News, Other - Friday, January 8, 2010 21:31 - 9 Comments

PUA Community Year in Review — 2009

Last year about this time, I covered the changes and developments in the “PUA Community” in: PUA Community Year in Review — 2008. If you haven’t read it before and have been around that long (or not), it may be worth reading again.

In that article, I made the points that 2008 represented a new level of skill for the community as a whole, and a disenchantment with the hero worship that drew most of us to the community in the first place. I also made a few predictions about 2009.

1) Market forces will force a lot of websites and small companies to close shop. I was completely off the mark with this one. In fact, the opposite has happened. The large companies have struggled to make ends meet, whereas there are small-time coaches popping up everywhere and in every major city. If anything, the market is actually splintering and localizing. More on that later.

2) The backlash will continue and grow in the short-term but eventually be incorporated into the market in a meaningful way. I was right about the first part but wrong about the second. The “PUA Hate” trend peaked in early 2009. But as with anything that only exists to tear something down, it was unable to offer any alternative in its place. The fact remains that millions of men out there are seeking dating advice and after a while, “X Guru is a fraud,” just wasn’t offering any alternative. As a result this trend has been slowly dying off.

3) Local lairs and organizations will play much bigger roles. True. Again, the splintering of the PUA market has caused local lair leaders and figureheads to be able to commercialize.

Continue…