So I’m gonna learn you, son.
You’ve heard it—either by seeking it out, or as an innocent victim perusing social media: the “Alpha male.” Usually, the term is used in the context of demeaning other men and women. In fact, there is a subsection of the population that believes they (as the “alpha males”) cannot deign be seen with an “alpha female” else his so very fragile masculinity be injured.
It‘s typically these same people who, while celebrating their “high-value-ness” as “males,” are sorely lacking in I.Q. value…which makes sense. They’re too stupid or ignorant (or both) to realize there is no such thing as “alpha” or “beta” as it pertains to pecking order in a pack (or herd, or any other designation for a group of the same species).
The concept of alpha and beta arose in the 1940s following a research project wherein a pack of CAPTIVE wolves were studied over the course of several years. Specifically, animal behaviorist Rudolph Schenkel, put random individual wolves together in captivity to observe their behavior and found that random male and female wolves, when put in these situations, competed to form a dominant pair. However, captive wolves behave completely differently from wild wolves. According to L. David Mech, a wildlife biologist and author of the book Canadian Journal of Zoology, studied a wolf pack in the wild during the 1980s and 1990s. In fact, Mech’s study was among the first multi-year research study on a single pack over time.
Mech’s research revealed wolf packs actually operate in a manner much more similar to human families. Specifically, Mech found that all members of the pack defer to the breeding male and breeding female and that, regardless of sex or age, all pack members defer to the breeding couple; like any kid (well…like most kids, I suppose) would defer to their parents. The pups, also defer to their older siblings, and when food is scarce, parents feed the youngest first, much as human parents would an infant.
When offspring are old enough, they leave the pack in search of mates and to start their own pack. According to Mech, the “alpha male” notion of challenging dad for dominance of the existing pack just doesn’t happen. “Let’s say that [a] pair has some yearling wolves that haven’t dispersed yet. The adults will kind of keep the yearlings away from the carcass while the adults feed and feed the pups.” Sometimes the yearlings may get antsy and conflict may arise, but Mech says those instances are rare.
The situation Schenkel created in the 1940s was more akin to a human prison, such that there were several breeding males and breeding females, not related to each other, thrown together in the same space. Of course you’re going to have the strongest vying for the food and “dat ass.” So I suppose in that sense, the term “alpha” and “beta” are still operable…but certainly not in the way the terms are used today. Furthermore, while the term “alpha” is still largely used in the same way it was intended when the concept first arose (i.e., the strongest male), the term “beta” has devolved into a fucking insult for men who other men deem weak, which is absolutely absurd to me given the term “beta” was historically used to denote the strongest female of the pack. The terms are equivalents, not hierarchical. So the assholes who call other male humans “beta” are legit misogynists.
They are.
And people who think other people are less people because of how they were born (I.e, it wasn’t a fucking choice, bro), are garbage, small-dicked, small-brained, living-with-their-parents-and-can’t-get-puss, diddling-themselves-with-a-toy-because-they-can’t-even-make-their-own-hand-to-work sub-humans who should not exist in civilized society.
Unless they’re in a zoo.
I’d pay to watch them just…exist.
I’d pay EXTRA for rotten vegetables and ethanol-laced salt to throw at them.
But I digress.
And yet…I am also not surprised the incels and their ilk have appropriated the term “beta” to be used as an insult. Women are, of course, the weaker sex. [insert eyeroll]. These terms have become so entrenched in western culture that dog trainers have used it to teach people how to handle their dogs. For example, idiot trainer, Cesar Millan, often teaches people that they should use physical force to teach their dogs to be submissive, and to show that they are the “alpha.” Millan has since been discredited by organizations such as the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior and the American Veterinary Medical Association.
People who physically abuse their dogs aren’t “alpha.” They’re just assholes.
Similarly, people who abuse animals should be put down.
But I digress. Again.
In sum, wolf packs operate similarly to human families: there’s a mom, a dad and younger and older siblings. Mom and dad are the leaders of the pack, and are not typically challenged by their offspring. Mom isn’t “beta” and dad isn’t “alpha.” They’re just parents. Similarly, I found nothing suggesting there was a hierarchy among the parents. Everything I found suggested the parents lead the pack as equals. Indeed, there were many articles I found referring to the parents as the “alpha pair.”
Some idiot on TikTok (1) took the time to record a video (2) wherein he suggested “alpha” men should not obtain “alpha” women, and (3) actually fucking posted that shit to the whole-ass world.
Oof.
Honestly, I am of the mind that people like that should simply be euthanized. Not stupid people, mind you. Stupid is as stupid does, and it ain’t a person’s fault they’re dumb. It is, however, your fault if you’re ignorant. Ignorance is intentional stupidity. Most folks are capable of learning, but those who are ignorant just choose not to. Perhaps we can let them live out their alpha fantasies and plop them in the middle of Yellowstone, where there are reports of breeding pair competition due to the high population of wolves versus the relatively small habitat, and see how they fare.
Just Jelli 