Robert

I don't want to spend more time on him, but this irrational mindset, this is a very irrational mindset.

It's important to get inside and both see that, well, this isn't all irrational because of bad internet stuff.

The Secret was the most popular book in America for a while.

And that played a role in how like – and his dad is rich and successful and in high – like a lot of this is not just a failure.

And I don't want to paint what happened to Elliot Rodger and what he did as this is just because of the mean old internet.

This is a kid with deeply toxic parents who's also been exposed to a lot of very toxic things through other elements of the culture that have nothing to do with the internet.

And it all forms part of what happens next, right?

Yeah.

Now, obviously, the secret doesn't work for Elliot.

He also tries to work out in the gym and get buff, and that doesn't help him pick up any ladies.

He spends a lot of time, though, on bodybuilding.com's board, and he presumably tries pickup artistry because he winds up posting regularly on puahate.com.

Now, he doesn't say much about pickup artistry.

There's not really anything directly about it in the manifesto.

I don't remember anything, and I did a word search.

I couldn't find any related terms.

So the only way that we kind of know he was, other than the fact that he's posting in POA hate, the reason we know that he at least was familiar with pickup artistry tactics is that in his videos and manifesto, he would make regular references to betas, a term that he would use to insult men he disliked.

And he wrote about, like, I need to act cocky and arrogant to try and attract women, which is a common pickup artist strategy.

So there's evidence, again, that he's in this community, but we don't know, did he, like, pay for classes?

How into it was he?

That's kind of unclear.