I wrote about day gamers. Then the internet’s ‘Dark Lord’ Found Me.

What happens when your writing stumbles into the murky world of the far-right

A couple of weeks ago, I was relaxing at home when I got a notification saying that someone had commented on one of my old newsletters.

‘You appear to have drawn the baleful gaze of the Dark Lord,’ the person had written.

The comment was on a post I’d published some months earlier. It had been sent to my small number of subscribers, sparked some discussion among my friends, and then had been largely forgotten. Just another piece of internet ephemera.

At this point, I had no idea who the commenter was referring to. The only person I’d ever heard unironically referred to as ‘the Dark Lord’ was Voldemort in the children’s book Harry Potter.

But my article wasn’t about boy wizards; it was about a subset of the pick-up artist scene called ‘day gamers.’

The original book on pick up artists

Day gamers, if you’re not familiar with the terminology, are people who stake out public areas (parks, shopping thoroughfares, tourist areas) and approach women they’re romantically attracted to. These men will often use the same line over and over again, pretending each interaction is spontaneous.

“I couldn’t help but notice you have great style…”

“I just wanted to say I think you’re gorgeous…”

“You look like you’re a really kind person…”

Over the years, I’ve spoken to quite a few blokes from this scene. Most of them are nice, slightly awkward, and clearly lonely. Often I’ll have a quick chat and then politely part ways. One time I had a longer conversation, which I turned into an article.

Who knows how or why, but this piece was then found by a far-right blog. A pretty popular one, too. They wrote a reply, which quoted and directly linked to my article. As a result, traffic to The Carpet spiked, and a new, very unlikely, and occasionally hostile audience found my work.

The author of this far-right blog is a fellow who popularised a system called the Socio Sexual Hierarchy – essentially a way of categorising men. It uses nomenclature you’ve likely heard before: alpha males (handsome leaders with lots of female interest), beta males (second-tier men with reasonable dating success), omega males (losers and social outcasts), and so forth.

“Don’t bring me into this - I just want to chase stuff and eat elk”

This person also coined the term ‘sigma,’ which refers to a man who “doesn’t play the social game and manages to win at it anyhow”.

While he goes by a few names, The Dark Lord is preferred by some fans.

I’m choosing not to directly name the author or the blog for a couple of reasons. The first is cowardice – plain and simple. Old Mate (as I’ll refer to him henceforth - Dark Lord feels too melodramatic) has been known to participate in some light doxxing. Frankly, I’d rather avoid the hassle of drawing his ire and having his fans set on me. Hopefully, my obtuse references will be enough to appease everyone.

It’s also impossible to talk about the author without being drawn into dozens of interesting but bizarre tangents. He's a story, alright. But one which deserves more than a passing mention.

And while Old Mate wasn’t particularly kind in his appraisal of me (“blitheringly retarded,” he called my article), I don’t want to get personal. To be completely fair, Old Mate didn’t really attack me much either. I was largely ignored; he took aim at the men I'd written about instead.

In my piece, I'd passingly said that these would-be pick-up artists got flustered when I asked whether they were day gaming. On this, Old Mate was scathing:

“What’s interesting is the way these low-status Game-aware men are totally unprepared for anything that goes off script for them… their low-status is clearly indicated by the way in which they are shocked and rendered defensive by nothing more than an observation of their actions… No Alpha and no Sigma would ever be nonplussed by such a simple question.”

For whatever reason, the pick-up artist and right-leaning masculine scenes are preoccupied with sorting humanity – in all its messy glory – into insulting and reductive buckets. You’re not a complex individual, made from a unique patchwork of genetics, experiences, and motivations. You’re not someone who might thrive in some situations but struggle in others. No, you’re a low-status omega. Not only that, your future is predetermined by this label (unless, perhaps, you like, subscribe, and keep reading angry literature on the matter).

So here it goes. I’m going to defend the day gamers.

The men who approached me – awkward as they might have been – were not ‘low-status.’ One person I had a frank conversation with a few years ago outside the Queen Victoria Building was smart and had an impressive marketing job. Another fresh-faced young guy on Pitt Street Mall was honest, self-aware, and quite funny. Jonathan – the person I interviewed for my story – made good money and was an extremely adventurous traveller.

Sure, I would consider the dating methods of these men to be misguided. But I can also see how they might have struggled with women and went searching online for answers. And honestly? If you strip back the misogyny and the meanness and the manipulation that can be part of this scene, there is some good to be found.

Bondi Beach seems to be a day gaming hotspot

I spoke once to a young academic called Christopher Lamerton who’d written a paper about the ‘seduction scene,’ as he called it. Lamerton watched their videos, read their literature, and infiltrated a few of their groups.

These meetups were usually tame affairs: picture a bunch of men sitting around in someone’s house, talking about pick-up techniques and their relationship problems. But there was one meeting Christopher attended that went a bit differently.

This particular evening took place in an apartment in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. The host had some music playing while everyone arrived, he let people chat for a bit, and then the session began. But rather than starting with introductions or some open questions, the host kicked things off by smashing IKEA furniture with a sledgehammer.

“I think it was about raw masculinity or not hesitating,” Christopher guessed. “He’d obviously done it before. The furniture was already a bit damaged.”

So after watching a man destroy his own furniture for a while, things changed gear.

“There was a somber part at the end of that meetup,” Christopher said. “He handed out bits of paper and said, ‘Hey guys, I want you to write down three limiting beliefs.’”

So this group of men wrote down negative thoughts that were holding them back, and were then instructed to walk out onto the balcony. The host then fired up his Weber barbeque and told everyone to put their paper onto the flames. One by one, they threw their paper into the Weber and were symbolically freed from their limiting beliefs.

“These guys are actually really trying to better themselves. Writing your limiting beliefs might be a way to become a better seducer, but it also might be a way to feel a bit better about yourself.”

Which is the funny thing about the pick-up artist and seduction world. At first, it might start as a cynical method to get laid. But end up in the right groups, and you’ll be told to start working on yourself – not for women, but for you. They’ll instruct you to exercise, read more, eat healthily, and become more confident. In the best cases, these guys end up realising that they don’t actually need external gratification to be happy or fulfilled – that it comes from within. Hopefully, they’ll learn to be more empathetic and kinder not just to themselves, but to others as well (perhaps even to strangers on the internet).

Go deep enough, and you might reach some level of self-actualisation. It’s just a hell of a weird road to get there.