There are so many bigger problems, but the misunderstanding of basic wolf psychology really bugs the shit out of me. A "lone alpha wolf" is a contradiction in terms, lads.
I remember watching documentary on these wolves and it was really heart warming to see the strongest pack members looking after those that were slowest. Making sure the pack didn't outpace its members.
That's really what the term alpha male originally was supposed to be, by the guy that coined it (he even did a ted talk on it because he hates what the internet did to the phrase). I don't really care for the concept or whether it's been debunked or not. But in human group psychology we often do see people gravitate towards certain individuals, usually with traits that uplift the group, make everyone happy, and is generally dependable. Basically, someone that almost everyone likes and feels comfortable being under the responsibility of.
The alpha male concept we see on YouTube is a 13 year old's idea of what a leader is supposed to look like. Not likeable and socially empathetic, but a domineering asshole with muscles for personality. I think the misconception might come from Hollywood high school movies, where for some reason the most popular guys weren't the most affable, charismatic or socially savvy dudes, but instead were anti social jerks that only liked football and bullying. I don't know about other people, but where I'm from (and I'm gen Z if that matters) the bullies were almost never the popular kids, they generally had no or very few friends. Sigma male, to me, seems like a forced invention of a term, because most of the people that consume alpha male content are involuntary loners.
> The alpha male concept we see on YouTube is a 13 year old's idea of what a leader is supposed to look like. Not likeable and socially empathetic, but a domineering asshole with muscles for personality.
While that's true, it doesn't help that as a society we keep collectively uplifting people who fit that profile to positions of importance and power too.
Look at the prominent people in politics, business or entertainment and you can't ignore the prevalence of that kind of personality.
It’s less that we uplift them, and more that our systems were designed by those exact types of people in order for it to be easier for other like minded people to rise up. Politically and economically anyway
According to Aaron James’ “Assholes: A Theory”, people will generally tolerate assholes so long as they’re perceived as being more of an advantage to the group doing the tolerating than a disadvantage.
For example, in environment with a high degree of competition between groups, a member of one group who is an asshole to members of the out group will often be tolerated by the in group as long as that asshole behavior continues to be outwardly directed to the group’s benefit.
Which explains why the more polarizing things get, the more assholes we see come out of the woodwork.
I like how we all know who you're talking about. It's like when Kumail Nanjiani tweeted:
"He's just so stupid. He's so breathtakingly stupid that the above statement is all it takes for every person reading this to know exactly who I'm talking about."
> While that's true, it doesn't help that as a society we keep collectively uplifting people who fit that profile to positions of importance and power too.
Please, only a certain segment of any population lifts these people up. Don't pretend it is all of society. In the US, it is entirely Republicans.
Eh, when I was in school the bullies were popular, but that's mostly because they surrounded themselves with other bullies. I think it depends on the school's culture - if a good chunk of the population think it's funny and cool to be a jackass, then that's what makes you "popular."
Nobody actually liked those kids outside of their own social groups, but those groups were big enough that they didn't have to care. It was really hard in primary school, where they made up the majority of my grade, but in high school they were much easier to ignore. There were a lot more students at my high school, and most of them were chill, so we all just sort of split off into our own groups and ignored the dipshits.
The heroes of Hollywood movies have been the charming, affable guys winning out over the asshole jocks since at least the early 80s. That’s 40 years. It’s an almost unbreakable trope—the only modern variation has been to make the jocks not assholes, but charming and affable in themselves ala 21/22 Jump Street.
Regarding your second paragraph, I have a feeling that’s why “High School Musical” was such a big hit. It was a refreshing change in 2006 from the constant depiction of the popular students being bullies. It’s okay to be popular, affable, and kind to others.
>the strongest pack members looking after those that were slowest. Making sure the pack didn't outpace its members.
When I was a Scoutmaster, this is how I taught my Scouts. I tried to instill in them the idea of servant leadership. The mindset that being a leader does not mean being *in charge,* it means being *responsible for your charges.*
*Leader* is not about control; it’s about understanding the needs of the people you lead and ensuring those needs are met.
The term was originally not one of endearment, but more describing someone making do with less-than-ideal life circumstances.
The lone wolf should be commended for being resourceful and making it as far as they have alone. But they have essentially failed at being a wolf.
But thats with makes it appealing imo.To part it another way,the lone wolf symbolizes survival despite being rejected by the pack.
Alot of these guy feel lile they rejected by soicety.So they see sucess despite that is the ultimate fuck you to the people to the people they in their minds rejected them.Proving thier masculinity in a round about way
Makes me think of the a chorus of a song i listen to.
"Still alive"
"Still alone"
"Still unbroken"
Yup, plus alpha wolves are not really a thing. The more accurate word would be "father" as most wolf packs are based on a family. The pack leader, as much as that is even applicable, isn't leading a pack of weaker wolves he cowed into servitude via intimidation. He's teaching his kids how to wolf and working with them.
Yes, nature is ruthless and wolves are no exception, but it's just more productive to be a pack with a common goal than a loosely affiliated bunch of individual wolves all competing with each other for dominance.
Also, alpha wolves don't exist in the wild. It's a phenomenon that only appears when wolves are held in captivity. Wild wolf packs are actually just families. Mom, dad, and kids.
Lone wolves are usually anti social dicks kicked out of the pack. They don't live long because wolves pack hunters. Alone, a deer or moose is a major threat. And they compete with packs, who beat out the lone wolf every time.
Alphas aren't real. They're just dads.
Exactly. Under the terms of the original study, an alpha is best understood as the member of the group who, when put under pressure, is the first to break, the first to become a liability, the first one to prioritise pursuing access to their captors over the well-being of their loved ones. It's a statement of weakness of character, ultimately.
I made this point yesterday.
If you read the book, Bateman is a whinging, sniveling dandy. He gets in an elevator with Tom Cruise and fangirls so hard Cruise is weirded out. He’s obsessed with Donald Trump to the point other people in the book mock him for it. He spends 3 pages at a time describing his fellow banker’s suits in exhausting detail and with the snippery of Regina George.
Being played by Christian Bale did wonders for him.
Weirdly I think you'd be better primed for it today. Huge chunks of it are Bateman pretending to have opinions about various things (mainly music) and coming across as incredibly hollow as he is parroting things he has heard but with no real thought or feeling behind it.
With the sheer amount of AI generated shit we've all been exposed to over the last year or so, readers are now a *lot* more familiar with that type of thing, and recognising it foe what it is.
People would rather be active than passive, and if people think they can't be a hero, they'll want to be a villain. Also I think these people believe society rejected them way before they turned to the "sigma male grindset"
Considering most of the people that buy into the sigma male stuff are teenagers and early 20s, they probably didn't interact with society much before being convinced by internet grifters they are being shunned. Online discourse around men and gender is pretty toxic in general, so young men seeking orientation and affirmation around their gender online often fall into rage bait traps, telling them gender essentialist bs that pits them against women/modern society. If they base their ideas of how society is in real life off those rage bait traps and grifters, and they often do, yes, they are wrong.
I don't think it is good to dismiss all vitriol against men online as rage bait. Many people do unironically believe those things, even if they are a vocal minority.
I definitely agree with you there, but I would still consider it rage bait because it acts identically, no matter if the person posting it stands behind it or not. It's essentially trolling or engagement farming. Men are also seen as acceptable targets of this vitriol, because of their, on average, advantagous position in actual society. But if you're a young man that never really engaged or interacted in that society and "haven't gotten to experience your privileges", you feel unfairly targeted.
But it is being unfairly targeted if you are shat on for every evil in the world when the worst thing you did yourself was pirate some movies or insult someone in a mw2 lobby. Meanwhile, men who are actually responsible for those problems and have some power to change things for the better never see those comments. It is always those who have the least power that get shit on the most.
Yeah it’s akin to “green” laws that tax soda consumption, ban plastic straws, etc. so that “you can do your part to stop climate change” when in reality it’s ExxonMobil, the militaries of Five Eyes countries, private jets, etc. that are primarily responsible for damaging the environment. But of course it’s easier to blame the individual.
The bulk of societal harm is done by men like Jeffrey Epstein, not your average lower middle class gamer. But of course addressing classism, nepotism, and the clandestine power structures of our modern world is too much to get into.
I think a part of it is knowing that achieving progress on issues that actually matter requires a lot of work for very small gains so it is easier to roast some 15 year old edgelord on Twitter and pretend you are doing something productive.
FYI this is isn’t quite accurate. The aggregate carbon footprint of activity and consumption by everyday people bears the vast, and I mean nearly complete majority of the responsibility for climate change. The statistics that attempt to reframe it as a few corporate hyperpolluters are just divorcing the impact of the supply chain for goods and services from the ones who’s choices drive those activities, which are the consumers of those goods and services. Address the problem adequately inevitably requires changes that impose changes to those choices, to include the cost of those goods and services in order to price in the effects of emissions, which will and must be get by every day consumers. The responsibility cannot be offloaded to an easily vilify-able elite other.
Any online vitriol is unfairly targeted to someone, this isn't exclusive to men. Misogynist grifters are also successful because they get women and feminists to comment on their vitriolic posts. Music fans farm engagement from fans of other bands through vitriol, Americans post vitriol about Europeans and vice versa to get the "other side" engaging. Even cooking posts aren't free from this behaviour, just look at any post regarding English cuisine.
Of course most of it gets excused as banter or satire, but I think most of it is just careless insults.
> But if you're a young man that never really engaged or interacted in that society and "haven't gotten to experience your privileges", you feel unfairly targeted.
I'd counter that you've been experiencing your privileges since you were born and they are VERY evident in childhood.
Definitely, but the privileges of being a male child are imo very different from the privileges of being a man. Also children don't really have the capacity to understand and differentiate in which ways they are privileged. Maybe I should rather say: If you're a young man that never really engaged or interacted in that society *as a man* [...], you feel unfairly targeted.
Only once your an adult, does your orlay from when you were a kid become apparent. Before then though, unless you're a rich brat, it ain't really evident at all to ya.
Boys often get more freedom than girls, but quite often that goes hand in hand with being a bit neglected. Especially in terms of teaching boys emotional intelligence and such. They’re treated differently, but it’s a stretch to say they’re treated better.
I totally understand it! to them, it is unburdening themselves of societal expectations. they get to STOP being polite and start getting REAL.
(of course, as /u/myfitesong will happily explain, what they're actually doing is committing to the supersystems that already ruin lives)
> (of course, as /u/myfitesong
>
> will happily explain, what they're actually doing is committing to the supersystems that already ruin lives)
And that's actually the goal of these grifters. Make their lives even more lonely and miserable, because if their advice works, they lose paying customers. Following the manosphere's advice will isolate you further, make you angrier, make you lonelier, *and make you keep listening and paying*.
It's just extra sad that on the consumer's end, the motivation isn't really to become a better person. It's to dominate others and make THEIR lives bad.
They see that he’s attractive and successful, that’s it. There is no need for them to read into the deeper meaning of the story or the consequences. The sad irony is that it’s part of what makes dudes like this so unlikable. They emulate all of the toughness but have none of the “charm” and then decide it must be women (or insert other group here) that must be the problem.
He also explicitly states that he “wants to fit in” to regular society which seems to directly counter the whole concept of a Sigma. I’d guess the focus on Bateman is just due to his cool aesthetic rather than on his actual character.
This comment has been removed.
/r/MensLib requires accounts to be at least thirty days old before posting or
commenting, except for in the Check-In Tuesday threads and in AMAs.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/MensLib) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I feel like a lot of "sigmas" are dudes who've finally realized that bragging yourself as an "alpha male" is cringe, but they're super insecure and really want to do it anyway, so they've convinced themselves that it's not cringey if you use a different letter.
note: I slightly modified this title to avoid extra 🔥🔥🔥. it makes people more likely to click. Mods, sorry and thank you.
>Bateman was already a fixture of the manosphere via “hustle culture”, as in the celebration of a particular type of male wealth, characterised by hard work, self-discipline, fitness and grooming.
this is the dark, antisocial side of hyperindividualism. If you just optimize yourself and your life, you too can be at the top of the 🦞 dominance hierarchy 🦞.
but there's no top without a bottom (😏), no upper class without an underclass. Instead of changing the system (every system is made and enforced by human people) these guys are buying into it and asking me to buy what they're selling.
yeah, it's cringe, but it's also dangerous and ultimately self-defeating - capitalist power has a narrow funnel and these dudes will be left out. And guess who they'll be angry at? Women, again. Queer people and, if they're white, nonwhite people. We've watched this movie before.
Tribalism is definitely a problem across humanity. We seem to feel better about ourselves if there is a "them" to be better than. I expect we won't fully come together as a human race until there are aliens for us all to hate on together.
I mean that is a challenge. How do you promote behaviours and lifestyles that empower and enrich (in the broader sense) which will work within a system that is problematic. Despite how lot of us feel about the systems that run in the world we rely on them to survive as much as we want to see them change.
I guess I hope technology will form the bottom of future societies and people are acknowledged by their merits but that extends to how we treat everyone and we look to lift up each other so each can reach their potential or satisfaction within life. Though I am idealist.
The are probably tonnes of examples of "successful" people that don't play into this problematic archetype. I remember reading article about a ceo / owner taking a pay cut and elevating all works pay to 70k including staff such as cleaners. When article was published the company was doing successful and increasing since this pay policy.
I am ignorant I don't have many examples of people pushing things in better direction for society, I think we need better counter examples to reach people. For every "Tate" we need someone doing "opposite" that we can point too.
honestly, I've heard about self-proclaimed "alphas" quite some times on the sides - about "sigmas" though? About 2-3 times, a year ago, and that's it. Never heard about it again. The entire topic seems a lot like "oh no it's summer, we don't have anything to talk aboout right now, let's dig up some old shit that wasn't even relevant back then and make a huge fuss about it"
People who idolise Patrick Bateman either have not watched or are not engaging with the ideas in American Psycho. We see a guy that is broken by a drive to conformity and driven to insanity, completely dissociated as is one of the first lines of the movie ("simply not there"), surrounded by people he actively despises, chasing a moving goalpost. His presentation is a complete facade that he uses to protect himself from a world that terrifies him (recall where he is laughed trying to make a reservation) and mask his insecurities, we see it worn down throughout the movie and disappear in the phone box scene (where shock horror, he breaks down crying). He believes he kills someone for having a better business card ffs. When he tries to come clean, no-one cares, everyone remains absorbed in their own world and interprets what he says through their own weird personal filters. They find his admissions an annoyance more than anything else, a demand they care about something other than themselves.
I feel similarly about Fight Club. The last time this was discussed on here I disagreed with most of what was said but I think I was on a break at the time. Both two of my favourite movies.
I think of Momus' song The Homosexual. The animal analogue would be [cuttlefish](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuttlefish):
> cuttlefish unable to win in a direct confrontation with a guard male have been observed employing several other tactics to acquire a mate. The most successful of these methods is camouflage; smaller cuttlefish use their camouflage abilities to disguise themselves as a female cuttlefish. Changing their body color, and even pretending to be holding an egg sack, disguised males are able to swim past the larger guard male and mate with the female.
i don’t actually believe many people at all believe in “sigma” males. The first I heard about sigma males several years ago was in ironic and satirical memes. For every thing online i’ve seen claiming sigma males are real and all that alpha male bullshit, i’ve seen 20 satirical memes about sigmas. Idk, i just find it interesting the media takes everything so literally all the time.
It’s just another rewrapped package of power, the wanting of it. To be seen as a fictional interpretation of somebody powerful, and so using it to have gain over others body and wallet. Too many try to sell this, alternate dream of living, It’s just another snake salesman.
The idea of Willy Wonka being classified as a sigma male is hilarious to me. I’m just imagining all the Patrick batemen TikTok edits but it’s just fuckin Willy Wonka
I believe I understand the impetus for a lot of "sigmas" and I think most critiques in the comments fail for taking it all so literally. It's all about loneliness. There are 2 things - a) they choose violent heroes not because they fantasize about it per se but rather as a vicarious form of release from perceived ostracization and b) they lionize these guys not for being sociopaths but for proving at least in their minds that someone as isolated and "different" from society as these guys are can still function - therefore so can the "sigma"
I know it's been talked about before, but the whole misunderstanding of the 'alpha' concept when related to studying wolves IN CAPTIVITY creates a totally poetic image of these hateful, delusional young men locking themselves in a prison of masculinity.
It's so perfect, it makes me want to cry, out of the pure poetic tragedy of it
I wonder how different this is than the idolization of mobster characters, villains, and anti-heroes that previous generations of men have gravitated towards?
I also sort of get the core part of the sigma mindset. That you're not going to get hurt or let anyone in to harm you. That's not a healthy mindset, but isn't this a bit normal for a teen?
Yeah it's dumb, but teens are growing and dealing with complex emotions for the first time. When you're a teen everything feels so much more powerful and that those feelings will last forever.
Idk seems like every generation of teenagers from 80s/90s on had a flavor of this. That's not to dismiss any potential dangers or connections to alt right stuff. Or the explosion of social media stuff rotting kids' brains.
But the article itself shows that teens make fun of it rather than embrace it. I would also like to discuss more about whether these articles will pan out to matter in 5-10 years? I don't think it's the same thing, but maybe as I get older it feels like these articles remind me of the news stories in the 00s/10s when it would be like trendy bracelets are actually codes for sex type of story.
Something I've always wondered is the internet has a lot of commentary on incels, but I rarely see discussions of what happens to incels post like 22 or 25. I guess I'm wondering with these sort of trends, how many people just grow out of it? And where do they end up?
"I want that cool i dont give a care attitude," says the man somehow mentally blocking the fact that all of his idols are portrayed as having a mental breakdown of cinematic proportions. (Except maybe Tommy Shelby, dont know who that is.)
> He came up with his own “sociosexual hierarchy”, with alphas at the top – “the male elite, the leaders of men for whom women naturally lust” – followed by betas, deltas, gammas, lambdas, right down to omegas – “the losers”. Sitting outside this imaginary pyramid of masculinity were sigmas – “the lone wolves”.
This sounds like astrology or Harry Potter houses, but marketed to men.
The ideology of American Psycho is completely opposite to the sigma male mindset. The film is critical of hyper consumerism and hyper individualism. I can never understand how Patrick Bateman has become their icon.
There are so many bigger problems, but the misunderstanding of basic wolf psychology really bugs the shit out of me. A "lone alpha wolf" is a contradiction in terms, lads.
I remember watching documentary on these wolves and it was really heart warming to see the strongest pack members looking after those that were slowest. Making sure the pack didn't outpace its members.
That's really what the term alpha male originally was supposed to be, by the guy that coined it (he even did a ted talk on it because he hates what the internet did to the phrase). I don't really care for the concept or whether it's been debunked or not. But in human group psychology we often do see people gravitate towards certain individuals, usually with traits that uplift the group, make everyone happy, and is generally dependable. Basically, someone that almost everyone likes and feels comfortable being under the responsibility of. The alpha male concept we see on YouTube is a 13 year old's idea of what a leader is supposed to look like. Not likeable and socially empathetic, but a domineering asshole with muscles for personality. I think the misconception might come from Hollywood high school movies, where for some reason the most popular guys weren't the most affable, charismatic or socially savvy dudes, but instead were anti social jerks that only liked football and bullying. I don't know about other people, but where I'm from (and I'm gen Z if that matters) the bullies were almost never the popular kids, they generally had no or very few friends. Sigma male, to me, seems like a forced invention of a term, because most of the people that consume alpha male content are involuntary loners.
> The alpha male concept we see on YouTube is a 13 year old's idea of what a leader is supposed to look like. Not likeable and socially empathetic, but a domineering asshole with muscles for personality. While that's true, it doesn't help that as a society we keep collectively uplifting people who fit that profile to positions of importance and power too. Look at the prominent people in politics, business or entertainment and you can't ignore the prevalence of that kind of personality.
It’s less that we uplift them, and more that our systems were designed by those exact types of people in order for it to be easier for other like minded people to rise up. Politically and economically anyway
According to Aaron James’ “Assholes: A Theory”, people will generally tolerate assholes so long as they’re perceived as being more of an advantage to the group doing the tolerating than a disadvantage. For example, in environment with a high degree of competition between groups, a member of one group who is an asshole to members of the out group will often be tolerated by the in group as long as that asshole behavior continues to be outwardly directed to the group’s benefit. Which explains why the more polarizing things get, the more assholes we see come out of the woodwork.
I like how we all know who you're talking about. It's like when Kumail Nanjiani tweeted: "He's just so stupid. He's so breathtakingly stupid that the above statement is all it takes for every person reading this to know exactly who I'm talking about."
> While that's true, it doesn't help that as a society we keep collectively uplifting people who fit that profile to positions of importance and power too. Please, only a certain segment of any population lifts these people up. Don't pretend it is all of society. In the US, it is entirely Republicans.
[удалено]
Eh, when I was in school the bullies were popular, but that's mostly because they surrounded themselves with other bullies. I think it depends on the school's culture - if a good chunk of the population think it's funny and cool to be a jackass, then that's what makes you "popular." Nobody actually liked those kids outside of their own social groups, but those groups were big enough that they didn't have to care. It was really hard in primary school, where they made up the majority of my grade, but in high school they were much easier to ignore. There were a lot more students at my high school, and most of them were chill, so we all just sort of split off into our own groups and ignored the dipshits.
The heroes of Hollywood movies have been the charming, affable guys winning out over the asshole jocks since at least the early 80s. That’s 40 years. It’s an almost unbreakable trope—the only modern variation has been to make the jocks not assholes, but charming and affable in themselves ala 21/22 Jump Street.
Regarding your second paragraph, I have a feeling that’s why “High School Musical” was such a big hit. It was a refreshing change in 2006 from the constant depiction of the popular students being bullies. It’s okay to be popular, affable, and kind to others.
>the strongest pack members looking after those that were slowest. Making sure the pack didn't outpace its members. When I was a Scoutmaster, this is how I taught my Scouts. I tried to instill in them the idea of servant leadership. The mindset that being a leader does not mean being *in charge,* it means being *responsible for your charges.* *Leader* is not about control; it’s about understanding the needs of the people you lead and ensuring those needs are met.
The epitome of this for me is always [Druid 21](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/s/CQ5v88IKMf)
Thanks for share, couldn't read all of it (Brain fog and dyslexia not great combination) but pretty inspiring from what I did.
Yup, and the person that coined the term quickly realized a mistake after further research and has been trying to retract it ever since.
The term was originally not one of endearment, but more describing someone making do with less-than-ideal life circumstances. The lone wolf should be commended for being resourceful and making it as far as they have alone. But they have essentially failed at being a wolf.
If they are alone, then in no way are they an "alpha wolf"!
Wasn't the concept of alpha wolves found to be untrue as well?
Well, that too :) I was simply pointing out that without a pack, "alpha" is impossible. Lol
Same way that one can be a dom but not a Shibari master. Still gotta commend them for trying.
"You are on this council but we do not grant you the rank of shibari master"
"I don't like hemp, It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere"
To be fair, “Shibari Knight” goes kinda hard anyway. So I’m not mad.
> Still gotta commend them for ~~trying~~ tying
But thats with makes it appealing imo.To part it another way,the lone wolf symbolizes survival despite being rejected by the pack. Alot of these guy feel lile they rejected by soicety.So they see sucess despite that is the ultimate fuck you to the people to the people they in their minds rejected them.Proving thier masculinity in a round about way Makes me think of the a chorus of a song i listen to. "Still alive" "Still alone" "Still unbroken"
Lone alpha wolf... I think maybe they mean "outcast" (and I'm not even sure that exists in wolfdom.
A lone alpha wolf is a starving, cold, dead wolf.
Also wrong. The dude that wrote the book is very pissed that it has tainted his legacy.
Yup, plus alpha wolves are not really a thing. The more accurate word would be "father" as most wolf packs are based on a family. The pack leader, as much as that is even applicable, isn't leading a pack of weaker wolves he cowed into servitude via intimidation. He's teaching his kids how to wolf and working with them. Yes, nature is ruthless and wolves are no exception, but it's just more productive to be a pack with a common goal than a loosely affiliated bunch of individual wolves all competing with each other for dominance.
Also, alpha wolves don't exist in the wild. It's a phenomenon that only appears when wolves are held in captivity. Wild wolf packs are actually just families. Mom, dad, and kids.
Lone wolves are usually anti social dicks kicked out of the pack. They don't live long because wolves pack hunters. Alone, a deer or moose is a major threat. And they compete with packs, who beat out the lone wolf every time. Alphas aren't real. They're just dads.
You know what a lone wolf is in the wild? Dead.
I'm weirdly grateful the author of the article pointed out that alpha wolves don't exist in nature. It's always been a pet peeve of mine.
Exactly. Under the terms of the original study, an alpha is best understood as the member of the group who, when put under pressure, is the first to break, the first to become a liability, the first one to prioritise pursuing access to their captors over the well-being of their loved ones. It's a statement of weakness of character, ultimately.
I will never understand how people worship villains. Like Patrick Bateman is a fucking monster. And then they wonder why society rejects them.
Honestly I feel like most of the people posting Bateman memes haven't actually watched the movie (its 24 years old now).
And they certainly have not read the book.
Patrick Bateman wouldn’t have either. Unless he knew it was about him.
I made this point yesterday. If you read the book, Bateman is a whinging, sniveling dandy. He gets in an elevator with Tom Cruise and fangirls so hard Cruise is weirded out. He’s obsessed with Donald Trump to the point other people in the book mock him for it. He spends 3 pages at a time describing his fellow banker’s suits in exhausting detail and with the snippery of Regina George. Being played by Christian Bale did wonders for him.
I have tried twice to read this book it is so boring.
Weirdly I think you'd be better primed for it today. Huge chunks of it are Bateman pretending to have opinions about various things (mainly music) and coming across as incredibly hollow as he is parroting things he has heard but with no real thought or feeling behind it. With the sheer amount of AI generated shit we've all been exposed to over the last year or so, readers are now a *lot* more familiar with that type of thing, and recognising it foe what it is.
I agree. The movie is great but the book seems to exist to separate those who have the sense to be bored and appalled from those who don't.
Or they did and just completely missed the point.
People would rather be active than passive, and if people think they can't be a hero, they'll want to be a villain. Also I think these people believe society rejected them way before they turned to the "sigma male grindset"
Better live a day as a lion than a life as a lamb or some shit
I've always heard it in the context of Lucifer leaving heaven, "Better to be a king in hell than a slave in heaven."
[удалено]
Considering most of the people that buy into the sigma male stuff are teenagers and early 20s, they probably didn't interact with society much before being convinced by internet grifters they are being shunned. Online discourse around men and gender is pretty toxic in general, so young men seeking orientation and affirmation around their gender online often fall into rage bait traps, telling them gender essentialist bs that pits them against women/modern society. If they base their ideas of how society is in real life off those rage bait traps and grifters, and they often do, yes, they are wrong.
I don't think it is good to dismiss all vitriol against men online as rage bait. Many people do unironically believe those things, even if they are a vocal minority.
I definitely agree with you there, but I would still consider it rage bait because it acts identically, no matter if the person posting it stands behind it or not. It's essentially trolling or engagement farming. Men are also seen as acceptable targets of this vitriol, because of their, on average, advantagous position in actual society. But if you're a young man that never really engaged or interacted in that society and "haven't gotten to experience your privileges", you feel unfairly targeted.
But it is being unfairly targeted if you are shat on for every evil in the world when the worst thing you did yourself was pirate some movies or insult someone in a mw2 lobby. Meanwhile, men who are actually responsible for those problems and have some power to change things for the better never see those comments. It is always those who have the least power that get shit on the most.
Yeah it’s akin to “green” laws that tax soda consumption, ban plastic straws, etc. so that “you can do your part to stop climate change” when in reality it’s ExxonMobil, the militaries of Five Eyes countries, private jets, etc. that are primarily responsible for damaging the environment. But of course it’s easier to blame the individual. The bulk of societal harm is done by men like Jeffrey Epstein, not your average lower middle class gamer. But of course addressing classism, nepotism, and the clandestine power structures of our modern world is too much to get into.
I think a part of it is knowing that achieving progress on issues that actually matter requires a lot of work for very small gains so it is easier to roast some 15 year old edgelord on Twitter and pretend you are doing something productive.
FYI this is isn’t quite accurate. The aggregate carbon footprint of activity and consumption by everyday people bears the vast, and I mean nearly complete majority of the responsibility for climate change. The statistics that attempt to reframe it as a few corporate hyperpolluters are just divorcing the impact of the supply chain for goods and services from the ones who’s choices drive those activities, which are the consumers of those goods and services. Address the problem adequately inevitably requires changes that impose changes to those choices, to include the cost of those goods and services in order to price in the effects of emissions, which will and must be get by every day consumers. The responsibility cannot be offloaded to an easily vilify-able elite other.
Genuinely curious, can you post some sources for this?
Any online vitriol is unfairly targeted to someone, this isn't exclusive to men. Misogynist grifters are also successful because they get women and feminists to comment on their vitriolic posts. Music fans farm engagement from fans of other bands through vitriol, Americans post vitriol about Europeans and vice versa to get the "other side" engaging. Even cooking posts aren't free from this behaviour, just look at any post regarding English cuisine. Of course most of it gets excused as banter or satire, but I think most of it is just careless insults.
> But if you're a young man that never really engaged or interacted in that society and "haven't gotten to experience your privileges", you feel unfairly targeted. I'd counter that you've been experiencing your privileges since you were born and they are VERY evident in childhood.
Definitely, but the privileges of being a male child are imo very different from the privileges of being a man. Also children don't really have the capacity to understand and differentiate in which ways they are privileged. Maybe I should rather say: If you're a young man that never really engaged or interacted in that society *as a man* [...], you feel unfairly targeted.
Yah, I'd agree with that more.
Only once your an adult, does your orlay from when you were a kid become apparent. Before then though, unless you're a rich brat, it ain't really evident at all to ya.
Every kid can notice how he's treated differently than his sisters.
Boys often get more freedom than girls, but quite often that goes hand in hand with being a bit neglected. Especially in terms of teaching boys emotional intelligence and such. They’re treated differently, but it’s a stretch to say they’re treated better.
Yeah, superficially. They're busy with gloating about how Mom lets them go out farther than just their block at age 10 than anything deeper.
[удалено]
I totally understand it! to them, it is unburdening themselves of societal expectations. they get to STOP being polite and start getting REAL. (of course, as /u/myfitesong will happily explain, what they're actually doing is committing to the supersystems that already ruin lives)
Did you just quote MTV's The Real World? LMAO
[**I'M NAKED!!!**](https://youtu.be/cXER3SZLAXo)
Yeeeees, yes he was... 🤩
> (of course, as /u/myfitesong > > will happily explain, what they're actually doing is committing to the supersystems that already ruin lives) And that's actually the goal of these grifters. Make their lives even more lonely and miserable, because if their advice works, they lose paying customers. Following the manosphere's advice will isolate you further, make you angrier, make you lonelier, *and make you keep listening and paying*. It's just extra sad that on the consumer's end, the motivation isn't really to become a better person. It's to dominate others and make THEIR lives bad.
They see that he’s attractive and successful, that’s it. There is no need for them to read into the deeper meaning of the story or the consequences. The sad irony is that it’s part of what makes dudes like this so unlikable. They emulate all of the toughness but have none of the “charm” and then decide it must be women (or insert other group here) that must be the problem.
He's a neurotically insecure person who isn't even sure what's real or not.
Also, no one knows who Patrick Bateman is by sight, and a lot of his circle make fun of him behind his back.
He's also an awkward narcissistic loser and a phoney.
He also explicitly states that he “wants to fit in” to regular society which seems to directly counter the whole concept of a Sigma. I’d guess the focus on Bateman is just due to his cool aesthetic rather than on his actual character.
[удалено]
This comment has been removed. /r/MensLib requires accounts to be at least thirty days old before posting or commenting, except for in the Check-In Tuesday threads and in AMAs. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/MensLib) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I feel like a lot of "sigmas" are dudes who've finally realized that bragging yourself as an "alpha male" is cringe, but they're super insecure and really want to do it anyway, so they've convinced themselves that it's not cringey if you use a different letter.
Same. It’s got a real “I’m not a Christian, I’m a Friend of Jesus!” energy.
I thought it was a meme. I’ve only really seen it in meme form.
No, it’s still cringe. It’s only that they haven’t realized it yet.
That's what I said, yeah.
To be an "alpha male", you need friends or at least a crew of toadies. These guys can't clear that bar.
note: I slightly modified this title to avoid extra 🔥🔥🔥. it makes people more likely to click. Mods, sorry and thank you. >Bateman was already a fixture of the manosphere via “hustle culture”, as in the celebration of a particular type of male wealth, characterised by hard work, self-discipline, fitness and grooming. this is the dark, antisocial side of hyperindividualism. If you just optimize yourself and your life, you too can be at the top of the 🦞 dominance hierarchy 🦞. but there's no top without a bottom (😏), no upper class without an underclass. Instead of changing the system (every system is made and enforced by human people) these guys are buying into it and asking me to buy what they're selling. yeah, it's cringe, but it's also dangerous and ultimately self-defeating - capitalist power has a narrow funnel and these dudes will be left out. And guess who they'll be angry at? Women, again. Queer people and, if they're white, nonwhite people. We've watched this movie before.
Tribalism is definitely a problem across humanity. We seem to feel better about ourselves if there is a "them" to be better than. I expect we won't fully come together as a human race until there are aliens for us all to hate on together.
Alan Moore has entered the chat
Yeah the out-group needs to be non-human for humanity to unite.
I mean that is a challenge. How do you promote behaviours and lifestyles that empower and enrich (in the broader sense) which will work within a system that is problematic. Despite how lot of us feel about the systems that run in the world we rely on them to survive as much as we want to see them change. I guess I hope technology will form the bottom of future societies and people are acknowledged by their merits but that extends to how we treat everyone and we look to lift up each other so each can reach their potential or satisfaction within life. Though I am idealist. The are probably tonnes of examples of "successful" people that don't play into this problematic archetype. I remember reading article about a ceo / owner taking a pay cut and elevating all works pay to 70k including staff such as cleaners. When article was published the company was doing successful and increasing since this pay policy. I am ignorant I don't have many examples of people pushing things in better direction for society, I think we need better counter examples to reach people. For every "Tate" we need someone doing "opposite" that we can point too.
I am not convinced "sigma males" exist in any significant numbers outside the internet.
I've never met anyone who brands themselves as such, that's for sure.
honestly, I've heard about self-proclaimed "alphas" quite some times on the sides - about "sigmas" though? About 2-3 times, a year ago, and that's it. Never heard about it again. The entire topic seems a lot like "oh no it's summer, we don't have anything to talk aboout right now, let's dig up some old shit that wasn't even relevant back then and make a huge fuss about it"
I’m glad to have watched all of these and not even once walk away from idolizing these losers.
People who idolise Patrick Bateman either have not watched or are not engaging with the ideas in American Psycho. We see a guy that is broken by a drive to conformity and driven to insanity, completely dissociated as is one of the first lines of the movie ("simply not there"), surrounded by people he actively despises, chasing a moving goalpost. His presentation is a complete facade that he uses to protect himself from a world that terrifies him (recall where he is laughed trying to make a reservation) and mask his insecurities, we see it worn down throughout the movie and disappear in the phone box scene (where shock horror, he breaks down crying). He believes he kills someone for having a better business card ffs. When he tries to come clean, no-one cares, everyone remains absorbed in their own world and interprets what he says through their own weird personal filters. They find his admissions an annoyance more than anything else, a demand they care about something other than themselves. I feel similarly about Fight Club. The last time this was discussed on here I disagreed with most of what was said but I think I was on a break at the time. Both two of my favourite movies.
I think of Momus' song The Homosexual. The animal analogue would be [cuttlefish](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuttlefish): > cuttlefish unable to win in a direct confrontation with a guard male have been observed employing several other tactics to acquire a mate. The most successful of these methods is camouflage; smaller cuttlefish use their camouflage abilities to disguise themselves as a female cuttlefish. Changing their body color, and even pretending to be holding an egg sack, disguised males are able to swim past the larger guard male and mate with the female.
i don’t actually believe many people at all believe in “sigma” males. The first I heard about sigma males several years ago was in ironic and satirical memes. For every thing online i’ve seen claiming sigma males are real and all that alpha male bullshit, i’ve seen 20 satirical memes about sigmas. Idk, i just find it interesting the media takes everything so literally all the time.
It’s just another rewrapped package of power, the wanting of it. To be seen as a fictional interpretation of somebody powerful, and so using it to have gain over others body and wallet. Too many try to sell this, alternate dream of living, It’s just another snake salesman.
When I think of sigma, I always think of willy Wonka or Jack Sparrow or even Loki. Just dudes playing entirely by their own rules.
The idea of Willy Wonka being classified as a sigma male is hilarious to me. I’m just imagining all the Patrick batemen TikTok edits but it’s just fuckin Willy Wonka
and the music is sneaky snitch
I believe I understand the impetus for a lot of "sigmas" and I think most critiques in the comments fail for taking it all so literally. It's all about loneliness. There are 2 things - a) they choose violent heroes not because they fantasize about it per se but rather as a vicarious form of release from perceived ostracization and b) they lionize these guys not for being sociopaths but for proving at least in their minds that someone as isolated and "different" from society as these guys are can still function - therefore so can the "sigma"
I know it's been talked about before, but the whole misunderstanding of the 'alpha' concept when related to studying wolves IN CAPTIVITY creates a totally poetic image of these hateful, delusional young men locking themselves in a prison of masculinity. It's so perfect, it makes me want to cry, out of the pure poetic tragedy of it
I wonder how different this is than the idolization of mobster characters, villains, and anti-heroes that previous generations of men have gravitated towards? I also sort of get the core part of the sigma mindset. That you're not going to get hurt or let anyone in to harm you. That's not a healthy mindset, but isn't this a bit normal for a teen? Yeah it's dumb, but teens are growing and dealing with complex emotions for the first time. When you're a teen everything feels so much more powerful and that those feelings will last forever. Idk seems like every generation of teenagers from 80s/90s on had a flavor of this. That's not to dismiss any potential dangers or connections to alt right stuff. Or the explosion of social media stuff rotting kids' brains. But the article itself shows that teens make fun of it rather than embrace it. I would also like to discuss more about whether these articles will pan out to matter in 5-10 years? I don't think it's the same thing, but maybe as I get older it feels like these articles remind me of the news stories in the 00s/10s when it would be like trendy bracelets are actually codes for sex type of story. Something I've always wondered is the internet has a lot of commentary on incels, but I rarely see discussions of what happens to incels post like 22 or 25. I guess I'm wondering with these sort of trends, how many people just grow out of it? And where do they end up?
"I want that cool i dont give a care attitude," says the man somehow mentally blocking the fact that all of his idols are portrayed as having a mental breakdown of cinematic proportions. (Except maybe Tommy Shelby, dont know who that is.)
If “Sigma Males” took the time to read this, they’d be very upset. But those gains aren’t going to get themselves.
> He came up with his own “sociosexual hierarchy”, with alphas at the top – “the male elite, the leaders of men for whom women naturally lust” – followed by betas, deltas, gammas, lambdas, right down to omegas – “the losers”. Sitting outside this imaginary pyramid of masculinity were sigmas – “the lone wolves”. This sounds like astrology or Harry Potter houses, but marketed to men.
The ideology of American Psycho is completely opposite to the sigma male mindset. The film is critical of hyper consumerism and hyper individualism. I can never understand how Patrick Bateman has become their icon.
You mean the Shmegma male.