This article is an excerpt from the Shortform summary of "The Game" by Neil Strauss. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading.
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What is Real Social Dynamics? What was Neil Strauss’s role in the company?
Real Social Dynamics was a company founded by new gurus Tyler Durden and Papa. Real Social Dynamics caused many tensions within the PUA community, especially with Mystery and other PUAs at Project Hollywood.
Tyler Durden and Papa Create Real Social Dynamics
Tyler Durden and Papa didn’t stop at inventing the AMOG strategy—they built a company around it. Real Social Dynamics, Tyler and Papa claimed, was their new business, and it offered a website and in-field workshops.
For Mystery, this was adding insult to injury: Not only did Tyler and Papa use his workshops as a platform to develop and promote AMOGing, but the name of their competing business was one word off from the name of Mystery’s seminars, Social Dynamics.
In addition, the format of Real Social Dynamics workshops mirrored Mystery’s setup:
- They were three nights
- They started and ended at the same times
- They cost the same
The primary difference between the two workshops—besides the techniques—was that Mystery only allowed six students per workshop, while Tyler and Papa had dozens. The pair was making money hand over fist.
Tyler and Papa’s company set off a spark of entrepreneurship in the community. Other sargers and PUAs realized that they could just as easily start their own seduction business, because:
- If these two young rookies could run workshops, anyone could.
- There was an insatiable demand for pickup strategies.
Throughout the community, men were offering workshops, creating websites, marketing products, selling DVDs, and writing e-books about seduction. Many of the entrepreneurs were far from experts: Several of the men were fairly new to the community, and one had lost his virginity just a month before offering workshops.
Style Launches Project Hollywood
After Papa, Mystery, and Style signed the lease on the Project Hollywood mansion, they posted on Mystery’s Lounge that they were looking for roommates to fill the remaining two rooms. The response was overwhelming.
They ended up bringing in three eager pickup artists (PUAs):
- Herbal, a 22-year-old from Austin who had made a small fortune in a gambling scheme.
- Playboy, a party promoter who had quit his job at a New York dance company in order to come to Project Hollywood. Playboy worked for Real Social Dynamics and Tyler to pay his rent.
- Xaneus, a college student from Colorado who was willing to do whatever it took to live at Project Hollywood—so he slept in a tent in the backyard, worked as an intern for Real Social Dynamics, and paid for utilities and housecleaning.
The roommates laid out the ground rules for the house:
- Herbal was responsible for finances.
- Papa was in charge of social events.
- Guests couldn’t stay in the house for more than a month without approval from all the roommates.
- Ten percent of profits from any seminars held in the living room had to go to the house fund.
- No one was allowed to sarge a woman that another PUA invited to the house.
Project Hollywood hit the ground running. Playboy threw the first Project Hollywood party, and the turnout was 500 people.
Similar seduction venues started popping up around the world—in Austin, San Francisco, Sydney, and Perth.
Tyler Durden Joins Project Hollywood
One day, Tyler Durden moved into Project Hollywood. Papa had given him an (unapproved) invitation to live in his bathroom closet.
Tyler and Papa were still running Real Social Dynamics together. Plus, Tyler and Style would be winging Mystery’s workshop together that weekend in Las Vegas. Mystery didn’t explain his decision to invite Tyler to wing his workshop, but right after Tyler and Papa had launched Real Social Dynamics, Mystery had vowed to keep his friends close and his enemies closer.
Although Style had gotten a bad impression of Tyler during their last meeting, Tyler’s skill and reputation had vastly increased since then. Tyler had been leading workshops regularly and gaining respect in the online seduction community. Everyone else seemed to like Tyler, so Style decided to give him another chance.
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Game summary :
- The secrets of the Pickup Artist community in seducing women
- How key Pickup Artist leaders fought with each other and split the group apart
- What author Neil Strauss took away about women from his years of training
