Pickup artists as a subculture of postmodern risk Cover Image

Pickup artists jako subkultura ponowoczesnego ryzyka
Pickup artists as a subculture of postmodern risk

Author(s): Artur Malec
Subject(s): Sociology of Culture
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego w Warszawie
Keywords: seduction; pickup artists; society of risk; masculinism; subculture; theory of dramaturgy;

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the article below is to present the phenomenon of the subculture of seducers – ‘pickup artists’, whose activity began in the United States and mainly thanks to the Internet, appeared all over the world, including Poland. The presence of the seducer subculture is the result of the changes that took place in post-modern times and is part of Ulrich Beck’s concept of ‚risk society’. The article describes the main features of the PUA community, which has its own way of describing (language) and a world of values, which allows it to be perceived as a kind of subculture, as well as the contemporary masculine movement that meets certain expectations of men in the sphere of building intimate relationships with women. The history of the deve-lopment of the pickup artists phenomenon as well as the controversy related to the activities of the seduction community are also presented. The very pattern of the seduction process, which was taken from one of the seduction textbooks, is described using the dramaturgical concept of the interactionist Erving Goffman, which depicts the seducer as an actor and describes the seduction process as a theatrical performance.

  • Issue Year: 29/2022
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 37-44
  • Page Count: 8
  • Language: Polish
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