by Peter Lu
I was sitting on a fold-out couch, wearing only my boxers, when Daniel's email popped up. There was no subject line, just a simple YouTube link. Over the next hour, I watched all seven videos on Simple Pickup's channel, each three times over. I couldn't quite explain my delirium until I read a comment posted by user SeaWeedBrain013: "You guys are my heroes. I don't understand how your pants can withstand the weight of your balls.
Simple Pickup's YouTube channel is devoted to picking up girls. The stars -- Kong, Jesse and Jason -- film themselves on the streets of Los Angeles, approaching random women, making them laugh, then getting their numbers. In their 16 videos, they've picked up 125 numbers. I counted.
Like all red-blooded males, I'd heard of "The Game," the New York Times bestseller that introduced America to the art of seduction. I'd even read it. Mediocre shows like VHI's "The Pickup Artist" went further in exposing the "secrets" of the pickup community -- for instance, that a "neg" is a backhanded compliment to a pretty girl to get her attention. But these Simple Pickup videos -- these guys -- were literally the first time I'd seen proof of pickup artists in real life. They weren't ridiculous fops like Mystery, the dusty and irrelevant host of "The Pickup Artist," with his feather boas and guyliner. They looked like the dudes who'd gone to Yale with me -- normal-looking and nice, self-professed former nerds. Within a week, every guy I knew had either showed me the videos or been sent them by me. We were enamored with the even-keeled, irreverent way they approached women. More important, watching them had given us the deadly confidence that we could do it, too.
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On YouTube, where view count is king, their 16 videos have currently totaled 7.3 million views. Their most popular video, "Internet Trolls Pick Up Girls," has hit the 1 million view benchmark. But as a metric to measure Simple Pickup's reach, it doesn't tell the entire story. What's really important -- and where Jason, Jesse and Kong shine in a way no other pickup artists of their kind have -- is engagement with the audience: They read every single viewer comment (there have been over 38,000) and use the spiciest for inspiration. In July, one fan commented, "pick up girls acting completely gay, if you guys can do that hell I will call you guys my Gods." The next week, they donned booty shorts, neon tank tops and rollerblades, and picked up 11 numbers.
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I was sitting on a fold-out couch, wearing only my boxers, when Daniel's email popped up. There was no subject line, just a simple YouTube link. Over the next hour, I watched all seven videos on Simple Pickup's channel, each three times over. I couldn't quite explain my delirium until I read a comment posted by user SeaWeedBrain013: "You guys are my heroes. I don't understand how your pants can withstand the weight of your balls. Simple Pickup's YouTube channel is devoted to picking up girls. The stars -- Kong, Jesse and Jason -- film themselves on the streets of Los Angeles, approaching random women, making them laugh, then getting their numbers. In their 16 videos, they've picked up 125 numbers. I counted.
Like all red-blooded males, I'd heard of "The Game," the New York Times bestseller that introduced America to the art of seduction. I'd even read it. Mediocre shows like VHI's "The Pickup Artist" went further in exposing the "secrets" of the pickup community -- for instance, that a "neg" is a backhanded compliment to a pretty girl to get her attention. But these Simple Pickup videos -- these guys -- were literally the first time I'd seen proof of pickup artists in real life. They weren't ridiculous fops like Mystery, the dusty and irrelevant host of "The Pickup Artist," with his feather boas and guyliner. They looked like the dudes who'd gone to Yale with me -- normal-looking and nice, self-professed former nerds. Within a week, every guy I knew had either showed me the videos or been sent them by me. We were enamored with the even-keeled, irreverent way they approached women. More important, watching them had given us the deadly confidence that we could do it, too.
-----
On YouTube, where view count is king, their 16 videos have currently totaled 7.3 million views. Their most popular video, "Internet Trolls Pick Up Girls," has hit the 1 million view benchmark. But as a metric to measure Simple Pickup's reach, it doesn't tell the entire story. What's really important -- and where Jason, Jesse and Kong shine in a way no other pickup artists of their kind have -- is engagement with the audience: They read every single viewer comment (there have been over 38,000) and use the spiciest for inspiration. In July, one fan commented, "pick up girls acting completely gay, if you guys can do that hell I will call you guys my Gods." The next week, they donned booty shorts, neon tank tops and rollerblades, and picked up 11 numbers.
Read more:
