this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
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[–] Aneb@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Its where alpha and beta comes from. Perfect representation of masculinity

[–] thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

nope

"Alpha" and "beta" originated from a crappy study on wolves, where the researcher was researching hierarchy in wolf packs, but it was not a wolf pack but random groups of unrelated captive wolves. They came to the conclusion that there are "alpha male" wolves hierarchically above the "beta male" wolves. The study, despite being retracted by the publisher and denounced by the researcher, is widely viewed as fact. (source)

The toxic "masculinity" crowd then took this and started using "alpha male" to refer to "masculine" men and "beta male" to "insufficiently masculine" men. The neologism "sigma" was created in parody of this, with people claiming to be a "sigma" and thus above "alphas".

[–] Aneb@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I meant literally, like the letters. Not the toxic masculinity

[–] thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

those arent really relevant tho