From meme coin to male archetype, the sigma man is positive social mood’s best friend (if sigma’s had friends)
In September, the relentless meme coin generator spawned its newest creation, the Solana-supported SIGMA. According to one Oct. 11 crypto news source: “SIGMA… embodies the ultimate grind spirit” of the sigma male movement.
If this trend is new to you, the just-published December 2024 Socionomist cover story – “The ‘Sad, Stupid Rise of the Sigma Male’” – brings you up to speed. There, author Nico Isaac writes:
The sigma male is masculinity on steroids, chased by a 20 oz. Red Bull. From what I’ve gleaned in my research, the sigma male is the classic alpha male minus friends or colleagues — or even a wolf pack. He is a lone wolf extraordinaire.
Sigma male is the anti-Mr. Rogers. His motto: “Don’t you be my neighbor.” Some call his kind “silent revolutionaries changing the world” (Aug. 2, 2023, Medium.com), while others say sigma is a “new kind of toxic masculinity” (April 28, 2023, Vice).
But like him or not, as The Guardian observed on June 12, 2024, the “sad, stupid rise of the sigma male” isn’t going away:
In the past few years, sigma masculinity has blown up. It’s all over social media – and it’s helped define what could be a masculine archetype for our times.
Think about it. The popularity of the sigma brand is now so huge that anonymous brogrammers created a joke meme coin, based solely on the sigma cache – and it soared 2000% to an $83 million market cap in just over a month (before reversing course).
The appeal of sigma-like masculinity is nothing new. It has, in fact, risen and fallen alongside social mood throughout history: The December Socionomist report weighs in:
We see the sigma male revolution as a by-product of the nostalgia that attends waves of positive social mood. The Elliott Wave Theorist has said that “nostalgia is a bull market phenomenon that does its best to relive the glory days of the past.”
This sentiment goes hand in hand with another relevant bull market phenomenon: As positive social mood expands, gender roles become more traditional. Again, The Elliott Wave Theorist put it succinctly: “Men are more masculine and females, more feminine.”
In case you’re thinking this is just a silly meme thing — the Socionomist cover story widens the lens on the cultural significance of the sigma’s appeal: On Jan. 20, 2025, the ultimate sigma male will ascend to the highest office in the land:
Trump: Chief Sigma Executive
Donald Trump is many things: A lone wolf rarely seen in public with his wife Melania. A self-proclaimed antiestablishment rule-flouter. A high stakes deal maker and breaker. And a “my way or no way” man’s man. The sum of which — with my apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan — is the very model of a modern major sigma male.
As socionomists well know, there’s no underestimating the power of social mood to fuel a newly formed trend and thereby turn fringe personalities into leaders of the free world.
From the rise of the sigma male to the rise of far-right political parties in Europe and ever-hotter Russia-Ukraine war – the just-published December 2024 Socionomist shows exactly how social mood defines these cultural and political stories.
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