how to start a cult
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Learn more at phrma.org slash IPWorksWonders. At Academy Sports and Outdoors, we believe the best holiday fun happens out there. On the driveway with a new basketball hoop, out back around the fire pit, or up in the deer stand. No matter your fun, we've got it. The right stuff at the right price. Academy, have fun out there. Hello, everybody. This week, I enlisted the help of Amanda Montel, who is an

Well, I'm going to call her an expert in cults. She has a podcast called Sounds Like a Cult, and she basically talks about the linguistic tendencies of cult leaders and how much power language actually has in creating a cult. She also has another podcast called Magical Overthinking, where she deep dives into a lot of other subjects. Regardless, I enlisted her help today because I wanted to know how I can manipulate you through my language uses in order to create my cult.

So I hope that you will enjoy this episode of Pretty Lonesome.

We haven't been sitting here chatting for 20 minutes. We haven't been. I've never seen you before in my life. Okay, well, welcome to Pretty Lonesome. Thank you. I feel very welcome. Do you really? Yeah, I'm so well hydrated. Your water tastes amazing here. Thank you. I built it myself. I got some Evian. Yeah, I usually give Arrowhead, but for you, I got the Evian. Oh my God. I feel anointed. Yeah. Well, I'm flirting with you. So...

Oh God, what am I going to turn into? Stop love bombing me. No. Do you think you could pick up on love bombing better than other people?

Probably not. I think maybe I love it more than anyone. Really? I don't know. There's no linguistic traits to a love bomb. I guess it's not really in the speech, is it? It's more in the behavior. Well, it would depend how effective of a love bomber they are. If they're failing, then you could clock it pretty easily. Yeah, true. But if they're good at it, it's going to be fully customized, bespoke love bombing. Yeah, it's true. And then I would just eat it up. Me too. See, my problem is I'm like, this makes sense. Yeah.

Like, why would you not? Yeah, why would you not be obsessed with me? No, exactly. Like, I just think it's like, no, this is like how everyone should respond to getting to know me because literally, like, this is why I leave my house to be love bombed. Exactly. I do. Genuinely, though. If not that, what else? Would you like to introduce yourself a little bit? Sure. That might be good. I'm Amanda Montel and I write.

like fun social science books. I've written some books named Cultish, Word Slut, and The Age of Magical Overthinking. And I also have some podcasts called Sounds Like a Cult and Magical Overthinkers. And I just love to yap about language and power and how we commune and how we delude ourselves in this particular age and time. Love it. Yeah.

So you, correct me if I'm wrong, you have a degree in linguistics. Yes. So do I. And you have more than one. You have more degrees than me. No, I just have the one. Just the one? Just the quaint little one. Just the quaint little one. What is it? Just like straight up linguistics? BA in linguistics. Yeah. Me too. Minor in creative writing. I know because I don't know about you, but I love to learn. I absolutely love to learn and to share and to make learning fun. But-

I don't know if I love school. Oh, I fucking hate school. Yeah. It's terrible. I know. It's really terrible. I can get a little bored.

Yeah. Love to learn. Yeah, same. And that's a conflict. Yeah, no, but that's why I just listen to podcasts now because I'm like, I'm not going back to school. Yeah, for sure. No, that's why podcasting, it is so fun to be able to talk to experts and scholars and get like, I feel like I'm being tutored all the time. Yeah, you're going to tutor me today. I'm going to make you. Did you ever fall into like, because I feel like it's relatively similar of like the cult world to forensic linguistics. Did you ever like...

Dabble. I am fascinated by that sort of thing. And I did write a character once. I like adapted my first book, Word Slut, for narrative television. And I did create a character for the purposes of that show who was kind of a forensic linguist. It's not something that I studied because it wasn't until after I graduated that I specifically went down the path of like cult language and cult linguistics.

My focus in school was really gender and language and how power is wrapped up in into that study. And then that kind of like opened the door for the study of language, power and cults. Oh, interesting. Yeah. What was your kink as linguistics major? Like what were what were your favorite classes? My kink was phonetics. Me too. Really? Listen, shut the fuck up. Yeah, so fun.

Well, I thought, I mean, when I first, I mean, yes, I love like accents and speech production and like a lot of linguistics majors go on to become speech pathologists. I didn't want to do that, but I did. Me neither. No, because like, I don't know. Boring. It's not creative. It's not. I did think when I first moved to LA that maybe I wanted to pursue being an onset dialect coach. Oh, good.

That would be cool. Wait, wait, wait. So can you do like crazy accents? I mean, I'm like, I don't, it's not my job, but like as a party trick a little bit. Come on. No, I like. Please. I mean. Come on. No, I'm.

Thank God. No one has ever asked me to do this out of all the podcast interviews I've ever done. Not today. Am I? No, no. I don't know. Okay. All right. Let me think about it. Like, what's a good one that you would want to hear? I don't know. Oh, my God. Can you just pull any of them out? Not every accent from the whole world. Give me Scottish. Oh, Scottish. Oh, my God. Here we go. Okay. Okay. Baby. I have to get like into the baby reindeer. Yeah.

you've got to go at the back of the, like, it's that L, you know, back there, right? Yeah. Yeah. Whoa. Wait, can you do mine? Like, you're a Londoner. Yeah. I mean, your accent is so subtle. Thank you. Like, it's very, yeah, it's just a little, it's a sprinkling of, like, a very, it feels like. It's not too, I hope, posh. No, it's not too posh, but you're also not whipping out, like, an Adele. Yeah.

My favorite, though, like, I was just in Ireland. That accent sends me. Oh, yeah, they're so hot. I love it. They're so hot. Oh, my God. I love, I love in Irish. Ireland. Yes. Do it, do it, do it, do it. So, okay, oh, God. All right, yeah, give me a line. Okay, but wait, do, I don't know if you're making errors with the Scottish accent because I'm not Scottish. I don't even really know either. I don't know either. So do mine because I can tell you. Oh, God.

Alright, um, I don't know, like, it's hard because yours is so subtle. Like, I don't know, this is so much stronger than yours. Your accent's better than mine. But yeah, no one ever asked me to do this, I'm like actually like so ashamed. I'm like, I'm actually like freaked the fuck out. Wait, can you just talk like that this whole episode? I'm literally gonna barf if you make me do that. Say literally in my accent. Literally. Whoa! Of course.

I'm just like so embarrassed. Oh my God. No more accents. That is so funny. But in my real life, when I'm not like on the record or when there will be no permanent record of me doing accents, I'm definitely bothering the people in my life doing that. That's so fucking fun.

I might make you coach me because I really want that as a party trick. Yeah, I really... I considered pursuing that. But then, yeah, I ended up writing about linguistics instead, which suits me perfectly. But, yeah. Wait, so...

Did you like sit and master each accent one by one? No, no, I've never studied it. It's just like you've just got to... You just can. I guess. But surely someone will like take to the comments and be like, that's the worst Scottish accent I've ever heard. I'm not claiming they're good. You guys are wrong. I think that the British one was better than mine because I've got sloppy with my accent. Because you've spent time in so many different places? I think I don't have like...

I think I speak the way I always have spoken, but then people do tell me that I have an American slant to me recently. A little bit. I wonder if it has to do with the media you consumed or something. It must be, because I've only just got to America, so it must just be the TikToks that I consume. I mean, I spend, what, 15 hours a day listening to Americans. Give me a break. Obviously, I'm going to sleep. It's got to have an effect on it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I guess I...

When I was a kid, I was just like gravitated toward certain accents, but I've never studied them and I don't claim that they're good. I claim that they're good on your behalf because that was insane. Wait, say one more thing for me. Say, um, say, say Benedict Cumberbatch. Benedict Cumberbatch. Oh, it's so fun. Oh, I wish, I wish I could do, I wish I could do like all the regional English accents. That would be an amazing track. Have you ever tried a Scouse accent? Oh, which one? Scouse. Scouse. Oh, what is that again? Like from Liverpool. Oh,

Oh, right. That's like the Beatles. Something that I do that bothers my fiancé. Actually, the word fiancé bothers me, but we are engaged. I propose. Sorry, I hate that word. Fiancé. Why? You don't like the word fiancé? It's like pretentious. Fair enough. And I don't want to be like perceived. I feel like when I say like my fiancé, like I don't want people to think I'm like all that excited about my wedding. I don't know. Whatever. Cult of weddings. Yeah.

I just, a certain thing comes to mind. Like, I don't want to be perceived as, like, a bride. That's so fair. Whatever. Completely fair. Something I do that really bothers my beloved fiance is, like, I will sometimes whip out, like, a really, really bad Liverpool accent, like a Ringo Starr accent. Oh, my God. In, like, this very certain... It's, like, an inside joke that will come across so terribly if I try to explain it, but, like...

It always starts when we're in usually like a mountain town when there's some type of general store called like a mercantile. And for some reason, the word mercantile just like launches me into this persona that's like a guy with a Liverpool accent who's like trying to sell you things from his mercantile. What?

Do you mean like a Ringo Starr? I don't know. Like I can't do it. I'm going to be like the mountain mercantile. Can I sell you? Like I don't know. A satchel of, I don't know, flowers? It's not good. Oh my fucking God. It's like very, very bad. How often are you in the presence of a mercantile? What is that? Like twice a year. Okay. No.

You're speaking about it like it's such a big problem within your... It is a big problem. It's just not a frequent problem. Fair enough. I cannot believe that this is the way that this conversation started. I feel heated. Sorry. I'm so embarrassed. Okay.

My life is opera. There is no reason in opera.

Right before it ends.

Crush your morning goals with a steak, egg and cheese bagel or any breakfast sandwich and snag another one for just a buck with the buy one, get one deal. Only in the McDonald's app. Limited time only at participating McDonald's. Valid once per day. Must opt into rewards. So you're going to I'm going to genuinely make you coach because I've really been trying to master an American accent and I can't seem to do it. And it's really pissing me off. What do you think is tripping you up?

I don't know. I just can't. I just can't. I don't know. Is it like the music or is it the actual like consonants? Consonants. Definitely. Can't do it. Yeah. I mean, that would be fun. I do not do this professionally. Well, okay. I had one accent reduction client when I first moved to LA. Accent reduction? Yeah. Like that would be more like teaching you an American accent. I guess it's not really, it would be, it would be reducing your...

Lovely British accent to an American one. Okay, so what is the weirdest like cultish phrase in your opinion that has like come into circulation like recently? Oh God, the weirdest one or the one that irks me the most? The one that irks you the most.

Well, okay. So there is like a cult language tactic that all sort of like ill-intentioned cultish leaders tend to use, whether you're talking about Jim Jones or Jeff Bezos or like sort of power hungry influencers who are, you know, swerving outside their lane for power. And it's called a thought terminating cliche. Okay.

And I talk about that in my second book, Cultish, but it's a sort of like stock expression that's easily memorized, easily repeated, and aimed at shutting down independent thinking or questioning. So if you're a cult leader or a cult-ish leader, and there are people in your community, followers who are expressing pushback about one of your tenets or one of your protocols or rituals, you're going to want to have an arsenal. Not me teaching everyone out here how to be a cult leader, but like- No, I'm taking notes. Yeah, take notes.

You're going to need an arsenal of these sort of catchy, zingy, thought-stopping cliches to put their cognitive dissonance to bed to kind of end the conversation and take snouts. Yeah. And so there are so many thought-terminating cliches that various cult leaders throughout history have used, but they also show up in our everyday lives. They sound like

common ones sound like, you know, it's all in God's plan or it is what it is. Those are sort of everyday thought terminating cliches, but one that shows up in sort of conspiracy theory communities, anti-vax communities, the nexus of those two communities, which is sometimes described as conspirituality. That's where like

spirituality, new age beliefs and classic conspiratorial paranoia sort of intersect. That's where you can find like yoga moms gone QAnon or whatever. So they will repeat the phrase, you just need to do your research, do your research. Which of course for them does not mean like

reading peer-reviewed studies, but rather going down like a rabbit hole led by father algorithm down whatever confirmation biased path.

nightmare they wish to pursue. But yeah. Um, so yeah, dear research is one that I see, especially during really like sociopolitically fraught times, um, when people are losing trust in, you know, peer reviewed studies and governmental institutions and science and medicine, um, research to them means something different. So that's kind of insidious.

Interesting. So it's just like, it's something you can't even fucking respond to. Like it is what it is. Do your research. Exactly. You said it like terminates the conversation. Exactly. Terminates the thought. Precisely. So if you've ever been in an argument with someone who you perceive to be kind of

power abusive or coerced into beliefs that they can't possibly really stand by 100%. You're kind of like in discourse with them and they serve you a phrase where you feel really frustrated because you're like, how am I supposed to respond to that? It might be a thought terminating cliche that they've been sort of trained to serve back to you. Yeah. Kind of genius on their part, not gonna lie. Totally, because it's a lot of work to have to think. Right. And it's a relief not to have to. Much easier to manipulate. Right.

Much easier. Yeah. And even to manipulate yourself, because like, let's say you've been involved with a sort of cultish, I don't know, nonprofit for a long time. I did an episode of Sounds Like a Cult years ago on the cult of nonprofits. I don't know why that one just came to mind, but let's say, I mean, there's a lot of cultish sort of like power abuse and hierarchies and dynamics and false promises within the nonprofit space. Again, no idea why that one just came to mind, but let's say that you work for a kind of cultish nonprofit and

And you want to, you know, express some kind of concern or doubt about this company that you started working for ostensibly because you like really believed in the mission and you still really want to believe in the mission. Let's say it's like an environmental nonprofit, but you get the sense that,

maybe money isn't being used appropriately or you're being exploited in some way or that like the charismatic boss that got you into the job is not quite who they said they were. You, you might want to express some kind of questioning, um, but,

you also feel conflicted because you want to believe in those promises that were originally made and this mission that you really believe in. But if that charismatic boss of yours can respond to your hint of questioning with a thought terminating cliche, well then you don't have to question anymore. You're like, phew, okay. Everything is fine. Everything is exactly as it was promised and surely if I just stay...

I will reap the benefits that I, that I originally signed up for. What's an example of one they would use in that context? Oh gosh. In a, in a nonprofit. That's, that's a great question. I can't think of one off the top of my head, but I can think of one from the cult that like I'm most familiar with that had kind of like a non-profit vibe to it. So the,

cult that probably got me interested in cults was a group called Synanon, which is like a 70s era sort of classic cult compound that started as an alternative drug rehabilitation center. So like an alternative to AA or something like that. And it started as this sort of experiment that extended into this cult

that was very all-consuming and people would live there full-time. And then it ended up being violent and hypocritical and abusive and it disbanded. But my dad grew up in this cult. He spent his teenage years in this group against his will. He was forced to join there by his dad who wanted in on sort of the blossoming counterculture

cultural movement of the 60s and 70s. And so he discovered Synanon. He really liked it. You didn't have to struggle with addiction in order to join. Some people joined just because they wanted in on this sort of like socialist utopian experiment. And those people were termed lifestylers.

So my grandfather was one of those lifestylers. He forced my dad to join at the age of like 13, 14. And in Synanon, everything seemed kind of hunky-dory at the beginning, albeit culty, like everybody dressed alike. And there were some weird protocols and rituals that would go down there. But things started to turn more hypocritical over time.

And if you started to sense that power was being misused, you could bring that up to someone in the group and they would hit you with this thought terminating cliche, act as if, which meant kind of like fake it till you make it. It meant you need to just act as if you believe that this is the right thing and eventually you will believe it.

it because Chuck Diedrich that's the name of the guy who ran the place they were like he is transcendently wise he's this man god he's a genius he's all knowing and if this protocol is a part of Synanon's ideology then surely you just don't get it yet it's here for a reason you just need to act as if it was like a cue act as if just believe and eventually you will and that was really effective that would work on me

Literally, like if you are living on a cult compound, which of course you don't think it's a cult, but if you're living like in a sort of, you know, promised utopia and you've sunk all your money into it and you've moved your family there and you were like really in on this cult.

experiment that promised to fix the sort of like encroaching fascist evils of America which is like why so many of those 60s 70s era cults were founded does that sound familiar to anyone living today anyway if you've like sunk all these resources into this group but you're starting to get

gut feeling that something is wrong and someone hits you with a stock expression like that and everybody else is using it you don't have to be like a gullible buffoon in order to be like okay yeah totally act as if right yeah wow that's crazy yeah very scary actually I feel like stories like that should be so much more widely known because that's the kind of situation I could find myself in tomorrow and it could just history could just repeat immediately because I didn't know that that was like a thing and if someone was like no just act as if I'd be like you

Yeah. I know. You're so right. Well, this is like my whole idea about cultish language being a sort of power abusive leader's most effective tool, low key, because when you watch cult documentaries or read headlines about cults like NXIVM or whatever, you know, we get hyper fixated on sort of like vague talk of brainwashing or, you know, you look at people wearing colored sashes or with shaved heads.

Yeah, and they all seem crazy. And they seem crazy. They seem gullible. They seem desperate. And you think like whatever techniques that worked on those people, that's tomfoolery. Like that would not work on me. I'm more skeptical than that.

But language is invisible and seemingly commitment-free. And some of the very same techniques that were used in a notorious cult like Synanon or Jonestown or Heaven's Gate or NXIVM, those same techniques can infiltrate cultish communities that look more innocent, like Hollywood. Studying cultish language has definitely, like,

helped me clock power abuse in this fucking town, you know? Really? Do you see a lot of it? Do you think people know that they're doing it when they're doing it? That's such a good question. I think...

A really effective cult leader is operating on ends justify the means philosophy. So if you believe that like your end vision for either a compound in the hills or an actor's career is something really, really special, you're probably going to be pretty willing to

kind of like abuse them or commit acts that you don't fully stand by along the way. And that is like one of these cult red flags is that ends justify the means thing. You just made so many pennies drop in my fucking brain. Oh my God, like what?

That's just such a good way to put it. What did you say? The ends justify the means? Yeah. Because so many people act off of that, like just framework. And it's not even, it's not that they're ever going to run a cult. It's just like, why did you do that weird, slightly weird thing that you did when you're not this person? And I want to trust you, but you did that weird thing.

Oh, because your ends justify your means. Like it's just a succinct way to put it. Like I love when you can put a little phrase to something. Yeah. Probably why I would love a fucking cult. Like I love when you can just put one phrase and then I don't have to like go round and round with all these like theories. It's just like, no, that's,

100%. It's like shorthand, you know? Exactly. Like it just gets you to a thought quicker, which is why I'm so interested in language. And like these cult language strategies don't have to be evil, right? Like sometimes a culty sounding chant or mantra or buzzword can rally people around a collective mission. To like go back to the nonprofit thing, one of my closest friends works for a cancer nonprofit and it's a good company. Like-

They are genuinely working towards funding really important research and providing financial assistance to people struggling with cancer and to scientists who are working on a cure. And I have fundraised for them and stuff.

but like I cannot help but notice how culty some of their like rousing fundraising mantras are they're like cancer warriors blah blah blah and like they'll have people chant things or at least they they used to and um it kind of sounded a little fundamentalist to me right like but and it is sort of

ends justify the means. Like you're really trying to get people whipped up into a frenzy in order to motivate them to raise money for cancer. So like it's a, it, it, and it's not harmful, you know, but it is culty.

And there's something transcendent about being in a group of people who are all, you know, rallied around a collective mission for something better. And like speaking, not in tongues, but like low key, like, you know, engaging in a group linguistic ritual to, you know, drum up that sense of motivation. And so for better and for worse, these cult language tactics are used.

But when you look at a group and you start to like do the cult math and carry the one, you're like, okay, yeah, we've got really rousing chants and mantras that are like stirring up strong emotional reactions in us. But ultimately,

But also they're using thought terminating cliches. And there's like an overabundance of like specialized acronyms and abbreviations and other buzzwords and loaded language that's clearly there to sort of separate people into an us and a them. Like those on the inside of the group are, you know, supremely wise and exclusive and better than everyone else on the outside. You know, when you start to add all of those things up, you're like, hmm, maybe this group is a little too cultish for comfort. Right.

So it's when they turn those things towards the evil and it's like these people can't, they don't even have access to the correct information anymore and it's discouraged that they seek it. Exactly. It's like, that's not right. That's another great red flag. Yeah. When a group discourages you from seeking out external information or, you know, like keeping one foot out the door. Yeah.

Right.

I don't know. I'd like to think, and I learned while writing Cultish and doing the Sounds Like a Cult podcast for all these years, I've learned that we as human beings are profoundly and innately communal for our survival. We fare better in sort of culty groups. We recognize insiders as more trustworthy, and there are reasons why we as a species, but also particularly Americans, why we're so susceptible to cultishness. But

You should be able to, especially in this like ever complicated digital age, you should be able to

be a casual member of multiple different culty groups, so to speak. Right. It's interesting because I feel like if everyone could become just like more cognizant of how important language is and how it like plays into cults and stuff, then they would just start to see in their day-to-day life, oh, I actually, there is a power dynamic where I didn't know there was one. And this is how it's playing out. Yes. And then it would end up hopefully stopping down the line, you getting into an actual, you know, dangerous cult. Yeah. You would just see it more.

For sure. And sometimes it's really hard to get out, you know, because...

There are a lot of groups who are power hungry and they want to retain your membership and they'll make it seem really scary to you to leave. This is not totally representative of that, but speaking of being aware of cults in your everyday life or at least cultish influence, before I started writing my books and doing my podcast full time, I worked as a beauty editor here in West Hollywood for this online beauty magazine.

And it was a little bit culty, you know, like the beauty industry can be very conformist. And, you know, I was also, I was working in beauty media and, um, yeah, they just, they,

they had a bottom line in terms of profit and, um, they had a very particular culture that was full of like buzzwords and acronyms and it was very clicky and whatever. Um, but I remember like the higher ups at this beauty magazine really, really wanted all of us team members, all of us beauty editors to use a certain dialect of like corporate ease, you know, like,

of language that is specific to corporate office culture. And it really gave me the heebie-jeebies because they would use like euphemisms, like, I don't know, this one is like so corporate and has never left my mind since, but like if a certain project wasn't working or if they wanted to shut you down, they would say like, oh, we're going to sunset that initiative actually, sunset, like as a verb, like as a transitive verb. And I would be like,

why wouldn't you just like say what you mean? Like, why are we speaking in these like cryptic euphemisms? That's very scary. I don't like that at all. No, I didn't like it either. And, and you know, they, and it was just like a bunch of ladies who like all looked alike talking, talking in this way. And I like felt, you know, pretty resistant to it. And, and part of that was just kind of like hubris, you know, there's part of like working for a company where you just kind of have to behave yourself. But I remember like,

pushing against that, like willfully not speaking that way because it just seemed like they were trying to clock who in the group was like a troublemaker.

And if you didn't speak the way that they wanted you to speak and dress the way that they wanted you to dress, like you would not be perceived as a loyalist and thus you would not be eligible for promotions. And, you know, there are companies who take this way farther than my old beauty editor job. Like Amazon is like the king of weaponizing culty language. No way. Oh yeah, Amazon. Amazon.com. ♪♪♪

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My life is opera. There is no reason in opera.

Maria, directed by Pablo LeRae, for your consideration. Now playing at select theaters and on Netflix December 11th. Give me an example. Okay, so at Amazon. This is making me feel like a vulnerable person because I'm like, I've never noticed. No, no, I mean, but you wouldn't. And I'm on Amazon every fucking day. No, no, I mean, on the user side, not so much, but if you work at Amazon, then it starts to get really culty. Sorry, I might have said that.

Mine did too. Yeah. But like, so if you work at Amazon, they have something that's like their version of the 10 commandments called the leadership principles. Shut the fuck up. And there are all these like very highfalutin sort of like principles to live by, like have backbone or whatever. And they're like very vague, but they're really sort of like lofty. Sorry. They're really sort of lofty. And when you start working at Amazon, you're like,

You're kind of supposed to memorize them, and you really internalize them. And much like the Bible, there are different –

interpretations of what each leadership principle might mean. There was a New York Times expose in like 2015 that looked into Amazon's corporate culture and how culty it was that I remember reporting that like some Amazonians as they're called so that's culty too. They have a nickname. Amazonians will like teach the leadership principles to their kids and they'll like repeat them in line for lunch and like it just really gets under your skin. And it's still a thing.

it's still a thing. Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did, I did an episode of Sounds Like a Cult, um, at the beginning of, of 2024, um, where I interviewed, uh,

Cult of Amazon survivor. And she like spilled all the tea. No way. Yeah. Yeah. So also curious, you know how occasionally you'll get someone like that who spills all the tea on Amazon and it's like this big thing and it's so interesting, interesting enough to come on a podcast and talk about it. Yeah. And then occasionally you'll see someone stop working at like Dunkin Donuts and they'll be like, you guys are never going to believe how fucking disgusting it is in the kitchen of Dunkin Donuts.

And it's like, why is this not more? But why is no one else saying that? What do they have on these people that like... At corporations, well, I think people are concerned about their jobs. So you're not going to like shit talk a company while you're working there. No, but like...

more often than not you would cycle in and out of jobs like Amazon and Dunkin Donuts like you wouldn't just work at that one establishment for life yeah true I mean I don't I don't know about Amazon and Dunkin Donuts sometimes you have to sign in and DA when you leave right um

And then also, like, I think, you know, it's like why victims don't speak out about abuses in general. You're afraid that you won't be believed. You might be afraid of retaliation. If a group is truly cultish, like if a company is truly cultish, you will get the feeling throughout your time working there that, like,

consequences will befall you if you talk shit about the company. Best not to, you know? So what was the person who came out of Amazon saying? Christy Coulter. Oh my God. Well, she wrote a whole book about it. She like wrote a memoir called Exit Interview about her time working at Amazon. And, you know, she had like, she had some pretty scathing to say about it. But I think like there are so many people

just really problematic power hierarchies and values at Amazon that kind of put general American dream values on steroids. Like there's this incredible stress on meritocracy there or this idea that like if you work hard enough, you will be rewarded for it. Like if you put a fucking quarter in a gumball machine, like you will get a gumball. And that's like a tenet that

the American dream ethos was built on in the first place, you know, like pick yourself up by your bootstraps. And if you just put your nose to the grindstone and work hard enough, like you will be rewarded for that. And if you're rewarded monetarily for your hard work, then, you know, God will love you. Like this is all sort of like wrapped up in, in the American dream. And that like extreme stress on meritocracy is a

alive and well in Amazon, which can be really demoralizing if you work really hard and are not being rewarded. Jesus Christ. I don't know what to say. No, no. I mean, I don't like write about this stuff and comment on this stuff to be like fear mongering or sensational, you know, like I also like I have a pretty lighthearted approach to it all because obviously like there is some cheekiness and like a wink wink attitude to me being like,

LOL, my old beauty editor job is a cult or like SoulCycle is a cult. Haha. Or whatever. Like Hollywood's a cult. Goop is a cult. Gwyneth's a cult leader. You know, like Gwyneth Paltrow? Yeah. Love you, queen. No, but like

I am being hyperbolic and I think like in conversation, you know, you can pick up on the fact that I'm not like literally calling these things a cult. But they could become a cult, which is interesting because like the foundation is there. And I always wonder like, I mean, I don't know what Gwyneth Paltrow did, but like I always look at like specifically Olivia Rodrigo.

Because I'm suspicious. But like, she is so... She has such an intense fan base. Yeah. And I feel like she could just turn around tomorrow and be like... And weaponize it. For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like people like... I don't know the names of anyone's fandom, but for some reason I always know about Lady Gaga because hers are the little monsters. Yeah, yeah. Like...

You're in a... That's a group with a name and a leader. For sure. And you do kind of dress a certain way. It's interesting because with celebrity fandoms, it depends. Like, some celebrities lean into their cult followings more than others. Like, Taylor Swift leans in. And obviously, like... She could do serious harm if she wanted to. She could. She does the opposite, I think. Yeah, she doesn't. She hasn't. You know, she... No, she could. She could, like... She could go full Elon Musk on her ass and she hasn't. But, like... Fully. But she could. But I think, like...

That's scary. She probably has more influence than some world leaders. Seriously. No, for sure. I think in the business world and in tech, it's way scarier. What is relatably scary about pop fandoms, though, is that I think that in a lot of them, the celebrities themselves are not so much the leader as the god. Like, they're not really participating. They're not the ones, like...

actually corresponding directly with their acolytes and devotees. Like sometimes they are. And that is what's so parasocial. Um, and in a way like very unique about the God believer dynamic between someone like Taylor Swift and one of her fans, it's different than like literally God. I mean, I don't believe in literally God, but like some people do. And if you, um,

pray like God is not literally going to like slide into your DMs and be like come to one of my secret sessions but Taylor Swift might

Yeah. Fingers crossed. And so like that is a possibility that's on the table. And so that kind of creates an even more intense, almost like addictive quality among her fan base or any celebrity fan base. It's slightly attainable. It is slightly more attainable than like...

Jesus talking to you. Right, right, right. But yeah, no, I'm like absolutely fascinated by how celebrity fandoms have gotten more religious. And I write about that in my newest book. Not so much in cultish, but I'm fascinated by that psychology and what's responsible for like those extreme cycles of

celebrity worship and dethronement and like why it's gotten so like high temperature these days right and then when it's like the god relationship then who is the cult leader in that instance well I think with a fandom there are cults within cults that are like kind of segmented right so like

you know, if there's a certain community of Swifties that gathers in scare quotes on an internet forum, then maybe like the moderators of that internet forum would be the cult leaders or someone out of that message board would, would establish themselves as the leader. Um,

But if you're on your college campus and there's a Swifty fan club in your college campus, I don't know, maybe the president of that club would be the cult leader of sorts. Or if there's a Swifty influencer, that person could be a mini cult leader. - Like the biggest fan accounts. - Yeah, yeah. - Wow, they've got more influence than they know. That's such a good point, actually. - Yeah, but they're not all super insidious. - It's like they're managers. - Say again? - Cult managers.

Cult managers, yes. Along the pyramid of sorts. But yeah, not all of them are equally destructive. I do think that some of the celebrity worship dynamics have gotten to a point where...

um, worshipers are experiencing some like deleterious mental health consequences. And there's been, there have been like academic studies about this. Um, but yeah, that have like identified categories of celebrity worship and what the side effects of like the most extreme categories can be. Um,

What's the side effect? Yeah, well, okay. So I did come across this one study for my most recent book, which is called The Age of Magical Overthinking, where there were these four categories along the celebrity worship continuum that were identified. And the most extreme category consisted of people who would –

commit crimes on behalf of their idol. Oh, no way. It's actually me for Sabrina Carpenter. I know. What would you do for her? Anything? Anything. You would bury a body? Huh? You would bury a body for her? Of course. Oh, okay. Period. That's many as she asked. For Sabrina Carpenter. Okay, so no wonder you think that Olivia Rodrigo is a cult leader and Sabrina Carpenter is a cult leader.

No. I'll be Sabrina Carpenter's cult manager. That used to be my job role, actually. I used to be a big fan account for her and that I must have been, must have been managing some people's opinions because I'm sure I was heavy into Sabrina Carpenter's stand Twitter in 2014. Yeah, stand Twitter. That's, that's a cult. It's on our list. Stand Twitter, I'm very scared of because I do feel like they, yeah, I don't actually want to know what's going on at any point. I don't go there.

No, but yeah. And then there were like some categories along the spectrum where people were admitting that they thought that if they walked through the front door of their favorite celebrity's house, the celebrity would be happy to see them because they think they have a relationship, you know, it's parasocial. And then, you know, some of the mental health consequences were everything from like

severe body dysmorphia to a willingness to commit crimes, to narcissistic tendencies, to isolation from IRL community. Yeah, these things are not the most common consequence of participating in a fandom, but at its most extreme, you can get there. Crazy, crazy. I wouldn't know anything about that. Thank you.

Yeah, what do you think is like your most delusional opinion about Sabrina Carpenter? My most delusional opinion about Sabrina Carpenter? About your relationship with her. I don't know because you're like, they're all reasonable. They're all reasonable. Right. It's not delusional. It's completely realistic. And if I did walk into her house tomorrow, she probably would just be happy to see me. You know what I mean? Totally. Well, anyone would be happy to see you. Exactly. Now I'm flirting.

But yeah, I mean, that is such an interesting point because I feel like we've even really kind of seen it happen like with Elon Musk, people who had like just kind of a following because they are a public person of interest and then they started to become more political and more opinionated and have more influence. And all of a sudden, like people who love Elon Musk in this day and age, like,

To me, you are a little bit... Because he's an undeniably flawed human being. And I feel like people just ride so fucking hard for him that it's like you don't have a foot out the door. The stakes have gotten so high with Elon Musk. So high. Higher than ever. And, you know...

I think it's telling that he, I mean, we shouldn't know who business leaders are, you know? I agree. Like historically they've been like tucked away collecting their money behind closed doors. But the fact that. Send them back. Send them back. Right. To the hole that they came from. This is a fun fact, but when I was a beauty editor, I was assigned to interview Elon Musk's mother about her beauty routine. Shut up.

This is how much of a celebrity he's become. So like, yeah, leaning into his celebrity. Is she hot? Yeah. Yeah? I mean, she's like...

I think in her 80s. But yeah, no, no, you can't not. I mean, this is going to sound ageist. Oh my God, guess me. No, I, is she hot? Yeah, like May Musk is beautiful. May Musk. I know, it sounds like a perfume. I was just going to say. It sounds like a fragrance note. Yeah, it sounds like it would not smell great either. Yeah.

I know. No, you don't love it. I get musk and must mixed up. Oh, right. Like one stinks and one's good. Musk is like... Musk smells good. Musk, and I didn't know that until very recently. Yeah. Because must is like B-O. Right, right. That is a... Dangerous. Important distinction that I don't think I had really thought about until this moment. I'm not wrong.

No, wrong, right? Musty. No, I think musty. If you smell musty, it's like stinky. Musty, that's bad. Yeah. Okay, we should rebrand the family as like Elon Must. Yeah, Elon Musty. Oh no, but then that sounds like Elon Must. Like he has to. And he will. And he will. Yeah. Yeah, Elon Musk.

On Sounds Like a Cult, we would call him a get the fuck out. He's a get the fuck out level cult leader. He's like politics, celebrity, business tech. Like he has infiltrated every single one of the most influential spaces and is only interested in his own power. So. Perfect. Scary. Yeah. Terrifying. Yes. Perfectly terrifying. Take a leaf from his book.

Elon Musk. But yeah, no, he scares the shit out of me. Yes, as he should. Yeah. As he should. And he doesn't look real, which I don't like. I was actually discussing this with someone this morning. I don't know if you've been keeping up to date on the aliens. Have you been hearing about that? The aliens? Enlighten me. Wait, do you not know? The latest? I don't know if I'm like perfectly up to date on my alien news. I've been out of town since yesterday. Okay. On Earth. On Earth.

Oh, no. Yeah. Suspicious.

My life is opera. There is no reason in opera.

Maria, directed by Pablo Larrey, for your consideration. Now playing at select theaters and on Netflix December 11th. So you felt the need to specify, which is strange, but they basically, four guys, from my understanding, which is limited because it was from someone else's mouth who apparently has done the research and...

This might be wrong. He said that four guys had to stand in front of Congress and testify that they have indeed, they were like, I don't know all the names of the American institutions, but they worked in all the right places to say this. And they said that they have seen. I know. Okay. Yeah. I don't know that I, that I'm abreast of the latest alien testimonies, but yeah, people, people be going before Congress to talk about their aliens.

Right. So my theory was like all these tech billionaires who look freaky as fuck. Are they aliens? They are not one of us. Why does Elon Musk and what's his name? Mark Zuckerberg. They both look freaky. They do. And I think that the whole lizard thing has a reason. Okay. Fledgling conspiracy theorist. Yeah.

No, but I love that. Let's conspiracy theorize. It's lore. Do you have any personal conspiracy theories that you would like to impart on people? Oh my God. That's a great, that's a great question. What lies do I want to spread? What exactly? What lore would I like to spread right now? What lore would you like to spread with all your knowledge of culty language use and just use it on everyone and don't tell them that you don't? Oh my God. This and like demanding that I perform these.

these like mid accents that I do is like you're hitting me with some firsts these are like hardball questions here um and we hope today uh let me think what is what is a conspiracy theory I would like to perpetuate well actually it's funny when I was on book tour earlier this year I would end each of my events in invite this very cult leader behavior I would invite

in attendance, the whole audience, to like crowdsource a rumor that we were going to spread about like the city that we were in or the event space where we were that night. And I like filmed them all saying it and they started like infiltrating, like injecting word of these like rumors into their lives. And so my favorite one. To what? Why? Why did I want to do this? Yeah, why?

As like a bit. Oh, okay. But also like... Did you want to see if they would inject, like they take it away from the room and they inject these lies? It was really, it was kind of like a cheeky demonstration of this one psychological phenomenon that I talk about in that book called the illusory truth effect, which...

describes the power of repetition to make something false seem true. Like if you repeat something once, twice, three times, just the familiarity of the phrase will start to cue in your brain that that's accurate. And I was like, let's all weaponize this together in like a cheeky way. All these rumors were totally innocuous, but I'm also interested in like,

what is the line between folklore and mis- or disinformation? Like, when does... Where is that line? And when does lore become destructive or insidious? And this was kind of, like, playing with that. So...

The first one of these that I did, I was with an author friend of mine named Iman Hariri-Kia, and we were doing this event at the Meta offices in New York City. And we spread this rumor that there was a secret petting zoo at Meta HQ in New York. And I started to get some messages from people being like, oh my God, I used to work at Meta. How did they not put the petting zoo in until after I left?

that's so funny that's so funny in Brooklyn um we did we did this event at Littlefield it's like a an event venue there and we spread this rumor that there were Ryan Gosling nudes hanging in the green room at Littlefield so they were like totally harmless but definitely untrue that's such a fun hobby yeah I'm really gonna pick this one up yeah just like a

little gas you know yeah a little like harmless gas I love for the girlies and then you could do see how often it gets like repeated back to you as if it's the truth because like it just spread I honestly don't know if any of these these things spread and I don't really care this is where the cult leadership comes into play it was like really just a moment for us to like

everyone in that room to bond over this like cheeky little inside joke. - That's so funny. I feel I had genuine proper questions for you and now I'm like, we've been recording for an hour and I'm like, so Elon Musk, aliens.

This is where conversations with me tend to go. Right. So it's not just you. Really? No. Okay, perfect. Yeah. You're, you're, you're, you're doing the right thing. Perfect. Do you feel like you could start, you have so much understanding of like cult language and obviously you wouldn't because it's evil, but like,

If you, you could, if you wanted to start a cult because you would know how to use all those same techniques. Yeah. I'm like too tired. Fair enough. Yeah. Um, but just a little bit tempted. I mean, you could just manipulate easily for sure. Like call marketing tomato, tomato, you know, like we're all out here marketing all the time. So a little bit, a little bit of that, I guess like,

I don't, but yeah, no, I'm too tired to like organize or to use TikTok as much as a cult leader needs to these days. Fair enough, yeah. I don't use TikTok at all. So that's like one preventative, that's one barrier to me starting a proper cult. I feel like you are way too knowledgeable about this to not go insane if you opened up TikTok because it's just cult. No, I would be destroyed. Another cult. I would not be well. Yeah, no, I don't want like daddy algorithm to like,

Daddy algorithm. Yeah, no. The ultimate cult leader. Not ready for that kind of intense relationship. Yeah, but funny enough, sometimes I will get hired to do consultation calls with brands who want to understand how to harness cult leader tactics for the better in their marketing campaigns.

Oh my fucking God. Yeah. I did one for a nonprofit recently. Yeah. Where they were like, so you pick and choose the clients you take. For sure. If Amazon came to you tomorrow, you would say, you know what? I think you guys have had your fun. Yeah. You've had your fun. You don't need me. Yeah. Um, no, but yeah, like, cause yeah.

You know, unfortunate but true, a lot of organizations that are doing really good work and who care about accuracy

they are not as proficient at harnessing cult leader strategies to like get the word out about the work that they are doing. I would love for you to fucking work with some of the politicians on the better side of history because I listen to these things. Maybe we have to cut this out. I don't know. But I listen to these things and I watch...

People who do get elected speak. And I'm like, you're so evil with every technique you've just employed. And then I watched the opposition... The opposition? Not what I meant. Their opposition speak. And I'm like, if you would just...

harness the power of like harness the power of literally being an outsider language yeah like yeah but I guess their demographic is probably one that would maybe resist that more I don't think so I think we're like all susceptible to this and we all want to feel like we're on the inside um and there's yeah there's a way to harness it for evil and there's a way to harness it for good I mean speaking of the illusory truth effect and like that power of repetition I mean that's huge

Yeah. I mean, like we should, we should repeat true information, you know, and like we should make true information catchy. The trouble is that negative information, like MIT research has found that negative information spreads faster than positive information because negative information seems more novel and thus more like engaging and exciting to people. When you say negative information, like bad news. Like conspiracy theories, bad news. Yeah.

And the people who spread those things, you know, if they're on TikTok and they're incentivized by engagement rather than if they're like the Cleveland Clinic and they're incentivized by accuracy, you know, they don't give a hoot if it's true. They just give a hoot if people are paying attention. And so, you know, I guess if there's like a way to spin accurate information as – there it went. If there's a way to spin accurate information –

in the direction that people, let me rephrase that. If there's a way to like spin accurate information negative, I guess, or like almost make it sound like a conspiracy theory and then just repeat it and, you know, put it in Instagram graphics in beautiful, legible fonts. You know, these are things that. It's all about the marketing. Exactly. It's like truly all about the culty marketing. Yeah. Wow. Fuck. Yeah. Oh no. There she goes.

I feel like we could wrap it up here. I could hold you hostage here. It wouldn't be the worst place to be held hostage. Again, you have really good water. Thank you. And, you know, your set is really, I feel love-bombed by this piece of artwork here. And that was my intention. Thank you. I'm kind of annoyed that you clawed.

I will thank you so much for coming and talking to me about cults today. An honor. I hope that you guys enjoyed that episode. I didn't ask her to go too into detail on the specific different techniques that one could use linguistically if they were to try and start a cult because I'm

I don't want to essentially enlighten you to what I'm about to do. Just kidding, I'm actually kidding. That's kind of fucked up. But if you would like to know more because I had a really good time, then I would love to get another cult specialist on or maybe even do a round two with Amanda because that was interesting and I fear that I got way too into the Elon Musk of it all and not enough into what the specific techniques are 'cause I think that's equally as interesting. For now, I'm wielding power over your head. I hope that you guys enjoyed this week's episode of Pretty Lonesome.

There is no reason in opera.

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