We love nature, even one located under a glass roof. This is a huge strelitzia (our favorite houseplant), commonly known as the Bird of Paradise Plant. I took this photo in Amsterdam, at one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world called Hortus Botanicus, which was founded in 1638. 🪴🪴🪴
This photo was taken by my lovely wife. The next photo from the same session has been published here: https://pixelfed.social/i/web/post/610509435470497665 and was captured using the old camera you see in the picture.
I really enjoy taking photos with this camera because you can only take 12 shots, and you look through the viewfinder downwards, not forwards.
TITLE: YouTube Pseudo-Psychology, Algorithm Traps, and How I Got Set-Up
to Look Like I Cheat
My wife and I share a YouTube Premium subscription. A few weeks ago I
was scrolling through YouTube recommendations when I came across a video
on different male personality types.
"Sure", I thought, "I'm a therapist -- why not check it out". So I
watched the video as it invited me to try and decide which type of male
I was as they described them. I noticed they made the "Sigma Male"
sound the most attractive -- which was a bit odd -- but I thought little
more about it.
A few weeks later (tonight), up popped a video on 10 characteristics of
a "Sigma Male". I was curious, so I watched it. They spent the whole
video making "Sigma Males" seem like super heroes. Suspicious now, I
went to the channel these videos were coming from to look around.
I was displeased to see that 10% of the videos were on male personality
characteristics, and 90% of the videos were dedicated to how Sigma
Males Get Women. Video after video of how to bag yourself a blonde or
brunette. Yuck.
You can guess where this is going -- now our shared YouTube
recommendations list is full of how-to videos on attracting hot women.
The uncool thing is I have never watched any such video to deserve
this. The really uncool thing is my wife will be spotting this
tomorrow. Happily -- she is very understanding and not the jealous type.
Besides -- she can always look at my view history. I'll also be sending
her this message. :)
Is there actually a valid psychological theory outside pop psychology
including "Sigma Males"? When I Google it, I get lots of pop psychology
websites, including something called the "Incel Wiki".
Now I do feel slightly ill.
-- Michael
APPENDED NOTE:
I sent the original note above out a few days ago on a national psych
listserv and it engendered some relevant psychological discussion on how
AI and algorithms effect the mental health of our clients.
Happily my wife thought the note and situation above hilarious (I
thought she might).
Part of what was so troubling to me here was the clear funneling process
being executed on vulnerable young men on YouTube:
STEP 1: Grab guys just interested in learning about themselves. (Or
psychotherapists interested in personality systems.)
STEP 2: Make "Sigma Males" sound like the most attractive type so they
are identified with. (Lonely geeks are recast as desirable lone wolf
types with all the skills of alpha males.)
STEP 3: Game the YouTube algorithm so the next recommendations are how
"Sigma Males" get women. (I decided to bail at this point so I am not
going to view what is being recommended. Judging by the fact that "Sigma
Male" connects in Google searches to Incel websites, I shutter to think...)
[It's possible that "Sigma Male" is a term from a legitimate personality
system, but if so, its been at least partially co-opted by pop psychology.]
A discussion commenter stated: /"The mental health challenge is to help
people become aware of how AI is taking over their lives so that they
can manage the AI rather than have the AI manage them."/
My new resolve to periodically create new YouTube profiles to get out of
old tracking algorithms is one example of an adaptation.
*People need other ways to escape tracking to get out of boxes* -- like
the old BBS (bulletin board systems) that let you read (or not read)
every community comment from every poster without algorithms tailoring
your newsfeed.
*People need tools to recognize when they are being herded into specific
ways of thinking.* Like many of our political silos. Like my original
example above of an interest in male psychology potentially leading to
Incel-like "education" on how to be a "Sigma Male" who gets all the women.
*Businesses need some government regulation in what tracking they can do
-- in all environments, but especially the free ones.* People may need
to return to PAYING for their information sources so they themselves are
not the product.
Ironically, it was GOOGLE, whose "I'm feeling lucky" button below the
search engine field used to take users to a random website somewhere on
the Internet.
*We are now in need of actively maintaining personal ways to randomly
escape our information bubbles so as to better recognize them.**
***
-- Michael
*Michael Reeder, LCPC
*
*Hygeia Counseling Services : Baltimore / Mt. Washington Village location*
*410-871-TALK / michael(at)hygeiacounseling.com*
#psychology #socialwork #psychotherapy #research #incel #AI
#artificialintelligence #youtube #mentalhealth @psychology@a.gup.pe
@socialwork@a.gup.pe @psychotherapists@a.gup.pe @psychiatry@a.gup.pe
#Algorithms #personalitytests @silos
A brief update to the story I posted last January (see above) on "Sigma Males", YouTube Algorithms, and the funneling of lonely young men into unhealthy modes of thought.
My wife found the attached photo gem on social media. Its of an entire romance book series entitled "The Sigma Menace: The Complete Series".
The text of the graphic also says: "In this irresistible collection, wolf shifters break all the rules in the name of passion, love, and claiming their destined mates!"
Great... Do men read romance novels, or has this contamination spread to women too now?
"Sigma Male" is a bogus pop psychology concept linked with incels and -- perhaps more positively -- helping lonely young men feel better about themselves. But... they are irresistible loners and entitled to women... Not happy to see it going kind of mainstream.