Derived from counter-strike 1.3 when adding bots in the game "add_bot". Being notoriously stupid bots. The word quickly became an insult to players that are bad in CS and later used as insult at different games for bad players and stupid people in general. The word is primarily used by a specific group of people mostly 90's born gamers that grew up playing CS in cafes and most likely from Metro Manila.
The grindset is a contemporary ideology of self-exploitation disguised as strength, deeply tied to the aesthetics of the “sigma male” and to new digital forms of patriarchy. It promotes the idea that human worth depends on productivity, economic success, absolute emotional control, and the ability to work endlessly, turning vulnerability, rest, community, and tenderness into signs of weakness. Beneath its rhetoric of discipline and power often lies a profound inability to relate healthily to pain, fragility, and human interdependence.
“That’s the grindset, brother. While weak men sleep and complain, sigma males stay disciplined, work in silence, suppress emotions, and build power while everyone else wastes time chasing comfort.”