Are Daygamers born weird, or is weirdness thrust upon them?
I recently asked my followers on X:
I’d like to thank them for their suggestions. Here’s what they had to say:
- It’s weird when guys copy lines word for word, especially where they’re inappropriate for that situation (Shikoh)
- Aspects of DG culture encourage weirdness e.g. collecting stats, using jargon and anon cult vibes (Caird)
- The sheer act of talking to people so openly is weird (Julius)
- Daygaming as part of your regular life isn’t weird but planning a number of approaches and travelling for DG is (Tuco)
- The militant/methodical aspect of Daygame culture (Christian)
- The uncalibrated behaviours of some Daygamers and their lack of social skills (Praveen)*
- Daygame encourages weirdness in the already weird (Yohami)
- Breaking societal norms is weird by definition (Night Velocity)
- Spam approaching is weird (BK)
* Praveen did make a follow up point that whether Daygame is weird or not is down to perspective: if a sportsman was doing the same stuff – keeping stats, making a spreadsheet and being obsessive – you wouldn’t think it’s weird. This gets us off to a good start in answering the question as to whether Daygame makes someone weird and asks the further question of “is it all a matter of perspective?”
Of all the suggestions above, we could flip them and show how perspective is key:
- Guys often need to use lines to begin with as they build their confidence because if they said what came naturally to mind they wouldn’t say much of value at all
- The methodical and measured approach of many Daygamers helps them to improve
- People have been talking to each other in public for all eternity and so why is it weird to do it now? Even though it’s not something that most people do, is it really that weird?
- Having a plan and executing it is key to success in every field
- Travelling to other countries to Daygame is fun and can yield better results
- Guys often start off as uncalibrated but aim to learn calibration
The only point that I personally find inexcusable is spam approaching. Only psychopaths could make a perspective-level flip of that.
My contribution
I think that the key way in which Daygame can make a guy weird is if he buys into “+1 Culture;” something which John Bodi and I talked about on a recent podcast and which I’ve written about on this blog.
98% of Daygamers are coming from a place of low self-esteem where they were far down in the pecking order. This rejection from mainstream society, or at least rejection from the average experience, can do strange things to a man. On one hand, he might become defeatist and start to identify with his low self-esteem. That’s just who he is, he thinks, and so he sinks deeper into obscure hobbies and away from interaction with other people. On the other hand, you have those who rebel against their low self-esteem. For some this is a good thing; they make an earnest effort to improve their lot in life. Usually this is motivated by hitting rock bottom. For others – those with gamma tendencies – they see the original cause of their low self-esteem as an affront to their enormous, yet undiscovered talent.
However, when low self-esteem men enter the Daygame community, with its own language to adapt to and its placing of sex as the highest goal (sometimes by questionable methods), they come into contact with a new hierarchy and a different value system. Within this new paradigm they don’t have to be so far down on the totem pole anymore. So not only does this new culture offer them a solution to their problems, it also offers them an opportunity for respect and status – adulation, even – from a new group of peers.
For some, it is an opportunity to feel superior to others who aren’t following the community’s set of values or are newer to it. Add to that a community focus on “alpha,” “dominance,” an above average level of academic intelligence, higher than average levels of introversion and the uptick in viciousness which accompanies pseudonymous communication, and you have a perfect storm of weirdness: people basing their entire identities and self-esteem on being above others inside this community and fighting viciously to maintain their position. That is, people buying into the +1 Culture as a cover for their low self-esteem. That’s very weird.
Survivorship and selection bias
There were additional responses to my initial question which went along similar, meta-level lines:
- Being weird is actually a good thing and so we shouldn’t decry it (Tommy Oh)
- There’s a selection bias/survivorship bias in Daygame in that it attracts weird guys (Kaio)
- Poor upbringings lead men to Daygame and they are weird (50’s Daygame)
Tommy brings up a really good point: being weird might actually be a good thing. After all, who gets ahead? The person that stands out. Weirdness might actually just signify risk taking. Though, hopefully we can all agree, there are extents to risk taking, and some people might not be able to curtail their weirdness before it gets to a point where it’s negatively impacting others.
The remaining two points relate to selection and survivorship biases, and, in my opinion, they do a lot of heavy lifting. They are the points that I personally agree with the most: that the aforementioned low self-esteem guys are attracted to the Daygame community because it appears as a potential solution to their life troubles. Once inside, the community has many clever ways to amplify a predilection for weirdness. Interestingly, every now and then, someone will enter the community and is repelled by the aspects of the community they find weird. Ironically, they often then build a new identity in opposition to what they consider weird, and, with the help of heavy strawmanning, fall into the same trap. Hence, the community always gets its man.
Only the good die young?
If you caricature Daygamers, then, yes, I think that Daygame does make you weird. At least in my opinion. Dressing in a certain way or wearing odd accessories of clothing to increase his “bad boy look” (when it is entirely incongruent with his own personality), use of specific jargon, uses lines, has an air of desperation/thirst about him, makes sleazy jokes and snickering “hehehe” jokes, only hangs out with other Daygamers, uses his entire annual leave on Daygame trips, bases his self-esteem on his results and optimises every avenue of his life to improving said results, makes improving one of his ratios his top aim of the year, gets into online Daygame-related spats, applies a level of geekiness to something which is intensely personal; the list goes on. Note that this is a strawman and you’re unlikely to meet someone who ticks all of these boxes, but if someone ticks most of them, he’s probably weird.
Of that list, using jargon is perhaps the most important; people often underestimate the impact language has on us: the way we describe the world shapes our view and reactions to it. Take as an example, using terms like “+1,” “notch” and “close.” As Bodi pointed out on our podcast, it dehumanises the women we’re talking to and attempts to turn them into fungible tokens. This allows Daygamers to abstract from reality and deal with it in a much colder light; absolving themselves from any emotional damage they’re causing or have caused. This is why I talked so much about doing your Daygame from a position of good faith and making empathy and authenticity top priorities.
Take, for example, the word “close,” whether that’s “number close,” “kiss close” or having sex with a girl (“closing”). This doesn’t just have the abstract effect mentioned above, it also implies finality. That once the close has happened, in whichever way it does, that this person has ended in a metaphorical way. That she has ceased to have an impact in the calculation of your impact on the world.
Please don’t get me wrong, though. I am not saying that no one is allowed to be a player, and I would be a hypocrite if I did. Instead I’m trying to say that I believe there is an ethical way to be a player.
Before anyone chimes in: yes, I have been guilty of many of the things listed above, but I always kept a handle on it and didn’t give myself over to them entirely. The reason why I think being the Daygame caricature makes you weird is that you’re taking another person’s identity in the whole and wearing it like a skin-mask over your own face.
To some people, doing all of the above is “doing Daygame;” rather than it just being an action. To them, Daygame is a culture. A lifestyle. A religion, even. As with all religions, you have to show skin in the game: you have to prove to others your dedication to the religion by suffering somewhat. If you’re not picking the entire “Daygame product” up off the shelf, well then you aren’t doing it properly. This is another way that guys can become weird: they show off their increasing dedication to the Daygame religion to their peers.
My question, then, is “is it a necessary evil for some guys to live the life of a caricature?” For some guys, yes, they absolutely must, because being able to find balance and optimise – to have an innate sense for when to use a framework and when to put it down – is a rare skill indeed. Most people need direct, easy-to-follow instructions. It’s why, in my opinion, there are so many diets which follow the “eat this and never that” approach: they’re simple and people can see a modicum of results which they wouldn’t experience if they had to work to achieve balance; the effort is too much, and they’re easily led astray. For most people, when they try to get the best of both worlds, they end up with the worst. Better to put all their eggs in one basket and live off of the motivation that believing you made the right choice brings. All I ask is that the ethical side of Daygame is included in that product taken from the shelf.
In the long run, the general idea is that you take on the caricature for a period of time, say 18 months, and then slowly discard the elements which don’t work for you. It sounds all well and good, but many people have issues with doing that: they don’t know what to discard and when, and they never learned the principles behind Daygame and instead see the Daygame religion as an on/off switch that led to any results they got.
Changes in culture
A point I made on that podcast with Bodi is that, for better or for worse, the coaches and companies who are the most active marketers of Daygame have changed over the past 10 to 15 years. When Daygame dot com was active the marketing was all about finding a girlfriend. The presentation of Daygame was as this “beautiful fing” and so naturally it attracted more nice guys. Even the product was titled “The Girlfriend Sequence.”
When the leaders of the community moved over to being Nick Krauser and Tom Torero, in their “r phases,” it was as if the community was going through its own attitude era like the WWF in the late 90’s. The culture was all about giving a middle finger to polite society, turning up in foreign lands and plundering its booty. This was the time when a Daygamer was instantly noticed by the way he dressed. A large part of his identity was in being a societal-provocateur. The products were called “Daygame Overkill” and “Badass Buddha.”
Nowadays, the most active marketing is coming from guys like James Tusk and so it’s shifted more towards the higher beta crowd: guys with well-paid jobs who want to add Daygame to their life and use it as a means to an end. This has led to Daygamers being way less noticeable than before. They’re still out there, doing their approaches, but perhaps now there is a greater turnover of Daygamers – as they get in and out quickly – in addition to the usual approach anxiety related churn. Maybe the weird-label is simply less applicable these days?
When was the last time I met a Daygame caricature?
Honestly, I can’t remember, and I meet a lot of Daygamers. When you meet one you can tell instantly. They stick out as much to me, as a millennial, when someone uses text-speak such as “u” and “gr8.” It’s probably similar to how a Zoomer feels when millennials use emojis.
My guess as to why I don’t meet many Daygame caricatures is that I have a number of filters in place:
- Prices set at a certain level deter those who don’t have their life in some semblance of order already
- My website isn’t a “friendly” one in terms of style
- My coaching style is very direct and I filter out any inquiries from guys I perceive to be weird
- I have a great group of friends/wings and so don’t search elsewhere
- I don’t use Game Telegram groups or forums
And yet… There are probably a lot of behaviours that my friends and I share which regular society would consider weird. The difference is, they’re all reasoned; they’re not bought as some kind of Daygame-package offer:
- We approach girls in the daytime because we’re fed up and dislike bars and apps
- We live in different countries because the quality of life is higher, the cost of living is lower and the hotness and pleasantness of the local girls is higher
- We Daygame a lot and put a lot of energy into it because it’s incredibly engaging
I acknowledge, though, that I’m speaking from a privileged position, having already gone through the rigours of Daygame and come out the other side. My friends and I have already, successfully, gone through a lot of the discarding process.
Bright and dull souls
I remember a post that Bodi put out a while back on X where he called Daygame a “swamp.” I.e. a massive filter; if a guy can do it and make it out in one piece then it shows he has something special. This is why I’m fine with the fact that nearly all of my friends are current or ex-Daygamers who came out the other side: they showed that they had something special. This is a case where Daygame hasn’t made a guy weird. In fact, completely the opposite. The guys that I have known from Daygame are much more interesting, engaging and charismatic men than most of the normies I’ve known.
What about the guys who don’t make it? Unfortunately, it can exaggerate their weirdness. They might have jumped into a culture and taken on a whole new set of values and behaviours, only to fail. Yes, there are a number of silver linings that someone can give themselves such as building overall confidence and making new friends, but I doubt that will be much. The tragic effect of their entry into Daygame was that it confirmed their weirdness in the bluntest way possible. They then have to live on in the knowledge of their failure, further exacerbating their weirdness as they try to cope with it. So, let that be a warning to anyone who wants to try this, and please do appreciate the fact that I’m saying this as a coach.
This is where I come onto my very last point: that some people have bright souls and some people have dull souls. Those who seem to succeed in Daygame have bright souls. There’s something about them which makes them cool guys. Guys who you want to hang out with. A lot of it is ineffable but I sincerely believe that something is there because you’ll notice that normies gravitate to them as well. That it is not purely because of camaraderie born out of trench warfare.
The opposite can be said about those with dull souls: they don’t have that zip, that spark, which people naturally gravitate to. Don’t get me wrong, Daygame certainly can brighten your soul, but there has to be something there to begin with. If you’re suspicious that you have a dull soul then I beg you, if you still attempt Daygame, that you enter with a set of realistic expectations. You are not going to become a mythical slayer. Period. End of. You are best off solely looking for a girlfriend and if you find her then my guess is that she’ll be better looking and better suited to you than if you had used the same avenues as before.
I notice, as well, that the bright people are bright in different ways. My distilled personality is very different to the other guys I know. They have their own distinct identity. If you’re wondering what this means for yourself, I assure you, 18 months of obsessive Daygame and a further 18 months of enjoying yourself (while still improving) will tell you a lot about who you are.
Just don’t get lost along the way.
Yours unfaithfully,
Thomas Crown
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Thomas Crown PUA 
Very good post. Thanks. 18 months of obsessive daygame plus 18 months of enjoying it, only? That wont suffice. All the guys who are really good at it take way longer. Also very talented people. 3 years is to short. 5 years is more realistic, a very good hall-mark, if you want to master this craft.
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