“M” alum to be featured on VH1’s “The Pickup Artist”

By Mark Schultz, written on Oct. 13, 2008

Last Fall, I wrote a little piece about VH1’s new ‘reality’ show “The Pickup Artist.”

The show became relatively popular, especially with slightly nerdy college students such as myself, whose slight lack of social graces all of a sudden looked positively minuscule compared to a guy named Spoon who seemed incapable of making small talk with anyone lacking a Y-chromosome. However, I think the mass appeal of the show lies in the uncanny amount of sociological and psychological thought head “artist” Mystery puts into meeting girls, something I think most guys do on pure instinct. And when Mystery breaks down the whole game, he unwittingly reveals how pathetic and phony the rules of attraction really are.

But that’s neither here nor there. If nothing else, watch the show, which airs Sunday at 10 p.m. on VH1, to see “U” Alum Kevin Feng, the self-proclaimed strikeout king. Perhaps Kevin has a higher failure rate than most of us, but, at a school where a full 43% of students say they haven’t had sex, he’s not exactly atypical in terms of sexual naivete. So perhaps we can all learn a little something from a man bold enough to display his lack of prurience in the national spotlight. I know I can.