I keep seeing people talk about the “oncoming cult boom” like we haven’t been here for like three years.
Here’s a fun game:
Go onto incognito mode and start a fresh account ok the social media website of your choice. When it asks you about your interests, pick “health and wellness” and/or the religion of your choice and fill the rest in with whatever you like. See how long it takes the algorithm to give you straight up cult recruitment videos.
When I tried this on TikTok I got some in under 30 seconds.
this is important information but i also feel like a lot of people aren’t really able to identify cult-produced media on their own. here is a (non comprehensive) list of red flags for this:
presenting an image of a wholesome, good, unified in-group while simultaneously presenting the out-group as shameful, dirty, or evil
presenting the narrative “i would be dead if i didn’t join X”
bragging about adhering to high-control rules, such as restriction of sleeping, eating, or ability to leave
heavy emphasis placed on “retreats,” aka trauma bonding or brainwashing members en masse in a secluded area
spiritual leader (typically a living person, or often in the case of older cults, a board of directors) presented as an infalliable extension of god
“comfort zones” and similar concepts presented as an inherently bad thing that you need to overcome
constant recruitment efforts
public faces of the organization are typically extremely extroverted and physically abled, and there’s a spoken or unspoken shame placed on the group members who don’t resemble this
there is an ex-member community that insists the group should be acknowledged as a cult (search for “ex-[group name]” or “[group name] abuse” to find relevant online pages)
An important point, that I think should be made in that more recent cult often don’t have 1 spiritual leader, it can also either be a group or even peer pressure where everyone is pressure everyone into observing each others.
I think it’s important to talk about it because a lot of people get suspicious and then brush it off because their is no leader.
