there is a real lack of proof that anyone is paying tens of thousands of dollars for these camps. I’m almost certain these are being offered for free or drastically reduced prices for the influencer’s friends and closest followers to farm clips, which go viral because of the absurdity and eye catching price tag. This publicity will funnel new customers towards them who will then see their $400 remote class on how to be alpha, and think it’s a great deal. By laughing at these clips and not pointing out how the class is staged for engagement bait, you’re helping these people profit.
I will take this all back if any participant in this boot camp can prove they paid $18,000 to the instructors. If you look at the website for this group, the Modern Day Knights Project, you will see
- the project is no longer active
- All of the classes are “sold out” to give an illusion of artificial scarcity. in addition, the FAQ says “If the class I want to attend is sold out. Is there any way that I can get in? No. Once a class is full, it’s sold out and we will not accept extras, no matter how much more you offer to pay.” because I’m sure there were so many desperate millionares begging to give them money.
- The page repeatedly disclaims the project is only for “entrepreneurs, Executives & Leaders”, and before anyone could register for the class, they had to submit an application, and await a phone interview to decide if they would be accepted into the class, which I suspect did not happen.
- as I said, the purpose was viral fame, which could be redirected to cheaper programs that would look like bargains. The Modern Day Knights Project does exactly this, and redirects to two different 1-day bootcamp experiences which cost $900-1500 per person, and are scheduled to take place drastically less frequently than MDK, which claimed to have sold out classes taking place every week.
You’ve passed the first test. I think you’ve proven your are eligible for my big balls cool dude course which is only 500 dollars per day. Please DM me you card details.
i saw one the other day that was an alpha male gay boot camp for gay men who have straight vibes and interests
it says it for networking and confidence building but i would assume its just an all day orgy most of the time
Where is my NB camp for grilling (bbq manly but cooking is feminine)
Maybe they discover that there’s like a rock, papers, scissors aspect to their alpha ness instead of the classic penis fascism/there’s always a bigger
. Most stamina? Or maybe the most stoic bottom is the truest alpha male? Or the piggiest, Dom or sub? Idk I feel like there’s an array of various metrics we could help to calculate an average. Just depends if there’s subversive tropes at play or not.It’s true, gay sex is very manly
Yeah, but who’s the alphaiest out of the alphas that’re there to become the one true alpha™©®
i only had to pay $100 for a 15 minute virtual session with Quarter Master Maximus Dongus where he critiqued my shirtless pushup technique and got me a bulk discount on unregulated erection pills, usually only available in the finest gas stations of central florida.
It’s kind of funny how they market themselves as people who love and support men, and want men to get special treatment in society…but also push more body image issues onto men. Literally telling them “if you don’t take steroids, women won’t like you.”
when i was a younger and more impressionable guy, i ended up seeing this kinda off-beat flick called Roger Dodger. it’s a talking dramedy about this unhappy, but extremely clever advertising guy with a reputation, among his estranged family, for being a ladies man. his nebbish, high school nephew comes to visit him unannounced–ostensibly to visit schools in the city (nyc)–but really to get guidance on talking to women. the movie is more or less what follows as the Roger character’s life spirals out from his own unhappiness as he confronts himself. he strives to always be honest with his nephew about himself, so he can’t hide.
this is all well before Mad Men (Don Draper is a similar character, though i think Mad Men is more cynical and one dimensional), and it’s a movie, so the story is accelerated. and it doesn’t end with the broken jerk being rich and successful by hiding himself. instead, we watch this cynical, but witty man has turned his emotional intelligence into manipulating people (personally and professionally), but steadily comes to examine his empty life and heuristic as he is confronted with the innocent, good-natured nephew and begins to reconcile his unexplored traumas that drove him to this path.
it’s an ultimately uplifting story with resolution, and it is pretty funny along the way if you can overlook the text of a jilted “ladies man” to see the subtext of a lost soul realizing he’s mostly been fooling himself.
anyway, i bring it up, because the themes have a ton of overlap here. but, specifically, one of the earliest scenes in the movie is when his nephew surprises him at work, and his nephew asks him what his job (in advertising) is like and he just lays it out so cleanly and honestly. and luckily, the scene i am thinking of has been uploaded to youtube lmao. Starting with, “I sit here and think of ways to make people feel bad.”
The meat of which is as follows:
Roger: You can’t sell a product without first making people feel bad.
Nick: Why not?
Roger: Because it’s a substitution game. You have to remind them that they’re missing something from their lives. Everyone’s missing something, right?
Nick: I guess.
Roger: Trust me. And when they’re feeling sufficiently incomplete, you convince them your product is the only thing that can fill the void. So instead of taking steps to deal with their lives, instead of working to root out the real reason for their misery, they go out and buy a stupid looking pair of cargo pants.
i was in my very early 20s when i heard that and it has stuck with me now for what is most of my life. that, ultimately, every advertisement message is doing this. we can recognize the overt ones (like these bozo boot camps) or the ones that aren’t targeting our weaknesses more easily.
if we operate from the notion that all advertising is doing this to us it invites us to consider what weakness or insecurity or perceived shortcoming is explicit or implicit in the pitch. and maybe gives us a lens or tool we can share to help those less certain of themselves. like a little thought experiment for when we see an ad and it resonates with us to the point that it doesn’t feel like an insult anymore, consider what it is telling us about how we see ourselves.
with this tool we can see the body image issues capital formations have been offloading on to men and boys have been present for a very long time. what changes is the tactics of making us feel bad, because the methods have to change as we become desensitized to them as we age and they have to target the younger demographics that might have a few extra dollars in their pocket once they become an “adult”.
(this shit is from the 1940s)and that’s not even getting into the implication that what we should be doing when an insecurity is uncovered, is considering all the solutions that may come from mental/emotional growth.
if we operate from the notion that all advertising is doing this to us it invites us to consider what weakness or insecurity or perceived shortcoming is explicit or implicit in the pitch.
:zizek-theory: Slavoj Zizek (channeling Lacan) talks extensively about the manufacturing of Lack, and how Desire is this Lack made manifest. That way when you get the thing you Desire it fills that Lack, and thus you no longer have Desire for that thing. Advertising is the deliberate manufacture of shallow desire/lack that can be easily created (and easily filled by shallow Commodities) and, critically, not so strong of a desire/lack that couldn’t easily be destroyed so Capital can create the desire/lack for another commodity. Body Image is a powerful lever in generating a perceived lack. It’s why attractive women feature so much in male-targeted advertising: Buy my product and you can have women like this in your life. Worse, my favorite advertising campaign, Old Spice, seemingly speaks to a woman to compare her ‘man’ to the one on the screen[1] but in reality is stoking the insecurity of men by making them feel judged by ‘women’[2]. They deliberately tells their target to buy its product and, I quote, “Anything is possible when your man smells like an Old Spice man[3]” and “Swan dive into the best night of your life! So ladies, should your man smell like an Old Spice man? You tell me.” It doesn’t get any more blatant.
EDIT: hit the post button too quickly :zizek-fuck:
Zizek’s proposed method to escape is to recognize Capitalism is manufacturing “shallow” commodities, but that we actually need to fill a much deeper Lack that is impossible for Capital to fulfill[4]. In this way Desire exists outside of the ‘body’ and the hole it leaves is the Lack. Lacan and Zizek recognize that this Desire/Lack is constantly regenerating. Lacan famously points to Love as giving your Desire to another to constantly fulfill their Lack and vice versa. From Lacan: Man’s desire is the desire of the Other[5]. Internalizing the Desire of the other acts as a kind of recognition, a sense of being seen, which is why both point to ‘Love’ as the ultimate manifestation. I would like to point out that this doesn’t strictly mean Romantic Love; friends, family, your coworkers, your community, (etc, etc) all exist as different faces of the same underlying force.
If this sounds complicated, welcome to Psychoanalysis. I’m still grappling with the source material.
Quote: Look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me! Sadly, he isn’t me. ↩︎
I’m putting ‘women’ in quotes because it’s purely internalized judgement from the Big Other taking the facade of ‘women’ ↩︎
I deliberately don’t complete the full line because it’s sexist. ↩︎
It’s complicated because commodities are too shallow, they need to be easily broken so another commodity can take its place and that shallowness cannot fulfill the deeper Lack. ↩︎
oh boy, Other is doing double-duty here; there’s little-o ‘other’ that represents an actual person, and the big-O ‘Other’ that represents a fundamental unknowability of the other person’s Desire that we paper over with an ideal mental construct; the Fetish. It’s complicated. ↩︎
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Adult white collar life doesn’t contain enough opportunity to play in the mud.
All of the classes are “sold out” to give an illusion of artificial scarcity
Ah yes, the classic Calico Cut Jeans maneuver
They make jeans for calico cats?
Is this some sort of urinary incontinence acceptance thing?
For the record I’m cool with that but I’m not sure I’m ready for pre pissed pants.
It’s the premise of a sketch from I Think You Should Leave
An office worker drips a little pee on his pants and it starts him down a rabbit hole of fake pants, extortion and being unable to lower the volume on self-playing internet videos
What is this pants for cats?
CHUDs: “If this was high school I’d be the jock and you’d be the nerd. I’m buff and hot unlike you! ChicksTM dig hot douchebags like me! You’re automatically wrong about everything, loser!”
Also CHUDs: “Let me pay 18k just to hang out with me and learn how to get The LadiesTM!”
Bro, with that money just join a regular ass gym and redo your wardrobe. You can get some really nice shit with that disposable income.
it’s like when people say “this obscure retro game is worth 10k!” because there was an ebay listing once at that price that didn’t even sell
I think that, if you did ask them for a spot in the course, a spot would just magically open up.
Fuck I’ll get wet and hold a sledge hammer for 10k sounds like fun.
Oh wait they are paying for this. Okay that’s weird but not gonna shame them for this very specific findom kink.
