What does sigma mean on TikTok?

The younger generation’s lingo can be a bit confusing — new words and phrases are constantly being born, such as “rizz,” “gyatt” and “fanum tax” (who actually knows what that means?) 

Most of these words come from TikTok, or were at least made popular there; its never-ending stream of short-form content means that new slang catches on pretty quick. The word “sigma” is used frequently on the app, but what does it mean? To answer the question requires doing a deep dive into multiple topics, including incel culture and the “manosphere,” so buckle up and get ready to be schooled.

Alphas, betas and sigmas

You may have already seen some sigma content floating around online. If you’ve seen one of the many TikTok edits of Patrick Bateman or Thomas Shelby, then you’ve probably got a good idea what the whole thing is about. In case you haven’t, here’s what a typical “sigma edit” looks like.

So, a “sigma” is a type of man; the term has been frequently used by men that subscribe to a masculinist school of thinking, the kind of people who would follow Andrew Tate. One of the ideas is that men are divided into a sort of social hierarchy that include two groups, alphas and betas. The whole thing was based upon how packs of wolves would supposedly have a leader (alpha male) and followers (beta males). 

Naturally, the “alpha” was deemed to be the strongest of the group, and therefore had access to all the food and females, basically whatever he could want. However, there are two problems with this idea, the first being that wolf packs don’t actually operate like this, the second problem is assuming that they did work this way, could we even apply wolf behaviour to humans?

Anyway, we’re not here to debate whether there is any truth to this idea, all you need to know is how the supposed social hierarchy works. Alpha males and beta males: alphas rule, betas drool, capiche?

So what is a sigma?

The sigma is a rare third type of male. According to TikTok, a sigma male rejects the social hierarchy of the pack. They do their own thing, they don’t care about alphas or betas; a sigma is a “lone wolf.” If you want a picture of a “sigma,” just imagine a really cool guy wearing shades and a trench coat standing alone on a rooftop. They’re someone who upsets that natural order of society, like the Joker, or Shadow the Hedgehog.

If it’s not obvious, it’s a bit of a meme at this point — most people refer to sigmas in an ironic way, but some take it a bit more seriously. 

There are plenty of TikToks explaining just why the sigma male is the most dangerous but also coolest kind of guy there is. They like to be alone, but care deeply for the people closest to them. They’re quiet but also unapologetically truthful. Some of these statements are quite broad so it’s easy to think maybe we’re all sigma males, but that kind of defeats the idea that they’re supposed to be the rarest type of male.

At the end of the day it’s what you’d call “pseudo psychology;” it all sounds very believable, but there’s very little proof to back up the idea that sigma males (and even alpha and beta males) exist. That hasn’t stopped certain groups of people from modeling their entire lives around the idea of being a sigma male.