Hello my Beautiful Watchers, I am Dominic
Noble and as you’ve probably surmised from
what I’ve chosen to subject myself to, yes,
I do in fact hate myself.
:Jazz music slows down and breaks apart:
Right well, if we’re going to do this let's
do it properly. Erik Von Markovik is a Canadian….
I very much do not want to give him the title
of author but he wrote this book I’m about
to review.
He started his career as a professional magician
under the stage name Mystery. A pseudonym
he would continue to use as he transitioned
out of magic and into being a self proclaimed
master and teacher in the art of seduction.
Mystery’s fame received a huge spike in
2005 when he featured heavily in the best
seller The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society
of Pickup Artists. A supposedly true story
by Neil Strauss, a journalist who, while investigating
the pickup artist lifestyle was taken under
Mystery’s wing and taught to become one
himself.
Riding the wave of this new found attention
Mystery wrote his own book in 2007. The Mystery
Method: How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed.
A self help book that claimed to be able to
teach people how to… Well you heard the
title.
Around the same time he also starred in two
seasons of a TV show “The PickUp Artist”
in which he gave hands on advice to men with
confidence issues on how to approach women
in public.
In a semi surprising plot twist, in 2015 Strauss
published another book, The Truth: An Uncomfortable
Book About Relationships in which he explains
that he eventually came to realise that Mystery
and all the people like him were just angry
lonely men working through their emotional
damage by spreading the misery around, and
that following their advice will eventually
isolate you from anyone you could form a genuinely
happy healthy relationship with.
Now generally more talented and successful
British YouTuber Hbomberguy has already gone
into this in more detail and done a pretty
spectacular breakdown of the pick up artist
as a concept and lifestyle.
His deep dive into more recent takes on pick
up artistry brought to light that what little
connection it ever had to teaching you how
to talk to women has long since devolved into
open pandering to the desperate needs of incels
to blame women and feminism for their loneliness.
He also pretty succinctly demonstrated, using
the pick up artists own words and advice that
all the expertise they claim to impart on
the subject of seduction is utterly counter
productive and will fail 9 times out of 10
but because they tell you to attempt to use
it on 10 to 20 women every day you might sometimes
find success simply by playing the numbers
game.
On top of this he also presented a lot of
compelling evidence that most practicing pickup
artists don’t really believe a word that
they themselves say any more and are just
attempting to make money by selling books,
DVDs, and seminars to lonely men.
His results are partly why I chose Mystery’s
book for this review over the dozens of more
recently written titles by impersonators.
Mystery is, or at least was 14 years ago when
he wrote this book better at pretending that
he’s genuinely happy. He wrote it at the
height of his popularity and success so the
self pity is kept to a minimum and he actually
talks about picking up women instead of coming
up with reasons why he can blame them for
rejecting him and men like him. This book
is pick up artistry at its most emboldened
and least resentful.
FYI what I just said is probably going to
be the closest thing to a compliment that
I’m going to give this disgusting piece
of shit pretending to be a book.
Before I go any further, I don’t want to
have to start EVERY sentence with “according
to Mystery” so can I trust you all to assume
that me repeating this garbage is most certainly
not an endorsement of it? Thank you so much.
I would also like to include a light to medium
trigger warning. If you are a woman who has
experienced the unwanted attentions of a stranger
with more confidence than room reading ability
(so from what I’m given to understand all
of you), then you might find what I’m about
to describe in this review a tad familiar
and unsettling.
I’m also very sorry to have to warn you
that towards the end of this review sexual
assault is going to have to be discussed.
The basis of The Mystery Method is… Well
that actually changes depending on which part
of the book you’re reading but the most
prevalent is the understanding that women
are biological robots that you can hack into
using a behavior based algorithm that Mystery
developed over the years through trial and
error.
By that, Mystery apparently means that all
women are, without fail, slaves to a primordial
programming interwoven into their brains that’s
leftover from an era where personal survival
was not guaranteed.
This programming unknowingly drives them to
constantly look for a mate who has the highest
“value” and can therefore provide them
with protection and strong children.
He refers to it as replication. Women’s
replication instinct, their replication desires,
the replication value they look for in men.
I’m guessing that he either thinks referring
to it this way makes him sound more scientific
or it’s just one of the many MANY ways he
likes to dehumanise women in this book.
This will apply regardless of if the woman
actually intends to have children. The replication
instinct dictates everything women look for
in a sexual partner no matter what they think
they want in life.
My LGBTQ Beautiful Watchers may already be
spitting sparks at the blatant heteronormativity
being displayed here, and I get it I’m furious
too but you are going to have to pace yourselves
if you want to try and make it through this
because he actually manages to get more homophobic
later.
Also get used to hearing about “value”
because Mystery fucking loves that word as
a general term in his Mystery Method.
Let me see if I can break it down for you.
A LOT of things contribute to your value.
You might think that good caveman male breeding
stock would be the biggest and strongest but
even back then there was apparently more to
it than that. For example a woman might choose
to marry the decrepit old tribe chief because
his political power added more value to him
than his age or physical strength.
Yup, Mystery believes that golddigger was
in fact the world's oldest profession.
So yes, even though the instinct itself is
as old as time it has at least been updated
in modern women's brains.
New things that can contribute to your value
these days are: Your looks, your charms, your
sense of humor, your wealth, how you’re
dressed, your self esteem, how people perceive
or react to you and how in demand you appear
to be.
The higher a woman subconsciously believes
her value to be, the higher the value she
will need to see in a man before she’ll
sleep with him.
The practical application of this knowledge
being that when you are speaking with a woman
you wish to seduce, everything you do or say
should be in aid of increasing your own value
or lowering your target’s. Once her value
has slipped sufficently below yours her replication
programming will kick in and she will start
to perceive you as a potental mate worthy
of fucking or dating.
Oh and yes, women are referred to as “targets”
in this book…. Almost exclusively in fact.
Now obviously some things are out of your
hands like your income, your physical attractiveness,
and the attractiveness of your target but
fear not there are plenty of other ways to
fuck with people’s value.
Dressing nice is one. Either by peacocking
or by genuinely dressing well, though Mystery
does warn that if you intend to get really
dolled up you have to make sure you plan ahead
with your friends and make sure you don’t
all do it because in his words “One guy
dressed to the nines looks like "the man";
two guys decked out that way look gay.”
Peacocking, you might have already heard of.
It basically means wearing something outrageously
eye catching like brightly coloured clothing
or in Mystery’s case a hat with goggles
on it.
This serves the dual purpose of providing
a potential opener when women ask you why
you have come to a bar or club dressed this
way, AND an opportunity to act so confident
in this odd attire it increases your value
in their eyes.
Another way of increasing your value is making
yourself appear to be in high demand by other
women, both real and imaginary. The single
most powerful thing that drives your target’s
sex drive is jealousy. Because apparently
women are terrible.
Quick degression. Mystery claims that women
should be rated on their looks on a scale
of 6 to 10, 6 being an average looking woman
and 10 being very attractive.
He doesn't explain in this book why he uses
such an odd scale. The only theories I can
come up with are he either wishes to imply
that no man would be cruel enough to rate
a woman below a 6, or that women who would
rate 5 or lower are not even worth talking
about as they are sub human.
Anyway, Mystery suggests using lower scoring
women as pawns, yes he literally refers to
them as pawns to help you get with higher
numbered girls.
What you do is start by charming a 6 or a
7 until they develop an interest in you, then
have them hold onto your arm while you approach
and seduce a 10.
The “proven value” you display by already
having a girl with you will make you more
appealing to your real target.
Mystery claims that the less attractive woman
can then return to her friends unharmed. He
specifically uses the word unharmed and I
can only assume that he means physically because
FUCKING HELLFIRE there is no way that he can
genuinly believe a woman will be emotionally
fine after being chatted up only to be used
a fucking prop and abandoned for a woman deemed
better looking than her.
What is your damage Mystery?
Beautiful Watchers, would you excuse me for
just a second?
*Off screen screaming*
Thank you, I needed that.
The before alluded to imaginary women are
in reference to his advice to wear women's
perfume and imply it’s rubbed off from an
earlier encounter in the night or to put a
lipstick kiss on your neck and pretend you
were not aware of it until your target mentions
it.
The sheer pathetic desperation of such acts
isn’t lost on me but I have to confess the
very first thought that immediately sprung
to my mind was: Who’s giving you those fake
lipstick kisses, Mystery?.... Mystery….
Are you forcing your wingmen put on lipstick
and kiss your neck before hitting up the club.
Is that what your doing, Mr “Two well dressed
men look gay?”
Mystery warns that while boasting is an important
part of picking up targets, talking yourself
up too much can lead to appearing full of
yourself and actually decrease your value.
This is where wingmen come in. Bring a friend
to sing of your achievements so you don’t
have to.
These don’t have to be real achievements
of course. There’s nothing wring with lying
to women for sex after all.
Some of the example fictitious accomplishments
he provides are kind of amazing, because they
are A: super super obviously lies and B: Sometimes
quite clearly serious crimes.
Mystery mentions that a wing woman would be
invaluable in seduction because they can help
you inspire jealousy by faking interest in
you as well as talking you up, but he seems
to be at least a little aware that the chances
of you finding a female friend willing to
take part in the dehumanizing and manipulation
of her gender for sex are pretty remote.
If you do find yourself having to extoll your
own virtues, say in the SUPER unlikely case
that you’re a toxic douchebag with no friends
due to your total lack of respect for women
then Mystery recommends framing it with a
certain amount of faked vulnerability.
Talk about how frightened you were when you
were scaling that sheer cliff solo and your
rope snapped, or how nervous you where when
you were saving those kids from that mountain
lion.
He heavily endorses lying or avoiding answering
questions relating to your job if it’s not
cool enough though side splittingly hilariously
he claims that as a professional magician
he actually had the opposite problem and has
to be careful about how he presents his job
so he doesn’t impress women so much they
feel intimidated and are worried they are
not in HIS league.
Because as everyone knows bitches be mad about
fucking stage magicians.
:laughing, then coughing:
Oh this guy’s such a fucking wanker. You
will not BELIEVE how often he brings up the
fact that he’s a magician in this book.
It’s like that rather mean joke people used
to tell about vegans: “How do you tell if
someone’s a magician? Don’t worry, they’ll
tell you.” I’m so sorry, I’m not trying
to throw shade on magicians in general I swear
he’s just so smug and douchey about it.
Right, I guess this brings us to the other
value related seduction method…. Decreasing
your targets.
The easiest ways to do this are by pretending
that they are way less attractive than they
are and by carefully chipping away at their
self esteem.
Negging is another thing you might already
have heard of and it's one of the most disgusting
things in this book.
What negging amounts to is finding ways to
give really backhanded compliments to your
target or just be generally mean to them in
lots of small ways that are enough to make
them feel bad about themselves but not obvious
enough, at least in Mystery’s mind, for
them to realize you’re being a complete
asshole. Sigh…. For example.
So, what do you do for a living?
Well, I'm actually a model.
What, like a hand model?
Hello, I’m talking, geez! May I finish my
sentence? Is she always like that?
I don’t think we should get to know each
other.
Why not?
You’re just too much of a nice girl for
me.
Wow, she poops words. Where’s her off button?
Uh, which way to the bathroom?
Oh it’s right over--
I didn’t ask you!
I like that dress, I remember seeing you in
a club before and you were wearing the same
dress. It’s nice though.
Hey check out this cute puppy I met the other
day--HEY! Excuse me! I’m showing her the
pictures right now, wait your turn. Geez!
Wow, you really wrecked a moment. Your ex-boyfriends
must have really hated that about you.
Gum?
No thanks, I’m drinking beer.
I know. Take the gum.
Do a lot of people ask you if you’re a model?
Yes, all the time.
I think they were just being polite.
You don’t get out much, do you?
Mystery recommends negging a target at least
2 or 3 times a minute.
Negging can also involve showing how little
you respect her by say, loudly blowing your
nose while she’s trying to talk, or something
to make her feel really self conscious like
pretending she has a really bad eye booger
on her face or drool on her chin.
If all these fail Mystery, without a shred
of irony suggests making her pull your finger
and blowing raspberries. Multiple times. Each
time promising her you wont make fart sounds
again then berrating her for being stupid
enough to keep falling for it when you do.
Mystery insists that these insults do not
do lasting psychological harm to your target.
If done properly they will be unaware they’ve
even been insulted but their self esteem value
will be adjusted down slightly which will
install in them a desire to impress you to
raise it back up because apparently all women
desperately need men’s desire and interest
to feel validated and happy, even if they
don’t know it yet…. I am just going to
need another second.
*More off screen screaming*
I am pretty fucking certain that no one in
my audience need to hear this but just in
case please, PLEASE, never attempt to neg
someone.
Even if it worked, it doesn't, it does not
because women are NOT in fact biological robots
under the control of an ancient programmed
instinct to find a high value mate but even
if it did it’s just not worth it.
You don’t want to be someone who would want
to make someone feel bad about themselves
to sleep with you, it’s a horrible thing
to do and if the idea appeals to you even
a little bit then I’m sorry to break it
to you but you’re not a good person, you’re
just not.
No relationship born of such selfish harm
could possibly amount to anything besides
misery and pain for everyone involved.
Right. Simply out of a sadistic need to suffer
as much as I have, I am not going to randomly
paraphrase pieces of advice from this book
for a little bit. Ahem:
Only sleep with attractive women. While it
might be easier to score with the ugly ones,
it’s important to maintain your standards
and only take the hottest, most sophisticated
women to bed.
Make sure you are constantly in control of
any and all conversations. If you let a woman
get a word in, she’ll pick a boring subject,
bore herself, and then blame you for it.
Even, :shudders: geeks can learn this method.
Believe it or not, I used to be a geek too.
But, now I’m awesome.
While catcalling a woman might give her a
much appreciated ego boost in the short term,
it risks adding to her value and will lessen
your chances with her in the future.
Never buy your target a drink. Make her buy
YOU a drink so she’ll feel more invested
in you and be more likely to see the night
through to the end. Nothing like trying to
tap into the sunk cost fallacy to get sex.
It’s not sexist to assign a number to women’s
looks because something something ancient
survival instinct.
If your target tells you that she has a boyfriend,
it doesn’t mean she’s not going to sleep
with you. Even if she’s not lying, all she’s
doing is testing your resolve, challenging
you to talk her into cheating, or warning
you not to expect a steady relationship afterwards.
Flip those expectations, and constantly tell
your target to stop touching you and you’re
not that easy. This will make her want you
even more now and prevent her from being able
to say the same things back to you later when
she regrets her decisions.
Women will automatically assume that you want
to sleep with them if you’re nice to them
in any way. Because, women are terrible, apparently.
That’s why it’s so important to constantly
lie to them about your intentions.
Never apologize to a target. It might make
her feel good but that sort of weakness will
make her lose attraction to you.
Use protection for your safety and hers. Holy
crap, a legitimately good piece of advice!
Pulling out a notepad just as you’re asking
for her number might force her to give you
one just to avoid an awkward moment. And it
might even be a real number!
If your target deduces that you would be easy
to talk into bed, she’ll snub you and find
someone with a higher challenge rating just
for the heck of it. Because, once again, it’s
women who are terrible.
As I mentioned at the start, Mystery is better
than a lot of other pick up artists at hiding
the fact that he’s a lonely miserable man
with more emotional damage than a post apocalyptic
metro dwelling mutant. He also better at not
straight up admitting that all his of advice
is bunk and just a numbers game…. But he
does slip up here and there and let you know
that is indeed the case.
He lets you know that while the method he’s
selling you will eventually guarantee you
100% success, in order to master it you’re
going to have to try and fail more times than
you can keep count of, and if you want to
stay sane you need to train yourself to be
completely emotionally unaffected by the constant
rejection and learn to enjoy the uh, “practice”.
He even lets slip that even once you’ve
mastered the mystery method you’re still
going to get a lot of fake phone numbers,
and the way around this is to constantly collect
as many numbers as possible so the dead ends
don’t upset you.
Despite his TV show being literally named
it, one of the earliest things Mystery does
is deny the title of Pick up Artist, preferring
the term Venusian artist instead. He doesn't
really explain the difference or why the former
wouldn’t apply to him, honestly I think
he was just becoming aware of the growing
stigma towards his disgusting profession and
wanted to get ahead of the rebranding.
He likens practicing picking up women to martial
arts training and compares himself to Bruce
Lee a few times.
I think the fact that he tries so hard to
make the practicing sound cool is further
evidence that he knows his advice is bad,
and needs to make you okay with constant failure
so you don’t catch on.
Disturbingly, in one of the earliest chapters
while talking about the importance of persistence
Mystery mentions that the consequences of
too little is no sex while the consequence
of too much is possible rape charges.
I would like to think that any halfway decent
human being would immediately assume that
if rape is a possible outcome of a course
of action then said course of action should
be avoided at all costs because no possible
reward is worth that risk.
But this is at the START of the book. Mystery
is so unconcerned with it he’s not even
a little worried that it will put his readers
off.
*Continued off screen screaming*
Sorry everyone, I might actually need a little
longer before I can get back to this. There’s
only so much visceral screaming can do to
help after a while.
Are we all cool with taking 5? Yeah? Appreciate
it, I’ll finish this horror show next week
I promise. In the meantime if you want to
help me feel like reading this garbage was
worth it be sure to leave a like and an encouraging
comment.
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Thank you for joining me my Beautiful Watchers.
To be continued.
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