Real Social Dynamics (RSD) was a dating coaching company who taught men how to improve their success with women. They ran seminars, bootcamps and sold online products to customers all over the world. The pick up artist industry is highly lucrative and RSD was making millions selling high-priced courses. Typically seminars would cost thousands and there was no shortage of men willing to pay.
Despite their success, Real Social Dynamics are no longer selling pick up related courses. All of the top dating coaches such as Owen Cook, Julien Blanc and Max have all gone their separate ways.
They never publicly announced why they were shutting down and just deleted most of their videos on YouTube. This has led to a lot of speculation and rumors. RSD was founded in 2003 by Owen Cook and Nick Kho (“Papa”). Julien Blanc, the name most associated with the company’s downfall, joined later as an instructor rather than a co-founder.
Negative Press and the Me Too Movement
The main reason RSD shut down is because of negative press and the rise of the Me Too movement. At the end of 2018, there were threads on Reddit where feminists collected videos of RSD supposedly “encouraging” guys to dominate women. The threads went viral and that really impacted RSD’s reputation online. Some of the threads got thousands of upvotes and would have been seen by millions.
Also at one point, Julien Blanc was one of the most hated men in the world. He was subjected to a deplatforming campaign based on his teachings that allegedly encouraged the abuse of women. Over 150,000 people petitioned to keep Blanc’s tour out of the UK.
Where RSD Is Now
As a business, RSD would have found it difficult to run seminars like they did in the past. Most of the instructors have pivoted away from teaching pick up towards personal development.
Julien Blanc rebranded as “JulienHimself”, a motivational speaker touring with self-help seminars, and Owen Cook continues to put out content too, noticeably more measured than the material that made RSD infamous. So while the pickup-course business is effectively dead, the people behind it simply repackaged their expertise for a more palatable, more lucrative niche.
Self help is less controversial in the mainstream media and is a much bigger market to monetize. The rise of cancel culture means PUA will move back underground like the old days.
