Certainly, I agree with this. But there are prominent pickup techniques that are manipulative and undesirable - you know, stuff like undermining someone's self-esteem. That's what I'm talking about. I'm using "manipulative" to refer to these "bad influences" or, if you prefer, "Dark Arts".

Edit: Or, in other words, I'm not exaggerating all influence by calling it manipulation - I'm using the word to refer to basically the same thing you are ("influence other people by... doing something underhanded").