The Socio-Sexual Hierarchy continues to be a topic of much interest – and far too much Gamma-sperging – even to this day, something like a decade after Our Beloved and Dreaded Supreme Dark Lord (PBUH) Voxemort the Most Malevolent and Terrible originally formulated it. I received the following query from reader VS on the subject of how to define Gammas versus Sigmas, and what archetypes conform to the Sigma directly in film:
Man, I wanna know about this to complete my sigma research.
I’ve seen the “how to stop being gamma”, but this question is the last one left, but anyways this seems quite interesting, I want you to know about the urban dictionary’s definition of a gamma and one more thing
Question 2 : What archetype is tom cruise’s collateral actually is, because I seem to be matching his persona.
I’ll answer the second question first, since it has a short answer.
I have never seen Collateral, so I have no opinion on the subject. Those among my readership who have seen the movie are certainly free to provide their opinions in the comments.
From what I understand, the film is quite good – the performances by Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx received considerable critical and audience praise, holding an 8.6 audience score on Metacritic. Here is the trailer, for those interested in it:
Based only on what I am seeing in the trailer, the character of Vincent is a Sigma.
You must always keep in mind, when looking at the SSH, that it is a socio-sexual ranking system, NOT a moral judgement. In the film, Vincent is an assassin, a hitman, who has no qualms about killing for money. Sigmas are not exemplars of morality and are not meant to be. Some Sigmas are outstanding examples of moral backbone – others are despicable scumbags. The common element with all Sigmas, however, is their ability to achieve both social and sexual success WITHOUT playing by the rules of the existing hierarchies in either case.
Remember that OBADSDL(PBUH) stated, entirely correctly in my view, that Hunter Biden is a Sigma. Here is the man himself:
Yeah. The crackhead who bangs both strippers AND his dead brother’s widow, send dong pics to random women, loses supposedly secure laptops with extremely sensitive information on them, and gets paid for doing absolutely JACK-ALL by the Chinks and the Ukrops, simply because of who his dad happens to be. THAT GUY. He’s a Sigma.
Again – none of the SSH ranks are moral judgements. They simply are what they are.
Here, I need to come back to a very important point, yet again, related to VS’s query:
Nobody, and I mean literally NOBODY, cares what you think you are, or whose persona you think you match. Chances are very high that you are completely off-base. If you want a brutally honest opinion, try approaching a really attractive woman, preferably Eastern European, and strike up a conversation with her, or ask her out.
If she doesn’t wrinkle her nose in disgust at you, or try desperately to flee your presence at the earliest opportunity, then you’re doing something right. Otherwise, you’re a Gamma. (Omegas don’t factor into this experiment. The idea of approaching a woman is foreign to their way of thinking.)
EDIT: As LRFotS thedeti notes below, YOU do not get to decide your SSH status. Others do it FOR you. If you don’t like it, that’s your problem. And, inevitably, every time someone tries to strut around saying that he is a Sigma, he is ALWAYS actually a Gamma. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Let’s get to the first question in that set, then – the Urban Dictionary definition of Gamma. You kind of have to see this to understand how delusional the definitions actually are. I’ve compiled four of them as screenshots below. Take a look and try to figure out which one is correct:
Actually, it’s a trick question. They are ALL wrong – though the fourth version is considerably more correct than the others.
Let us be very, very clear about this. Gammas ARE NOT Sigmas, for the very simple reason that Sigmas sit OUTSIDE of the SSH. Gammas are extremely delusional and insecure about themselves and their personal attributes. They are the Secret Kings, the ones who can never be wrong, the Smart Boys who think that everyone needs to hear their Very Important Opinions on Everything. They desperately want to be at the top of the SSH, so they invent all sorts of delusional and ridiculous contortions of logic and evidence to pretend as though they are.
Gammas do not reject status and authority – they crave it. Their status as outsiders is deeply offensive to their own sense of self. Alphas DO NOT “grudgingly respect” Gammas – they find them utterly pathetic, loathsome, and repulsive, and quite happily humiliate them at every turn. Gammas are self-destructive to an almost astounding degree. They are totally incapable of leadership, because they do not respect themselves, and as such, cannot command respect from others. They don’t “get da gurlz“, because women are anywhere from annoyed to disgusted with their passive-aggressive personalities, snarkiness, neediness, and misdirected sense of self.
Gammas are NOT late-stage Sigma males who do not conform to standards – this is an incredibly dumb argument. Again, Gammas want to be at the TOP of the hierarchy, but cannot be because they are losers – whereas Sigmas DON’T CARE about the hierarchy, but get to the top anyway, because they are winners.
The best one-line take on the difference between Sigmas and Gammas comes from LRFotS Bardelys the Magnificent from last November:
Gammas see “rejected by society” and think ‘that’s me!’ They gloss over the “brings a Tier 1 woman” part.
It’s really simple. If you don’t get invited to all of the cool parties, and yet you are still regularly pulling the kinds of girls that would easily feature on the Friday T&A segments, you’re a Sigma. (Especially if your girl happens to be Slavic, and you manage to keep her.)
If you can’t pull the girls, you’re not a Sigma. End of.
We need to make one more very clear point about Sigmas:
They are a COLOSSAL pain in the ass to work with, as a general rule.
OBADSDL(PBUH) has actually said as much in a past Darkstream, I think, back in the day. He noted that Sigmas are extremely disruptive, and simply do not care about the established way of doing things. This, incidentally, is why Sigmas are very, very bad at building projects for the long term. If you look at OBADSDL(PBUH), you can see that he has a number of substantial misses on his record, wherein he created organisations and ideas, kept them going for a while, then lost interest in leading them and didn’t really leave a succession plan for long-term success, so that a high-ranking Bravo could take over and run it as a situational Alpha.
Inevitably, those projects fell apart, or stagnated.
This is not a criticism. It’s just what happens. Leadership is hard work, and takes tremendous focus and effort. Not everyone is cut out for it.
Let me close with one final thought on this whole Gamma-Sigma malarkey:
Again, nobody cares what you think YOU are. You are almost certainly overestimating yourself. (Bravos are the exception to this rule – they tend to know their place and are quite content with it.) Gammas, in particular, are utterly insufferable in this respect. They keep thinking of themselves as ranking much higher than they really are, as a way of assuaging their own psychic pain at being total sexual (though not social) rejects.
My advice to anyone, including VS, who wants to know where he ranks on the hierarchy is:
Stop worrying about it. You don’t get to make that call or decision. It’s up to others. Focus instead on just being better yourself.
Are you fat, out of shape, with a bad accent and haircut and personal style? You can fix all of those things. Work on those. You can fix virtually every physical defect or problem that you might have, with enough motivation, money, and willpower, except your height – and you can compensate for that.
Are you unpopular and unable to “get da gurlz“, as it were? This isn’t the place for advice on how to do that, but there are plenty of such sites out there, and all of them say essentially the same thing: work on yourself first by having lots of different experiences, and the popularity and women will follow. I can personally attest to the truth of this statement.
Focus on building your knowledge, resources, wealth (if that matters), career, and foundations. Become an interesting man by travelling, having conversations with really smart people and learning from them, writing, reading, working out, and so on.
Stop sperging about your place on the hierarchy, or whose persona you match, or what defines a Gamma or a Sigma. Just focus on being good at what you do. (No, World of Warcraft DOES NOT COUNT. I’m talking about REAL things in the REAL WORLD. Henry Cavill can get away with being an avid tabletop and PC gamer because he has a huge list of other talents and attributes that make him a supremely well-rounded and interesting man.)
Gammas, pull your heads out of your arses and get to work on being better. The rest is merely commentary.
14 Comments
Important takeaway, and one that I hope men understand:
An individual man does not decide his SSH status. The men in the tribe decide it and confer it on him, based mostly on his personality and his usefulness to the tribe. Men can move up or down in the SSH.
Women can’t move up or down very much. Women’s status in the “herd” is based mostly on immutable factors, or factors that very quickly become static: Her race, her marital status, and her maternal status. It really comes down to the caliber of man she can get and keep, and/or the man (men) who she selects to impregnate her. Her husband and/or her baby daddy(ies). She can’t move up or down very easily, if at all. It’s mostly a function of race, whether she’s married, whether she’s a mother, and the circumstances of how her maternal status came to be.
the men decide his Social status, the women decide his Sexual desirability status.
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most of the Gameboi stuff was about simulating Bad Boy exciting behavior in order to pull chixors without needing to have so much actual wealth or prestige.
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that’s also a good part of the reason why Gameboi theory was so fixated on transient bar and party scenes … it’s very difficult to conceal neurodeviancies and immaturity in long term Real Life interactions whereas it’s fairly simple to spoof pseudo-Alpha behavior in the hothouse of bar/party when most of the women are going to be alcohol impaired.
All of the conversations on the Gamma/Sigma topic, including at VD, keep omitting there is another rank on VD’s heuristic — Delta.
It isn’t like Roissy’s old binary Alpha/Beta distinction. You’re not just either Alpha(Sigma) or Gamma.
In Vox’s original writings he notes that -most- dudes are Deltas. Just guys who want to fit in and contribute, be a dude amongst dudes, and be respected for the things they do well. They can regularly pull mid-tier women that match their rank. Not the hottest slavs but not dumpster diving either.
They’re not trying to undermine anyone for the thrill of being right and showing others up (Gamma). They’re not interested in putting down Gammas for the purpose of protecting the Alpha and keeping the organization running smoothly (Bravos). They’re not leaders and don’t want the responsibility and spotlight of being in charge (Alpha).
Try thinking about it from a football team perspective. There’s one Alpha, usually the QB. He has a few Bravos in the other team captains that are most likely the star RBs and WRs and one or two defensive players. Those captains are leaders on the team but ultimately under the direction and aligned with the Alpha’s vision. Pretty much everyone else on the team is a Delta. They have their roles/positions to play, do their part to help the TEAM win, and get included in the rewards as a result but rarely get spotlighted. There may be a handful of Gammas floating around who try to stir up shit against the QB or other star players. And it’s possible those Gammas are truly talented players (Stars) as well. They’ll eventually get bounced from the team as a ‘trouble maker’ but the timing depends on how good of a player they really were and how well they hid their Gamma tendencies from the start. They never end up replacing the Alpha. Only Alphas replace Alphas. Football teams don’t have Omegas. Omegas don’t play sports.
You are correct. Deltas do not get the attention and praise that they deserve, and this is unfortunate. They are the backbone of society and should get the credit and respect that is their due. Without them, the whole of society would essentially fall apart almost immediately.
I’ve heard it said that Sigmas really don’t exist in real life because all the best examples of them are fictional characters. I think there’s some truth to that. Sigmas are much less plentiful in the wild than we think, plus they’re not going to appear in public much, making them elusive. They might be more rare than a true Alpha.
That said, Gamma is the only one who is likely to be dissatisfied with their ranking. I think all the others would receive their assessment, say “that sounds about right” then go about their day. Gamma? Perpetual butt-hurt, which is just what a Gamma would do.
“Gamma? Perpetual butt-hurt, which is just what a Gamma would do.”
This is a dynamite self diagnosis for a gamma tendency male: “Why am I so butt hurt about this and why should I be?”
Indeed. Which is why Gammas keep writing in to people like me, asking random people on the internet what SSH rank they are.
The Illiad has a good spectrum of SSH.
Agamemnon is an Alpha. His pride and drive Greeks at war for a decade. His same pride keeps his most capable Bravo sidelined.
Achilles just wants the approval of his alpha, doesn’t get it, ect. Pouts and sucks until there’s enough clamor for his spear. Patroculs’ death by Hector is also a personal loyalty test for Achilles and he responds by going to war.
Other Bravo’s at work are the wise old Nestor and the charging Diomedes.
Delta’s are obviously all over the battlefields and the walls among the Greeks and the Trojans, yet Hector towers over other Trojans. He is the champion of Troy, fiercely loyal to King and Family despite Paris’ bringing Helen back to Troy and creating this war. He’s only beaten in battle by a divinely powered bravo (Achilles)
The Gamma is Paris. He has the lady stolen to his bed and lets everyone else fight his battles for him. He has some capabilities of his own but they’re not enough to redeem his character. Hector the Delta berates him for his Gamma distractions, instead of Paris focusing on the task at hand, the war.
There is a Sigma and he’s nearly invisible through the first 9 years of the story. His name is Odysseus. He’s got a beautiful wife at home and breaks the rules with his Trojan Horse gimmick, plowing through the mental muck that has obscured most other men blinded by their pride.
He’s a bit different in the Odyssey, but w/e, the Iliad is a good depiction of many SSH ranks and their interactions.
The Illiad is quite possibly the greatest work of literature in history, simply because it spans literally every question of the human condition. And that includes, as you correctly note, the SSH.
Hector is the true hero of the story. It really is his story, ultimately – the story of a hero who did his best for his people and his family, and who died because of the arrogance, pride, and stupidity of others. He is the model of heroic conduct, but you have to read into it a bit to understand why, because all of the other characters overshadow him – especially Achilles and Odysseus.
“Focus instead on just being better yourself.” Exactly. Never gave two excrements as to where I fall on some hierarchy. I just focus on getting better at something each day. Focusing on the little things will take care of the bigger things. I just follow KISS concept.
Little hint, if you are talking about the SSH, and you feel an urge to explain your own particular station, if you suppress the urge you are a delta. If you cannot suppress it, you are a gamma.
If you just want to contribute to the discussion but don’t really care about the credit you are a beta.
Sigmas don’t even know, or care to know, what a sigma is. It is irrelevant.
Amen, Reverend.
probably the best way to deal with Gamma “muh Sigma” posturing is to point out the obvious:
that “identifying as Sigma” is no more valid than AND EVERY BIT AS STUPID AS a queer whacking off his tallywhacker and getting some saline implants and calling himself a “woman”. or a furry identifying as a Dragonkin.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dragonkin
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a label might OR MIGHT NOT be valid.
IF the label is valid THEN it may or MAY NOT be correctly applied to you.
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are you unhappy with your social status or your involuntary celibacy? calling yourself “Sigma” IS NOT GOING TO CHANGE THAT.
If one honestly believes that words are proscriptive (i.e. “Speaking the thing into existence”), it makes sense to declare yourself a “Sigma” or whatever. The fact that reality doesn’t care what you think you are and the babes don’t flock to you never seems to deter these people ’cause Secret King wins again!