Why so serious: thoughts on the Sigma Male

It's okay to be serious and care about things deeply. Nonchalance is a disease.

I do this bit. I love to play this character–one that is emotionally detached, egotistical and manipulative, has a victim complex while simultaneously playing God, someone who is at best apathetic and at their worst vengeful, someone who cuts themselves off from warmth and empathy, someone who stoically seeks self-excellence at the expense of others. In other words, this is the sigma male archetype.

Like any person, I have always been acutely aware of the worst parts of me, and I think the worst parts of me fit this archetype like a square in a square-hole. And I think that joking about identifying with sigma male characters makes me feel less awful about the fact that I sometimes am this character unironically.

Ultimately though, I know the better parts of who I am outweigh my ‘sigma male alter-ego,’ and while I’m still reconciling with how I’m using this joke as a coping mechanism for the way I have behaved/sometimes still do, there is no way I could ever take this character’s mindset or motives seriously.

It’s really unfortunate that many people do. Especially men. I know all of the half-witted misogynists who happened to come across this essay are slowly feeling their blood pressure rise, and I can sort of picture a vein popping out from the side of their shining forehead, because “why did she have to make this about gender?” (Because everything is about gender), but more importantly, because in the patriarchal society that we are subjected to living in, the traits of arrogance, selfishness, cruelty, and nonchalance are stereotypical male characteristics. They are a rejection of stereotypical woman characteristics: humility (to the point of insecurity), selflessness (to the point of neglecting their own needs), kindness (to the point of being walked all over), and earnestness (to the point of mockery). So no wonder men have traditionally repelled ‘womanly’ traits: these feminine traits are powerful tools of good until they become powerful tools of subordination.

What I’ve said thus far is, of course, stuff that’s been floating around in my head since I watched The Joker, the first sigma male character that I undyingly committed myself to. But that’s not why I started writing this essay. What propelled me to start typing (and keeping in mind that I only write when I am deeply upset), was because I overheard a conversation I definitely should not have, and discovered that someone very close to me harbors such a classically sigma male mentality that it scares me, and makes me feel deeply ashamed. For him, it’s not a bit. It’s not ironic. It’s just another example of the successful patriarchal socialization that has stolen away (hopefully temporarily) a pure, wholesome boy and turned him into a dirty, fractured person–a man. I don’t care that I probably sound dramatic right now; when a man is kind, he is labeled a pushover. When a man loves instead of fights, he is a weakling. When a man cries, he is sensitive, but when he foams at the mouth screaming like an animal, he is somehow strong. That’s enough evidence for me that choking down the ‘feminine’ parts of a boy in order to become a man is what strips the humanity out of them. Patriarchy is a disease that kills women, but it’s certainly an illness that makes men sick, too. It’s a shame that adopting this sigma male mindset has become so popularized in not just the cold, unforgiving depths of 4chan and red pill subReddits but in mainstream media. I know it’s partly a joke, adopted by marginalized groups as some sort of comedic relief coping mechanism (me), but I know that partly, it’s never been a joke. The templated masculinization of boys by the Internet has been around for as long as the Internet itself has existed. And the templated masculinization of boys in general has existed as long as patriarchy has. This ‘sigma male archetype’ is just a reiteration—a new and trendy packaging—of good old misogyny.

But, in order to return to the conversation I overheard, I want to plead to the void (because I fear that pleading to him is no use) that turning yourself into an emotionless, stone-cold character (as opposed to a whole, real-life person) does not make you untouchable, it doesn’t make you unhurtable. It certainly doesn’t make you better than anyone else; it doesn’t help you achieve your goals, and it doesn’t protect you from the faceless, nameless, imaginary bunch who are ‘praying on your downfall.’ It makes you look like a fool. It makes you look insecure and pathetic. It makes you look arrogant and selfish and entitled and ungrateful, but worst of worst of worst of all: it makes you a coward.

Patriarchy has crushed the humanity out of a society that is supposed to care for one another, collaborate, cooperate, love and serve one another, and it has convinced us that we live in a dog-eat-dog world, where it’s every man for himself and I don’t give a fuck if you survive as long as I do. 

But it’s only a dog-eat-dog world if you act like a dog, something without morals and an instinct for self-preservation over a drive for societal-preservation. If we were animals, then yeah, why the hell don’t we all just stop giving a fuck about the people around us and fend for ourselves?¹ But we’re not. We’re not we’re not we’re not. We’re real, whole humans. And we aren’t supposed to belittle our emotions to the point of eroding them into nothing. We aren’t supposed to prioritize our own petty successes over the well-being of the people around us. We are supposed to be sincere and vulnerable and loving and sensitive and empathetic and warm and human. We are supposed to break sometimes. We are meant to cry just like we’re meant to shout or laugh. We are meant to hurt just like we are also meant to become healed.

No one likes to pretend to wake up to a seventeen-step ‘self-care’ routine like Patrick Bateman in a never-ending pursuit for self-excellence more than I do. No one kins Light Yagami more than me when I act like the world is against me, monitoring my every move, waiting for me to slip up. No one justifies the shit that happened to them growing up as an excuse to become a psychopathic villain like the Joker more than I do. 

But coldly individualistic tendencies and ruthless success-seeking and a frankly pathetic desire for revenge to the ones that ‘wronged you’ isn’t cool and it’s not the way to cheat life and win the game. It’s actually just a genuinely sad defense mechanism and a shameful excuse to hide behind and a mask that we all need to take off. Or overly-lined red lipstick that we need to wipe off.

***

And now for my Sigma Male credentials: this is Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker next to me dressed up as the Joker for the third Halloween in a row.

1.  By the way, I know this is not a great metaphor to use because many animals do exhibit care, empathy, and sensitivity towards their communities, but like you get what I’m trying to say.