The Pickup Game (2019)

The Pickup Game is an inside look at the emergence of the 'pickup' industry - an business where self-styled seduction coaches travel the world, charging a small fortune to teach men skills they claim will guarantee success with women. For the instructors who are successful, it is a highly lucrative occupation, with many companies earning millions of dollars a year. It is also an industry rife with controversy and scandal. Several teachers have been deported from countries for their contentious methodologies and pickup businesses are often the subject of fierce public criticism. Despite this, men the world over collectively spend hundreds of millions of dollars to attend seminars, download online courses and have one-on-one coaching sessions with instructors they feel can give them the dating life of their dreams. In the minds of students, many of these instructors become more than just teachers. They become idols. From the glossy exterior, where courses are packaged as self-improvement, to the dark underbelly of sexual assault, pyramid scheme marketing and secret collusion The Pickup Game pulls back the curtain to reveal a world that is fascinating and horrific in equal measure.