EP. 145 — Cults with Amanda Montell

Jameela Amanda Montell, welcome to I Weigh. How are you?

Amanda Oh, I’m I’m gorgeous. Thanks for asking. How are you?

Jameela I’m good. I’m good. God, I feel like I’ve just spent about a week with you because I’ve been reading your book and then listening to your entire podcast,

Amanda Oh Christ.

Jameela Which is very good. And I, I love all of your work. I think it’s so fascinating and so, so vital in this moment. I can see why your book has been hailed as so important because there’s so much decoding in there and a way for us to all not only learn but also unlearn a lot of the dangerous wording that exists in our society that’s kind of manipulating us. So just for anyone who doesn’t know, can you explain what your book Cultish The Language of Fanaticism is about?

Amanda Of course. So my book is about the language of cults in scare quotes for those listening on audio only from Scientology to SoulCycle. So I’ve interpreted the word cult quite broadly. When I set out to write the book, I was hoping that my personal understanding of the definition of the word cult would become more precise and more clear. But in fact, the opposite was true. I spoke to so many religious studies scholars and sociologists and psychologists, and everybody’s interpretation of cults was slightly different. It has so much to do with the background of the speaker, the perspectives of the speaker. The word cult is so judgment loaded and sensational. And so I realized that when I’m talking about these sort of fanatical fringe groups, I either need to be really, really specific about my language and talk about like, say, a destructive doomsday, millenarian sect like Heaven’s Gate or I need to hedge my language a little bit and use terms like cultish. Because while we might not all agree that Scientology and SoulCycle are full blown cults, we can at the very least agree that they are cultish. So as our culture increasingly moves away from more traditional sites of spirituality and community belonging and ritual, we increasingly look to secular sites like cult fitness studios and social media communities, etc. to fill those voids. And some of them are mostly harmless and some of them are really destructive. But I do believe that we’re living in one of the most cultish times in history, and I perceive the world through a language lens. So I wanted to break down the linguistic techniques that this wide spectrum of groups uses, for better and for worse, to create a sense of cultish ness.

Jameela Yes. And I have like a zillion questions. I don’t even know where to begin. I think we’ll start with just what does the word cult mean to you?

Amanda Oh, my God. It changes every day. I mean, I’ve been talking about cults and analyzing them for so long that sometimes I think, am I losing interest in the subject matter? And then I’ll come across a different fanatical subculture, whether it’s like Taylor Swift stands freaking out over the latest drop, or, you know, I’ll attend a conference attended by, you know, defectors from really extreme high control religious communities. And I’ll be reminded that I am indeed endlessly fascinated by this. But I would say, you know, there are sort of like red flags to look for that can tell you that a group is a sort of, quote unquote destructive cult. Or on my podcast, we would call it a get the fuck out level cult. And these would be things like, you know, an ends justify the means philosophy and us versus them mentality. A sometimes supernatural beliefs, but not always. Sometimes a single charismatic leader, but not always. Various kinds of coercion and conditioning and conversion. And I’m leaning on the work of religious studies scholar named Rebecca Moore in naming those conditioning, conversion and coercion, which is our three Cs that some people use in place of the term brainwashing. Some people would say that, you know, exploitation is involved, various levels of abuse is involved. But yeah, it’s really, really tough. You know, there’s this theologian and journalist named Tara Isabella Burton, who has talked in her work about how as hard as it is to define a cult, scholars have been arguing for even longer about how to define a religion. You know, like sometimes a religion or a cult doesn’t even have to involve God or the metaphysical. And I really like the way that Tara Isabella Burton defines a religion. She says it’s easier to say what it does rather than what it is. And she says that a religion is there to provide spirituality, community identity and meaning. And there are quotes like, you know, cult plus time equals religion. So all of these boundaries are so blurry and so permeable. I wish there were clear answers, but my interpretation of the word cult changes every day.

Jameela Well, this is why the kind of like the Goopification or the Soul Cycle of it all there there is a religious aspect to it, even the way that the instructors speak. You know, I find that a lot of the cycle kind of places that I tried once each because my ass felt like it was going to fall off my body, which is the only time I’ve actually felt like I had an ass. But it felt like I was being preached to in a sermon. And I can totally see why that appeals to people. I think something that I think is very important about your work and your book especially is that you are analytical not only of why people are susceptible to cults and that it’s very important to to not just kind of dismiss those people as stupid or naive or overly vulnerable. There’s a there’s a kind of form of like subconscious shaming and judgment that we have towards the people who, you know, get carried away with the charismatic leader and go and take all their fucking clothes off and perform all of these, you know, like absurd rituals. I’m talking about the most extreme sort of cults, you know.

Amanda The ones that the media has taught us to to view as, as,

Jameela To focus on, right.

Amanda you know, people on the compound shaved heads.

Jameela Yeah. And actually you have like a lot of human empathy for the fact that a lot of these people are very smart, but a lot of these people are they’re lost in a way of like I’ve always felt with religion in particular. And, you know, there is a blurry line between religion and cult. I’ve always felt like religion is a substitute for the fact that when you’re 18 years old, it’s really odd that you’re expected, like, okay, well, you’re an adult now, so fuck off and make your own choices and get out of the house and go and experience all of these adult things, start paying your bills and and make huge decisions that might impact the entire future of your life. That. That’s fucking terrifying.

Amanda Oh, yeah.

Jameela We don’t know fucking shit at 18. They might know now at 18 more than we did maybe in our generation. But knowing the language and knowing the jargon isn’t the same as having the experience of being an adult. So however informed an 18 year old today might be, they still haven’t actually got the lived experience. And I don’t think you actually become an adult. And maybe I’m just saying this, you know, projecting, but I don’t think you really start to become an adult until your late twenties. That’s that’s when your brain is fully formed and you started to understand you’ve made enough mistakes to start to learn, like, okay, now I’m going to start shaping my life appropriately. And so in this time where you’re just kind of mollycoddled for 18 years, if you’re lucky ish and then thrown out into a terrifying and like ever increasingly scary world, I completely understand why people would want a leader or a or a community like we’re all online all the time. We’re all lonely all the fucking time.

Amanda Yes.

Jameela And and I, I think it’s really interesting how you draw a kind of parallel between the kind of big like one of the big booms of cult culture, which is in the seventies when there was huge political disarray.

Amanda Yes.

Jameela And then now post-Trump. Huge like wild like, kind of dissolving of our society.

Amanda Yes we.

Jameela Is when people need this shit most.

Amanda That’s right. You know, cults tend to thrive during times of social upheaval and tumult. When we lose trust in the institutions that are supposed to provide us with support, whether that is the church or the government or the health care system. And the United States and cults have this pretty consistent relationship for a few reasons. First of all, we do lack a lot of institutional support in this country that other developed nations have. You know, we don’t have, you know, universal health care. We don’t feel that the government will sort of save us when we get sick or when we lose our jobs. And so we feel the need to turn to alternative groups. And some of them are more destructive than others. But also, you know, to your point, like we are living in a time when there is at least the illusion of almost too many choices for who to be and where to go and what your life should be as an adult. It’s this choosers paradox thing where like, yeah, you come of age and well, did you use the term mollycoddled?

Jameela I did, why?

Amanda I never heard that. What is that? I mean, I can. I can infer what that means.

Jameela I think it just means like sort of in an infantilizing way like

Amanda Cradles.

Jameela smothered with care.

Amanda Cradled yeah.

Jameela Just like to say as if you are. As if you’re made of glass. You know what I mean? Just like.

Amanda I love that. Yes, you’re you’re, you’re, you’re mollycoddled. And this actually speaks to an important point where, you know, we think that people who join cults are desperate, disturbed, you know, intellectually deficient, like truly, truly lost in a way that can be hard to relate to. But actually, what I found in my interviews and in my looking into this is that the people most susceptible to cults are those who have this, you know, oddly vulnerable combination of optimism and privilege. They are people who believe that solutions to the world’s most urgent problems, whether it’s poverty or racism or addiction, can be found. And that by affiliating with this one group or ideology or diet, they could be a part of that change in themselves or in the world. And also, like, they need to have a certain amount of privilege because they need the resources and the connections, the money, the, you know, the hope to stick it out even when the cults promises don’t end up coming true. You know, if you’re truly lost or if you truly are, quote unquote, desperate, you’re going to get out of there right away. When the multilevel marketing community or the diet you signed up for and sunk all these costs into doesn’t end up fulfilling its promises. So that’s another sort of myth that people tend to believe about, about these folks who wind up in the most destructive cults like Jonestown, but also ones that are more cultish like certain diets. But yeah, it is this choosers paradox thing where, like, we want an identity template, whether we’re joining the cult of, you know, common spirituality, which I can define that term later, or the Cult of Glossier or Goop or whatever it is. You know, we want to wake up in the morning and be like, I am I am a Goop fan. Like, I’m a Goop lady. And this is how a Goop lady dresses and this is what a Goop lady eats. And there’s a lot of comfort in that.

Jameela I think it’s really, really poignant. The thing about choices and I think it kind of like lends itself to both of our points. You you point out Phoebe Waller-bridge’s Fleabag speech.

Amanda Yeah.

Jameela Is that the I, you know, forgotten about because there’s just so many great things about that series, especially that season that I ingest. And, and it really moved me reading it again, which is I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning. I want someone to tell me what to eat, what to like, what to hate, what to rage about, what to listen to, what band to like, what to buy tickets for, what to joke about, what not to joke about. I want someone to tell me what to believe in, who to vote for and who to love and how to tell them. I think I just want someone to tell me how to live my life, father because I think so far I’ve been getting it wrong. Ohhhh.

Amanda I got chills reading it again. I know. And the fact that she’s saying it to a priest, it’s like sometimes influencers are new priests.

Jameela Mm hmm.

Amanda For better and for worse, you know?

Jameela Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s just that it’s now more of a matriarchy traditionally online than the patriarchy.

Amanda A matriarchy derived from a patriarchy. I don’t know. Like, the gender dynamics of cultish ness are really interesting.

Jameela I know.

Amanda We end up giving people the power we think we we’ve been conditioned to believe that they deserve. So while we tend to follow, you know, Elon Musk types when it comes to money or technology or God or government, we follow Gwyneth Paltrow types when it comes to nutrition or parenting or love.

Jameela And it is all just our proxy parents. It is there is something that really resonates, I think, with a lot of people about that, that Fleabag speech, which is that like there’s so many fucking options and everything feels like a fucking emergency and a clusterfuck and life is just so it couldn’t be further from simple. You hear about this people who go and live off grid and you understand why? Because this is just like our brains have not even adapted in 2000 years to identify that someone sending a rude tweet is not the same as us having a physical attack.

Amanda Oh my god you have no.

Jameela In front of us, that could endanger us. So, you know, like imagine for those brains that still think Sabertooth, tiger, sabertooth, tiger, but still have this kind of terror of tribalism. Right. Which I think also comes into this, that we have a we don’t have a terror of tribalism. We have a terror of being ostracized from the tribe because we associate our safety with a group, you know?

Amanda Yes. Oh, this is very human. I think we’re quite cultish by nature. You know, we fare better in groups much, much more than we do all on our own. And, you know, to be socially rejected or to be lonely is sort of our our greatest collective fear. And so whenever society and I think our our, increasingly digital society increases those feelings of loneliness and ostracization. It just makes people even more susceptible to to a very confident sounding person on a pulpit, even if that pulpit is virtual telling us, you know, this is how you can be safe, These are the answers. Oh my God. But you’re talk about like, you know, how our brains haven’t adapted. Like, this is all I’ve been thinking about for the past year and a half because I’m writing a new book called The Age of Magical Overthinking. And like this, this stuff about, you know, cognitive bias and behavioral economics and like why we are the way we are right now is like it’s it’s the next natural step for talking about cults.

Jameela Well, I mean, I think I think this is why we got on so well the first time we we met at a party. We’ve only met once before, but we met at a pool party where I had forgotten to bring my swimsuit. So I stayed sitting in a full jumpsuit, like covered head to toe. I looked like I. I looked like a plumber who was being very overfamiliar with their clients and everyone was in swimsuits. And I just looked like a pervert by the hot tub dressed from head to toe. Like dressed like one of the like Mario brothers. And you’re in a bikini, and we’re having, like, a full on chat about cults and language and society. And what I want to get into in a second is kind of like the the political cultism that we’re seeing, right?

Amanda Oh, sure oh yes let’s get into it.

Jameela In the last like 6 years.

Amanda I thought it was so, but I was thinking about how we met and, you know, how there are those questions on dating apps. It’s like, where will you find me at a party? And people will be like, with the snacks or with the dog. I’m like, in the hot tub talking about cults with the other freaks.

Jameela With the plumber, With the plumber freaks, um I. Yeah, I before we get into that, I want to also just touch on something that you highlight in your book, which is the fact that there is a reason for our obsession with cults. Right. A lot of people will have seen the title for this podcast and been like, Oh fuck, yeah, cults. I wonder what I want to learn about it. I personally do not have, uh, an interest in specific I like, I’ve watched, I think, Wild, Wild Country, but I don’t think it resonated with me and I think that’s probably from a place of fear, but I think from a different place of fear, some people are obsessed and like people watch these shows in the millions. What what drives that? Will you explain that to me?

Amanda Sure. I mean, in the beginning of the book, I talk a little bit about rubbernecking, right? I mean, I think.

Jameela What is that?

Amanda Yeah. So it’s a sort of psychological response where we notice danger, whether it’s a car crash is the classic example or even just a headline about a car crash or another kind of danger or a tragedy. And we can’t pull ourselves from staring at it because we’re scanning for threats. We want to determine whether or not this tragedy is a risk for us and our bodies, to your point before, have trouble distinguishing the difference between, you know, a danger that’s right in front of us, a predator or something. And and news of a disaster. And so we continue watching cult documentary after cult documentary, not necessarily because there’s some like twisted, perverse freak inside of us, although in some of us there is. I think it’s really because we’re almost trying to psychologically prepare for a moment when that might happen to us or we want to, you know, tell ourselves, like, if I if I watch enough documentaries, then I won’t be at risk for this type of abuse. But my argument is that, like, you know, no matter how many cult documentaries you watch or true crime documentaries, you watch it, it’s in our nature to be susceptible to this type of influence. And and not everybody is going to be equally drawn to a Wild, Wild, Country esque commune. You know, cults look different for everyone. Sometimes you’re not wearing a robe, you’re wearing some brightly patterned leggings. But, you know, this this type of communalism and tribalism is is extremely deep rooted.

Jameela Well, I mean, okay, so then politics, right? Not the first time I’ve brought this up, but the first time I brought it up with someone who can like, totally fucking school me on why this is happening, which is why I’m so excited to have you here. So a lot of us listening to this podcast, me, I’ve definitely been a part of it, have are either still in the throes of or have had a moment of that we’ve needed to be like, Hang on a minute, I need to check myself of, you know, a lot of us our liberals. I think a lot of the people listening to this. This is a podcast that is not specifically for one political ideology, but traditionally it is liberals and people even who are, you know, further left than that who listen to this podcast. Now, we have seen such a cultish ness amongst especially the far right that we’ve always been able to identify and just be, and especially because it’s so like deeply intertwined with a very kind of, almost orthodox religious beliefs.

Amanda Fundamentalism.

Jameela Yeah, fundamentalism and like the lack of reproductive rights and like holding onto a, you know, a fucking fictional book as, as some sort of like modern day law is, is so preposterous to us. But all while we were looking at them and pointing at them and being quite judgmental of them, we didn’t realize that we were brewing our own cultishness on the left. That I think, was a response to Donald Trump bringing the far right more into like, you know, an.

Amanda Even more cultish place.

Jameela Out of the periphery, like right into like the mainstream. And so I think that that meant that there was a response with our own cultish behavior somewhat in, you know, in the left and I’ve spoken to Megan Jayne Crabbe who is a wonderful activist on this podcast about her own kind of personal feelings about how there is a fear amongst us, a certain language that we have to use. And if you don’t use that language, you don’t use language perfectly, you will be ostracized, you will be punished. It is us versus them. A lot of the things that you point out, there’s a lot of fear mongering around the culture of it and and you that there’s a pressure to to fit into a kind of uniform. And I think as soon as there is a uniform for any kind of culture, then we slip into cult ideology. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the, you know, like the left’s ideas or the liberals ideas like like that’s what I subscribe to in my ideology. But I think the way that we have been carrying on has made me take a step back politically, because I and I think maybe this is the same thing that makes me not want to watch cult documentaries. As soon as I notice any kind of arbitrary behavior that feels like it’s happening for the sake of something, I immediately, inherently, since I was a baby, reject it. And so when that means social norms or anything that feels like I’m now being told to do something, but I’m not really being explained exactly why.

Amanda Oh, I have the same reaction. I mean, this is why I see cultish ness everywhere. Well, it’s a combination of things, including my dad growing up in a cult and me growing up on those stories, which we can talk about momentarily. But yeah, I mean, I talk about in in Cultish a little bit how when a piece of language cues you to have a strong emotional response while getting you to stop asking questions. When a piece of language prompts you to morally divorce yourself from some, you know, an inferior other. When a piece of language causes you to to simply stop thinking for yourself and creating a sense of pushback. That’s a language, that’s a piece of language worth questioning. And certainly, like I want to communicate that when I talk about the cultish spectrum, this wide range of groups from Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate all the way to social media influencers. I by no means want to communicate that the stakes and consequences of these groups are the same. But a lot of the techniques of manipulation and and sometimes solidarity forming in a very positive way are similar. And when you can notice them in your own speech, which is hard to do because language is so invisible and we pick it up so organically. I mean, it’s it’s the first thing we adopt when we join a group, and it’s the last thing we let go because we grow up with axioms like sticks and stones can break your bones, but words will never hurt you. You know, we really don’t stop to notice the material power of language. But if we can stop for a second to like, interrupt that extremely, you know, emotionally charged response whenever a buzz word or an us versus them label a nickname for the enemy is invoked and sort of ask like, what does this language mean? Because a lot of the times cultish language is not there to make communication clearer or more succinct. There’s specialized jargon that does that that may or may not be cultish. Cultish language often is there to make meanings more obscure. It’s really just there to rally people around some sort of collective mission, to get people to fall in line, to encourage conformity, to encourage those good, evil binaries. And, you know, we don’t like to live in nuance, obviously. You know,

Jameela Why? Why? Because I love I love I live for nuance.

Amanda I know. Me, too. And and people sometimes get angry. I mean, I’m sure you know better than most people, like as a public speaking figure that, you know, if.

Jameela No, I’m perfect and everyone loves me. So I think you’re mistaking me with someone else.

Amanda If you sort of, like, violate a dogmatically set vocabulary, you know, if you’re not using the language that has been established, just like this is what good people use, this is what the in-group uses. And if you’re violating that language or if you’re questioning it, you’re bad, you’re you’re an outsider like you you deserve to be demonized. You know, people people don’t like that type of questioning because it feels threatening. It feels really destabilizing when you’ve been taught like, oh, no, these are the answers and this is what makes someone good. You know, we think binarily in in so much of life, because it’s a simple way to categorize things, black and white thinking, if you will. And there have been psychologists who’ve who’ve tried to break that down. But, you know, a lot of life is binary, you know, like fight or flight.

Jameela Well, is it easier to control people if they think in black and white? Because then you don’t have to be challenged by their nuance and by their extra questions.

Amanda So I think binary thinking was probably extremely useful for survival thousands of years ago. But now, as life becomes more complex and more abstract, like we need complexity, but also on social media, so much complexity gets flattened and blunted and so there doesn’t end up being room. Also because of the pure practicality of like, how are you supposed to have a nuanced conversation with thousands and thousands and thousands of individuals at once?

Jameela And the word count like a.

Amanda And the word count! I know. Oh my God, how many times have I gone over the word count of an Instagram comment or DM, like? I’m being silenced. Cult of Instagram. Listen, I’m a member. But yeah, no, I think there is cultish ness all across the wide political spectrum. And that doesn’t mean that that cultish ness is going to result in the same type of violence or the same consequences. But it is worth if, you know, if you’re a curious person and if you consider yourself a critically thinking person who you know wants to wants to understand like some version of consensual reality, then it is a good idea to to question language that causes you to have those strong and yet confounding emotional reactions.

Jameela So with something like, you know, your podcast is excellent and your guests are really well-chosen and you talk about the cult of the Kardashians, the cult of Goop, the cult of feet, like foot fetishes, like the the cult of veganism, even. Can we like, we know what the dangers are of like Children of God, that terrible

Amanda Yes.

Jameela cult in which, like children have had sex. We know about like the Wild, Wild Country and like the kind of big dramatic, like even Scientology, kind of like cult slash religion. When it comes to the more sort of like asinine quote unquote harmless, you know what I mean? Like cultish groups that we find on social media. You’re not saying a cult is necessarily always evil, always bad. You use like football teams as an excuse, like a not an excuse as an example of.

Amanda Yeah. Or a music band.

Jameela Like that kid of cultish things that can be positive, right.

Amanda Yeah I think there’s there’s good and bad in everything. You know, fanaticism itself is a pretty intense emotion or like mode of participation. And so there can be, you know us versus then them dynamics and, you know, isolation from your real life. If you’re spending too much time as a member of a certain fandom. But yeah, the the idea of the podcast is to sort of analyze the the cults we all follow the the groups that put the cult in culture, whether we’re talking about Instagram therapists or Disney adults. And that is not to say that we should disaffiliate from any group that could be considered cultish. I don’t think we should do that at all. In fact, like I was concerned setting out to write Cultish that it would make me an even more sort of cynical, misanthropic version of myself. But instead, what all of this cult commentary has done for me is cause me to be more empathetic and more compassionate for the inherent sort of superstitious ness and dreaminess and communalism of people and more skeptical of myself. Like one of the most humbling things that I learned about while writing the book and we did an episode on this is how a one on one relationship can be cultish. You know, the cult of one could show up in a toxic romantic relationship. I have been in so many cults of one, I’m ashamed to admit. And that’s that’s a really humbling thing to notice. So, yeah, on the podcast we sort of or in the position of looking at everyone.

Jameela Before you, before you like, can we delve a little bit further into that

Amanda Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jameela Because I think that’s really important, right? So let’s use because I think that’s more accessible to a lot of people because all of us almost have been in some sort of either with a friend or a family member or a one on one romantic relationship. We have been in something that, you know, resembles what you’re describing. So talk to me about like the cult of one, like what that can look like so someone can see if they’re in one.

Amanda Oh, of course. I mean, I actually wrote like a little personal essay about this when Cultish first came out for Cosmopolitan, and I’m writing about it in my next book because, oh my gosh, I like I’m so curious and stupefied by my own behavior, you know, like, how did I end up in a dynamic that in retrospect clearly looks like a cult, even if I wasn’t, you know, necessarily in a robe on a com compound with a group of people. But, you know, the language we used to describe abusive relationships and cults is different. But so much of the influence is the same. You know, in relationships, you might call it grooming, whereas in cults, they call it love bombing. Although now on the Internet, love bombing is used to describe everything. Thank you West Elm, Caleb and the but it is true that like in a toxic relationship, so many of the red flags are similar. You find yourself defecting from your systems of support, from your family, from your friends in order to protect your loyalty to this person. You might end up dressing differently. You might end up, you know, mirroring the way that they speak. You end up sort of self justifying so much in order to stay because you were promised a certain future or a certain life, and you’re unwilling to admit that that promise is not going to come to fruition. Sort of sunk cost fallacy comes into play. Yeah. On that episode we talk to Dan Savage, who’s a Sex and Relationships advice columnist, and it was it was really enlightening. I never tire of talking about that because I think most people, if they’ve not, you know, been in sort of a spiritual quote unquote cult, they’ve had a boss or a friend or a lover who’s made them feel totally disconnected from themselves.

Jameela It’s relinquishing dominion, isn’t it, like your own kind of self-determination to someone else? It’s like that that is the inherent act of like joining a cult of one or a cult of many is like you are saying, Alright, my ideas or my reality, I’m going to relent to another maybe not fully, and it may be someone just saying stuff that you agree with. You know, I finally someone I fucking agree with, but I think a lot of it is just going like I’m going to lay down my ideas of the world for yours and take them on as my own and then maybe even preach them to others. Like we do this so much with diet culture.

Amanda Oh yes. Oh my God. And it’s also like you might think I mean, I think of myself as just like, incredibly independently thinking, like a mouthy person and the I mean, the right cult leader for you in a one on one dynamic might make you feel like extremely special in the beginning, like they see you for who you truly are. Meanwhile, they trade that later for for manipulation and for power. But it doesn’t always look like what you might think cult surrendering or cult joining looks like.

Jameela Totally so so when we start talking about the the the dangers. Right. We’ve said that like that can be kind of like a harmless form of cults and we’ve said like, you know, football clubs or fandoms, etc., like as long as they don’t push that shit too far can be like anything in moderation can be a lovely communal experience.

Amanda Absolutely.

Jameela But there is something quite like, you know, I spend maybe too much time thinking about diet, culture and exercise culture and wellness and the bullshit of the changing of the words to wellness when a lot of the time, not all of the time, a lot of the time, what they really mean is weight loss and being that, you know, like we’re it’s you know, it’s the new year we’re already being bombarded with like, okay, you’ve, you’ve, you’ve dared to eat and enjoy yourself with your friends and family, you fucking pig. Now it’s time to punish yourself. And it’s dry January and it’s veganuary and it’s weight loss January. And you’re going to start you’re going to buy a really expensive bit of exercise equipment. And this is going to be the year New year, thinner you. New Year, better you. So so this is kind of, you know, again, this kind of cultish thing that we come to expect, like we’re hyper normalized. It’s not like fucking weird that just because it’s a certain arbitrary month that came after Christmas, we now will get scolded and punished and all the stuff that we love gets taken away from us like we don’t we don’t question that. It’s like, well, it’s January, it’s the month of guilt. It’s the month of guilt and shame. But the fact that that’s not even weird,

Amanda I know.

Jameela It’s so weird that that’s a global phenomenon that happens at the top of every year, not randomly in March. Around March, we start to get new, like get your beach body ready, shame. But again, like the fact that we have seasons of shame, that we hypernormalize and that we do not question is already the sign of a cult.

Amanda 100%

Jameela Hypernormalizing to any like really peculiar arbitrary behavior I think is extremely scary.

Amanda It is. And it has this religious undertone. I mean, diet culture in general is rooted in American Protestantism. So in the US, I think diet culture is particularly cultish because of its capitalist qualities, of course, But also there’s this American Protestant self-flagellation thing going on. So in the U.S., you know, our ultimate religion is self-improvement, right? And diet culture and fitness culture is is almost a religion for us because it connects these sort of secular American values like productivity and individualism and, you know, a commitment to meeting normative beauty standards to sort of religious aspects.

Jameela Being being beautiful because you are made in God’s image and God’s image is beautiful. Like, is there something in that maybe?

Amanda I think so. I mean, this is a sort of prosperity gospel or prosperity gospel adjacent, where this idea emerged as a result of the Protestant Reformation that, you know, God not only plays a role in your heavenly blessings, but in your monetary blessings, in your quote unquote success in general. God plays a role in the American dream. This is why we have language like hashtag blessed, like there’s so much religious language in like American financial spaces, like we have the Sacred stock market bell And in God we Trust, but sort of, you know, diet culture and fitness culture connects these values, these virtues really, of of, you know, self-improvement and productivity and ambition with religious qualities like devotion and submission and transformation. And there’s a reason why, like so much shame is attributed to to weight and to bodies, because it has this this Christian undertone. Think of so much of the language that we use in diet culture. It is so explicitly religious talk of like cleansing and purifying and obedience and discipline and perfection. There are undeniably biblical undertones here.

Jameela Also, like don’t forget, like the ultimate Goop Queen Jesus, who did a 40 day fast. Can you imagine how much Instagram, especially really like five years ago, before we were all like, Fuck, this would have been like, Oh my God, what discipline? Look at those abs. Look at that long, glossy hair in a 40 day water fast. What a legend. Was it even water like? Oh, so, so devastating. But also then you kind of like you can kind of not to word salad this now I’m trying really hard to but I’m just very excited that you’re here. But I there’s also kind of like the cult of white supremacy. Right That is kind of unfortunately married with the kind of religious history of the United States,

Amanda Absolutely.

Jameela in particular of America. And so there is a there is a tie in to white supremacy and fatphobia, right.

Amanda Oh, of course.

Jameela And the ways in which we judge like body fat, especially in certain areas, as being too close to ethnic body shapes and our fear of that. So it’s this kind of like sickening like and I think why this is important is just to kind of make people realize, like, this is not a coincidence and this is not just you and you are not stupid for falling in line with any of this stuff or falling victim to it. This is a very old, very refined, well-oiled machine.

Amanda Becoming more well-oiled all the time and.

Jameela Constantly and more accessible because of technology.

Amanda Absolutely. And because of the way that the language changes. I mean, I remember in a past life, I worked in the beauty industry. I was a beauty editor. That was my day job for a few years. And I remember the day when I was like 24 that our editorial team was called into a conference room and told by our, you know, thin, white blond boss that we would no longer be using the term weight loss. We would no longer be using the term diet in our articles. We were now going to be using the terms cleanse and detox and wellness. The content was the same, that the messaging was the same, but the language was different. And this is how cults operate. Like, absolutely. They are constantly rebranding themselves. And I’m thinking of the multilevel marketing industry in particular, in order to meet the culture where they are but sell the same things.

Jameela Talk to us about the multilevel marketing. And this is this is a new terminology as in like, it’s not new terminology, but it’s new to Instagram where we’re hearing about it. MLM you might have seen it on Instagram as. Can you just quickly explain what that is?

Amanda Sure. So multilevel marketing companies are sort of the legally loopholed version of a pyramid scheme where, you know, maybe someone you went to high school with where it will slide into your DMS and say, Hey girl, do you want the opportunity to be a boss babe, to be an entrepreneur or a mompreneur Take the once in a lifetime opportunity to start your own business and sell essential oils or, you know, supplements or leggings or something. And the, the business structure works such that you pay a buy in fee and you are then required to recruit people to your so-called downline every single month, and you earn commission off everyone that you recruit. And the sort of promise is that if you work hard enough and believe enough in yourself and, you know, bootstrap and all the sort of American meritocracy dogma that we’re taught from birth and you’ll become a millionaire in a year, even though lots of people have done the math and it doesn’t check out if you were to recruit as many people to your downline as they say you should, then at the end of the year you would have like more people in your downline than the population of the Earth. So it’s just it’s a perfect scam. But a lot of the messaging of the multilevel marketing industry is the same messaging as the diet industry. It’s that, you know, if you don’t succeed in losing weight, then there is something profoundly morally inferior about you. You’re not only a bad person or an ugly person, but you’re a bad American. You’re a bad way. If you’re a bad mother, you’ve disappointed God. And to your point, yeah, there are all these like extremely racist American Protestant origins about, you know, how certain thin bodies, thin white bodies were pleasing to God. Of course, this is not not true and hard to prove. So so that all of the all of this messaging shares, shares a lot of qualities in common.

Jameela Since reading your book. Now I can’t see the word fucking culture without cult. Now, like it’s all I can see, the four letters just stand out ten times bigger than the rest of the other three. And I. I’m. I wonder if we could, like, delve a little bit deeper into, like, helping people spot, like, especially with, like, diet and beauty culture. You know, you bring up the I’m I’m always so afraid to even bring them up makes people think I’m obsessed with them. But right now they are relevant. But like the Kardashian esque influences, right? Like that has also been like a kind of like, cultish thing where and I don’t think it’s just them. I think they have fallen victim to. I think they’ve been a big part of perpetuating it. But I think they’re fallen victim to this weird trend that started like ten years ago. Where isn’t it interesting? Right. But if Angelina Jolie hadn’t been born. Like millions of faces wouldn’t look the way they currently do now because she came along like pre Angelina Jolie. And I’m not blaming her for anything, it’s just her fucking face. Right. But pre Angelina Jolie, we had more of a kind of like Kate Moss beauty standard. Meg Ryan like thinner lips, the tiny nose, the, you know, like maybe almond shaped eyes didn’t really matter, but there was like a little bit. It was just different. And then we had different types of beauty that kind of also existed within different ethnicities, you know, [inaudible], Right. All these different people. Angelina Jolie burst onto the screen and suddenly beauty is redefined for the first time since, like, Marilyn Monroe, where we’ve really like. It’s like Marilyn, Kate Moss and then Angelina, as in my opinion, as like the three kind of like global, iconic beauty.

Amanda The Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Jameela Yeah, exactly. Right. The trifecta of a fuck the rest of us who aren’t born looking like that. So Angelina Jolie suddenly with a very large lips and then quite like, you know, ethnic like almond shaped massive Bambi eyes, and then the teeny tiny nose and the very, very chiseled cheekbones. Everyone to me looks like a kind of pumped, morphed version of Angelina Jolie like. And it’s just lasted for such a long time. When I look online, it’s like everyone has the same. I’m sure I’m doing like the winged. I’m sure that some part of it is like, permeated like my own makeup style.

Amanda Oh, I know it’s hard. It’s I mean, even if you think like I have absolutely zero membership in the cult of the Look of the Kardashians or Angelina Jolie, like, it’s it’s hard to avoid I mean, through osmosis, it’s everywhere.

Jameela 100%. But you see people pumping their lips and making their noses small, like either contouring or literally like shaving down the bone of their nose, shaving down the bone of their jaw. People are getting this thing called threading now, don’t know if you’ve heard about it?

Amanda Yeah.

Jameela Threading is like the it’s the thread that goes from, like, your cheek up to your eye.

Amanda Oh my God, it makes me like, squeamish.

Jameela Oh, well, it’s not just that, but also, like, it’s been linked now to, like, fucking facial paralysis and neuralgia. Neuralgia is one of the single. It’s like, I think torture is the only way I could describe neuralgia, which is like a chronic nerve pain that you can’t get away from with any kind of level of pain medication. Like there’s no escape from it and it comes and goes and can last for like years on end sometimes for the rest of your life. I know people who’ve had it chronically, forever, so please don’t fuck with the nerves of your face if you can avoid it. But you know, like all the things we’re doing is all kind of like to morph these sort of Angelina faces, right? Because she sort of looked like that perfect mix of ethnicities. You’ve got like a lot of white women being like, well, I don’t like like black or Indian entire esthetics, but I do like the big lips and I do like the slanted eyes and I do like the long, thick hair like and so I like the butts, but I don’t like the arms and I don’t like the thighs and but I do like the breasts. And it’s just like just this cherry picking. And she kind of had it all in this one Lara Croft package.

Amanda Yes, so lucky for her.

Jameela Everyone but everyone but everyone looks the fucking same. Everyone looks the same.

Amanda I know. I know. It is. It is very disturbing. Like sometimes, you know, I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, but you’re like, come across an artist, like, right before they get big and then you catch up with them five years later and now they look like a Kardashian. And it’s like that is, that is haunting. But I think it is no coincidence that what is happening with beauty standards where we’re sort of like Frankensteining a monster, it’s like

Jameela To uniform.

Amanda Oh yeah, It’s like I am going to sort of grossly cherry pick individual body parts from different ethnicities. You know, conveniently for for my white body, I’m speaking theoretically here, not in my personal white body. But in that sort of similar way, we’re we’re doing that with belief and religion. You know, like we’re sort of like feasting from a buffet of beliefs and from beauty standards. And where this gets troubling is, is the cultural appropriation space. And when you sort of bastardize certain teachings or certain body parts and then commodify them. So I see this in new age spaces a lot where, you know, certain new age leaders or self-help leaders like Keith Ranieri of Nexium, for example, will sort of take like a Buddhist teaching and will twist it and warp it and commodify it and sell it. And that really appeals to like a white audience. So for example.

Jameela Yeah I think of yoga and I think of Kundalini, I think of white women, I don’t think of India of people.

Amanda Exactly, exactly. And that’s a lot of what’s happening in the beauty industry, you know, whereas in self-help spaces or wellness spaces, you might take the Buddhist tenet of drive all blames into one and turn it into you are the only person that’s responsible for your pain. That’s a limiting belief. Don’t be a victim. That’s a victim mindset in the beauty space we’re turning, you know, so, so many qualities that people are just naturally born with into something that you can profit from on Instagram.

Jameela God, you’re so smart. I just wanna talk to you all day today. I want you to come back on this podcast 45 times. But I, uh. I just. I really enjoy, like, this lens that you have, like, kind of. Of gifted us to be able to look at all of us through. Like, it’s a it kind of, like, helps with the. And I really like the fact that you kind of you disavow the word like brainwashing. But I’d like to find another like it, just the manipulation. It helps us. It helps us with our manipulation to realize that this is very procedural, very procedural. And and it’s just a model that has existed kind of for thousands of fucking years this just happening all over again. And it’s vital for us to kind of like have the ability to see the signs and find out and to know that like, listen, you can trust yourself. You can give yourself agency to participate a little bit in something that’s a bit culty because that’s a bit of fun. That’s all right. You know, like, I’m sure I do.

Amanda Oh, I absolutely do. I mean, how how lonely would life be if we had to completely defect from everything considered a little bit cultish?

Jameela 100%. I mean, look, when you to I have lived like I’m this is such a weird and ridiculous thing to say. I’m not sure if I’ll keep it in, I probably will because I’ve got no boundaries

Amanda Me either.

Jameela But like I. I feel weird things, but like, I became, like, aware, like I wasn’t a very good communicator when I was younger, but I became a good communicator, like much later in life. And at least I think I’m quite a good communicator. And I became aware that because of my height and because of my fucking big boobs and my broad shoulders and like I have a kind of like very eccentric sometimes way of dressing. And I’m a character because I’m a fucking actor, I’m a performer. I have a way to be able to communicate with people that sometimes can be powerful at times. Right? And people listen to the words that I say, and I make a fucking stink about something online and people will follow me. So I have been told before and I have this fear about myself, like I have the makings of a cult leader and I was like.

Amanda Oh, I’ve even told that too.

Jameela Exactly and I’ve got like the long, the long religious looking hair and like, you know, and I’m, you know, I to be a you know, I am I stand up for things and I reject things. And I, I aim to sway people, but not because I want them to sway in my direction. I would like them to learn how to sway in their own direction.

Amanda Oh, that’s beautiful.

Jameela And so I’m extremely like careful of trying not to like slogan too much or yeah, with I Weigh in and of itself being a community, I’ve always been like, Oh my God, When I was reading your book with every page, I was like, Please don’t make it that I’m a cult. Like, I was just trying really hard to like and it’s and it’s hard because there is like a with any kind of form of like, quote unquote branding. There is a kind of cultish.

Amanda Oh, my God totally.

Jameela Target group. So I’m like, how fuck do I make sure I Weigh doesn’t become a cult and I don’t become motherfucking Bhagwan or Sheela or the combo of the two. Like, I want to be aware of how I make sure that I don’t partake because I don’t want that. Like I’ve always tried to tell people, don’t try and be. I don’t want to be aspirational. I shouldn’t be aspirational because I’m a fucking.

Amanda Oh, this is so funny.

Jameela I because I’m a fuck up. But like, but how do, how do I how do we as brand builders with a generation of brand builders, like how do we prevent ourselves from like being complicit. Is that okay to ask you?

Amanda Yeah. Oh, my God of course.

Jameela And is it weird that I said that I have the potential of a cult leader?

Amanda Oh, my God. No, not at all. And I completely relate. I mean, we sort of. We sort of parody ourselves on my podcast Sounds Like A Cult where we, like, have little chants and we have little phrases that we repeat, and it’s a little bit meta and it’s a complete parody. Well, all the while acknowledging very seriously that if you have a public platform and we I mean, I don’t know how you feel, but like we never anticipated that our podcast would grow sort of

Jameela Oh same.

Amanda of quote unquote cult following. And, you know, and that said, a lot of cult leaders, you know, they didn’t set out to be cult leaders. They were just these sort of opportunists and opportunism is a thing that a lot of artists have in common with cult leaders. But but I completely relate. It’s like, how do I how do I, you know, communicate my ideas in a way that feels cultish in a good way? You know, marketing language and cultish language often have a lot in common. But, you know, I’m interested in marketing. And so, you know, it’s a really worthwhile question. And of course, you know, again, I always approach everything from a language angle. And so I think it’s it’s important to make space for other people to use their own vocabularies to talk about your work. There needs to be a space for pushback. In Cultish, I talk about this one linguistic technique that all sort of dangerous cult leaders use. It’s called the thought terminating cliche, and it’s a sort of stock expression that’s easily memorized, easily repeated, and aimed at shutting down independent thinking and questioning. So

Jameela Can you give an example?

Amanda Yeah, of course. So like in self-help wellness spaces, I already brought up this term, but they might, you know, dismiss a valid concern or doubt that you could have as a limiting belief in. I brought up the term conspirituality earlier. I want to define it. That’s a combination of the words conspiracy theory and spirituality. It’s the sort of like. Qanon Shaman, they’re like anti-vax wellness warriors who seem kind of feminist, but also right wing. It’s that sort of sort of human who believes in the new age tenet that we’re on the brink of a paradigm shift, but also the conspiratorial tenet that a secret cabal of evil elites is secretly controlling the socio political order. So in conspirituality spaces, they might, you know, say things like don’t let yourself be ruled by fear or trust the plan. Do your research. Research of course not meaning peer reviewed studies, but falling down the the quote unquote, right Reddit rabbit holes. So thought terminating cliches also show up in our everyday lives. There are things like, Oh, boys will be boys. It’s all in God’s plan. It is what it is. And if you can, you know, avoid coming up with your own thought terminating cliches to catchily and zingily shut down people’s independent thinking and push back. That’s that’s a good start.

Jameela Well, totally. I mean, something that will say like we have to tentatively, tentatively try to do on this podcast is like we are challenging certain things. Like when I challenge the left, I always feel like it’s sort of like. Like my heart’s going to fall out of my vagina cause I feel so afraid, like challenging these things or like challenging beauty culture, like we’re trying to challenge it, but also trying not to be cultish in how we challenge it. But I, but I’m so grateful for your work because it’ll just maintain that I stay on my toes to make sure I’m I’m trying with this to create a free space for learning.

Amanda I know me too, again, like I always with everything that I write, I’m just constantly realizing that, like, my mission is to be more empathetic toward others and more skeptical of myself.

Jameela 100%. So well-said. And I think if we were all to adopt that way of thinking, I think this would be a better place. Such a better place. So, okay, just before you go, tell me, what advice do you have for people out there who’ve now just been like, maybe have some of their, like, beliefs challenged or shaken or suddenly like, fuck, It feels like it’s just everyone’s like a mist in the air like, what advice do you have when it comes to, you know, maintaining self-determination through such a like, culty time?

Amanda Yes. You know, I spoke to a Jonestown survivor for Cultish.

Jameela What is Jonestown, quickly?

Amanda Oh, Jonestown. That was a sort of spiritual turn, socio political infamous group of the sixties and seventies that ended in a mass suicide that was really more of a murder, but that got covered in an extremely sensational way in the media. This is the the tragedy that the phrase drinking the Kool-Aid derived from, because a lot of people in that group died, or almost a thousand people by forcibly ingesting a mixture of grape flavored it wasn’t actually Kool-Aid. It was a different brand. Fun fact. And and poison so that’s that was this really really just one of the most notorious cults of of all time. It’s really the tragedy that put cults on the mainstream map in addition to the Manson family murders. But I spoke to a woman who was very bright and service oriented and and just really wanted to make a better world who not only survived Jonestown, she went on to join Synanon, which was another sort of seventies era socialist utopian compound that my dad was forced to join as a child. Okay, so like, this source was just a wild person to talk to and had so much insight and so much self-awareness and humor. And she told me, you know, I was not ready to give up on the one compound solution after Jonestown. That’s why she joined Synanon after the two notorious cults. She was like, okay, I’m good. I’m a communal list. If I could find everything I wanted to on one compound, I would. But it just doesn’t seem to be working out for me. So she was like, instead, I think the thing is to join multiple different quote unquote, cults to, you know, have one foot into a meditation community if you so choose. She was like, I also am a part of an immigrant’s rights activism community. Sometimes I get together with my old Synanon pals and we have dinner and shoot the shit, and she’s a member of multiple different groups, all of which allowed her to have one foot out the door and she could leave completely, voluntarily with minimal exit costs. And I think this is sort of maybe the answer to make kind of a cringy finance analogy. You want to diversify your social and spiritual portfolio, and instead of like fully investing in one thing and that can sort of keep you as skeptical, but also as dreamy as you need to be.

Jameela That’s great advice. So everything in moderation, essentially.

Amanda Essentially. And, you know, the group will tell you if moderation is not allowed. You know, like even Scientology on the outset will be like you can participate in any religion. You know, you’re totally free. You can have one foot out the door. But increasingly, it becomes clear that that isn’t true. So if you start to feel this sort of cognitive dissonance, like, oh, no, like I love this group, I was promised something really great, but what’s happening doesn’t align with that. They might serve you a thought terminating cliche to shut you down. You know, they might serve you in us them emotionally charged buzzword to shut you down. But trust that feeling trust that cognitive dissonance because any group that is, you know, cultish but not too cultish for comfort will allow you to participate casually.

Jameela Fabulous. Thank you so much. Come back thousand times. Come hang out with me any time. You’ve been a real fucking joy. Everyone should go and. Tell us where we can find you.

Amanda Oh, sure. Okay, so I have two books. One is called Cultish The Language of Fanaticism. The other is called Word Slut A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language. In case anyone was curious about my politics. There are nerdy, juicy linguisticy books, and they’re available wherever books are sold, including on audiobook. And I also have a podcast called Sounds Like a Cult, and I’m in the cult of Instagram hardcore. I want to defect, but I don’t know if I can. And you can find me on there @Amanda_Montell.

Jameela Excellent. Well, I’m sure everyone will. I didn’t get a chance to dig in enough into you, but because your ideas and your thoughts are so interesting. But

Amanda I’ll remain a mystery.

Jameela Maybe another day. Maybe another day. You’ve got another book coming out. Come back again for that. But you’ve been a joy. And I feel like I’ve learned so much. Thank you so much.

Amanda Oh, it’s my pleasure.