Why is Patrick Bateman your idol? The internets frenzy with the modern sigma male.

by Isabel Hodges.

American Psycho, 2000, Lion's Gate.

Patrick Bateman has taken the internet by storm 22 years after he graced our screens, but why?

When I jump online I’m greeted by the sight of thousands upon thousands of Patrick Bateman memes still gripping the current culture as they spread throughout social media like a virus. How do we find such a character so relatable? Is it the pettiness, the nihilism or the hypocritical virtuesignalling? Or is it “I’m 13 and this is so deep”? It’s not just the wider internet that seems to have an infatuation with Bateman as instagram profiles and twitter handles are flooded with his image, and it seems TikTok has even fallen victim to countless fan-made edits and thirst-traps of the titular character.

But why do we love him so much?

Set in 1989 in Wallstreet, our 27 year old vice-president of mergers and acquisitions at Pierce & Pierce becomes increasingly mentally unstable after an extremely long exposure to male yuppie culture and the capitalist landscape of 80s New York. Within this toxic work environment everyone looks and talks the same. Now that’s no excuse for he’s actions throughout the film, this man is a steaming pile of shit. So should we really be looking up to him? After all he’s only sexually abused and assaulted sex workers, murdered and tortured multiple people brutally, abused the homeless and verbally abused racial minorities and women? and that’s just to list only a few of the heinous things he’s done. However, as long as he wears a nice suit, holds a stable job in Wall Street, has a rigorous step by step morning routine which he performs in his luxury apartment and looks like Christian Bale, everything I have listed beforehand doesn’t matter.

This isn’t just a case of pretty privilege though. This is so much more.

The internet loves Patrick Bateman because it reminds us and the universe of the immense importance of self and true human relations, something that Bateman’s post-modern plastic world cannot replace. It’s ironic really how the themes of hyper masculinity and dichotomy between the id and the ego were presented on screen by women: Guinevere Turner, Mary Harron and Lauren McLaughlin. Many forget that this image of Christian Bale smoking a cigarette doused in blood was visually created by women. Although the film connects deeply with the male psyche and the way they behave within a toxic environment, we get this portrait from women instead, does this mean that women know men better than men do? The battle between morally good and morally bad within Bateman’s mind seems to reach towards a niche male audience. Without certain societal entrapment, Bateman has the ability to show men what it is like to dive into your darkest indulgences, which ultimately chew him up and spit him out.

Even recently there has been research into the rise of the ‘lonely men’ or modern incels. Women are deciding to stay single because they’d rather be alone than alone within a relationship with someone who is emotionally unavailable. And modern men are deciding to mask their real personalities and base them on main characters from movies from the likes of: Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) , The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013) and Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019) . But why would you want to look up to someone who cares more about if someone loves their Lamborghini and not just them for being themselves? It’s not like Melania married Trump for his wicked personality.
And why would you want to base yourself on characters that are clearly mentally unstable and create chaos wherever they go? Freedom shouldn’t equal destruction and devastation.

So lets dive in shall we:

Why are you looking up to men like Patrick Bateman and Andrew Tate?

For those who are wondering, “Who is Andrew Tate?” my reply to you would be “you are so lucky that you don’t know who he is.”

Andrew Tate is a self-proclaimed “self-help guru”, so basically he’s an entitled man who sits in front of a microphone and spews out all of his outrageous and problematic views onto the internet for everybody to hear. Whether it's about money, women or masculinity, this man has an opinion on it. And he’s going to let you know that he has an opinion on it. Both Bateman and Tate uphold and preach an idea of ‘traditional hegemonic masculinity’, they’re physically strong and care about the way they look and how they are perceived by other people, even if in reality that really isn’t the person they truly are. These men flash their wealth, whether that’s through their cars or through their WallStreet job and their business cards, hedonism and overt extravagance being their most important quality or selling point to the world. So is their attraction mainly because of their wealth and societal achievements? These men hold positions of power in a crumbling society, why not look to someone who has everything you’ve ever dreamed of? If you copy them exactly, you’ll be just like them, right? You’ll wear the suits, own the flashy watches, drive the expensive cars, live in the luxury apartment, eat at lavish restaurants and earn a good amount of cash from your highly regarded job. But it’s all just a power fantasy in the end, isn’t it?

Is it all about materialism though?

After all our society is built on capitalism and consumerism, these days you can buy whatever you want whether that’s power or sex and you don’t need to earn it if you can just buy it. And you can get it in just a click of a button. Furthermore, both Tate and Bateman are not tied down by a single woman, although Bateman is engaged to Evelyn he breaks it off because he “need[s] to engage in homicidal behaviour on a massive scale.” This enables them to have multiple sexual partners, as we see throughout the film Bateman interacts sexually with multiple sex workers and later kills them all brutally. However, this creates the idea that these men see women as sexual objects to be used and abused if they splash enough cash or wield enough power over them. And with this mentality they come to believe that they own these women or that they are their property. Tate even stated that if he let his woman go alone to a bar it would be the same as “parking your car in a place where it can get stolen.”

So is it all about the idea that these men can do whatever they want without any consequences? Tate is still a large online figure boasting 4M instagram followers, and Bateman’s crimes go unpunished by the end of the film as if nothing had ever happened. For the white man it is all too easy. They can say or do what they want, and even with a little backlash or mental instability, it doesn’t seem to stop them. Tate even boasted that he “like[s] the idea of just being able to do what [he] want[s]. I like being free.” In Bateman’s case its more to do with a lack of self-awareness or a high level of self-awareness and narcissism. Bateman kills not only to please his urges but also because he wants to be noticed, but everyone around him seem so wrapped up in their own little worlds that they shrug off his ever-present confessions and obscured and abstracted mental state. Imagine this:

Bateman: I’ve killed so many people and I’ll kill so many more, and I love it. Isn’t that just horrible?

Some Business exec: Sure, Peter, have we got a booking at Dorsia yet?

Why should we be idolising a serial killer and a man with sex trafficking charges? And why should we be agreeing with them and defending them? There’s nothing truly redeemable about these men especially when they are given at platform to spread themselves and their morals across a large group of young and impressionable people. It’s a desire to be noticed and to be talked about. After all, any press is good press as long as people are talking about you and that you stay relevant.

What is a Sigma and Alpha Male?

Alpha Male - in the animal kingdom alpha males live violently to defend their territory and mate. When connecting this to a human, they are domineering and in control. These men are insensitive, competitive, selfish, arrogant but are also extremely insecure and often participate in physical violence. This is a term that people use to excuse their actions and the way they treat people. You are not god’s gift to the earth. Please Humble yourself.

Beta Male - The beta male is subordinate to the alpha male, they adopt more classically feminine characteristics but are taken more advantage of by other men who are traditionally seen as more masculine. These men are unable to assert dominance. You are not a “nice guy” either.

Sigma Male - The sigma male isn’t concerned with traditional masculine needs such as sex but rather the social hierarchy whilst exhibiting traits of professional and physical power which they share with the Alphas. This is a term largely used by incels to appear better or higher up than an Alpha male in the chain. Sigmas are at the bottom of the sexual hierarchy and are notorious for hating all women. Although many believe the Sigma to be peak masculinity, he is far from that. Sigma’s believe everyone either wants him or wants to be him, which isn’t true at all. No one wants you or your obsessions with investing. Go outside and touch some grass.

For some reason the rise of these male personality archetypes have flooded social media in recent months with multiple Sigma male memes and videos being attributed to Patrick Bateman’s face, but why are we so concerned about how ‘masculine’ a man really is? Is it a fear that true masculinity is dying out due to larger acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community and gender fluidity? This is nothing new though. We’ve seen men in the spotlight embrace their gender and sexuality however they like whilst not conforming to out-dated and traditional ideals. From Dennis Rodman to Oscar Wilde we’ve seen unisex clothing, gender boundaires and traditional gender ideas broken since the beginning of time. Why should being considered as effeminate be a bad thing? Why are you scared of being like a woman?

Is it the rise of modern feminism and the #MeToo movement that has shifted the male agenda? Are these men afraid of no longer being stronger over women? Are these men afraid of gender equality? Since the Roe vs Wade overturning it seems as if men want to take back control over women’s bodies, which they should never have had control over in the first place. Here’s a nice little quote from Andrew Tate: “If you put yourself in a position to be r*ped, you must bare some responsibility.” Andrew Tate isn’t controversial, he’s misogynistic and problematic. Tate even appeared on Big Brother in 2016 but was kicked out shortly after attacking a woman with a belt. This isn’t the only reported time Tate has been violent towards women though, Tate even revealed that he had moved to Romania as it is supposedly “easier to r*pe women” there.

Tate has also commented on the #MeToo movement by saying “a man looking at you or whistling at you or asking your name isn’t harassment.” Ahh yes I love being degraded and humiliated in public, thank you so much too all the men who have whistled at me, shouted sexually provocative things out of their car windows, followed me down the street, touched me without consent, and haven’t taken no as an answer. No woman whatever age she is should be experiencing this harassment daily, ever. If we are not interested, we are not playing hard to get, we are not interested. Tate doesn’t just encourage this behaviour, he enables it.

The same goes for Patrick Bateman who quotes Ed Gein (a famous American serial killer) about wanting to see what a woman’s “head would look like on a stick”, to hurling abuse towards a bar maid “You’re a fucking ugly bitch. I want to stab you to death.” And that he likes “to dissect girls”, and let’s not forget that he chased a sex worker bloodied and naked wielding a chain saw through his apartment building to eventually kill her. Why are young men looking up to these guys who are clearly extremely violent towards women? And with a rising femicide epidemic, the explosion of these personalities online creates an extremely toxic environment for women and survivors and becomes a breeding ground for the misogynists.

Both Patrick Bateman and Andrew Tate have been attributed to the Sigma male and Alpha male archetype as younger men celebrate their physical and mental stability (even though Bateman literally goes insane at the end of the movie and believes that everything he’s done is either real or just inside his head), dominant personalities and their physical power over minorities, those at a disadvantage and their own idea of “the weak”.

How should we interpret this ending?

This is not the end. This is just the start of a major culture step-back and shift. There is no end to Patrick Bateman because there will always be one, there will always be the idea or image of Bateman echoing through our environment. Without an end, the audience, cannot escape him.


“There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable…I simply am not there.
- Patrick Bateman.


The same goes for Andrew Tate. Their cultural impact and presence cannot easily be ignored. The damage is done. And even though we’ve banned Tate from social media and ridiculed him across the internet, it sadly doesn’t mean that Tate no longer exists. Yes he exists, just without a larger platform, but there’s still an audience. There will always be an audience. There are still podcasts, YouTube videos and articles flooding the internet. There is still coverage, there are still people talking about him, I am talking about him. So I, of course, am included in this. Although I am condemning him, I am also enabling him to still reach out and receive the attention he both desires and demands. There is no stopping these men unless they stop themselves. In years to come there will always be another Andrew Tate, a problematic voice trying to make waves and profit off of an insecure male population. This is not the end. This is not over. This is not an exit

Exit Sign in American Psycho, 2000, Lion's Gate.


“My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape.”
- Patrick Bateman.


Above his group of colleagues is a red “EXIT” sign but as the camera cuts to Bateman in front of a beige backdrop, a door behind him has a sign that reads: “This is not an exit.” And slowly we move towards Bateman and the audience becomes one with him. Bateman’s reality overlaps with what is occurring within his abstracted minds eye, this is an objective reality. The thing about American Psycho (2000, Mary Harron) is that we can leave, the audience can finish, they can turn it off, they can close the book, yet Bateman cannot. He cannot leave and is therefore trapped in his own mental psychosis. The real meaning behind the: “This is not an exit” sign is the fact that Bateman has no exit from the 1980s, from his chosen lifestyle, from the soul-crushing cycle of wealthy yuppie consumerism. The only thing about this exit is that Bateman is now self-aware that he cannot escape. This sign is both metaphorical and literal: Bateman can never leave. He is trapped within a 102 minute film, he is trapped in his office and in his apartment, he is trapped in his suit and in his morning routine, Patrick Bateman is trapped inside of Patrick Bateman. Without an exit it means that Bateman will never be caught, he will just continue. The cycle of vanity, selfabsorption, power and control has no end and neither does the plot. Friedrich Nietzsche explored and wrote about the concept of an “eternal recurrence”, where with infinite time and number of events means that it will recur over and over again without an end. Although Bateman may not be living in Groundhog Day (1993) . Of course this cycle will end in the 1980s and shift into the 1990s, but that doesn’t mean that Bateman will still not be trapped in his own madness. This awareness of no exit, also means there is an awareness of no true freedom, and without this desired freedom there is no happiness.

The opening line in Ellis' book is: “Abandon all hope ye who enter here”. This is a direct reference to the gates of hell (Dante’s Inferno), which mirrors the closing sign of “This is not an exit” which references Jean Paul Sartre’s existentialist play “No Exit”. The play follows a group of people who are banished in hell together, but instead of being tortured for eternity in a fiery pit, they are tortured by just being together forever. Hell is really just other people. 1980s Wall Street is just Bateman’s own personal hell. American Psycho is an entrance to hell without an exit. There is never just a beginning or an end, it’s just a cycle.

American Psycho, 2000, Lion's Gate.

However at its core, American Psycho is a satirical film meant to mock the 80s yuppie culture of the shallow Wall Street business executives. It is then marketed to appeal to those men that they are making fun of. These psychotic men are allowed to roam free in their atomised and empty world, without any consequences for their actions as those in positions of power or wealth cover their tracks.

Do we really idolise the man Patrick Bateman appears to be or the man he really is?

by Isabel Hodges, September 2022.

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