Dating & Relationship status

Real Social Dynamics co-founder Owen Cook [fr] , using the online nickname Tyler Durden, wrote on the RSD website, “I think Julien’s video was absolutely stupid,” saying that the video was out of context and that Blanc had posted it for shock value, not realizing the full outcome the situation would lead to.

Responding to Blanc’s interview, Jennifer Li’s impression of the apology was that “he is sorry he got caught, not for what he has done.”

In some cases, immigration authorities have indicated an intent to deny Blanc entry into their countries apparently without having been petitioned. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry indicated that Brazil would deny him a visa if he applied for one, in spite of planned seminars in January 2015. Though Blanc was reportedly scheduled for a visit to South Korea in December 2014, the Border Control Division of the Korea Immigration Service said that Blanc would be unlikely to gain entry to the country, with an anonymous official telling South Korean journalist Lee Tae-hoon that Blanc’s activities ran against the “morals and customs” of the country.

In 2015, Blanc started the YouTube channel “JulienHimself”, which he states is a shift from his dating seminars devoted to self-development and life enrichment.

In November 2014, Blanc became the subject of multiple social media campaigns alleging that his dating advice encourages sexual violence and abuse, and involving multiple petitions on those grounds to deny him entry to several nations. On November 17, Blanc made an appearance on CNN rebutting these accusations, stating that evidence against him does not reflect his teaching, and that it was taken out of context. Blanc has formally been banned from entry to Australia, the United Kingdom and Singapore.

A seminar led by Blanc in Miami was featured in a TV documentary, The Hunt for Real Men, by the British documentary maker Tim Samuels broadcast on the biography channel on June 27, 2014. In a later interview with BBC, Samuels described the seminar as being “in a classroom, in a hotel, with a hundred, two hundred guys who start making notes, with Julien at the front as the kind of rock star guru, people hanging on every word, and generally getting fairly practical pop psychology tips on how to approach women, what sort of conversation to make, how to project your alpha male, and a sense of self confidence.”

On September 8, 2014, Blanc posted a video titled “White male fucks Asian women in Tokyo (and the beautiful methods to it)” to his YouTube channel. The video, which has since been removed, shows Blanc presenting a seminar to a roomful of men. In the seminar, Blanc describes his opinion that “sub-communication,” not the use of words or methods, is all that matters. He justifies this with his past experience in approaching women in Tokyo. Blanc comments that “in Tokyo, if you’re a white male, you can do what you want” and “all you have to say to kinda like take the pressure off is just yell ‘Pikachu’ or ‘Pokemon’ or ‘Tamagotchi’ or something,” as he describes himself in Tokyo “romping through the streets” and “grabbing women” whilst shoving their faces in his crotch, saying “Pikachu”.

In response to the video, Jennifer Li, an Asian-American woman living in Washington, D.C., initiated a campaign aimed at preventing Blanc from hosting further similar seminars, using the hashtag “#TakeDownJulienBlanc” on social media in early November 2014. Li initiated a petition on Change.org calling upon hotels and other venues to cancel his bookings and for webhosts to stop hosting Blanc’s and Real Social Dynamics’ websites. In an article in the British newspaper, The Independent, Li asserted that Blanc’s video and other content he had posted online taught men how to assault women and that his video taught that “Asian women are a ‘free for all’ for predatory men,” thereby encouraging men to abuse Asian women. Li also reported Blanc’s video to the Japanese embassy.

By November 6, 2014, Li’s social media campaign had led to Blanc’s and Real Social Dynamics events in Melbourne, Brisbane, Austin, and Seattle being shut down and in online ticketing service Eventbrite removing all Real Social Dynamics events from its site. Blanc’s IG username account was also closed, many of his YouTube videos were set to private, and some of the content from his Twitter Account name account was removed. Scheduled “boot camps” in Japan and also in Canada were canceled by Real Social Dynamics until further notice around November 13 out of a fear that their instructor’s safety could not be guaranteed.

In a November 17, 2014 interview on CNN, Blanc made a public apology and repudiated the accusations against him. He said that the videos were a “horrible, horrible attempt at humor” and taken out of context, denying accusations of promoting rape or of coaching clients to use domestic violence or abuse to seduce women.

Blanc’s Australian tour, which had begun in Sydney on October 29, 2014, was cut short by cancellations prompted by petitions and protests, including a protest of a seminar led by Blanc’s assistant Maximilian Berger on a Melbourne River Cruises boat moored on the Yarra River in Southbank, Melbourne. The boat company cancelled the seminar booking mid-event, and local police were called in to restore order. Protesters also petitioned to have Blanc deported from Australia. Blanc’s Australian visa was revoked on November 6, 2014, and the following day Victoria police confirmed that he had left Australia overnight, with his assistant scheduled to follow. Australia’s Immigration minister Scott Morrison told Sky News: “This guy wasn’t putting forward political ideas, he was putting forward abuse that was derogatory to women … those are values abhorred in this country.”

An online petition to deny Blanc entry to the United Kingdom was also initiated in November. Blanc had reportedly already given a series of seminars in London during September 2014, and was scheduled for two return visits to London in late 2014 and early 2015. Alleging that permitting Blanc into the country “legitimises sexual assault and predation” and that his pick-up techniques “directly exploit vulnerable men who buy into rape culture and end up believing that this is an appropriate way to behave,” shadow home secretary (Labour) Yvette Cooper called upon Home Secretary Theresa May to deny Blanc entry to the country. Under paragraph 320 of the Immigration Rules, the Home Secretary can refuse any visa “on general grounds because of a person’s background, behaviour, character, conduct or associations.” The UK denied Blanc a visa on November 19, 2014. Following the visa denial, the BBC interviewed documentary maker Tim Samuels about his perceptions of the seminar taught by Blanc featured in Samuels’ documentary “The Hunt for Real Men” broadcast the previous June. Samuels said he and his team had seen nothing that “crossed the line,” but that the videos and photos which later came to light had “cast a shadow” over what had seemed an essentially harmless enterprise.

An online petition campaign in Singapore resulted in a joint statement on November 26 by the Singapore’s Immigration & Checkpoints Authority and its Ministry of Social and Family Development that Blanc would not be allowed into Singapore, which he had been scheduled to visit during a tour in late 2014.

Online petitions seeking to cancel seminars conducted by Blanc or other RSD coaches, or to deny entry into specific nations or cities have been launched in several other countries, including Japan, Canada, the city of Amsterdam (Netherlands), Argentina, Iceland, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand. In Japan, customs officials raised the concern that Blanc had not had a proper work permit on his earlier visit to Tokyo. They stated that the crime kyōsei waisetsu, translated literally as “forcible indecency”, appeared to be committed in the video but that such charges require a victim’s testimony. In Germany, a press spokesman with the Green Party expressed doubt that Blanc could be prevented from entering the country, but believed that Blanc’s scheduled December 2014 seminar in Munich would probably take place at a secret location. Blanc will not be blocked from entering Denmark, according to Socialdemokraterne justice spokesperson Trine Bramsen, who said that to be denied entry he “must have committed a crime or have no legal business in Denmark.”

Critics of the social media campaigns against Blanc have initiated a counterpetition in his support urging nations not to deny his freedom of speech and asserting that “Denying him a visa would be an incredible injustice to a man who has committed no crimes”. One of Blanc’s personal assistants spoke to Newsbeat (a BBC Radio 1 programme) on November 20, 2014 asserting that Blanc’s content had been misinterpreted by the media, supporting Blanc’s earlier claims that his coaching content had been taken out of context.

Blanc is an instructor employed by Real Social Dynamics, a U.S.-based company which offers seminars and “boot camps” throughout the world to men seeking instruction on how to meet and seduce women. He teaches men how to have more confidence and socialize with women. According to the men’s relationship advice website Romance Skills Review, Blanc began his employment at Real Social Dynamics in 2012. He is one of a number of instructors who teach the course “Real Social Dynamics Bootcamp”. Blanc is the creator of video course “Pimp”, consisting of over 23 videos of dating advice. “Pimp” is divided into three sections; “Female Psychology”, “Inner Game” and “Outer Game”. Blanc has also produced multiple other video courses focused on dating advice including “Shift”, and “TenGame”, and a course dedicated to self-help and life enrichment titled “Transformation Mastery” with the intended target audience to both men and women.