Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

by Amanda Montell

One of the major differences between so-called ethical cults (Hassan references sports and music fans) and noxious ones is that an ethical group will be up-front about what they believe in, what they want from you, and what they expect from your membership. And leaving comes with few, if any, serious consequences. “If you say ‘I found a better band’ or ‘I’m not into basketball anymore,’ the other people won’t threaten you,” Hassan clarifies. “You won’t have irrational fears that you’ll go insane or be possessed by demons.”*

this makes me think about how bad stan culture has gotten in just the past 4 years alone. like there are wayyy too many fandoms now that will threaten you if you criticize the person they worship or give any reason as to why you don't like their magical leader anymore lmao

As our generational lore goes, millennials’ parents told them they could grow up to be whatever they wanted, but then that cereal aisle of endless “what ifs” and “could bes” turned out to be so crushing, all they wanted was a guru to tell them which to pick.

damn

Moore told me she doesn’t use the word “cult” in earnest because it’s become inarguably judgment-laden. “As soon as someone says it, we know as readers, listeners, or individuals exactly what we should think about that particular group,” she explained. Equally, “brainwashing” is a term that is tossed around incessantly by the media, but that almost every expert I consulted for this book either avoids or rejects. “We don’t say that soldiers are brainwashed to kill other people; that’s basic training,” offers Moore. “We don’t say that fraternity members are brainwashed to haze* their [pledges]; that’s peer pressure.” Most of us tend to take “brainwashing” literally, imagining that some neurological rewiring occurs during cult indoctrinations. But brainwashing is a metaphor. There is nothing objective about it.

When tossed around to describe everyone from a political candidate’s supporters to militant vegans, the terms “cult” and “brainwashing” acquire a sort of armchair-therapist éclat. We all love a chance to feel psychologically and morally superior without having to think about why, and calling a whole bunch of people “brainwashed cult followers” does just that.

if this doesn't describe the 2024 election idk what will

“The next Crusades will be not religious but consumerist,” she suggested. Uber vs. Lyft. Amazon vs. Amazon boycotters. TikTok vs. Instagram.

stan culture and consumerism; they often go hand in hand lol (thinking of capitalist barbie specifically)

Folks didn’t go to Guyana to die a bizarre death; they went in search of a better life: to try Socialism on for size, or because their churches back home were failing, or to evade the racist American police (sound familiar?). With the Promised Land, Jim Jones guaranteed a solution for every walk of life—and with all the right words delivered just so, people had reason to believe him.

Contentious debates aside, thought-terminating clichés also pervade our everyday conversations: Expressions like “It is what it is,” “Boys will be boys,” “Everything happens for a reason,” “It’s all God’s plan,” and certainly “Don’t think about it too hard” are all common examples. Among New Age types, I’ve also heard semantic stop signs come in the form of wily maxims like “Truth is a construct,” “None of this matters on a cosmic level,” “I hold space for multiple realities,” “Don’t let yourself be ruled by fear,” and dismissing any anxieties or doubts as “limiting beliefs.”

"don't think about it too hard" really made me laugh :/

“It’s work to think, especially about things you don’t want to think about,”

EW red flag thinking

No communication, no solidarity. No chance to figure a way out.

oh lovely, the exact shit our government loves hmmm

language doesn’t work to manipulate people into believing things they don’t want to believe; instead, it gives them license to believe ideas they’re already open to. Language—both literal and figurative, well-intentioned and ill-intentioned, politically correct and politically incorrect—reshapes a person’s reality only if they are in an ideological place where that reshaping is welcome.

this explains a lot actually

They were raised to see the good in people, even to their own detriment. In this way, it’s not desperation or mental illness that consistently suckers people into exploitative groups—instead, it’s an overabundance of optimism.

jeeez that's a slippery slope oh the need for ~critical thinking~

If a form of language cues you to have an instant emotional response while also halting you from asking further questions, or makes you feel “chosen” just for showing up, or allows you to morally divorce yourself from some one-dimensionally inferior other, it’s language worth challenging.

“Now that I think about it, I wasted two decades of my life with that place.” But back then, she thought it was her eternity. “With this knowledge, I was going to be able to come back the next lifetime and handle stuff other people couldn’t, you know?”

dude thats so real like if somebody told me that by doing something i'd be able to survive suffering through life and i was feeling super lonely, i'd probably fall for it ngl

Abbie remembers an acharya (a high-ranking teacher) toward the mandala’s center, a wealthy white man whose wife was, in Abbie’s words, “a total asshole.” Milking the limited authority available to her, the wife would revel in making worker bees like Abbie perform menial tasks, like handwashing napkins or repeating tedious rituals in front of her. But whenever Abbie tried to bring up the wife’s actions to a shastri (a low-ranking teacher), she was delivered the same thought-terminating cliché: “Why don’t you sit with that?” This was a bastardization of a key Buddhist teaching, which says to “drive all blames into one.” Essentially, it means that if you’re experiencing something negative, you can’t change the outside world, so you have to look inward to solve the conflict. (So many shady New Age gurus—ranging from NXIVM’s Keith Raniere to Teal Swan–type self-help guides—warp similar teachings to fault followers for their own mistreatment under the guise of “internal work” and “overcoming fears.”)

this reminds me of booktok's problem with toxic positivity, or even like how if you criticize a beloved celebrity with a toxic fandom then their fans will always defend them or make it into a situation where they'll say you hate women

I’ve heard the phrase “sexual nerds” used to describe people who are into kink—feet, whips, that sort of thing.

this is possibly one of the funniest lines i've ever read

toxic positivity . . . or forcing a silver lining around an experience that is actually quite complex, upsetting, and deserving of more careful attention.

hahaha omg

On its face, promoting a chin-up attitude to your business associates might sound good and fine, but MLMs condition their recruits to fear “negativity” so viscerally that they avoid breathing a word of criticism about the company or anyone in it.

wait but like this is kind of funny how similar certain fandoms are to this description of mlms, the cult-like behavior is actually pretty delulu

And the more outsiders invoke these labels, the more firmly insiders dig in their heels.

basically the whole premise of the birds aren't real movement LMAO