While I always encourage individuals to understand their place in relation to the socio-sexual hierarchy, it is with the idea that they will use that understanding to improve their lot in life if they are less than entirely content with it. Embracing gammatude is fine, even healthy, if one is content with it. But knowingly taking pride in one's admitted inferiority? That's just perverse and contemptible. It is one thing to lose well, it is another thing altogether to take pride in the act of losing.
And it is even worse to take pride in refusing to play the game out of nothing more than the fear of failure. Is there any surprise that this unfortunate little guy will one day grow up to become this?
57 comments:
Vox please give in already! My weak constitution can't handle any more. I'm getting sick from laughing so much.
Hey Vox,
First of all true alpha will not be bothered with gamma.
Second, alpha will not be bothered with showing off his status.
Give it up
1. I'm not an alpha, much less a "true alpha". What part of "I am not an alpha" do you not understand?
2. Would you describe yourself as a fan of Mr. Scalzi or a fan of mine? Whose blog do you read more often?
3. Why do you think I should, as you say, give it up? What benefit do you anticipate would accrue to me from that?
Americans love a winner. The very idea of losing. ..is hateful.
But knowingly taking pride in one's admitted inferiority? That's just perverse and contemptible. It is one thing to lose well, it is another thing altogether to take pride in the act of losing.
Not mere inferority but actual weakness. Even the loser in a sporting event or other competition fought. The one who doesn't make the attempt is worthy of contempt.
Sinners must glory in their sins. So we have "greed is good", gay pride parades, self-esteem seminars, excuses to the point of celebrating gluttony and sloth, and even the fear and vengeance of our wars fought by cowards in bunkers using drones from 10k miles away. (My father was proudest of his ww2 infantry medal).
St. Paul could glory in his weakness for the purpose of revealing the Lord's strength. Yet he boasted of everything he endured for his goal.
I wish I could have his 'weakness'. Most give up after the first nasty response. "You have not resisted to the point of shedding blood".
The worst part is this "your friend and mine" - or even the entire warren will turn tail if one of their member is singled out and bullied, but be sad about it from a safe distance. A true friend will sacrifice and defend another friend.
Note: bullies aren't alphas, they are the other side of gammas as they never go after someone who can or will stand up to them - their weapon is intimidation, not strength. If you aren't intimidated, they are effectively disarmed. Gammas going after other gammas.
"Americans love a winner. The very idea of losing. ..is hateful."
The problem is we have more losers in this country than winners and that's why losers get elected.
It's like they are absolutely oblivious to how foolish they are.
I guess pride goeth before the fall to paraphrase the Bible somewhere.
Good point, tz. I added a note accordingly.
Oh, come on. A little massage therapy via Photoshop, and you could even have some fun here:
GAMMA RABBIT
Will not chase purse snatchers
GAMMA RABBIT
Is a virgin at 26
GAMMA RABBIT
Excuses his fear by calling it 'tolerance'
@VD
I like your blog and you had some of the best post ever (alpha demographics, etc), however those messages:
"Embracing gammatude is fine, even healthy, if one is content with it. But knowingly taking pride in one's admitted inferiority?"
You consider guy inferior because draws some rabbits? WTF???
Whatever - I have said my thing - your blog is your thing.
The young Gamma Rabbit looks much much better than the faggoted and pinkified grown up version.
And it is even worse to take pride in refusing to play the game out of nothing more than the fear of failure.
Preach it!
You consider guy inferior because draws some rabbits? WTF???
No, of course not. I consider a guy inferior when he is afraid to deal with conflict directly himself but attempts to hide behind passive-aggressive sniping and appeals to the opinions of others.
I consider a guy inferior who lies and engages in pretense rather than admit the obvious because he doesn't dare admit it.
And embracing the symbol of the rabbit, however ironically it may be meant, is still embracing the figure of the rabbit.
This version of Gamma Rabbit makes me much sadder than the other versions. I can loathe the other versions for what they are. But the idea of a child being fed to the wolves/rabbits in public school with a parent lying to them about other people's motivations strikes me as too realistic to be funny anymore.
Think about rabbits as a kid and how stacked against them the deck is.
From everything I can gather about VD's background, he had a heck of a lot better chance to see his way to the truth of the situation than a heck of a lot of people.
Not to say that plenty of others born to his situation don't.
Scalzi should quit while he is behind. I guess part of the problem though, is that he doesn't get that he is behind...?
Are gammas usually participants in the feedback loop, or is it a gamma characteristic to be outside of said loop?
That lady needs bambini. Pronto.
Bugger. Wrong thread. Please ignore.
I'm with Tom. There's nothing funny about the hurt little kid that so badly wants to fit in.
He needs a dad to take him fishing/hunting, teach him some self-defense, tell him he can be a man if he works at it, and then buy him an ice cream cone.
Without some solid male mentorship, this little bunny is gonna get his ass kicked his whole life... first by kids at school... then his boss... then his wife (if he gets one)... then by divorce lawyers... and probably his own kids.
Sad.
"That lady needs bambini. Pronto."
That should've just stayed without explanation.
Bunga bunga!
I agree Tom, too sad to be funny. Being that I ca. Remember being that kid early in my life, with no support from my parents, the insight is rather depressing. But at the same time I had to learn to stand on my own and that using the shelter of others of my station was cold comfort. Scalzi shows a grown man who never grew out of using those defense mechanisms. Not only that, he is encouraging others to do the same, stunting their growth. Maybe he feels if he convinces others to follow his example no one else woll grow into someone whos status he needs to be anxious of
See, you have to keep in mind that in Scalzi's mind, he has the entire modern world on his side. So he is winning, at least in his mind.
To the modern leftist, the truth is not what is most important. What is most important to the modern leftists is what other leftists consider true.
The idea "Conservatives hate humanity but love humans, and Liberals love humanity but hate humans" comes to mind. Left-liberals like Scalzi cannot stand people who do not see things exactly the way they do. Even the slightest difference of opinion is considered evil, crazy, or stupid. Left-liberals love to say they are looking out for people (generally), for (favored) groups (NAMs, Women, Homosexuals, the "poor"). When it comes to individuals, those only matter if they have the right politics or can be used to prove a point.
Vox considers himself right because himself on the side of truth. Scalzi considers himself right because he sees public opinion on his side.
Society has fallen.
Even the nerds are worse. In the old days, the gamma artist would fantasize about transforming from Bruce Banner into the Hulk and express it in entertainment. Today, he willingly provides material for animated .gif to transform lonely kid into Second Mile fodder.
@Fifty Seven: word.
GAMMA RABBIT
Is sad that jerks keep manipulating his lady friends
GAMMA RABBIT
Loves adorable kitten pictures SQUEEE!
GAMMA RABBIT
Wishes you'd stop being such a meanie to plus-sized women
GAMMA RABBIT
Keeps being himself till the right girl finds out what a catch he is!
GAMMA RABBIT
Will never make a female uncomfortable
Unending Improvement: spot on summary. The obvious difference is that being with public opinion is like being on a boogie board on a crashing wave, and truth is a stone house on a giant rock. Vox can sit in his house, smoking a pipe and lazing on a skeletal throne, and watch McRapey, clutching his board, eyes clenched shut, declaring victory, nearing the peak of a hundred-footer that has nowhere to go but down to the rock. Gamma Rabbits, unlike Bumbles, do not bounce.
Vox, please bring back Hypergamouse to interact with this thing just once...
@Vidad
You have made me sad and thankful at the same time. I feel bad for all those Dadless bastards in our world but thankful that I had a good Dad and get to be one as well.
So that adult Gamma Rabbit jpg was no doubt designed to say You Look Fabulous (and so am I), but it really looks like Hey don't eat me as it backs away in fear
Damn... this one hits too close to home for my liking, in more than one way.
I really hate that I see my good-natured, eager-to-please nephew in this picture.
Daniel: That may be an important extension, but to Scalzi, it's an invisible one.
It certainly won't stop him, and I suspect in a sense he is right. The 'popular' opinion is that he is sticking up for the little guy, while Vox is a bully. It is untruthful, but ultimately I don't think it matters.
The 'popular' opinion is that he is sticking up for the little guy, while Vox is a bully. It is untruthful, but ultimately I don't think it matters.
So what? MPAI.
If I didn't know the contex, this version of gamma rabbit would make me go "Aww." Even after following this from the start, it almost makes me feel bad when I see this drawing and imagine the little guy getting raked over the coals.
Almost.
It is sad. "Your friend and mine" is a classic example of a DLV which a gamma thinks is a DHV.
Friendship too easily (or anxiously) profferred is never valued. Which probably explains why the rabbits can so easily turn on their own.
UI: It certainly won't stop him, and I suspect in a sense he is right. The 'popular' opinion is that he is sticking up for the little guy, while Vox is a bully. It is untruthful, but ultimately I don't think it matters.
Ultimately, it matters totally. Because, though the rock does not move, Scalzi's heading straight for it. In fact, he's already broken in terror about it. All that's left is the impact. This one goes to eleven, and it hasn't even been turned on yet. I think you may not understand how precarious McRapey's situation is. Public opinion provides no balm when it leaves you bereft or, worse, turns against you. By definition, this is what it does.
Get inside McRapey's head for a minute and understand this: his core operating principle is fear. Fear that his Hugo awards for fanzine writing and blogging are imposters, that he'll never be as good as his Best New Writer award from a decade ago promised, that his fans are two-faced, sympathizing but egging him on to further humiliation, that his poverty and fatherlessness mean that he is unwanted and unloved, that his mother wished he had been a girl.
Seriously, these are all things he has openly admitted to on his blog over the years. The guy's "security" in the roar of the crowd is no more akin to Vox's blissful, passive security in the truth than the suicidal teenager is akin to the concrete below. This is why only one side is laughing, and the other is humorlessly experiencing the dissatisfying pangs of premature sarcasm.
This has been the most mirthful week I've had in a long time. I doubt any of the "public opinion" rabbits even remember what true mirth is.
Even though Gamma Rabbit is a force for compromising and evil, don't you feel bad for him? I feel a great deal of sympathy for sinners trapped in their sin, even those who won't admit it is sin. They are still suffering.
That doesn't mean they shouldn't be treated as dangerous or potentially harmful to those around them, but don't you want to see them improve their lot in life somehow?
Sure. I'd even help them if they were determined to try to improve their lot. But that doesn't mean I will hesitate to put them down should they snap and bite instead.
don't you feel bad for him?
Of course. Even look at that horrible bully Vox's language: "heartbreaking", "fighting back tears". Vox knows the score.
It truly is a horrible feeling to have your advances spurned by those who have the social upper hand especially when you have made your worth dependent on what others think. This woven through every part of our lives. As kids on the playground it takes one form, and as adults trying to buy their way into exclusive clubs or impress the right social set, it takes another. There are always going to be the ins, the outs, the in-betweens, the loners, and the floaters such as Vox who can move in and out of different groups without ever really being a member.
Being a loner isn't the worst thing. Being an in-between isn't so bad because there is always hope. Being an 'out' is horrible because the nature of out is desperately wanting to be in, and the more desperation, the harder it is to get in.
These things of course are relative to the group you fixate on. Rejected as a kid, but intelligent, one can grow up to succeed, or find other channels, such as Mensa or a punk band, or the Society for Creative Anachronism, becoming a viable member of some group of misfits. Again, this isn't so bad. What's bad is to let the original rejection rankle you so much that whenever the other world impinges, you revert back to your old self.
For Scalzi, this whole embarassment would have been avoided if, on seeing Vox's meta-satire, he had just said "Looks like someone's pulling our legs. A clever jab, Mr. Day, but I hold to my point." Then he and Vox could have gone on trading the occasional potshot, possibly even leading to good discussion. Instead, well you saw what happened.
One essential piece of advice for anyone unsure of how to handle themselves socially: NEVER TAKE THE BAIT.
I'm glad you brought attention to this aspect of the whole thing.
That image depicts my year in high school all too accurately. I had a naive perspective on humanity and figured that people were generally wonderful beings, worth befriending.
Reality brought a rude awakening and taught me to become a man who acknowledges and embraces truth. Knowing the truth about the average man quickly strips one of any desire to fit in or seek approval from others...
Daniel:
That makes sense. Personally I'm going to wait to see how everything shakes out.
You can practically taste the passive-aggressive whining in this picture.
The problem with this whole thing is that Scalzi is being flat-out dishonest. He's pretending to be all open and nice and friendly compared to that big evil meanie Vox, but if you don't believe all the exact same SWPL politically correct positions as him, he'll shriek like a hyena and call you nasty names.
It's really quite hilarious how the people who claim to be the most tolerant are really the biggest bigots of them all if you don't hold to their exact same shiny secular views.
Gamma rabbit is late for his ball-tapping session. Prob loves cuck porn too.
Despite Scalzi's fantasies of being an "oppressed class", this rabbit does not represent him faithfully. It is far too brown.
Daniel said... "Even the nerds are worse. In the old days, the gamma artist would fantasize about transforming from Bruce Banner into the Hulk and express it in entertainment."
Funny how he was transformed into the Hulk by Gamma radiation.
20 years ago, Gamma Rabbit would have been a post-apocalyptic, dystopian bounty hunter.
Everything about Gamma Bunny says "please bully me!"
Matthew King tried to make hay out of the fact that the socio-sexual hierarchy was not (yet) the common currency of the realm.
By the time Vox tires of this amusement, the meaning of Gamma (at least) will be firmly nailed into the heads of anyone paying a modicum of attention.
Must those who are not alpha (or presumably sigma) be inferior? Yes, they may not "win" all the same benefits, but is that all life goes back to, a win or being inferior?
I am looking much more for a "well done faithful servant" at the end than being top of the heap.
I also don't back away from most confrontation or admitting when I am wrong, though the latter is not as clear cut as some present. Life is not always a sparring match/fight. It is often more subtle than that.
You can see the desperate longing in his eyes. It's really an excellent piece of art. The artist managed to pour his heart out and making something True. The Truth in this piece is undeniable. And in a little doodle drawn on a computer no less.
I'm honestly impressed.
The pink one looks like he's about to get ass raped and he knows it.
" Life is not always a sparring match/fight."
And it's not always a bike ride or a romantic evening as well.
Given the history of the world, the former you mentioned seems to be the default expectation for what life would abound in.
Either way, if you don't practice or put time into it, you'll be off your game and out of shape if any of the above ever comes up.
And it is even worse to take pride in refusing to play the game out of nothing more than the fear of failure. Is there any surprise that this unfortunate little guy will one day grow up to become this.
I am a little lost on the whole gamma thing. I grew up in a divorced household, a child of divorce, with all the associated screaming matches, long silences, and many many many relocation's.
My reluctance to engage in the social-sexual market is not based on pride, as far as I know, but a kind of fear. The closest I can articulate this would be a PTDD or a Post Traumatic Divorce Disorder.
Growing up in a divorced household I have no desire to recreate the experience as an adult. As such any relationships that has an appearance of discontent I jettison, which has lead me to the conclusion of why bother with any relationship at all.
I don't know if that falls within the purview of gamma or not.
Desertnomad,
I'm no doctor, but I'm going to guess omega. Basically, you opt-out of the situation, recognize that women are not worthy of the pedestal (gamma) but also don't want to slog through the hassle of figuring them out. From a status perspective, society will not view you as a socio-sexual participant.
Omega can "upgrade" to gamma, but the omega's that I've known who upgrade actually upgrade to delta and never go through a gamma phase.
Take a look at the "hierarchy" on the upper right.
Omega is when you have no social status and no sexual status. Gamma is when you have social status but no sexual status. Delta is when you have the normal amount of both.
I'm definately a high Omega/low Delta.
I actually started down the path of Gamma, but I made a major course correction along the way.
By the guidelines, I cannot expect to climb anywhere past Delta, but I do not want to be there, I want to climb higher. I'll probably never be a Voxian Alpha, no matter how hard I try. But I will end up a Beta, come hell or high water. I don't think Gamma is a step I want to take.
kh123, I didn't say life couldn't be rough. I was noting that it is not always a "here's the winner, here's the loser" event.
I don't care to always come out on top, I just want to do well with what I have. I don't think I always have to beat someone else to do that. I may sometimes have to beat another, but many times I am just striving to do the best where I am and not worrying about directly competing with others.
To follow up, reading through the hierarchy with regard to Omega or Gamma categories, what constitutes social status within this hierarchy?
The sexual partners makes sense but the social status as a determining factor I'm still a little lost on.
I'm annoyed. Male rabbits are successful pick up artists. They rape every female rabbit in heat, and female rabbits go into heat once every 4 days.
A male rabbit has no compunction about banging his daughter or granddaughter (or sister, or niece, etc.).
There are sinners trapped in physical or even psychological addiction.
Then there are those that have to daily choose evil - in no way habituated or coerced.
You can have sympathy for the former, not the latter.
Suicides were buried in unconsecrated ground at crossroads for a reason.
Brer rabbit might have ended up in the briar patch, but I'm awaiting gamma rabbit to be impaled upon a spit and roasted.
When someone writes an post he/she keeps the thought of a user in his/her brain that how a user can be aware of it.
Thus that's why this paragraph is outstdanding. Thanks!
Feel free to visit my site; Air Max
Post a Comment
NO ANONYMOUS COMMENTS.