There is a myth of the myth of the alpha wolf. Onсe in several years a media outlet deсides to tell people about "the myth of the alpha wolf" that people supposedly believe in. And it never makes sense beсause few to no people believe in or care about "alpha wolves". A cursory search on Google and Reddit reveals that most people who talk about alpha wolves either talk about a metalcore band or present a yet another article that "dispels" the "myth" of the alpha wolf. Sometimes an article proclaims to speak about "the myth of the alpha male", but it always turns out to be a bait-and-switch for an article that talks about "the myth of the alpha wolf".
I thought the "alpha male" idea, as applied to humans, was an analogy to the concept of alpha wolves (as opposed to dominance hierarchies in non-human primates). You always hear about the pack leader, or the lone wolf, never the alpha macaque, right?
So, dispelling that myth in wolves may be an attempt to shake off the pseudoscientific idea that this concept can be used to describe human social structures.
Of course, not being based in science in the first place, a scientific appeal has no chance of changing anything. Which is why it gets rewritten every few years.
It wasn't even called "The Alpha Wolf of Wall Street"!? "Wolf" just means a fierce and predatory person because wolves were for a long time the main threat to livestock and people, cf. "a wolf in sheep's clothing", a phrase which origin goes back to Bible.
The terminology morphed to p people (alpha males) despite absolutely no indication that it applies to wolves or humans (except prisons). That’s the myth.
Presumably, scientists (David Mech in case of wolves and Frans de Waal in case of humans) aren't dumb or mischievous, so they wouldn't make up something there was no indication of. There probably was an indication that they based their opinions on.
Maybe there is a myth of "alpha males", but the article doesn't expose it, it doesn't even talk about it beyond a single sentence.
On a literal level: pretty much any supernatural story involving a werewolf.
On a metaphorical level: pick your favorite male-focused self help pop psychologist. There's a reason the phrase "sigma male grindset" was coined to make fun of these people.
Are you seriously going to claim that "few to no people believe in or care about "alpha wolves"" given the enormous representation of the concept in the last fifty years of western literature?
I honestly have never seen "the enormous representation of the concept ["alpha wolf"] in the last fifty years of western literature", yes. In fact, I don't see much representation of wolves in the western literature, let alone particular types of wolves. Even such exciting creatures as werewolves seem to be far less popular than vampires.
Google Ngram Viewer shows some initial interest starting around 1965, plateauing until '74, relatively low until '87, and rising pretty steadily from there (with a small dip in growth around '03, and a meteoric rise since then). This seems to support the argument of it being common in western literature of the last 50 years.
Ok, so according to Google Ngram Viewer there is a bunch of widely unknown romantic novels about werewolves that mention alpha werewolves. And according to TV Tropes there is fanfiction that constructs elaborate hierarchies with all sorts of castes including Psi and Chi. That's hardly "the enormous representation." Well, at least now kids who learn biology by reading Omegaverse fiction can unlearn horrible misrepresentations they were led to believe in!
