Thoughts on the popularity of “alpha male” as a concept

The labels “alpha male” and “beta male” originated from a system developed by Rudolph Schenkel and popularized by L. David Mech; it’s a system for measuring social standing in packs of wolves. The alpha male is usually the pack’s primary hunter and the alpha female is usually the pack’s primary breeder.<br><br>Fast forward to 2018, and now the concept of the alpha is being used to justifying sexual assault and harassment.<br><br>For example, video game personality Jon Jafari and co-creator of Game Grumps (the same show that brought us the meme “the complete history of the world, I guess”) used the concept of the alpha male to justify sexual assault. He said “Maybe if I wasn’t such an alpha male she wouldn’t have been so wet that she had to wipe her vagina on my gaming chair later. Sorry what? She came over to watch a game, Cool Games Inc, Cool Games Inc to the point where we had to play for 5 hours while she kept getting readjusted and repositioned on the chair, so she wouldn’t get a kink in her back. So she asks me if I’m done with my chair, I say yeah I can sit on the couch, she’s like ‘okay cool’, kills herself, I’m like ‘okay’, I kill myself, I’m like ‘I don’t get it’, she’s like ‘type *shuffle*’, I’m like ‘I don’t get it’, she’s like ‘type *cool*’, and I’m like ‘what the fuck are you talking about, I don’t get it’, she’s like ‘type *woah*’….Oh my god, she WIPED HER VAGINA ON MY GAMING CHAIR. When I confronted her about it, she was like ‘Jon, you’re such an alpha male that I just had to keep getting readjusted and repositioned on the chair because I came so many times. I was like ‘What the fuck is wrong with you, I’m just trying to watch a game.’”<br><br>Forget the general sexism and pseudoscience and arrogance in his reasoning, this is a perfect example of the popular concept of the alpha male in 2018 being used to justify sexual assault and harassment.<br><br>Another example of this is the ideology of the “manosphere”. It is a movement born out of the concept of the alpha male, and has been labeled as a misogynistic movement. It was also the inspiration for the murder and attempted murders committed in Isla Vista, California in 2014.<br><br>So what I’m wondering is, who the hell decided this was a concept worth popularizing in the first place?<br><br>I have no idea, but I do have an idea of why this concept is still popular, and it’s the same reason why we have the terms “red pill” and “blue pill” being tossed around without any concept of the context in which these terms were first used. It’s because these terms are labels, labels that people can use to describe themselves without actually having to do anything or hold any actual opinions. Type *shuffle*. It’s the same reason why we have the labels “conservative” and “liberal” in the first place, and why they hold almost no meaning at all today.<br><br>We have a bunch of people today who identify as the alpha male because they think that it will make them sound cool to the ladies, and it usually does. These people may claim to have an interest in politics, but that interest is usually in the same vein as the interest that people have in sports, and is more centered around the labels of “conservative” and “liberal” than the actual opinions of people who hold these labels, because these people know that if they actually voice an opinion and advocate for a policy change, it would require them to do something other than type shitposts into an anonymous message board. So in order to sound cool and hold a perceived status of power without having to put in the effort to actually hold that status of power, they use labels like the alpha male to create the illusion that they do.