routines and teaches non-neediness. See Mark Manson's Models.
2012. Richard La Ruina's The Natural and Kezia Noble's The Noble Art of Seducing Women are published.
2013. Matthew Hussey's Get the Guy becomes a New York Times bestseller.
2014. Charlie Houpert's Charisma on Command book appears, and his YouTube channel later passes 10 million subscribers, according to a 2025 Tim Ferriss podcast interview.

2014: the Julien Blanc visa bans

In November 2014, Australia cancelled the visa of RSD instructor Julien Blanc (November 6), the UK Home Office refused him one (November 19, after a petition passed 150,000 signatures), and Singapore barred him (November 26). He gave an interview to CNN on November 17. The full timeline is in Julien Blanc and the 2014 visa bans.

2015 and after

In October 2015 Strauss published The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships. In a Slate interview that month he said, "Today, I look back on the book and cringe." Merriam-Webster now lists "neg" as a word, defined as manipulating someone by eroding their confidence.

After 2015:

YouTube became the main channel. Teachers like Todd Valentine and Tom Torero post video content on approaching; see Infield videos explained.
Daygame grew as a specialty; see Tom Torero and the rise of daygame.
Several well-known figures changed direction: Roosh V converted to Christianity in 2019 and closed his forum in October 2023, and former RSD instructors such as Todd Valentine launched independent brands.
Tom Torero died in 2021.
Much of the older forum and lair activity moved to messaging apps, with Wikipedia noting Telegram groups as the main hub today.

What to do next

Read one primary source. Skim the first chapters of The Game or one free YouTube video from a current coach to see how the advice reads today.
Start your own field-report habit, like ASF. After your next outing, write 5 lines and post them in the Run Game forum.
Form a lair. Find one person nearby through the Map's Near you in Run Game and agree on a weekly 90-minute outing.
Try the plain opener the 2010s teachers favored. Say "Hi, I'm [name], I saw you and wanted to say hello" to 5 people this week. Log each one.
Track the outcomes in Run Game as Success or Rejected, and check your rate after the fifth.