Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Alpha Mail: the Gamma mindset in fiction

A reader recognizes a fictional portrayal of Gamma:
Although I certainly don't share all your views I will always acknowledge and appreciate that I owe a lot to your development of the gamma concept. As a recovering gamma the fact that I recognized myself in your description of the typical gamma mindset and behaviour gave me a powerful incentive to work my way out of gamma territory and self-absorption and to choose the path of self-honesty and realistic feedback. In this respect I also owe a lot to the articles of Nick Krauser, who took up your gamma concept and developed some further interesting views on it.

So I was fascinated when I read a short story by T. C. Boyle yesterday and found what I now recognize as a masterful description of the thought-process of a gamma mind. The gamma we're dealing with here is a man overwhelmed by his envy on another man going for the same woman and beating him in the process, leading to obsessive and delusional white-knight-fantasies. Maybe you check it out sometime. It's called "Termination Dust" and contained in the short story collection "After the Plague".
I love to receive this sort of feedback. It's great to see men, whether they agree with me or not, choosing the painful, but ultimately rewarding path of self-honesty and reality over their Gamma delusion bubbles.

I shall have to look it up, as it sounds potentially illuminating.

18 comments:

Matt said...

It seems to me that Gammas are self deluded Omegas who don't realize they were never in the game to begin with. No knowledge of self at all.

Anonymous said...

My shorthand for gamma is "alpha ambition without the alpha goods."

PA

Anonymous said...

FROM CEO NIKOLIC (me):

Another nifty story to read describing a sexual rank in society is a classic novel from the nineteenth century by a French author called Maupassant.

The book is _Bel-Ami_, which is French for, colloquially, our good friend.

The author is interesting because in real life he caught syphilis from his sexcapades and died in an insane asylum due to the degenerative effects of his disease. But in his novel, the "Bel-Ami" is an aspiring superalpha who doesn't realize he is one.

Although attractive, he has never been successful enough in dating life to wake him to his own potential. Like many beta-borderline-alphas, he has potential to move up, but it is up to him to do so.

Superalphas are easily the most interesting group of the pyramid. By far. Not only because they bed the most chicks, but because their worldview is so alien to that of the typical man on the street.

The one common denominator of all superalphas, even though they vary widely, not just in temperament but in looks, is a graphic lack of RESPECT for women.

It seems that the more you engage in women on an intimate level ... the less you truly think of them. This goes beyond the fact they're fucking them quickly and easily. It provides a true window into their minds, such as it is.

When pairing off the superalpha mind versus the HB9 mind, there's no contest. Superalpha wins, as long as he keeps brushing off the emotional hooks the woman keeps throwing on him to get him to commit.

That, however, is a post for another day.

Anonymous said...

Pretty Little Liars Season 7 Episode 9 Online

Carl Philipp said...

Scott Pilgrim Vs the World is kind of weird, but I did notice that the point of the plot is the main character's Gamma-to-Delta conversion. He starts off seeing himself as a total badass who everybody likes and can do no wrong, and ends up coming to grips with the fact that his attitude and behavior have caused barely concealed scorn or resentment in his friends, and if he's going to get the girl he's going to have to stop running away from his mistakes.

It would probably be entirely boring if not offensively twee to any high-ranking male, but it was a good portrayal of both the Gamma phenomenon and the way out.

Jew613 said...

Carl, you're right Scott Pilgrim is a gamma to delta story. But the ending is a disappointment as Scott picks the used up carousel rider who is probably incapable of loving anyone, over a younger more attractive virgin who clearly loves him. It was seeing a man who'd risen to delta slipping back into gamma delusions that if he justs loves this girl enough he can save her.

ThomasO said...

This same ability to identify gamma traits in art is somethings I've been learning to do for awhile now., For example, with some old songs from my 'era' that I used to really like. Now some of them annoy me because I hear a whinny gamma pleading for the girls attention. And the sad things is I use to think this was how to win a woman's heart (shakes head in disgust). Now it's hard to listen to some of these songs (this is a good thing).

ThomasO said...

This same ability to identify gamma traits in art is somethings I've been learning to do for awhile now., For example, with some old songs from my 'era' that I used to really like. Now some of them annoy me because I hear a whinny gamma pleading for the girls attention. And the sad things is I use to think this was how to win a woman's heart (shakes head in disgust). Now it's hard to listen to some of these songs (this is a good thing).

steve said...

Random observation.. Gammas hate gamma behaviour in others. Maybe thats because it challenges their delusion bubble and makes them feel inferior.

How to deal effectively with a gamma when he is clearly trying to be a fake delusional king in front of a girl and trying to exert dominance over you? Happened to me recently

S. Thermite said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
S. Thermite said...

Gammas are special snowflakes. They may not be pure as the driven snow, but relative to all the "lesser men" willing to get their hands dirty, they think they should be recognized as such. Hence all the "secret kings" white-knighting like a mo-fo. As carbon-based lifeforms go, they're charcoal on a grill thinking they're diamonds in the rough.

Anonymous said...

@Steve,

Depends on your rank. I've seen Alphas with their betas out group guys like that at bars when they want to be civil about it. When he comes back from the toilet they have taken his seat etc. and wont let him sit with them anymore so he just stands there until he gets the point and starts looking for another group. Gammas always seek group approval, they just deprive him of it.

You could treat him like a woman you don't want to talk to, either tell him he is wrong and then ignore or tell him your not interested in his opinion.

You could dread game the guy and tell the girl you think her and him would make such a romantic couple while having a shitlord grin on your mug. I doubt he would comeback from that shiv. I've done something like this a few times but already could tell the girl was being turned off by the gamma when I did it.

Or you could go find another girl to social proof yourself.

The annoyance is they do this stuff sometimes when your not expecting it and it can take you off guard but I wouldn't worry to much about it in social situations as the guy is a gamma after all. Whatever he says to a girl about you she probably wont bother listening to anyway.

Anonymous said...

The Hierarchy in "Pulp Fiction"

Marcellus Wallace: Alpha. Runs an empire.

Jules: Beta. Runs a crew.

Vincent Vega: high Delta. Foot soldier, though of questionable competence. Can handle Mia Wallace but she doesn't take him too seriously.

Butch (Bruce Willis): Delta; maybe low Sigma. Not a leader; backstabber, but deals with the consequences.

Jimmy: Gamma. Mouthy and snarky when in a position of power when Jules and Vincent need him. A pussycat with Mr. Wolf.

Brad: Gamma. Double crosses an Alpha and then tries to weasel his way out of it.

Punkin/Ringo: Delta. Takes it like a man without trying to weasel his way out when bested and staring down the barrel of a gun during his robbery attempt. Cloying with his girlfriend.

Mr. Wolf: Sigma. Black tie at 9 am.

The Gimp: Omega

The cop and the pawn shop owner: Lambda.

Questin Tarantino: something so fucked up yet Lambdaesqe that there is no rank for it.

PA

Mooga Booga said...

If you want to see gammas rendered in minute detail, Boyle's your man. Nearly all of his characters are bright but ineffectual men who become obsessed with unapproachable, unfathomable women. They come across as endearing, often as not.

In one of his stories, "The Descent of Man," his hero, for lack of a better term, loses his girl to a chimp. It's funny, in a dark way, but the laughs aren't cheap. Boyle often depicts nature as an unconquerable force that flattens any human vain enough to imagine himself able to contain it. For that reason, I suspect he'd approve the whole PUA movement.

Erynne said...

The Red Pill is really the best analogy. Once it's swallowed the Gamma is overcome with cognitive dissonance until he can no longer deny reality. I think a lot of Gammas are actually Omegas, because they don't even have the chance to white-knight. I used to think I was a Gamma, and I do think I had that phase in college, but I was actually an Omega in high school. These guys don't have a clue why they're unattractive to women and they make no effort to change. What is the socio-sexual class when a man stops placing women on pedestals but is not attractive? Still Omega, I think, or a Delta-Omega combination.

Anyway, I digress, I have been watching the original Star Trek on Netflix and Captain Kirk made me realize that my father, who was always manly in a cowboy-esque way, didn't teach his sons how to be manly, he just expected it and did nothing to guide us. And so my mother tried to raise her boys to be tough, but a boy can't learn how to be a man from his mother. Captain Kirk also made me realize how few male role models I had growing up. I thought sexy men were always thugs, and that a good man couldn't be sexy, this was because of my churchian background where good = nice, and the churchian boy is a secret-virtue-king because his chastity is the result of self-control (insert rolling eyes here) and not lack of female sexual desire of him. Abstinence isn't a virtue if you're an incel, and so the churchian gamma-delta-omega concludes he must be virtuous and close to God's heart, and the church couldn't be happier about his socio-sexual rank, even though it still excoriates his hidden thoughts of lust. He must make himself sexless to avoid the sin of fornication, no wonder he's a socio-sexual loser.

All I needed in high school was a change of haircut, clothes, and an attitude of approaching girls in my league to have success, but alas, looking back is always 20-20.

Kat said...

The show Penny Dreadful looks like a perfect mapping to me:
Alpha- Sir Malcom
Beta- Ethan Chandler
Delta- Victor Frankenstein
Gamma- Frankenstein's monster
Sigma- Dorian Gray

MichaelJMaier said...

"Questin Tarantino: something so fucked up yet Lambdaesqe that there is no rank for it."

Exactly. PULP FICTION worked because it was weird and unexpected. Definitely different at the time.

But everything since has sucked arse. All pathetic revenge fantasies of losers.

SciVo said...

Random observation.. Gammas hate gamma behaviour in others. Maybe thats because it challenges their delusion bubble and makes them feel inferior.

Not exactly. More that they can see through the self-lies and despise them in someone else.

How to deal effectively with a gamma when he is clearly trying to be a fake delusional king in front of a girl and trying to exert dominance over you? Happened to me recently

Amused mastery. "Settle down, tyro." What is a tyro? I don't even know. Doesn't matter. His pause to try to figure it out will tell the girl everything she needs to know.

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