This is a story I did not think I would be continuously updating.

Let's start with a question: How many of you have heard teen boys, or heard teachers talk about, teen boys referring to themselves as "Sigma Males"?

I ask because one of my Baltimore City School teachers is seeing this all the time now in the classroom, and finding TikTok videos of other teachers around the country discussing it.

In brief, a Sigma Male is supposedly a "lone wolf" (loner) who is misunderstood by his community, yet has all the potential of an Alpha Male, and is just absolutely charming to the ladies if he tunes his technique. The problem here is that this all seems connected to the Incel movement and those young men are being trained that they are entitled to young women.

A follow-on problem is that I'm suspecting this is all part of a propaganda campaign to recruit young men to an Incel way of thought.

To the best of my knowledge, the term Sigma Male as a personality type never came out of an actual psychological assessment system. If it did, it has been twisted.

Reading from the bottom of the message below to the top:

Part 1: I stumble across a "personality test" for men on YouTube in which Sigma Males seem too good to be true. Then I discover the channel has gamed the YouTube algorithm by having 10% "personality test" videos, and 90% "how to bag a woman to use" videos.

Part 2: My wife sends me an ad for a romance novel series featuring Sigma Males -- showing this idea is moving mainstream.

Part 3: The high school kids start referring to themselves as Sigma Males.

Once again, we need to be re-doubling programming and messaging that focuses on the value of both community and of women as equals.

Do please see below.

-- Michael Reeder LCPC

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TITLE: Return of the "Sigma Male"

A brief update to the story I posted last January (and below) on "Sigma Males", YouTube Algorithms, and the funneling of lonely young men into unhealthy modes of thought.

My wife found the attached photo gem on social media. Its of an entire romance book series entitled "The Sigma Menace: The Complete Series". "In this irresistible collection, wolf shifters break all the rules in the name of passion, love, and claiming their destined mates!"

Great... Do men read romance novels, or has this contamination spread to women too now?

Not sure if the graphic will post here, or at the bottom of the entire message.

The original message is definitely on-topic for the list. This photo... kinda extra.

"Sigma Male" is a bogus pop psychology concept linked with incels and -- perhaps more positively -- helping lonely young men feel better about themselves. But... they are irresistible loners and entitled to women... Not happy to see it going kind of mainstream.

Michael Reeder LCPC
Baltimore, MD

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Originally Published: 01/17/2023

TITLE: YouTube Pseudo-Psychology, Algorithm Traps, and How I Got Set-Up
to Look Like I Cheat

My wife and I share a YouTube Premium subscription. A few weeks ago I was scrolling through YouTube recommendations when I came across a video on different male personality types.

"Sure", I thought, "I'm a therapist -- why not check it out". So I watched the video as it invited me to try and decide which type of male I was as they described them. I noticed they made the "Sigma Male" sound the most attractive -- which was a bit odd -- but I thought little more about it.

A few weeks later (tonight), up popped a video on 10 characteristics of a "Sigma Male". I was curious, so I watched it. They spent the whole video making "Sigma Males" seem like super heroes. Suspicious now, I went to the channel these videos were coming from to look around.

I was displeased to see that 10% of the videos were on male personality characteristics, and *90% of the videos were dedicated to how Sigma Males Get Women.* Video after video of how to bag yourself a blonde or brunette. Yuck.

You can guess where this is going -- now our shared YouTube recommendations list is full of how-to videos on attracting hot women. The uncool thing is I have never watched any such video to deserve this. The really uncool thing is my wife will be spotting this tomorrow. Happily -- she is very understanding and not the jealous type.

Besides -- she can always look at my view history. I'll also be sending her this message. :)

Is there actually a valid psychological theory outside pop psychology including "Sigma Males"? When I Google it, I get lots of pop psychology websites, including something called the "Incel Wiki".

Now I do feel slightly ill.

-- Michael

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APPENDED NOTE:

I sent the original note above out a few days ago on a national psych listserv and it engendered some relevant psychological discussion on how AI and algorithms effect the mental health of our clients.

Happily my wife thought the note and situation above hilarious (I thought she might).

Part of what was so troubling to me here was the clear funneling process being executed on vulnerable young men on YouTube:

STEP 1: Grab guys just interested in learning about themselves. (Or psychotherapists interested in personality systems.)

STEP 2: Make "Sigma Males" sound like the most attractive type so they are identified with. (Lonely geeks are recast as desirable lone wolf types with all the skills of alpha males.)

STEP 3: Game the YouTube algorithm so the next recommendations are how "Sigma Males" get women. (I decided to bail at this point so I am not going to view what is being recommended. Judging by the fact that "Sigma
Male" connects in Google searches to Incel websites, I shutter to think...)

[It's possible that "Sigma Male" is a term from a legitimate personality system, but if so, its been at least partially co-opted by pop psychology.]

A discussion commenter stated: /"The mental health challenge is to help people become aware of how AI is taking over their lives so that they can manage the AI rather than have the AI manage them."/

My new resolve to periodically create new YouTube profiles to get out of old tracking algorithms is one example of an adaptation.

*People need other ways to escape tracking to get out of boxes* -- like the old BBS (bulletin board systems) that let you read (or not read) every community comment from every poster without algorithms tailoring your newsfeed.

*People need tools to recognize when they are being herded into specific ways of thinking.* Like many of our political silos. Like my original example above of an interest in male psychology potentially leading to Incel-like "education" on how to be a "Sigma Male" who gets all the women.

*Businesses need some government regulation in what tracking they can do -- in all environments, but especially the free ones.* People may need to return to PAYING for their information sources so they themselves are not the product.

Ironically, it was GOOGLE, whose "I'm feeling lucky" button below the search engine field used to take users to a random website somewhere on the Internet.

*We are now in need of actively maintaining personal ways to randomly escape our information bubbles so as to better recognize them.*****

-- Michael

*Michael Reeder, LCPC

#psychology #socialwork #psychotherapy #research #incel #AI
#artificialintelligence #youtube #mentalhealth @psychology
@socialwork @psychotherapists @psychiatry
#Algorithms #personalitytests @silos #Sigma #SigmaMales #lonely #mentalhealth