I feel like explaining since this is a common point of contention. I want to show how the red pill/blue pill analogy started off on the right foot and was eventually turned into a crock of shit (much like feminism tbh). The similarities and divergences between the progression of the PUA/red pill crowd and the different stages of feminism are very interesting because a lot of the same types of things happened. I also want to show where the alpha/beta thing came from and how that evolved.
Okay first in the 1990s there were the original PUAs. These were smart guys who found each other on the Internet who didn't like their lack of success with women. Their approach was to systematically try to figure out how to do better. It was the scientific method and the engineering mind at its fullest. Lots of trial, error and experimentation later, a basic format was figured out that would work a significant percentage of the time with women in very specific social situations.
These guys figured out that they could make a ton of money by offering courses and "camps" with men who were successful in a lot of aspects of life other than their ability to attract women. If you've read or heard of Neil Strauss' book "The Game," then this is the stage his story was set in. Google "the Mystery Method" for an example of what was probably the most popular course at the time.
I also want to be clear that this type of thing worked extremely well in the context of certain types of social situations. They repeated the pattern with other types of social situations, and this led to the development of "day game," for example. Analyzing the differences between what worked in different social situations led to a more generalized understanding of "game," which I'll get to in a minute.
Alright so by the early 2000s, marketing stunts and the need to appear like a bigger, more outrageous asshole to get more people to buy their shit eventually gave the whole PUA situation a really shitty name. It was like rakeback deals between 2003 and 2007 that just got more and more outrageous until it fell apart and no one was really getting paid like before because everyone was made to look ridiculous. This just got more and more out of hand, and last year we had the
Julien Blanc debacle as another example.
So what you had here was a major divergence. This led to the creation of two major camps:
Camp 1: The original type of PUA guys who continued their natural progression of understanding the general theory of what they called "game" by studying the similarities and differences between successful strategies in different types of social situations. In short, they were largely using their logical minds and the scientific method to reverse engineer what it meant to be socially adept so that they could turn it into a systematically learned behavior. These guys stopped using the PUA label because it was being dragged through the mud.
Camp 2: The new breed who hijacked the PUA label and kept getting more and more outrageous with it to make money. With tons of followers thanks to increased marketing efforts, guys like Julien Blanc, it turned into a massive shit show. This is that vocal minority that gives the whole deal a bad name, much like what happens in Islam and feminism. Also like in Islam and feminism, the silent majority hasn't really spoken out (except very recently) against the extremists who have been giving them a bad name.
It's worth nothing that a third camp fell into place parallel to this whole thing, and they took on the label "Men Going Their Own Way," or MGTOW for short. This is essentially a self-imposed sort of abstaining from women, and there's a wide range of guys who fall into this group. What they all have in common, and what forms the label, is that they try to completely remove women from the equation without necessarily turning gay (using porn as a substitute is common, etc).
So by somewhere between about 1998 and 2003, you had three distinct groups. What started happening was that every time Camp #1 would figure something out or some topic would become hot for a while, Camp #2 would hijack it and turn it into some extreme marketing stunt. In the same way that first and second wave feminism helped women while third and fourth wave feminism has hurt them, Camp #1's ability to help men has been largely destroyed by Camp #2's bullshit.
I want to point out something personal here. I know more than one guy who has been a follower of Camp #2 who has ended up legitimately raping, assaulting or sexually assaulting a woman because they bought into the hyped up marketing bullshit. I also know more than one woman who has been on the receiving end of this kind of shit. They are awful, and while I can respect the hustle to an extent, they should be fought against.
At some point not long after the Matrix came out, Camp #1 started using the red pill/blue pill analogy to describe the moment of clarity that a lot of men were having when their "aha moment" would hit them, and they'd realize they had been approaching things in incorrect ways. The Matrix sequels were still hot at that point, so it was another perfect marketing opportunity for Camp #2. This really just got out of hand, and at some point being "red pill" became synonymous with being a fucking retard.
This is why I'm red pill in the same sense that I'm a feminist. I'm down with the original intent, but I'm totally against what both have become.
The alpha/beta thing is another incredibly useful model that was hijacked by the second camp, and I'll give a brief description of how it started, how it evolved and what it's now used for by reasonable people. The original PUAs needed a descriptor to use to easily differentiate between successful behavior and not-so-successful behavior, and they used alpha and beta to describe these originally. This was very short-lived as they started applying their methods to figuring out what worked in a wider variety of situations. As the body of theory that surrounded "game" expanded and became more generalized, alpha and beta behaviors were given more general (and more useful definitions).
Camp #2 did their marketing job on this, like they did it on a lot of things, and turned it into a bastardized and ultimately not-so-useful set of labels. This is why there's so much hate and snarky remarks about the use of alpha/beta/omega/sigma/etc.
Back to the context of Camp #1, they decided to use this model to say that behavior falls somewhere on a spectrum that is very much subject to context. Alpha behavior has to do with attraction (women selecting for good genes) on one end, and beta behavior has to do with comfort (women selecting for resources) on the other end. However, they also noticed that doing the exact same behavior in a different context can drastically change whether it's considered alpha or beta. The labels alpha and beta started falling away in favor of looking at different aspects of context.
They called this context for behavior "frame" with the general idea that you can have a strong frame or a weak frame. A strong frame is basically just coming from a position of confidence and strength, and a weak from is coming from a position of insecurity or weakness. An understanding of frame is the single most important part of game no matter what the situation is (picking up random hookups, managing a wife, etc). Frame is essentially the be-all, end-all of game, and no significant advances have been made after frame was established as being sort of the unifying solution to success in all social situations (including picking up women).
What's really, really important here is that frame also transcends the "male seeking female" dynamic in attracting other people. It applies to all situations regardless of gender or whether it's a group dynamic or a 1-on-1 interaction. Notice that what attracts men and women are different, so men and women have to use frame in different ways to be successful depending on the gender they are trying to attract.
After the alpha/beta labels basically fell away and frame was all that mattered, some people started noticing that introverted people handled things significantly different than extroverted people. However, people with a strong frame were still seeing success while people with a weak frame were not. This led to the four major labels that are used today that I think I mentioned in a previous post without explaining how they eventually came to be. You can either have a strong frame or a weak frame, or you can be an introvert or an extrovert, and this creates four types that are the basis of what's used for today's labels in 2015 discussions of social dynamics by reasonable people discussing game:
Strong frame + extrovert = alpha (recycled label obviously)
Strong frame + introvert = sigma
Weak frame + extrovert = gamma
Weak frame + introvert = omega
Once you have these generalized labels, you can start to look at things like how the different types interact, what the strengths/weaknesses tend to be of each type, etc.
TL;DR