Misplaced Pages

Alpha male and beta male are pseudoscientific terms for men derived from the designations of alpha and beta animals in ethology. They may also be used with other genders, such as women, or additionally use other letters of the Greek alphabet (such as omega). The popularization of these terms to describe humans has been widely criticized by scientists.

Both terms have been frequently used in internet memes. The term beta is used as a pejorative self-identifier among some members of the manosphere, particularly incels, who do not believe they are assertive or traditionally masculine, and feel overlooked by women. It is also used to negatively describe other men who are not deemed to be assertive, particularly with women.

In Internet culture, the term sigma male is also frequently used, gaining popularity c. 2021, but has since been used jokingly, often being used with incel.

History

The terms were used almost solely in animal ethology prior to the 1990s, particularly in regard to mating privileges with females, ability to hold territory, and hierarchy in terms of food consumption within their herd or flock. In animal ethology, beta refers to an animal who is subordinate to higher-ranking members in the social hierarchy, thus having to wait to eat and having fewer or negligible opportunities for copulation.

In the 1982 book of Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes, primatologist and ethologist Frans de Waal suggested that his observations of a chimpanzee colony could possibly be applied to human interactions. Some commentary on the book, including in the Chicago Tribune, discussed its parallels to human power hierarchies. In the early 1990s, some media outlets began to use the term alpha to refer to humans, specifically to "manly" men who excelled in business. Journalist Jesse Singal, writing in New York magazine, attributes the popular awareness of the terms to a 1999 Time magazine article, which described an opinion held by Naomi Wolf, who was at the time an advisor to then-presidential candidate Al Gore: "Wolf has argued internally that Gore is a 'Beta male' who needs to take on the 'Alpha male' in the Oval Office before the public will see him as the top dog." Singal also credits Neil Strauss's bestselling 2005 book on pickup artistry, titled The Game, for popularizing alpha male as an aspirational ideal.

Usage

The view that there is a dominance hierarchy among humans consisting of "alpha males" and "beta males" is sometimes reported in the mainstream media. The term alpha male is often applied to any dominating man, especially bullies, despite the fact that dominating behavior is rarely seen as a positive trait for either an ideal date or a romantic partner. Claims about women being "hard-wired" to desire "alpha males" are seen by experts as misogynistic and stereotypical, and are not supported by research. Evolutionary psychologists who study human mating behavior instead believe that humans use two distinct strategies – dominance and prestige – for climbing social hierarchies, and that prestige plays a significantly more important role in establishing men's attractiveness to women than does dominance. Cognitive scientist Scott Barry Kaufman summarizes:

Taken together, the research suggests that the ideal man (for a date or romantic partner) is one who is assertive, confident, easygoing, and sensitive, without being aggressive, demanding, dominant, quiet, shy, or submissive. In other words, a prestigious man, not a dominant man. In fact, it appears that the prestigious man who is high in both assertiveness and kindness is considered the most attractive to women for both short-term affairs and long-term relationships.

Misconceptions about "alpha males" are common within the manosphere, a collection of websites, blogs, and online forums promoting masculinity, strong opposition to feminism, and misogyny which includes movements such as the men's rights movement, incels (involuntary celibates), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), pick-up artists (PUA), and fathers' rights groups.

The term beta is also often used among manosphere communities to refer to men they consider easily taken advantage of or ignored by women. Its usage is inconsistent; media studies scholar Debbie Ging has described the communities' theories about "alpha, beta, omega, and zeta masculinity" as "confused and contradictory". Beta is sometimes used as self-identifier among men who do not embody hegemonic masculinity. It is also sometimes used by manospherians as a pejorative term for men who are or are perceived to be feminist, or who are thought to be acting as "white knights". Some manosphere groups refer to members of other groups in the manosphere as betas; for example, members of the MGTOW community sometimes use it to refer to men's rights activists or incels. Members of the pickup artist (PUA) communities use it to refer to men who cannot seduce women. Similar terms used by the manosphere communities include nice guy, cuck, simp, and soy boy.

Related terms

"Alpha fux beta bux"

In the manosphere, the term alpha fux beta bux presupposes a sexual strategy of hypergamy or "marrying up" among women whereby they prefer and have sex with "alpha" males but settle for less attractive "beta" males for financial reasons. Sometimes it expresses a belief that women marry beta males to exploit them financially, while continuing to have extramarital sex with alpha males. Ging explains these beliefs as an effort by young men in the Western world to cope with their limited economic prospects following the 2007–2008 financial crisis by appealing to gender-essentialist notions of gold-digging women popular in postfeminist culture.

Beta orbiter

A beta orbiter is a beta male who invests time and effort into mingling with women in the hope of eventually getting into a romantic relationship or having sex with them. The term earned some media attention in 2019 with the murder of Bianca Devins. A man killed the 17-year-old Devins and posted photographs of her body online, one of which bore the caption, "sorry fuckers, you're going to have to find somebody else to orbit."

Beta uprising

The term beta uprising or incel rebellion has been used largely among incels to refer to revenge by members of their community who have been overlooked by women. It is also sometimes used to describe a movement to overthrow what they view as an oppressive, feminist society. A 2018 vehicle-ramming attack in Toronto, Canada, was allegedly perpetrated by a man who had posted on his Facebook page just prior to the attack, "the Incel Rebellion has already begun". Media outlets have used the terms beta uprising and incel rebellion to refer to acts of violence perpetrated by members of manosphere communities, particularly incels.

Sigma male

Sigma male is an internet slang term to describe masculine men. The term gained prominence within Internet culture during the late 2010s and early 2020s, and has inspired numerous memes, graffitis and videos. It is used to denote a male who is equally dominant to an alpha male but exists outside the alpha-beta male hierarchy as a "lone wolf". In the manosphere, it is regarded as the "rarest" kind of male. In 2023, #sigma gained over 46 billion views on the social media platform TikTok.

The term first appeared in a blog post by American writer Vox Day. Later, California plastic surgeon John T. Alexander published the book The Sigma Male: What Women Really Want. In 2018, the term appeared on YouTube and in 2021 it went viral after a tweet by Lily Simpson.

The term sigma male has also taken on an ironic and satirical meaning, often mocking the concept of the "manosphere" and the ideas of hustle culture with bizarre and nonsensical actions being considered part of the sigma male mindset or "grindset". On social media, the term is often used to describe idealistic, masculine fictional characters from films and TV shows. Notably, actor Christian Bale's portrayal of the character Patrick Bateman from the 2000 film American Psycho is often cited as an ideal representation of a "sigma male", both through memes and unironic discussion.

Beth Skwarecki, health editor of the weblog Lifehacker, describe the sigma male as a "bullshit concept from the incel world." Due to the term's attribution to fictional film characters, it has been highlighted as promoting unrealistic personality and beauty standards.

See also

• Chad (slang)
• Internet slang
• Neckbeard (slang)
• Omegaverse
• Toxic masculinity

References

1. Hawley, P. H.; Little, Todd D.; Card, Noel A. (January 2008). "The myth of the alpha male: A new look at dominance-related beliefs and behaviors among adolescent males and females". International Journal of Behavioral Development. 32 (1): 76–88. doi:10.1177/0165025407084054. S2CID 145156929.
2. Hosie, Rachel (9 May 2017). "The Myth of the Alpha Male". The Independent.
3. ^ Friedland, Roger (2018). "Donald's Dick: A Man Against the Institutions". In Mast, Jason L.; Alexander, Jeffrey C. (eds.). Politics of Meaning/Meaning of Politics: Cultural Sociology of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 126–127. doi:10.1111/soin.12328. ISBN 978-3-319-95944-3. S2CID 210440082. Archived from the original on 2020-07-28. Retrieved 2020-07-17.
4. ^ Jones, Callum; Trott, Verity; Wright, Scott (2020). "Sluts and soyboys: MGTOW and the production of misogynistic online harassment". New Media & Society. 22 (10): 1903–1921. doi:10.1177/1461444819887141. ISSN 1461-4448. S2CID 210530415.
5. ^ Nicholas, Lucy; Agius, Christine (2018). The Persistence of Global Masculinism: Discourse, Gender and Neo-Colonial Re-Articulations of Violence. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-68360-7. ISBN 978-3-319-68359-1. LCCN 2017954971. Archived from the original on 2020-08-11. Retrieved 2020-07-17.
6. Clark-Flory, Tracy (July 1, 2014). "In praise of the 'beta male'". Salon. Archived from the original on June 12, 2020.
7. Gese, Eric M.; Ruff, Robert L.; Crabtree, Robert L. (1996). "Foraging ecology of coyotes (Canis latrans): the influence of extrinsic factors and a dominance hierarchy". Canadian Journal of Zoology. 74 (5): 769–783. doi:10.1139/z96-089. ISSN 0008-4301.
8. Davies, N. B. (1984). "Cooperation and conflict among dunnocks, Prunella modularis, in a variable mating system". Animal Behaviour. 33 (2): 628–648. doi:10.1016/S0003-3472(85)80087-7. S2CID 53180333.
9. Singal, Jesse (May 18, 2016). "How America Became Infatuated With a Cartoonish Idea of 'Alpha Males'". New York. Archived from the original on June 14, 2020.
10. de Waal, Frans (2017). "The Surprising Science of Alpha Males". MedPage Today. Archived from the original on May 5, 2021. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
11. ^ Kaufman, Scott Barry (December 10, 2015). "The Myth of the Alpha Male". Greater Good Magazine. Archived from the original on May 17, 2021.
12. Steadman, Ian (June 4, 2014). "The sexist pseudoscience of pick-up artists: the dangers of 'alpha male' thinking". New Statesman. Archived from the original on April 15, 2019. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
13. Burnett, Dean (October 10, 2016). "Do alpha males even exist?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on May 6, 2021. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
14. Hosie, Rachel (May 9, 2017). "The Myth of the Alpha Male". The Independent. Archived from the original on April 19, 2021. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
15. Hodapp, Christa (2017). Men's Rights, Gender, and Social Media. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books. p. xv. ISBN 978-1-49-852617-3.
16. Lumsden, Karen (2019). "'I Want to Kill You in Front of Your Children' Is Not a Threat. It's an Expression of a Desire': Discourses of Online Abuse, Trolling, and Violence on r/MensRights". In Lumsden, Karen; Harmer, Emily (eds.). Online Othering: Exploring Digital Violence and Discrimination on the Web. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 91–115. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-12633-9_4. ISBN 978-3-03-012632-2. S2CID 182589139. Archived from the original on 2021-04-10. Retrieved 2021-05-19.
17. Jane, Emma A. (2018). "Systemic misogyny exposed: Translating Rapeglish from the Manosphere with a Random Rape Threat Generator". International Journal of Cultural Studies. 21 (6): 661–680. doi:10.1177/1367877917734042. ISSN 1367-8779. S2CID 149078033 – via The Misplaced Pages Library.
18. ^ Nagle, Angela (2017). Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right. Alresford, UK: Zero Books. ISBN 978-1-78535-543-1.
19. ^ Ging, Debbie (2019). "Alphas, Betas, and Incels: Theorizing the Masculinities of the Manosphere". Men and Masculinities. 22 (4): 638–657. doi:10.1177/1097184x17706401. ISSN 1097-184X. S2CID 149239953 – via The Misplaced Pages Library.
20. ^ Van Valkenburgh, Shawn P. (2021). "Digesting the Red Pill: Masculinity and Neoliberalism in the Manosphere". Men and Masculinities. 24: 84–103. doi:10.1177/1097184X18816118. ISSN 1097-184X. S2CID 233999876 – via The Misplaced Pages Library.
21. Mendes, Kaitlynn; Ringrose, Jessica; Keller, Jessalynn (2019). Digital Feminist Activism: Girls and Women Fight Back Against Rape Culture. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-069785-3. OCLC 1050133589.
22. Zuckerberg, Donna (2018). Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-97555-2. OCLC 1020311558.
23. Ward, Anna Maria (April 1, 2020). "Here's why people are calling each other 'simps' online". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on January 11, 2021. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
24. Hosie, Rachel (October 30, 2017). "This is the far right's new favourite insult". The Independent. Archived from the original on July 16, 2020. Retrieved July 27, 2020.
25. Gambert, Iselin; Linné, Tobias (2018). "From Rice Eaters to Soy Boys: Race, Gender, and Tropes of 'Plant Food Masculinity'". Animal Studies Journal. 7 (2): 120–179. Archived from the original on 2020-07-27. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
26. ^ Ging, Debbie (2019). "Bros v. Hos: Postfeminism, Anti-feminism and the Toxic Turn in Digital Gender Politics". In Ging, Debbie; Siapera, Eugenia (eds.). Gender Hate Online: Understanding the New Anti-Feminism. Springer International Publishing. p. 57. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-96226-9_3. ISBN 978-3-319-96226-9. S2CID 199179106.
27. Clark-Flory, Tracy (July 2, 2014). "'Feminism is a sexual strategy': Inside the angry online men's rights group 'Red Pill'". Salon. Archived from the original on June 13, 2020. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
28. Minutaglio, Rose (July 15, 2019). "A Teen Instagrammer Was Brutally Murdered. Then, the Killer Shared Photos of Her Body Online". Elle. Archived from the original on June 14, 2020. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
29. Dickson, E. J. (December 17, 2019). "The Short Life and Viral Death of Bianca Devins". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on November 18, 2020. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
30. Dewey, Caitlin (October 7, 2015). "Incels, 4chan and the Beta Uprising: making sense of one of the Internet's most-reviled subcultures". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 10, 2017. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
31. ^ Chokshi, Niraj (April 24, 2018). "What Is an Incel? A Term Used by the Toronto Van Attack Suspect, Explained". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 25, 2018. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
32. Placido, Dani Di. "The Pseudoscience Behind The 'Sigma Male,' Explained". Forbes. Retrieved July 17, 2023.
33. "Sigma Grindset / Hustle Culture Memes". Know Your Meme. February 24, 2021. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
34. Dazed (January 13, 2022). "Rise and grind: how 'sigma males' are upturning the internet". Dazed. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
35. Bharti, Bianca (February 3, 2021). "What is a sigma male — the so-called rarest man?". National Post. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
36. Blackmon, Freddy. "Rise of the Sigma Male – The Lone Wolf". mensvariety.com. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
37. Reix, Justine (April 28, 2023). "The Rise of the 'Sigma Male', a New Kind of Toxic Masculinity". Vice News. Retrieved March 2, 2024.
38. "TikTok Is Obsessed With Sigma Males, but What Exactly Is a Sigma Male?". Distractify. January 19, 2023.
39. "Inceldom Is Critical to Nick Fuentes' Grift". MEL Magazine. April 5, 2022. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
40. "Sigma, simp and all the other misinterpreted terms on social media you need to know about". The Financial Express. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
41. "Is the Sigma Male the New Alpha? Does It Even Matter?". www.yahoo.com. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
42. Dazed (January 13, 2022). "Rise and grind: how 'sigma males' are upturning the internet". Dazed. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
43. "Interview with A Sigma Male". The Oxford Student. February 18, 2022. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
44. Hoghaug, James (September 13, 2022). "Sigma or Killer? The Truth Behind American Psycho's Patrick Bateman". cbr.com.
45. Reix, Justine (April 28, 2023). "The Rise of the 'Sigma Male', a New Kind of Toxic Masculinity". Vice.
46. Skwarecki, Beth (September 3, 2021). "'Sigma Male' Is Not a Personality". Lifehacker. Retrieved March 2, 2024.

• 2010s slang
• 2020s slang
• Generation Alpha slang
• Incel subculture
• Internet culture
• Stereotypes of men
• Obsolete biology theories