Beta Uprising

About

Beta Uprising is a term used to refer to a rebellion or rebel movement instigated by beta males, especially those with anti-women opinions, against alpha males and females. The term, which originated as a serious call among men’s rights activists, gained popularity as an ironic rallying cry on 4chan’s /r9k/ (ROBOT9001) board, often accompanied by Angry Pepe and Wojak images.

Origin

The earliest online uses of the term can be found on the men’s rights movement blog Fight For Justice in a post named “The Beta Uprising” submitted on December 9th, 2011. The author, a user named legalfighter, defined the term as a fight against the male individuals with power, a.k.a. Alpha Males, taken from the book Liberty or Equality by the Austrian socio-political theorist Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn.^[10]

The earliest uses of the term on /r9k/ can be found in a thread about the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting perpatrator James Holmes, submitted on August 7th, 2012, referring to that massacre as being part of a beta uprising.^[6] Another post on /r9k/ referenced the beta uprising two days later.^[7] However, the term didn’t gain traction until late 2013, when an anonymous user posted a copypasta on November 14th which described the scenario of a modern beta uprising.^[8]

Spread

Over the next year, the term grew in use, with posters beginning to associate it with images of Wojak and Pepe the Frog (mostly the Angry Pepe variant). /r9k/ users claimed the term as referencing the start of a violent revolution against normies and others who deny them a happy life.^[5] On December 19th, 2014, a blog titled “Beta Uprising” was created, with just one post containing the definition of the term.^[3] On June 6th, 2015, reddit user Buttonwalls submitted a thread on /r/OutOfTheLoop asking about the term, gaining over 20 points (74% upvoted) and 60 comments in less than 4 months.^[2] On August 27th, 2015, imgur user xawedude9000 uploaded an album titled “The Beta Uprising”, containing screencaps from /r9k/ referencing the term, gaining over 18 points and 15,000 views in a month.^[4]

2015 Umpqua Community College Shooting

On September 30th, 2015, a thread was posted on /r9k/ where the poster told users from the Northwestern United States to not go to school,^[9] with some of the posters encouraging the OP and giving him tips, proclaiming the OP the founder of a beta uprising. The next day, a mass shooting was reported at Umpqua Community College in Roseberg, Oregon; the shooter was identified as Chris Harper-Mercer. In the following hours, the archived thread was flooded by reactions and featured in various news reports, many of them highlighting the term.^[11]^[12]^[13]

In the next few days after this event, the /r9k/ board was flooded with threads about the beginning of the beta uprising. On October, 1st, 2015, another thread on /r/OutOfTheLoop asking about the term was created by user concretetown, gaining 35 points (83% upvoted) and over 70 comments in three days.^[1] A day later, Taiwanese animators from Next Media Animation uploaded a video titled “Oregon shooting: 4chan users post ‘beta-uprising’ jokes before UCC school shooting – TomoNews”, featuring an animation explaining the beta uprising and gaining over 90,000 views in two days.