Fucking Day: Keys to the VIP (Patreon)

A false memory haunts me.

See, I thought I grew up with Keys to the VIP. That its logo twinkled between Catfished and Next. I have crystal-clear memories of watching two pick-up artists compete to fail less at fucking. Of surfing on, seeing Dubya cackle, and switching back to Keys to the VIP. Of watching four harassment tutors critique brownout grinding like hell’s thesis committee.

In fact, I thought I wrote this recap last year.

All incorrect. My home didn’t even have Fuse, and Keys to the VIP started on The Comedy Network, a Canadian exclusive I’m learning about as I type. I didn’t see a frame of Keys to the VIP before Wednesday, yet my brain clings to a lie. The show’s drilled into my past. Competitive PUA isn’t the most hideous artifact in my catalog. Or even the rapiest. But it is, by sheer distortion of memory, the closest to a true cognitohazard.

I’m overcomplicating this. On Keys to the VIP, two pickup artists try to out-pickup each other. Then four pro pickup artists rank their relative pickup skills. The winner after three rounds picks up a free night out, where their game will fail them like Dim Mak in a mugging.

That’s the skim-friendly summary. I’d also call Keys to the VIP two felons racing to ruin one nightclub. Or two men courting four men. Besides, the show overcomplicates things too. Each round has a theme, ranging from “get a number in sixty seconds” to “get a number blindfolded, while a puppet yells at you and the space shogun kills your friends.” As you can imagine, the difficulty swings. I mean, a minute?

Welcome to Pro-Fucking. Not be confused with porn, where leads make money. On Keys to the VIP, you win bottle service at an identical club. A prize that exposes bottle service more than it sells Keys to the VIP. I’d rather get a plaque, or a signed box of unopened Magnums. Something I could point at and say “Once, I played a sexual beggar to get on Fuse.”

Right! Presumed familiarity remains my greatest weakness. Your mind may be healthy and clean. We’ll fix that first.

Thanks to the crush of time, some of you have forgotten game. Shameful. Though you get a pass if you were busy working or learning to add. Before sex was a download and stale coffee away, we went outside to fail. Where seduction artists failed more delightfully and criminally than anyone else.

It’s easy to confuse PUA with later, better-armed trends. But while today’s dating coaches focus on cutting amendments, pickup artists try to have a bunch of sex, and sell guides to sex. I know that sounds odd, but it’s because of how sane we’ve all gone since. And neither that busybody Batman nor his surprisingly violent son can stop us now.

Here’s a helpful chart.

There you have it. Before the unfucked found ammunition, they were America’s finest clowns.

Except for that. That stuff was weird.

The subtitle has the word professional in it, so you might ask: how many SmackDowns of fake is this sport? 0.37 Smackdowns. Exactly. It’s highly curated, edited, and instigated, with real morons and harassment. How close that gets to a contest depends on how seriously you take the Olympics. For my thin values, Keys to the VIP is closer to a prank show. One where star players win house arrest.

The evil really holds the idiocy back. Or rather, clubbing with sabotage really doesn’t need the pickup angle. Keys to the VIP shows flickers of life when it announces “try to find love while speaking tongues” or “hit on these models in a handstand.” You could run that with anyone alive. Even non-predators, if you wanted to get crazy. In fact, cards on the table: I’m a hundred percent down for “Party vs. Mission Control.”

Then, an adult named Peachez elbows his way onscreen and starts talking about “frame,” and the magic dies.

Well, half the magic. Players still fly into rejection’s bug zapper, at the whim of unseen gods. But imagine what could have been.

The judges have personality.

One personality, split over four hosts. Per voiceover, these four dry dickheads channel “the four corners of the male psyche.”

Christ.

Welcome to the first and last time I’ll use the term misandry. This is misandry. Calling four spiritual corpses manhood’s best face is a slur. I finally know the emotion driving vertical video. They remember the Keys to the VIP intro. Putting these dumbfucks on TV is fine, but running that line is irresponsible.

Each judge is the worst in their own way.

The worst performer is Alan, who works heel against three other girl hunters. He fails that impossible task harder than he has to. At a glance, a dark side pick-up artist has the same thoughts and feelings as Chris or Peachez, with frosted tips. Satan’s sent his weakest soldier his toughest battle, to teach him that no one likes a suck-up.

The worst presence is Peachez, who knows he’s more likely to see his kids than get on another show. He always talks, editorial always keeps it, and it’s always half a grunt. Despite his last and best thought being “Fuck, let’s try Fuse,” Peachez elects himself group comedian, and fails to rise to the occassion. He’s in a pitched roast battle with himself and losing. Each punchline is a love letter to silence.

The worst employee is Sheldon, who isn’t paying fucking attention. Which is fine, since he has nothing to add. Sheldon’s dumber than Chris, duller than Peachez, and more lost than Alan. I’d rather hear from the cameraman. I don’t know what Keys to the VIP thinks a philosopher is, but I curse Sheldon to a century of being misquoted by Twitter nazis.

The worst character is Chris, the nice sex addict. He’s there to cheer honest bragging, gentle violation of personal space, and apologizing after a martini meets your face. The concept’s doomed from the jump. He’s here for no one. Either you’re centuries ahead of his remedial ethics, or four blogs and two allegations past caring what half of humans think. Chris sucks.

Note that Chris, the designated man of integrity, is a producer. Which, perhaps, plays a role in the man of integrity label. I’m calling him a self-valorizing worm. There’s often a “not” in that setup, but Keys to the VIP encourages inventive negging. Except for Chris, who shakes his head and wags his finger.

Like everything wrestling-adjacent, matchups matter. Keys to VIP has a bad habit of booking squashes. There’s no suspense to who’ll win in a match between Ferrucio Lamborghini V and a vagrant they found sleeping outside the set. Those episodes are less cruel than pointless. You’re here to watch two equally divorced Punta Cana regulars drown. Or fly, I guess, if you live vicariously through masters of “last minute resistance.”

Then Season One’s finale delivers. Duane “The Damager” and “Cocky” Kevin were chosen to fail, and do their horny duty. More importantly, they’ve been chosen to fail competitively. Rick Flair would nevermind.

The Damager, as his name implies, lives in filth.

Duane, the Immune System Damager. I see where the ego comes from. If you close the deal in a fallen box fort, it goes to your head.

I want to love Duane, because he’s a joke-spamming Jamaican artist, and one day this Earth shall be ours. And really, doesn’t everyone’s room look like this during Princeton thesis crunch? What was her deal? But Duane’s also a fucking idiot.

Easy consent joke aside: he’s in a “what she likes” contest. For a three-round beg-off, this approach is called “losing.” Still, it’s good to keep your sense of self. Maybe Duane can leave with his dignity intact. I don’t think anyone can lose to the Lung Damager. Though mold’s a nice conversation starter.

By the gods.

If Kevin only existed in hype reels, instead of haunting innocent dive bars, he’d be my favorite character. Everything he says is like this. Seething inadequacy. Metaphors flying in every direction. Making hard tricks look lame. The man is an accidental and unfuckable delight, and I’d love to be his case worker when his crimes catch up to him. Until then:

He raps! Only he can’t. But he raps nonetheless! What else could we expect in a bout between the Damager and the Damaged? Cocky Kevin clearly specializes in headbutt goals.

I hope that you can see why we’re here. Losing this match might be the first failure Kevin understands.

Poetry made for the Kennedy Center. They might engrave it on the roof. Or Bluebeard’s coffin. That’s not a president joke unless he’s a nonce.

Our sex gladiators enter The Club. The judges name and plug it, but it never sinks in. Every Keys to the VIP club is the same Top 40 affair, full of revelers begging, pleading with God for a man to finish a complete sentence. God won’t answer them today.

Game 1’s simple: get a number in sixty seconds.

Duane performs the way he cleans. It’s a short tragedy: the woman on the left loudly and enthusiastically replies to everything he says. So he locks into her friend’s neckline instead, and talks about dancing she could give a shit about. There’s probably a lesson here, but I was thinking about Necrons. I should tell more girls about Necrons.

Kevin takes the caveman approach.

And scores! It is competitive malpractice that this show doesn’t check for fake numbers. Followup calls would get whole seasons overturned. Though you can’t have a sport without hideous wounds in the rules.

Still, fair play. With fresh momentum, Kevin immediately humiliates himself. Round 2 is a fucking trap:

Smarter and more humane writers have explained why the entire negging axis is a trap. Well, the rules say you have to do it, even if you haven’t mastered putting away your toys or Hooked on Phonics. So I suppose this implosion is only half Kevin’s fault.

Three-quarters Kevin’s fault. He asks “These are your friends?” on loop. The blurred woman likes her friends, for reasons covered in the dictionary, so this technique goes over like insulting someone’s friends.

Now there’s an opening: if Duane can rally, learn, and adapt to failure, he can reclaim his what do you think this is?

Is this what the other side of a nightclub is like? Endless petitions from lesser lords, when you just want to finish your Catacomb Command Barge?

It’s hard not to pity him, since I have a cousin named Duane. Instead of joke structure or exciting adventures in the Eye of Terror, that guy rambles about nothing. It boggles the mind. Still, you have to try and lend family a hand. That could be you someday.

Despite Duane, nervous laughter scores Duane a point. There’s a sense of justice to this game. “Justice” being whether or not Peachez—who always talks first—goes for humiliation or says “fuck it.” He’s in a humiliation mood, which explains Game 3:

Leaving these two to their own devices is bullying. Duane’s improvised his whole life, leaving him a garage full of Double Stack wrappers and a hobby that stops women from even seeing his garage full of Double Stack wrappers . As for Kevin, I don’t think he knows we’re still playing. He’s just chasing butts on autopilot.

I’ve skipped the judge banter, because I like myself. I deserve good things, like laughing at Duane. But our gentle empath Chris loves watching Duane fail. As do I, but I’ve worked heel for ages. Chris’s enthusiasm for Jamaican tears inspires a full Tom Cruise:

The judges seem to enjoy each other. This must be an unlistenable podcast by now, unless Alan’s finally caved under the pressure of playing double vampire.

Back on the floor, Duane has learned nothing.

And takes rejection the classic way:

You know, in his hype video, Dwayne gave a lot of confident, well-phrased advice. But seems to know nothing. Now, if I was a judge, I’d have torched this footage. It gave the whole game away, years before cursory public scrutiny hit.

Kevin’s learned nothing as well, but already knew how to grunt. Or maybe there’s a plant, and this is 0.7 SmackDowns. There’s no money in becoming a Keys to the VIP truther. He spies an active cornering, and joins in. The optics are…poor.

The buzzards without camera crews leave. And then “Cocky” Kevin pulls his trump card: lying about being from New York.

And lying about being a professional athlete. I’ve called him brainless, but it might be more of a Dux-lite situation. She doesn’t seem to buy it. But there’s no check on fake numbers, so blocking her escape route gets “Cocky” Kevin the win. Better yet, the Jets get some fresh blood.

Jesus.

Keys to the VIP has something, and it’s welded to a vent of infinite evil. I suggest executing everyone involved, and remaking it with humans.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Adrienne Hisbrook, who won three rounds of Pro-Fucking and received the grand prize of more nightclub.

You can read this article and every other one on the much better in every way 1900HOTDOG.COM