What the heck is an omega?

According to UD : The polar opposite of the Alpha Male. Omega Males can have friends and close acquaintances but prefer to accomplish things on their own without the help of a group. Omega Males generally don't belong to any cliques and have no desire to be the leader or most outstanding of said clique. Omega Males have relations with people from all groups and carry a resourcefulness and cunning (sometimes strength) to get a job done with their own skill. This being said, an omega male can have great pride without it manifesting as "ego."

According to UD : The polar opposite of the Alpha Male. Omega Males can have friends and close acquaintances but prefer to accomplish things on their own without the help of a group. Omega Males generally don't belong to any cliques and have no desire to be the leader or most outstanding of said clique. Omega Males have relations with people from all groups and carry a resourcefulness and cunning (sometimes strength) to get a job done with their own skill. This being said, an omega male can have great pride without it manifesting as "ego."

I am omega.

Wolf.

According to UD : The polar opposite of the Alpha Male. Omega Males can have friends and close acquaintances but prefer to accomplish things on their own without the help of a group. Omega Males generally don't belong to any cliques and have no desire to be the leader or most outstanding of said clique. Omega Males have relations with people from all groups and carry a resourcefulness and cunning (sometimes strength) to get a job done with their own skill. This being said, an omega male can have great pride without it manifesting as "ego."

You're a sap

I mean in terms of guys; I've only just got my head around exactly what alphas and betas are. While the system is dumb, I'd still quite like clarification. Can someone enlighten me as to what a bloody omega is?

It comes from zoological terminology. In wolves for example, the alpha male is the pack leader, the beta male is always second-bested by the alpha, and at the bottom is the omega male. The omega male is the lowest status wolf in the pack, and he receives constant harrassment and difficulties from the other males. For example, he always eats last, the other males nip (bite) him, and he generally has the worst time of all. My understanding is that when people use the term 'omega male' as an analogy for people, they're saying that that man is the lowest status, and consequently things never go the way he hopes they might.

And you're a ****ing **** but I don't go round telling you that all the time.

Without even going into how ridiculous it is that so many people extrapolate that to humans, even the original wolf pack theory has been widely debunked now. It all originated from one or two studies done decades ago, on wolves in captivity. In the last twenty years or so, there's been much more research on wolves in the wild and it's now widely accepted that the idea of innate rankings such as "alpha" and "omega" wolves, is a myth.

Here's a good link for anyone interested: http://io9.com/why-everything-you-know-about-wolf-packs-is-wrong-502754629

Marc Berkoff:
"Wolves (and other animals, including humans), display social dominance, he notes; it just isn't always easy to boil dominant behavior down to simple explanations. Dominant behavior and dominance relationships can be highly situational, and can vary greatly from individual to individual even within the same species. It's not the entire concept of wolves displaying social dominance that was dispelled, just the simple hierarchical pack structure."


If that doesn't stop people worrying about their natural order, then I don't know what will.