Or perhaps viral would be a more accurate description. Regardless, the SSH has made its initial appearance in the mainstream media. It won’t be the last one.
People are mocking a resurfaced classification of men known as the ‘sigma male’ — a ‘lone wolf’ type that is equal to the alpha in the oppressive male hierarchy.Twitter user @LilySimpson1312 thrust the lesser-known term into the spotlight this week when they shared photos of socio-sexual hierarchy charts, a video about how ‘to become’ a sigma male, and the self-help book ‘The Sigma Male.’‘What the f**k is going on with men,’ they captioned the viral post, which has been retweeted more than 25,000 times, prompting critics to tear apart the term and the alpha/beta mythology as a whole.The characterization of men into two groups, the dominant alpha and the submissive beta, has been around for decades. The idea was derived from the now-debunked theory that wolf packs are ruled by aggressive leaders know as alphas.The socio-sexual hierarchy categorizing men as either alphas, sigmas, betas, deltas, gammas, or omegas was coined by Alt-right writer Theodore Robert Beale, who uses the pseudonym Vox Day.The limiting system ranks men based on their social position with other males and their ability to attract women. The alphas and sigmas are considered equal as top dogs, with the latter being seen as someone who sits outside the hierarchy by choice.
I’m amused by how they’re not only doing the real name thing, but the seldom-seen real FULL name thing. This is a media technique that is utilized to convey distrust in the individual named. You’ll notice that they don’t say anything about my being a publisher, a game designer, or having 8 million pageviews per month on my personal blog. But it is interesting that they would choose to actually identify me for once, although I suspect that is because, unlike the Religion Doesn’t Cause War, Atheism is Autism, and the Magic Dirt memes, they don’t understand how legitimate and useful the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy actually is.
Since the theme is mockery, I suppose it was deemed acceptable to identify me for once, although the author seems a bit confused as to whether the concept discredits the creator or the creator discredits the concept. Of course, what everyone seems to be missing is that the concepts are not derived from biologists playing wolf-watcher, that’s merely where the labels originated. No doubt the next criticism will be that the Greek letters aren’t in alphabetical order.
The SSH is actually a predictive analytical model based on observable male behavioral patterns. Its applicability to intersexual relations is actually a minor subset of its utility, even though that aspect gets all of the attention for the obvious reasons. It’s extremely useful for everything from team sports to business management. One reason that our projects have a much higher rate of success than normal is that we go to great lengths to ensure that SSH conflicts are minimized when we put teams together.
No more than one Alpha per team, find a reliable Bravo or two to back him up, target and guide the Deltas, focus the Omegas on their areas of expert autism, minimize the Gammas, and leave the Sigmas alone to freestyle without interrupting the team.
Office Space beautifully explicated the Sigma’s attitude to the social hierarchy.