Let’s start with the basics, the term “sigma male” pertains to a man who believes himself to be powerful, strong, and commanding. I’m sure that at some point almost everyone has had the unfortunate displeasure of meeting someone who labels themselves a “sigma male”. If, for some reason, you have not had this encounter, count yourself lucky. A person who labels themselves a “sigma male” is often one that holds misogynistic ideals, a superiority complex, and a tremendously large ego. You will often find them posting shirtless thirst traps in the gym, commenting misogynistic and shameful things in comment sections online, and god forbid… making podcasts. To further understand this anomaly, let’s analyze its true emergence.
Over the past decade, social media has had a drastic impact on humankind. With the creation of apps like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube, nearly everything is accessible on the internet, and more than that, nearly everything is discussed. If you are familiar with these apps, then you may be familiar with the basics of the algorithms as well. For those who are not, when you use a social media app it tracks which content you engage with, how long you engage in it, and what you do with that content. For example, if I were to see a post come across my feed and liked the post, the app would start suggesting others similar to it. This is where we begin to see an issue with echo chambers. If I, like most of us out there, am feeling particularly bad about myself and come across a post about the “best glow-up hacks”, I am more often than not going to engage with it. Now, because I engaged with that post I am going to start seeing more and more like it until my entire feed is full of “glow-up hacks” and other content targeting those who feel badly about themselves. At this point, my self-confidence is worse than it was before and I am now convinced I need to do something to fix my appearance.
As an adolescent girl, growing up with social media telling me the “top ten ways to make a boy like you” was immensely detrimental, but that’s a story for another time. However, this same thing happens to adolescent boys as well. Adolescence is an awkward and confusing stage in life in which your body and brain are growing and changing. This happens to every adolescent, yet, it looks different for each individual. For some, they may go through puberty at an early age and experience mild symptoms of awkwardness. For others, puberty may start later and be extremely awkward emotionally, physically, and socially. This is often where we see a dramatic increase in self-consciousness and comparison. When adolescent boys are observing their peers going through puberty and “abandoning” their child-like selves, it is easy to become self-conscious. Questions begin to arise, “why am I still short? “why is his voice deeper than mine?”. This insecurity is only amplified by social media, as these young and insecure boys see their favorite rappers with six-packs and six girlfriends. At this point, a lot of them begin to make up for their lack of physical masculinity by “acting” masculine. However, with the society we live in and the media that these adolescents are subjected to, this performance often entails the belittling of others, misogyny, and blatant hatred.
This is very apparent with the fan base of social media star, Andrew Tate. For those unfamiliar, Andrew Tate is a self-proclaimed “sigma male” who targets young boys with his podcasts about male dominance, distasteful “girl advice”, and many unrealistic and unhealthy male stereotypes. Andrew Tate’s fan base is predominantly made up of adolescent boys seeking validation as they navigate the throes of teenage life. Unfortunately, in a state of being the most susceptible to the things they hear, they hear the preachings of Andrew Tate. For reference, the following is a list of titles from Andrew Tate’s podcast Tate Speech: Tate on the Poverty Mindset, Tate on the Slave Mindset, Tate on Sex Parties, Tate on Why You’ll Never be Rich, Tate on Street Pimps, Tate on Poor People, Tate on Why Men Must Conquer, and Tate on Why Real Men Don’t Cry. Unfortunately, these are real podcasts, and even more unfortunately, there are more like them. These podcasts result in large swaths of teenage boys spending hours being told why they are not “manly enough”, why they can’t have loving and respectful relationships with women, and why they will never truly be enough and live up to societal expectations.
Unfortunately, this epidemic has gone a step further. I, myself, have seen a change from teenage boys being the target audience of these preposterous ideals, to now becoming the proponents of them. After years of indoctrination from social media telling adolescent boys that they will never be “man enough”, these same boys have decided that they have acquired the “sigma male status”. Because of this, hundreds and thousands of teenage boys are now taking their learned behaviors and ideals to social media, creating their own podcasts and YouTube videos for boys like them. I, unfortunately, witnessed this firsthand with a boy I went to high school with as he created YouTube videos with his friends preaching to teenage boys like him about becoming a “sigma male” and abandoning their “boyhood”. Many of his videos included advice on how to talk to girls and how to present as masculine. However, he took it a step further as he, and I quote, made a video about why you should “stop eating your girlfriend’s pussy” because it makes you seem less “sigma” and more submissive.
All in all, the epidemic of self-proclaimed “sigma males” grows with each day. It is truly sad to see the detriment social media has had on adolescents, I, myself, being one of them. For now, that is all I have to say on this topic, however, keep an eye out for more articles coming your way on topics as interesting as this one.