One thing that I’ve started noticing on manosphere blogs is commenters seeking advice about their woman situations and prefacing their comments with “I’m pretty alpha (but)…”.
The minute I see that, I know that the following discussion will most likely reveal the commenter to be not-alpha. Not just because that’s the rule of irony on the internets, but simply because an alpha IS. Alpha is a state of mind and a state of being. An alpha doesn’t examine himself and conclude, “Yep, I’ve gone down the checklist and it turns out I’m pretty alpha.” An alpha just does his thing with the inner confidence that he’s doing what he’s doing and that’s that. So many guys trying to apply game get caught up in “it’s alpha to do this but beta to do that,” and that is fundamentally a beta frame to begin with, because a genuine alpha would already be off doing his thing and not worrying about whether or not he was doing alpha stuff or beta stuff. This isn’t to say that alphas can’t have moments of real self-doubt, and it’s also not to condescend to men who are truly trying to change their courses – but generally speaking, outcome independence is a good brightline test for alpha-dom.
For the purposes of internet discussion – saying you’re alpha before showing you’re alpha is like saying you’re funny before you’ve shown you’re funny. If you’re really alpha, or really funny, people will get it without you having to tell them first.
Haley's Halo 
True, but it’s tough to get Alpha across in a short comment. Easier to ask someone to assume and then work from there.
When someone also brags about how they’re Sigma or Alpha or how they show the Dark Triad, they are none of those things. Those who can do, those who cannot, brag. That most especially applies to the “celebrities” of the Manosphere.
Even worse is when women start telling you what’s alpha.
First thing I thought of when I read this post. Classic line from Good Morning Vietnam: http://youtu.be/tDOH18D3l9o?t=5m30s
Probably there needs to be some SMP purgatory that can be occupied by men who while still beta in the success-with-women department, but have managed to remove the beta behavior to a large degree from their personalities.
In the Vox Day taxonomy, they are former deltas or gammas who are now betas.
Alphas probably know very little of the terminology, and Sigmas have most certainly never ever heard of the manosphere.
From a former post of mine, I give you Ashur’s Razor:
The more time you spend talking about whatever it is alpha might be, the less likely you are to be whatever it is alpha might be.
Disagree. If we can’t define ‘Alpha’ and to attempt to do so makes you ‘beta’, then we’re left with a formless mysticism surrounding the whole deal. It is meaningless to say things like “Alpha state of mind”. If a man cannot define/recognize it within himself then the concept is of no use. Self-examination and introspection are neutral characteristics, neither alpha nor beta. It is the over-emphasis on what is alpha/beta that is in fact beta, not the self-examination itself. That is merely human.
Also, plenty of betas are off doing their own thing. Alpha doing his own thing = chicks. Beta doing his own thing = shlub a basement somewhere playing WoW.
Read more closely:
The more time you spend working on the definition, the less “likely” it is that you are alpha.
You have suggested that I am implying causation.
Excess concern over what alpha is reveals that one has a high probability of being beta. It is a mere predictor. You are confused, imagining that I said that it was a mechanism by which one is made a beta or is prevented from being alpha.
A total alpha COULD spend a lot of time on the internet defining what alpha is, and it might make him even MORE alpha than he already is. but most alphas do not. In fact, many are too busy pulling chicks to worry about it.
The more time that someone spends talking about these definitions, the LESS LIKELY it is that the person in question is an alpha male.
Do not confuse correlations with mechanisms. That’s beta.
Like!!
They could be alpha, but with beta subroutines that activate upon contact with married life.
Agreed. It happens the same when a woman talks about “quality women” (which she assumes she is implicitly o explicitly).
@Natalie.
Wrong. Wrong at the level of “the earth is flat” wrong. The Betas are working 60 hours a week, paying taxes and bills on time, keep to the speed limit, and are faithful to their wives.
The guys playing WoW are those without skillz who have given up. Those born in a better time are too busy at the gym, at their hobbies, and living… to worry about where they sit in some attractiveness to women grading.
Why?
Well, the environment has got so toxic that most men do not care. The Cocksman in the nightclub is a pale shadow of the real leader. But he is the best that is available to this generation of women, bar the traditionalists, who will find a crazy fundamentalist who is righteous and leads the family — just like Daddy did, and not that long after graduating high school.
I am confused. Your name is Haley but you are part of the MANOsphere. Haley are you a man or an woman ?
Few self identity as beta or lower. Fewer men still don’t exaggerate their N-count just as most women will reduce their N-count. In a nutshell, people lie.
@Chris
You realize that there are people who still teach their kids the earth is flat? According the some people Columbus et al didn’t prove diddly :)
Also, your definition of beta is extremely limited and therefore inadequate. There is nothing inherently beta about working long hours and driving the speed limit. There is nothing inherently beta about faithfulness. An investment banker who can bench press his lawyer and get sex out of his wife just by winking at her can do all those things, but I really doubt you’d be calling /him/ a beta. These so called beta traits you enumerated are actually neutral and have very little to do with attraction.
@ Natalie — The red pill is a metaphor, sweetie. The earth was known to be round in the time of the ancients, and can you please not use a boring putdown?
This discussion illustrates why this whole alpha/beta routine of Haley’s is so silly. According to Roissy/Haley precepts, Jamie Dimon, Norman Schwarzkopf and Tim Keller are betas, whereas the 40-year-old compulsive womanizer that the other men laugh at is at a higher level.
@ Chris
Sure! Cause your put down was totally original :p
“compulsive womanizer”
Every compulsive womanizer I’ve met has at core being insecure, a coward, and easily humiliated. They’re not “Alpha,” which technically don’t even exist, except in the obsessions of what I call the Lost Boys of the Manosphere – who do can do little more than imitate bad ideas like Alpha, Beta, Sigma, Gamma, etc.
So. Very. True. By the way, I’m a really sexy woman, and…
(For the terminally slow, that is meant to be a comment on how women on the Interwebz do the same thing).
I’ve never been a chest thumper or one to show the world my bright pink buttocks. I don’t bare my teeth either, but that’s on account im wearing braces and look like the mouth of Sauron.
That said, i never advertise whether i’m ‘alpha’ or not. I leave it to others to make that distinction for me. Right now, my current paramour is absolutely heads over heels with me so i must be doing something right, even tho i wear my nerd on my sleeve.
I find those who have to yell out they’re alpha generally are trying to convince themselves of it. The rest carry on with their lives, alpha, beta, or otherwise.
But yea, i’m a ghetto version of Jason Statham so i must be Alpha! :P