Shouldn't All Men Try Picking Up Women Using Techniques Recommended By Jon Hamm?

When Black Mirror released the trailer for its Christmas special, it was hard to discern much about what the plot would be, except for one thing: Jon Hamm seemed to be playing some kind of PUA coach. And while all sensible people can agree that PUA cabals culture is gross, are there maybe exceptions? And is this one?

I am not a crackpot. I just think pretty much any man could pick up women if he had Jon Hamm in his ear.

Fine: if you want to get technical, "Matt" is not Jon Hamm. He's a married father coaching the inexperienced, tentative Harry, via Eye-Link, through a conquest at an office Christmas party Harry's crashed, while a geek chorus of fellow coaching clients watches and advises on the promise that if Harry actually does manage to get his quarry to take him home with her, they'll get to watch through Harry's eyes while he makes sweet, tender love to her and/or nervously nails her -- either/or.

("Fappuccino" has trouble with dating? I guess I can suspend my disbelief.)

And even though the show tries its best to make Matt look like a greasy creep by sticking him in a bare attic room, illuminated only by the queasy light of his monitor, and putting him on camera with what is probably half a day's beard growth, it doesn't quite work. Or, I guess I should say, it doesn't work on me. No matter how wan Matt looks in his claustrophobic office, he's still talking to Harry with Jon Hamm's voice. It's a voice that can make you do just about anything it tells you to, as my fleet of Mercedes can attest.

But also...like, nothing Matt tells Harry to do is really that gross? He's certainly right about Harry's outfit and hair, and while image-searching party guests to sell a lie about previous meetings Harry supposedly had with them is slightly shady, if that Dawson guy put that stuff online, it's kind of fair game. And piquing someone's interest by paying more attention to her friend is pretty much the mildest and most victimless form of negging there is -- particularly in this case, when Harry's target, Jennifer, was giving him NOTHING.

...I am, OF COURSE, joking. Prescriptive pickup strategies are misogynist, even when deployed by (otherwise) attractive persons, and even though Jennifer proved to be more than capable of taking care of herself, she certainly didn't give her consent for Harry to bring all his misfit 4chan buddies along when she invited him to come home with her (which seems like something that's probably about six months away from being a technological reality and the logical conclusion of the kind of poison that happens on existing PUA message boards). Nothing Matt did was acceptable, which is why a sentence of being erased from society feels appropriate -- even if a world in which a face like Jon Hamm's can exist yet be invisible is maybe the worst dystopia Black Mirror has ever given us.

All that said...maybe I wish I had that voice in my ear, exhorting me to "confidence," whenever I have to undergo a colonoscopy or shop for jeans. I am not a crackpot.