How to become an Alpha Male
- Start taking steroids at least once a day.
- Only eat grilled chicken and lettuce and snort protein powder twice a day.
- Work out from 9 AM-9 AM (24 Hours)
- Chew rocks to maximize your jawline and gain a forward maxilla.
- Grab a hammer and hit your cheekbones into place to create a more desirable shape.
- If you like a girl and she doesn’t like you make sure to punch her and call her a bop.
- Make sure you have positive canthal tilt, and if you don’t, pull your eyes upwards for a total of 40 minutes per day.
- Make sure you act nonchalant. If a girl messages you good morning, make sure to talk to her like she’s incredibly annoying. Only use the phrases “gm”, “gn”, “wyd”, and “type shit.”
- If you’ve reached the bottom of this list, congratulations. You’ve successfully become an Alpha male.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a real video listing all of those things word for word. Nothing is surprising once you’ve dived into a certain part of the internet– a trench you can never climb out of, a positivity prison filled with inmates doing pilates, 18 step skincare routines, and competing over their mewing streaks. What am I talking about?
Self-help.
Most of us have been bombarded with it on social media without us even realizing it, but let me explain it to you in detail. The literal definition of self-help is “the use of one’s efforts and resources to achieve things without relying on others.” However, to assign the term to such a simple definition wouldn’t be entirely accurate. There are many kinds of self-help circulating on the internet, some you may already know, and others you may not be familiar with.
Gym-bro culture falls under self-help. Guides to become an Alpha male fall under self help. Content creators like Better Ideas, Improvement Pill, Andrew Tate, Motivation Gold, Charisma on command, Aaron Marino, Jillz Guerin, Margarita Nazarenko, and TheWizardLiz, and The Glowups Gal all fall under self help. Wonyoungism, a lifestyle created by k-pop fans idolizing Wonyoung, a k-pop idol, falls under self help. Looksmaxxing falls under self help. Subliminals and manifestation audios fall under self help. Tiktoks asking “Am I deer pretty? Am I owl pretty? Am I elephant pretty?” and “is Billie Eillish’s face perfect?” fall under self help. Those instagram posts telling you to embrace your “main character energy” and “put yourself before everyone else”? Those are self-help too.
In today’s day and age, especially among generation z, self-help youtubers and “becoming the best version of yourself” has become all the rage. People are obsessed with self-betterment– whether it be gym rats, k-pop stans, or just your average person, and to some extent, that’s a good thing. However, as we all know, anything in excess is bad, and the same goes for the kinds of mindsets and ideologies that self-help culture pushes. Messages that self-help content creators and other forms of self-help media deliver to the consumer can be harmful if they are deeply internalized by an individual. Sayings such as “you are what you believe you are” or “the reason that you continue to be a victim is because of your mindset” can sound victim-blamey and in turn do more harm than good for the already vulnerable individuals consuming this kind of content.
Self-help culture is all about hustling. It’s about working as hard as you can and striving to be your most perfect self, but what we’re forgetting is that all of us are only human. We all have our low points, and forcing a smile through them rather than sitting with your feelings and accepting them will only damage us in the long run. Although this push to become more active in taking back your life can be helpful for some, rhetoric such as “just stop being lazy” and “if you’re miserable, it’s your own fault” can be extremely harmful to people living with mental illnesses. In an ideal world, you’d be able to have full control of your life, but what some people need to understand is that everyone’s situation differs, and to judge someone before you know anything about their situation or consider yourself better or more productive than another because of assumptions simply isn’t right.
Furthermore, extreme obsession with self-help can lead to thinking that, at a certain point, becomes delusional. Thinking that spending large sums of money will help you manifest more can be detrimental, or thinking that you are the most important person and everyone else come after you, even if this is initially to gain confidence, can cause you to become egotistical and ignorant. Using subliminals too much can become addictive because you get obsessed with trying to get results, and can also lead to you accepting yourself less. You become so desperate to change yourself that you forget who you already are.
I think that’s something that can be said about all of self help.
By focusing so much on your future self, you become neglectful of your current self. You become so obsessed with chasing this reality that you don’t even have yet. Instead of constantly pushing ourselves to work hard with no breaks and achieve perfection, we should work on being kind to ourselves too. No good will come of trying to change if you can’t accept yourself as you are first.
