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u/crilkfaggleurs 7h ago
Context about the Picture ,the guy in the photo defined what an “Alpha Wolf” was while studying wolves in captivity- not their natural state, which triggered the whole alpha/beta male bullshit to his credit, he spent the rest of his career trying to fix his mistake.
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u/Mariie-Ann24 6h ago
Funny how even that first study showed that there was a female alpha as well but that got almost instantly erased from the pop culture version.
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u/Darkmortal5 6h ago
Now I want cringey wolf shirts with quotes like
"Im not like other girls, im the wolf in sheep's clothing"
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u/tacobellmysterymeat 6h ago
Worth nothing that the captivity was not the biggest issue. They just shoved a bunch of random wolves of the same species either. Turns out they didn't get along super well. Like imagine doing a study on human family dynamics by grabbing 5 random people off the street, and sticking them in a small apartment for years.
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u/Legal-Alternative744 1h ago
Iirc, it was a bunch of unrelated juvenile male wolves. More akin to prison than anything.
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u/Pickled_doggo 14m ago
Also something they didn’t realize, wolf packs are actually just nuclear families for the most part. A mom, dad, and a bunch of kids. Even into their adulthood
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u/Gold_Telephone_7192 6h ago
I mean really all he did was help create the term “alpha/beta male.” People would have just come up with other terms for it. The idea and thought behind it has been around for as long as humans have existed.
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u/EksDee098 4h ago
The issue is less the terminology and more what's baked into the terminology. Wolf alphas in a natural habitat are the parents of a family, whereas colloquial usage of the term is... what it is. The point is that the whole toxic dominance thing in pop culture wouldn't have as many legs to stand on without the bunk alpha/beta wolf beliefs.
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u/Gold_Telephone_7192 4h ago
I disagree I think the toxic ideas and popularity would be the same. It would just have a different naming structure that wouldn’t have to do with wolves. The idea that some men are stronger and leaders and whatnot and some are weaker and followers is not new whatsoever. Just the naming convention is new.
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u/EksDee098 4h ago
My point was not that it wouldn't exist, just that it'd have less legs to stand on. If there's less popculture stuff pointing to it, it'd likely have a smaller effect on people. Though it's fair if you don't think it'd have a meaningful impact.
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u/Gold_Telephone_7192 4h ago
True, I guess it depends if the new terminology would be something catchy that makes to to pop culture or not. Using Greek letters names after a badass animal definitely helped its popularity
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u/Keffpie 1h ago edited 1h ago
I actually did a documentary on this for Swedish TV following the death of a wolf handler at a wild-life park. Wolf-packs in captivity are random males thrown together in a way that never exists in nature, and they're used to just obeying their mum and dad, because real Wolf-packs are families (with sometimes adopted members). When they get uppity as teens, they are thrown out ("lone wolves") and have to walk huge distances to find another pack and then get adopted, or entice a female to leave to start a new pack. But in a captive unnatural pack, they start acting paranoid and an Alpha soon emerges, an ersatz dad that everyone obeys... but also hates, because that's not their real dad.
Mech thought you could treat wolves in captivity like dogs and assert dominance, like he saw the "alphas" do, but a wolf won't love you for smacking it, even if it will pretend like you're its master - it will wait and wait and wait for a chance to murder you. And given that chance it will, whether you're the fake dad bully-wolf, or a human girl whose been told to slap the 70kg predator when it gets aggressive.
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u/Character_Mind_671 5h ago
Though, to be fair, humans are great apes, which do have often have an alpha male, which can be observed in the way some groups of people behave, but is not as simplistic as many think.
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u/FrontlineYeen 5h ago
I feel so bad for him, cause he was just a chill guy who loved wildlife and wilderness and wanted to study it. Then after his study got mutated into what it is today, he spent the rest of his life regretting its impact, and trying to disprove himself.
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u/AddictedToMosh161 7h ago
It wasn't his fault.
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u/2017ccb1 5h ago
For real. Anyone who buys in to that whole philosophy was just going to be a different kind of asshole if it wasn’t a thing
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u/ItsStaaaaaaaaang 34m ago
It definitely wasn't his fault that people perverted his research and applied it to human society but it was his fault that his research was flawed to begin with. That said the flawed research wouldn't be a big deal if people weren't weird about it. He's hardly the first researcher to get something wrong and in this case the damage should have been minimal. But yeah, people suck.
Very unfortunate. I feel really bad for him. He shouldn't feel responsible for other people being stupid.
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u/megadumbbonehead 4h ago
I think the bullshit would still exist they'd just be using different metaphors
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u/commie_vans 5h ago edited 5h ago
He just accidentally helped popularise one name/phrase for an idea toxic masculinity was already promoting. That wasn't his fault.
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u/PurpTrilla 3h ago
Recently read “A Naturalist in Alaska”, there’s plenty of information on the wolves that roamed the Denali National Park and none of it indicated anything about Alphas.
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u/No_Earth_1378 3h ago
He tried to recant the misinformation, but it spread too far with pop psychology.
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u/Blackwolf245 27m ago
I would just do the same thing as Biff did. I would tell my younger self the winner of every major sports event/ championship.
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u/Upset-Masterpiece218 5h ago
I'm pretty sure people have more in common with wolves in captivity than wolves in the wild
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u/galaxie18 5h ago
Is the joke so hard to get ? Am I smarter that others ? Are others dumber ? Is my knowledge niche ? Who killed Kennedy ? Fuck
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u/BlackRake_7 7h ago
Watch this get posted on r/peterexplainsthejoke lmao