What is Alpha?

This is always the most contentious topic I’m asked to define for men. This is going to be a convoluted topic. There’s a lot to unpack because we all have some idea of what Alpha should mean to others and ourselves. That idea is usually the closest definition that fits ourselves, or it gets ridiculed as an outdated caricature of machismo that salves the fact that most men aren’t ‘Alpha’.

Alpha is an ambiguous abstraction that often gets broken down into constituent behaviors.

“Rollo, was it Alpha of me to do X?”

“How do I act more Alpha?”

“She’s not High Quality unless she can recognize my Alpha-ness and submit to me.”

“Was that Beta Rolo?”

Guys will agonize over what Alpha and Beta are to the point where they'll analyze their every behavior.

“I was talking to this girl and she said this and I said this, was that Alpha?”

You, you tell me what's Alpha, mate. You tell me if you thought it was Alpha. I wasn’t there. Their OCD kicks in, and they want all these concrete exercises to help them be Alpha all the time. They want rote memorization cues and mnemonic devices to help them be in the Alpha Zone to minimize rejection and maximize desire. If you remember the formula, Alpha is like a math equation with a deductive solution. But they’re asking the wrong questions.

Alpha is the number one, most critical concept that people hate on. No one has a problem with the idea of the low-value Beta male. They’re easy to hate. Presumptively calling them (or any guy people dislke) an Incel is a cliché now. It’s just a dismissive insult that allows people to avoid thinking too much about the state of men and women. “Only an Incel would say something like that.” But ‘Alpha’ sounds ridiculous.

Since the early 1970s, we've made Alpha (or Macho) into a parody that can be safely ridiculed. Look at him. He's got muscles. He’s a Neanderthal, chauvinist pig. Masculinity became a performative act in the wake of the Sexual Revolution, while femininity defined the authentic operative state for all humans. To be human is to be female. If men would drop the macho-bullshit act and get in touch with their emotions and their feminine side, they would become more human. This gaslighting presumption that masculinity is inherently disingenuous has been the operative goal of militant feminism since the late 1960s.

As a result, everything masculine is now ambiguous, subjective, and questionable. In that ambiguity, there is a lot of room for manipulation. What is a Real Man? What is conventionally masculine? What is conventionally feminine? In such an arbitrary state, ideologues define masculinity according to their self-image. If gender identity is the product of social constructionism (and not downstream from biology), then anyone is free to define Alpha in terms that describe themselves best. Every guy, you know, thinks he's Alpha to some degree. If you don't match that description, if you don't step into the role that he thinks is the pinnacle of manhood, or if you don't in some way mirror him, then you're ridiculous. Even well-meaning Red Pill men often get this wrong.

Again, Alpha and Beta are abstract terms. They are not definitive terms. Although there may be similarities, what makes an Alpha male silverback gorilla doesn't specifically apply to human beings. However, we need concepts like Alpha and Beta. They're metaphors that we use so that we can have a better understanding of a dynamic. Then we can move on to more complex dynamics.

What's funny is that the people who want to dismiss the idea of Alpha males are the same people who enthusiastically praise a woman who says, I'm an Alpha female. They don't question that. But if you say you're an Alpha male, or if you even have questions about it, or you want to discuss it on a podcast, or you write anything about it, you're a ridiculous man. They praise a woman for aping a masculine identity that doesn’t exist for men.

Sociosexual Hierarchies