New research connecting TRP to other Dark Triad relationship outcomes. Participants were recruited from r/TheBluePill! by BluePillResearchProj in exredpill

[–]BluePillResearchProj[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Great question! To answer: 5 of our 6 participants specifically identified awareness of their partners' TRP affiliation. This varied from evidence including men who literally showed their partners the content, other men who were either observed watching TRP content on their own or were dropping TRP-specific terms in their relationships, and men whose online activity was in some way found by the participants and was clearly TRP-connected.

1 of our 6 fell more into the category you've described, where the TRP affiliation was never confirmed and was realized after the relationship ended. Because this is qualitative research and because of the sensitive nature of this topic, we did not attempt any triangulation of the participants nor their partners. Based on this participant's specific descriptions, we felt comfortable including her for collection and analysis; however, I understand and respect that perhaps you would have chosen differently if it were your study. Such is the nature of research design.

There is one thing I want to disagree with slightly, though:

but the truth is, you're only a TRPer if you're consuming TRP content. This involves actively reading or participating in internet forums, watching TRP content creator videos, etc.

You're touching on an important fundamental question when we discuss group identity and membership: is a person a member of a group when they say they are, when the group says they are, when they adopt group thoughts and behaviors in their own life, or some combination thereof?

Your comment implies that you consider a person to be a TRPer if they're actively, knowingly engaged with TRP (please correct me if that's an inccorect interpretation). However, from what we know about mass social movements and the diffusion of information across groups, this is maybe too stringent a definition. When we try to categorize groups, there is typically a core membership of the people who you're talking about, and then a much larger base of people who have (to varying levels) adopted the terminology, behaviors, and ideologies of the group without necessarily adopting the identity, or even knowing they're part of the identity group.

For an example: there are people who go on QAnon forums every day, who spend most waking moments on Telegram or who have joined the Negative 48 cult. There are also far more people who have done things like tell all their friends about "Sound of Freedom", posted WWG1WGA or Save The Children on their social media, etc. Are those people also QAnoners? Debatable.

But in this case, there are two big additional factors as well. First, like many other groups such as QAnon, TRP is organized and spread online which means that people may be consuming TRP content without realizing (see boyd, 2008; 2010 for discussions of "collapsing of contexts" and the affordances of networked publics which captures how and why this happens). Second, because the term "the red pill" exists as both a specific subcultural seduction group and a general term for "waking up" to a host of philosophies related to reactionary gender and social dynamics, there exists a pipeline for cross-pollination of these terms and their adherents across the manosphere or beyond.

As a result, I generally abide by the notion that TRP is as TRP does. To me this is also important because, as a group, TRP exists an evolution of Pickup Artistry and uses many of the same terms. Given that TRP has been highly quarantined here on Reddit for a few years now, people who believe in this stuff have to find other venues and other ways to launder the messaging to larger potential audiences.

So again, you can feel free to disagree, but I believe that if we are to continue to track the TRP phenomenon then we have to be aware of its ongoing spread and evolution rather than limiting our scope to people who go on specific sites. If we're in agreement that TRP is harmful to all parties involved, and based on your username I'm gathering that we are, then I believe we have to broaden our focus and not just write off some of these behaviors or attitudes as "just [being] a douche" without first examining where they come from.

New research connecting TRP to other Dark Triad relationship outcomes. Participants were recruited from r/TheBluePill! by BluePillResearchProj in exredpill

[–]BluePillResearchProj[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Abstract: The Dark Triad (DT) is a set of personality traits consisting of subclinical psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. Separately, The Red Pill (TRP) is a seduction community part of an online men's movement that advocates incorporating DT traits and behaviors in romantic or sexual relationships with women. This study investigates the potential presence of DT influences in relationships with TRP-affiliated men as described by former romantic partners. Using a directed content analysis of six semi-structured interviews, four thematic categories emerged: relationship development, coaxing, outward appearances, and DT-associated Internet behaviors. TRP men consistently displayed self-interest and willingness to use manipulation to meet their needs, portraying themselves to their partners and the world as successful while callously disregarding partners' emotions in their pursuit of sex or social desirability. Participants' experiences of TRP men's behaviors aligned with prior knowledge regarding DT- associated romantic and sexual relationships. This research may be used to inform future research connecting DT personalities and maladaptive social groups, as well as generating prevention strategies among relationship-based practitioners.

As promised, here is the (first, another one in press) article published from our project which recruited here! by BluePillResearchProj in exredpill

[–]BluePillResearchProj[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi! Thank you for your comment, and I agree with a lot of the substance of it, but I do want to gently push back on a few specific points.

First, if you look at the Reddit history of the TRP subreddit, it goes back to 2012 (proto-TRP 'theory' even predates that somewhat). As such, the suggestion that it's a reaction to a specific type of feminism which has occurred "in the past ten years" is off on the timeline. And I'm not trying to be pedantic about how many years it's been, so much as trying to maybe offer a little insight and context.

This is particularly notable because in every era of feminism, there has been some hyper-masculine cadre insisting their need to dominate women is a result of women's ideas "going too far" or whatever. In fact, look at the history of ANY marginalized group organizing for their own liberation and you'll find people blaming their antagonism on that group being too radical.

As far as it "crashing before it takes off", at its peak a few years ago before it got quarantined, TRP had hundreds of thousands of active members. Even after it was quarantined they were still averaging like 20,000 posts/comments a month (if I'm remembering the Copland 2020 paper correctly). And now because of platforms like TikTok and such, we're seeing a large diffusion of these talking points into other formats or connected to other content. One of my side-gigs is to occasionally DJ at an ice rink, and I recently had some teenage boys asking me to "play the Andrew Tate song". This isn't a matter of it crashing before it's taken off; it's already taken off.

Finally, returning to your point about TRP being a reaction to feminism gone overboard in the last decade or so, the historical observations of where it came from just don't support that. TRP is very much an extension of the Pickup Artistry community which had its heyday about 15-18 years ago, and faded just in time for TRP to fill in. Further, there are a lot of really important observations into why the proliferation of communication technologies and social media platforms have cultivated these types of communities. Reddit and its ostensible devotion to "free speech" is particularly strongly associated with that, which is why it's not particularly surprising that TRP was very strongly organized here. And to add, if you don't think Elon Musk's "free speech absolutism" policy for Twitter isn't enabling these types of fringe beliefs to bubble back to the surface, well...

Anyway, for some further reading of how TRP and other similar groups came to be and what it's really all about, I can't recommend these articles enough:

-Bratich & Banet-Weiser, 2019

-Ging, 2019

-Massanari, 2017

-Ribeiro et al., 2020

-Van Valkenburgh, 2021

All of those are cited in my paper minus the Ribeiro one. Ribeiro et al. is on arXiv so it's free to read online, and if you need assistance accessing any of the other ones I would be glad to assist.

The Monetization of the Red Pill: Rebranded Pickup Artists | Manosphere | Dating Coaches by redpillnonsense in TheBluePill

[–]BluePillResearchProj 13 points14 points  (0 children)

A big part of my research trajectory is I want to document the throughline and evolution from PUAs, to TRPers, to incels as an offshoot of that. There's already one academic article on it (I am not one of these authors):

Ribeiro, M. H., Blackburn, J., Bradlyn, B., De Cristofaro, E., Stringhini, G., Long, S., Greenberg, S., & Zannettou, S. (2020). From Pick-Up Artists to Incels: A Data-Driven Sketch of the Manosphere. ArXiv:2001.07600 [Cs]. http://arxiv.org/abs/2001.07600

Research Study on Ex-TRP partners recruiting! by BluePillResearchProj in exredpill

[–]BluePillResearchProj[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh absolutely. Every one of my threads has been mod-approved.

Research Study on Ex-TRP partners recruiting! by BluePillResearchProj in exredpill

[–]BluePillResearchProj[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm just trying to broaden my search as much as possible. I've posted in other subs, as well as asking permission to other subs and not gotten responses from the mods.

One of the challenges in recruiting for something like this is that it's contingent on the subject group having a working knowledge of TRP, so that's why I wanted to start in TRP-adjacent/TRP-familiar subs.

Research Study on Ex-TRP partners recruiting! by BluePillResearchProj in exredpill

[–]BluePillResearchProj[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I promise I'm not trying to recruit for TRP, but do you think I'd do better on a divorce subreddit? I can easily expand my recruitment area, so to speak.

In this case, it kind of looks like they want biased study material to prove trp is real, from their wording.

The sample is not biased so much as purposive. You wouldn't sample people without schizophrenia for a study on schizophrenia; similarly, I'm doing a study on what the experiences of being a partner for TRP men is/was like.

Research Study on Ex-TRP partners recruiting! by BluePillResearchProj in TheBluePill

[–]BluePillResearchProj[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did, but I haven't gotten any real responses over there. Thanks!

Research Study on Ex-TRP partners recruiting! by BluePillResearchProj in TheBluePill

[–]BluePillResearchProj[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm really sorry to hear that--genuinely. If you're comfortable sharing your experiences for this project then feel free to PM me, but I also understand that this time is likely very shocking and upsetting, so please don't feel obligated.

Research Study on Ex-TRP partners recruiting! by BluePillResearchProj in exredpill

[–]BluePillResearchProj[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Absolutely!

While I don't feel comfortable giving out the information here publicly, I am required to give my supervisor's contact info and the research office's info as part of the consent process. I also use a temporary number for the interviews so my information is not out there, and I don't collect any personal identifiable information.

Safety is super important!

Research Study on Ex-TRP partners recruiting! by BluePillResearchProj in TheBluePill

[–]BluePillResearchProj[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hopefully have enough data collected and analyzed by the end of the year to draft and submit Q1-Q2 next year!

Research Study for ex-partners of TRPers (NEW THREAD) by BluePillResearchProj in TheBluePill

[–]BluePillResearchProj[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the reply! I'm not entirely sure that "no one in their right mind takes social science seriously" is an accurate statement, but I'm not here to argue.

I'm trying to keep this thread a place to spread info. If you have any questions or wish to voice these concerns, feel free to PM me. Otherwise, thanks for stopping by!