Relaxed Fit: Too Cultish for Comfort w/ Amanda Montell

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Speaker 4 There's no place to escape to. This is the last podcast.

Speaker 4 On the left.

Speaker 4 That's when the cannibalism started.

Speaker 4 I want to dox ourselves, Eddie.

Speaker 4 I'm going to tell the audience where you live so they can come and see if my pea tastes good. good.

Speaker 4 So hold on. You're going to send the pea to my house.
Oh, no, I'm going to be there.

Speaker 4 Oh, you're going to be there. I'm going to be on the lawn with my fresh bladder filled.
Front.

Speaker 4 What? Front lawn or backyard. Backyard with the side gate open.
Dude, I fucking piss all over my backyard. But I'm saying I'm going to be putting it in a cup so that our wonderful listeners

Speaker 4 will come to your home. Pick one randomly what a listener to listen to come drink your pea at my house john reynolds you hear that johnny you've just been selected to come to ed larson's home for

Speaker 4 it's at four

Speaker 4 niner

Speaker 4 11

Speaker 4 47

Speaker 4 dumb ass lane it's nice that you don't know these actual facts about my life seven you're an irresponsible friend and it benefits me occasionally i know the first letter of the street that you live on and Google Maps completes it.

Speaker 4 And that's all that need.

Speaker 4 That's all I need. That's all I need.
Where's my Christmas card?

Speaker 4 I'll show you. I'll show you.
We're really full of it. We're filled with it today.
Hello. Welcome to It's Not Side Stories.
It's last podcast on the left, but it's side stories. Yeah.

Speaker 4 My name is Henry Zaprowski. I'm sitting here with Ed Larson.
How you doing, buddy?

Speaker 4 I'm beat. Will you explain yourself to the people, or do you want me to? We'll do all this.
Let's talk about this real quick.

Speaker 4 So, just so you know, this week we had to change things last minute because I hate to even announce this. There is no announcement.
There is no announcement.

Speaker 4 There's no real announcement, but I don't really like telling the audience because sometimes they're so mean about things that we are happy about. I don't know why.

Speaker 4 It's interesting because everyone thinks I'm the nice one, but you're the one that actually listens and cares. Well, it's because I work really hard, and the show means quite a bit to me.

Speaker 4 I don't know. It seems like it's my entire life.

Speaker 4 And so I don't like telling the audience sometimes the things that we're happy about because they get really angry about things that make us happy sometimes. But I,

Speaker 4 we did

Speaker 4 actually hit a very historical landmark for last podcast on the left this week. We filmed our first ever television show pilot.
And

Speaker 4 due to my fucked up travel coming back from Salt Lake City, it has fucked with our normal recording schedule of this week. So that is why you have found yourself here listening to us talk like this.

Speaker 4 I mean, you know, you don't have to say it's bad without saying it's bad. What do you mean? Everything's great.
Oh, yo, technically, everything is awesome. Yes.
But this is, this is a part of life.

Speaker 4 We did just jump right into it. You mentioned getting stoned.
Before we recorded. Yes.
I was excited for that, but we don't have to. I guess the people deserve more than that.
Are you stoned now?

Speaker 4 I took a hint, but nothing crazy. See, I legite a mushroom pill.
Whoa, good for you, dude. Do you want to brought some? Wow, no,

Speaker 4 I got stuff I have to do. I'll just put them on the table and you can think about it.
Oh, wow. That's awesome.
Well, guys, you see, today it really works out. So, we

Speaker 4 figured that we could at least. Rob, you want a little helper?

Speaker 4 You know what? Why the hell not? Yeah, give it to old boy. Give it, old boy.
Let him try it. It's just

Speaker 4 natural, man. Oh,

Speaker 4 he caught the mushroom pill in his mouth.

Speaker 4 It's already done.

Speaker 4 Wow, we already recorded enough for today.

Speaker 4 Wow. I feel good now, man.
Holy fucking shit. Hell yeah, dude.
Well, good work, guys. Yeah.
I took two lions, mate, and I took one real mushroom pill. Wow.

Speaker 4 I really wanted to turn it up for you people today. I'm proud of you, man.
That's awesome. Thank you.

Speaker 4 Thank you. Good work, Eddie.
Good work, bro. Toss that shit right in his fucking mouthpiece.
Yeah, yeah. You were like a grateful, dead-themed sea lion.
That was cool. Yeah, that was cool, dude.

Speaker 4 Good work. Wow, I'm impressed by you.
See you on the other side, man.

Speaker 4 You're just going to get slightly more energetic. It's very good.
Well, give you one update. Let's give them one update.

Speaker 4 The one update that we have from this week's Side Stories is the fact that we now know that Dan Rivera, paranormal researcher for the New England, I believe it's the Society of Paranormal Research, Nesper.

Speaker 4 You know it's Nesper.

Speaker 4 I know it's Nesper, but I want to make sure I have

Speaker 4 the acronym correct. Okay.
So what I love is, obviously,

Speaker 4 he died in his hotel room while road managing for Annabelle the Dahl. We covered it this week.
The whole internet is a buzz. I love the fact that we are still like us

Speaker 4 leading the way with other, I guess, paranormal edged podcasts

Speaker 4 have been really hammering this, right? Between this, and we're the only ones covering this story and the Epstein story. Annabelle's been hot news for a while.
Yes, we're the only ones covering this.

Speaker 4 Is everyone talking about it? I don't listen to other shows. No.
Oh, okay. It's just us.

Speaker 4 But I've seen other things, but my subreddits are talking. How do people not care about this? This is insane news.

Speaker 4 Because there's some people that are just saying, oh, it's just some guy who died in a hotel room, and you guys don't understand. It's Annabelle.

Speaker 4 But this is the difference: is that we've taken this seriously enough that the coroner and the EMTs have made statements. Number one, coroner hopped on it saying we are doing the autopsy right now.

Speaker 4 They are curious. They want to know what happened and they're digging into it.
They said it might take a couple of months. I guess you have to sift through his gucks.

Speaker 4 You have to like, you know, you got to pop open the hatch and you got to play with his ball. Foul play is suspected.
No, not necessarily. Police report says natural.

Speaker 4 Natural, but there's a lot of ways things naturally happen. I mean, if Annabelle gets up and starts walking around and you have a heart attack, is that natural? Technically, but

Speaker 4 what it seems is we've taken this so seriously that the EMTs had to come out and say, no, Annabelle was not in the room when his body was found. So that means either Annabelle tried to get an alibi

Speaker 4 by leaving town.

Speaker 4 Oh,

Speaker 4 she grabbed the keys, hopped in the car, and then left. Or someone's like, hey, there's a doll behind that wheel of the car.
Also, or he left her in the car, right?

Speaker 4 Where they're saying, now he left her in the car, which is we don't even understand. We always bring all of our stuff and we're on the road.
We take it out of the car, we bring it inside that.

Speaker 4 He should have brought Annabelle in the car. Annabelle should be treated better than a dog.
So then, my question is.

Speaker 4 That doll is also probably worth, how much do you think Annabelle can get at auction? $1,500. No, I bet she gets like at least you have to

Speaker 4 $150,000 at least. You have to identify her correctly, though.

Speaker 4 You got to identify her. We don't know.
We don't really know. I guess not.
We don't.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that could be. It does look new.
It does.

Speaker 4 That is my problem with it. My other thing is, is that he left Annabelle in a hot car all night.

Speaker 4 Could Annabelle have gotten revenge for being left in the car? Well, if you're going to leave anything in a car, nighttime is the better time. No, no time.
That's when Annabelle gets scared.

Speaker 4 It is when she gets scared. Annabelle's used to the company of other demons.

Speaker 4 Annabelle's used to being in a crowded room of other cursed objects that she can hang out with. It's like, that was her community.
Those are her people.

Speaker 4 Dan Rivera, this criminal, he stole her from her community. Yeah, I'm blaming the innocent dead man.
Yes.

Speaker 4 He pulled her out of her community. I mean, she should have been sleeping with the ghosts at Gettysburg.
Who's the name of the guy that got sent to South America accidentally?

Speaker 4 Everyone was upset about? Yeah.

Speaker 4 This is like that. The guy who they thought was an MS-13.
Yeah. This is like that.
Annabelle got taken from her community and now she's

Speaker 4 13.

Speaker 4 That's what I got. Actually, I got MS 69.

Speaker 4 Oh, hell yeah. I can't see it.
What are you doing the iron lung? Can't feel my dicken balls.

Speaker 4 But yeah, you know what I'm saying. Yeah.
Jason Hawes, Jason Hawes, the ghost hunter guy. Do you know him? He says, recently, the world lost a good man.

Speaker 4 Dan Rivera was an army veteran, a father of four, a husband, and someone who truly cared about people.

Speaker 4 What's even harder to see right now are the posts blaming his death on things like Annabelle the doll. Wow.

Speaker 4 It's coming from a ghost hunter. So what does he wanted to blame it on? Like blood pressure and cholesterol and shit like yes.
Don't you know what your job is? Yeah, dude. Kayfe, bro.

Speaker 4 Yeah, investigate. Ghost hunter.
Yeah, bro. This is your industry, dude.
You should be on a plane, a private jet to Gettysburg right now. Absolutely.

Speaker 4 Annabelle should be led from place to place in chains. Yes.
You should now, Annabelle should be in the double-locked and you should be driving it around with big tongs and hazmat suits.

Speaker 4 Hannibal Lecter style. Pump it up, guys.

Speaker 4 This is about the industry as a whole, you fucking idiots. Yeah, really? Like, honestly, if it's not real, let's fucking bump this up anyway.
Let's make it real.

Speaker 4 Come on, motherfuckers. There's stuff out there.
People have a hard time believing in the paranormal. You need to be, your job is to act dumb.
This bitch doll killed your friend.

Speaker 4 And you don't give a fuck. Yeah,

Speaker 4 if you for that. Unless you did talk about.
I guess this is about, again, the fentanyl issue in the country. But I don't think, again, if he's got, I don't think necessarily he had the.

Speaker 4 We talked about it last week. I don't know if he had the Gettysburg toot.
No, I don't know.

Speaker 4 You don't want to get it on the Gettysburg Choo-Choo train, buddy, because it goes straight to the hotel, hotel, California.

Speaker 4 There's no checking. You can check in, but you can't check out.

Speaker 4 All right, so you got to be careful. So Annabelle, so far, has an alibi.
Yes. But I also believe that added alibi also adds a motive to Annabelle.

Speaker 4 I just don't understand why another person here,

Speaker 4 ghostly images of Gettysburg manager Christina Rowan is brushing off speculation as well, saying that Riviera's death is related to allegedly haunted Raggedy and doll, telling everyone, say, there is a logical reason for this.

Speaker 4 Dan has handled the doll for decades. Why now? Could it not just be natural causes? Unless.
It very well could be. This man was living a chili fry.

Speaker 4 I know the doll is inhabited by an ancient age-less demon entity. That thing has been sitting and waiting for its moment at any chance.
All it wants to do is to jump into Baron Trump.

Speaker 4 that's all it wants it knows the second it has access it's already in the area it's in the it's in it's it's close that's close enough this is a demon looking for it shot dan rivera i'm again i'm not blaming the dead man but i am let's say he's nine schlitzes in he's been drinking all day you'll think that

Speaker 4 everyone's telling him he's cool as hell all goddamn day you know he's kind of like having some fun some groupies some he's got some anti-groupies in there he's got people hanging out all the ghost adventure schools are like hanging out you got all the fucking, you got your bros hanging.

Speaker 4 Maybe you do some dabs and shit. Next thing you know, you're not fucking maybe thinking so clear.
You leave a gap. What do you think happened to Epstein?

Speaker 4 What do you think? What do you think did happen to him? Santa Claus did it. Santa Claus? Yeah, dude.
Also, you see the thing with the letter that Trump drew the

Speaker 4 naked woman with big boobies and then uses his signature as the pubic hair. That's kind of fun.
It was to Epstein and he said, here's to another wonderful year of secrets.

Speaker 4 They're not secrets when you talk about them existing.

Speaker 4 Here's to another wonderful year of secrets.

Speaker 4 I got to start writing that more. That's a good way to incriminate your friends post-death.
You never know. You can always write that.
And also, you know what's fun too?

Speaker 4 You know what you can really always, what's great in this country right now? What?

Speaker 4 If you want to freak out a dude that you don't know, you can be like, corner him at any point and just be like, hey, dude,

Speaker 4 I know what you did.

Speaker 4 And you just fucking cruise, man. Ruin a bunch of guys' nights.
That's what you got to do. Start making fake evidence.
Put evidence on people. Have fun.
Yes, that's a great thing to do.

Speaker 4 We need to plant some of this evidence on Dan Rivera. I know it's a little late.
Wow. You know, like, no, no, we don't want to do it.
There's already plenty, Eddie. Yes.

Speaker 4 I mean, I don't know. There's more evidence against Annabelle the Doll than there was against Eddie.

Speaker 4 Yep. You think so? I think there's a more solid case against Annabelle the doll.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Okay. Sadly.
Baby doll instead of baby oil. Baby Doyle.
Baby Doll. I'm trying to think of a pun.

Speaker 4 None of these are working, but they're all dolly. They all sound gross.
We worked very hard this week. I worked hard this week.
We worked extremely hard.

Speaker 4 You can't come up with every single baby oil joke in the world. You're right.
You're right.

Speaker 4 There is something very funny and ironic about them saying that they don't want people turning Dan's death into some bullshit story to generate clicks and attention.

Speaker 4 Dude, that is their whole business.

Speaker 4 That's all they've ever done. Lean in.
If you want me to pretend like anything you say is real, this is real. Just lean in for the sake of the rest of us.
They've leaned in forever. You're selling.

Speaker 4 They've killed the cop. You're on tour with the doll that you are saying is cursed.

Speaker 4 So let's not all fucking pretend that the whole bit isn't that Annabelle's doll is is cursed, so somebody has got to help the industry, guys.

Speaker 4 Zach Bacon is the only people, he's the only one trying, and he's not good enough at it. Yeah, you know what?

Speaker 4 If it wasn't real, if Dan Rivera died of natural causes, then you should just cancel the entire tour and do a memorial and everyone wear a black armband.

Speaker 4 The only thing that those people should have done is scrawled demonic letters on his body and put a noose in there, and then we all would be eaten for a month. Yes, So it would be great news.

Speaker 4 For everyone. And you know who would want this? His kids.
Dan would want this. Yes.
His family wants this.

Speaker 4 You don't think he wants to die. His wife died.
Know what you're saying? Dan died for no reason. For no reason.
Dan died for no reason.

Speaker 4 His wife, I think it's triple the amount if he's killed by a doll. I think that she gets more money or he might not have been able to afford health insurance at all.

Speaker 4 Oh, honestly, though, if you like, say, haunt the doll, if you put that on the death certificate, I don't know what life insurance you're getting. They might take

Speaker 4 it. This might be a whole life insurance thing.
Okay, I see what we are doing. Okay, now I think that maybe, yeah, now I'm starting to see how we might be hurting the dialogue.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 If this is really all about

Speaker 4 paying out for the kids. Prudential don't give a fuck.
If they're like, oh, haunted doll.

Speaker 4 Really? Yeah. Sorry.
Sorry, you get nothing. Have you heard of a little place called the street or the gutter? Because that's where your family will be.

Speaker 4 Also, how much money could he have? He's on, he's in doll money,

Speaker 4 he's breaking off a piece. Oh, yeah, you know, the guys over at Nesper are really raking it in.
He's selling out shows, man. But I think, but you got to break off to Annabelle.

Speaker 4 I mean, we sell out shows, it's not that much. Also, Tony Sparra.
Tony Sparra is probably getting a big cut. I think that poor Dan, I can bet you right now that they're lowballing Dan.

Speaker 4 I'm already saying this. I'm talking shit.

Speaker 4 I think they're lowballing Dan, and I think that he, there's no way he was getting the proper cut.

Speaker 4 Let me see. Tony Sparra.
Let's see what he's got. All right, I'm going to follow him.
He's got 10,000 followers. I think he deserves more.
Oh, it's private. Tony, you're a star.
Get off of private.

Speaker 4 Most people don't like him. Whoa.
Most people don't like him. Man, he's a bit of scammers.
I mean, he's a bit of scammers. Yeah, and he did protect the child molester, I guess.

Speaker 4 That one time, yeah, sure. For a while, for a couple decades.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 But hey,

Speaker 4 his job was to protect Annabelle the doll. And if I was the guys in the EMTs that now have to deal with this, where's Annabelle now?

Speaker 4 Where the fuck is Annabelle now? Oh, she's probably back home in her cage. I don't think so.

Speaker 4 By the way, is Annabelle not sitting in an evidence

Speaker 4 locker? Well, she was in the car. If she was in the hotel room, I feel like she might, you would have to put her in an evidence locker.
Because what did she see? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 Man, what if this whole thing's Robert?

Speaker 4 Oh, my fucking God.

Speaker 4 What if this whole thing? What if we send a guy to whack him? If we find out down the road. Yeah, he sent Lee Harvey Oswald's ghost to go whack him.

Speaker 4 Dan Rivera was recently in Key West, talked shit to Robert, left.

Speaker 4 Annabelle finishes the job. Also, with the idea of Annabelle's there drinking Robert's milkshake.
Whoa. If Annabelle's going to Key West, that's Robert's territory.
All right.

Speaker 4 That's like going into Caprazy Town.

Speaker 4 It's like going from Jersey down to Florida to see the mix with the Italian mafia in Florida.

Speaker 4 Everybody's angry. You're cutting in on their business.

Speaker 4 The haunted doll mafia. Now that's a movie I really want to see.
Nothing would make me happier. Just coming for Baggins.
Just

Speaker 4 the doll father.

Speaker 4 The doll father. And it's just about...

Speaker 4 Something, somebody's going to do something.

Speaker 4 I'm about to ask Baggins.

Speaker 4 Somebody's going to do something. Like it's a little actual Marlon Brando doll.

Speaker 4 We have to free Betsy. What's her name? Who's the doll? Becky? Who's the doll that Baggins has prisoner? Yeah, where's Becky? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 Honestly, I think a lot of this has got to do with Kamala. Yeah.
Yeah, I think a lot of this is just a lot of rage. A lot of women are super angry right now.

Speaker 4 I don't know what for, but they're really, really upset. Peggy guy.
Peggy. Peggy.
Peggy. I don't know who Becky is.
Yeah, some other bitch he's talking about.

Speaker 4 Some other fucking woman he's got on his mind. Some soda cotton stuffed bitch.

Speaker 4 You know what he likes?

Speaker 4 Some dirty ass drag-along old coup stay fecking.

Speaker 4 And also, people were kind of getting on us for

Speaker 4 doing some censorship, but I'm going to let you guys know right now. If we really want to say the word cunt, I'm going to say it.
Yeah. I just want you to know.
Did we censor that?

Speaker 4 Yeah. I don't know.
No, not no, not that one. No.
If I want to say it.

Speaker 4 It's our choice. So if I want to say it and I want to call some woman woman that, I will.
Yeah. Or a man.

Speaker 4 Or a fucking doll.

Speaker 4 You cut.

Speaker 4 I can't. I'm not going to be able to do it.
No, wait.

Speaker 4 Save.

Speaker 4 Save it till I see your fucking face. We got to save it.
No, also, I don't know if we should. Because she's on a roll.

Speaker 4 Would you go see Annabelle? Yeah. Yeah, right? Even more so now.

Speaker 4 I feel that way too. I feel like I'm more, I want to go see her more now.
Oh, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 4 This is the best thing that happened to Nesper. Would you touch her? Because he did touch her right before this happened.
Well, yeah, it's his job to touch her. Also, I am.

Speaker 4 You can't leave her in the car. I hate to go back to this.

Speaker 4 What if it gets stolen? That's expensive. I just think that in the end, he's like, we'll just get another one.
I mean, we'll just get a fuck another one. Honestly.

Speaker 4 We just molest somebody in front of that one, and that one will get a new one. Boom.
It does look new. I can't get over this fact.
It's kept very well.

Speaker 4 My grandmother was in great shape at 93 yeah just because she was a narcissist and full of shit right she took great care of herself technically i think she had a great body

Speaker 4 your grandmother i'm just saying for a 93 year old woman wow she kept it like tight in a way interesting yeah i don't like it i'm not saying i'm i'm not admiring her body it sounds like you are because i didn't even bring it up i'm just saying that she looked you'd be surprised if you had if you had cut the clothes off of her yeah you'd be super surprised someone did you could probably ask oh Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 I got all the morgue pictures.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's some of my favorite. I wanted to prove she was dead.
You wanted to restart rotten.com with your grandma's.

Speaker 4 Listen, it's called OC.

Speaker 4 All right. It's called, I get to farm this material from my family.

Speaker 4 So who's Annabelle Killing next?

Speaker 4 Well, hopefully. Tony Sparrow, right? I mean,

Speaker 4 I mean, do you think he's scared right now? Tony Sparre is sending some other guy. There's no way it's going to be Tony Sparret himself who's going to come and handle the situation.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 He's going to get an intern in there.

Speaker 4 I think this is the perfect place for a new grad from Delaware Paranormal Institute of America where you can go and you can just kind of like pull once some guy like, oh, gee walkers.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I can't wait. I love working for experience.
Ryan Buell.

Speaker 4 Who's Ryan Buell? Paranormal State.

Speaker 4 No, he's no, he's like, if I was Ryan Buell, I would be looking for my own Annabelle at this point in time. You need to source your own group, dude.
Wow.

Speaker 4 If you look up any paranormal investigator right now, Dan Rivera pops right up. Of course.
This is big for him. This is the biggest news that in the nicest thing that ever happened to Dan Rivera.

Speaker 4 That is so sad. That is so sad.
It's like when we were on that plane just now, we were just flying from Salt Lake. We were playing from L.A.
to Salt Lake City. Jeff Propes was on it.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 I didn't even know who he was. Dude, he didn't know.
I had to be like that little elfin man. I was like, people kept coming up to him and taking pictures and pitching themselves to be on Survivor.

Speaker 4 I was like, literally at the end, I was like, Henry, who is this little fucker?

Speaker 4 But then there was a part of me that realized if the plane went down, we'd die in obscurity. Yeah, no one would know.
Yeah, it's just Jeff Propes' death.

Speaker 4 Now we're all fucking underneath Jeff Propes' fucking Wikipedia page. And they also ran, guess who also died? Two C-list comedians.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Great.

Speaker 4 And everyone's like, thank God.

Speaker 4 You know, the main paranormal convention where Annabelle's going to be is still happening. Oh, no, they are.
Oh, buddy, they aren't canceling shit. And you know what?

Speaker 4 There's still so many tickets for all the time slots. Wow, I'm so surprised.
At this point, you think that that would really give it the bump.

Speaker 4 You would think it would give it the bump. People are weak.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Also, what is he doing? Playing Maine and Gettysburg. Annabelle's a star.

Speaker 4 I think Maine and Gettysburg was actually a great place for people that want to just go look at a doll sitting in a chair on stage. Specifically, haunted locations.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 They're going to haunted locations. So that's why these strange.

Speaker 4 Okay. Oh, okay.
What is haunted about the Augusta Civic Center? I think that's

Speaker 4 the nachos.

Speaker 4 They will

Speaker 4 haunt you all the way home. Don't get those.

Speaker 4 Man, so Annabelle still on tour. She's doing it without Dan.
His name's still on the poster. How long did it take Great White to go back on tour? After they killed everybody? Yeah.

Speaker 4 It wasn't that long. It wasn't long enough.
That should have ended it. It really should have ended it.

Speaker 4 I remember, because remember that happened right after 9-11, and for a little while, we all thought it was a terrorist attack. And we're like, oh, no, this hair metals ban is just stupid.
Right.

Speaker 4 The banner has continued touring following their initial disbandment in 2001. And it came back, took a decade.
Took a decade. Yeah, but 2011.

Speaker 4 I see them on bills sometimes, but it's like they're playing like, they're not doing nicer rooms. They're doing like the whiskey go-go and stuff like that.
Well,

Speaker 4 I wouldn't have them in a nicer room. No, you can't.
Well,

Speaker 4 they should be in a nicer room because we saw what happens when they play bad ones.

Speaker 4 Did he go to jail? Or did the people owing the venue go to jail? I believe the people that went to the venue.

Speaker 4 Yeah, because they're the ones that let it happen and had the horrible fucking sprinkler system. That's what it was.
And the whole thing was like, yeah, the emergency system.

Speaker 4 I guess it isn't that much of great.

Speaker 4 They share the blame. They are very, they were really sorry.
Yeah, I mean, of course, you killed 70-something people. They were upset.
Yeah. And they weren't happy with it.
They started the fire.

Speaker 4 Yeah, because it came from stage, right? Yeah.

Speaker 4 I mean, the exits were the problem. R.I.P.
Billy Joel's brain. Unbelievable.
Billy Joel, they're going to put his just his hands on tour.

Speaker 4 That's what's going to happen. How are they going to get the liquor out of it?

Speaker 4 Yeah, squeeze it from the fucking top of the stout.

Speaker 4 Got to, man. Wow.
Well, we have an hour-long interview that we're going to give you over to now. Yes.
Because

Speaker 4 we love you.

Speaker 4 You know, and we want to never disappoint you. Yeah,

Speaker 4 we're not going to give you nothing. We're not going to give you nothing.
Yeah. We're here.
We're hanging out, being loose. I'm gay as hell.
I have diarrhea.

Speaker 4 Oh, that cruise ship got Montezuma's revenge. That's what it was.
So it's not their fault. So we were, just so you guys know, crimewave at sea.com, please come and see us on this tour.

Speaker 4 They were going to have us

Speaker 4 on a practice run. Yeah, and then

Speaker 4 the people on that ship

Speaker 4 got wildly sick. But

Speaker 4 I'm looking. So we dodged it.
We dodged that by a fucking

Speaker 4 error. And

Speaker 4 the blame is officially going on Mexico and not the cruise ship. How convenient.
Now, what do you mean the blame's going on Mexico? Montezuma's Revenge.

Speaker 4 But they went in port and a bunch of people drank like.

Speaker 4 Ice. Yeah, the ice.
ice, yeah, the ice is what gets you.

Speaker 4 Of course, you're gonna forget that ice is water because you're like, oh, I want a pina colada, I want a margarita, no, and they blend it all up.

Speaker 4 If you are on the island, this is a good, all right, this is great, yeah, teaching moment, crime wave itceu.com. When we're not going to Mexico, no, but any of them,

Speaker 4 but any of them, Bahamas, I think you can drink the water, get bottled water when you're off the when you're off the boat, drink bottled water.

Speaker 4 When you're on the boat, drink bottled liquor, bottled liquor,

Speaker 4 all right, drink stuff that's got a top on it that you got to open. That's what I'm going to say.
That's my big cruise tip. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
Don't and don't take a joint from strangers.

Speaker 4 I mean, hang out with them for a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Get to know them a little bit.

Speaker 4 Yeah, get to know them. This isn't a Doobie Brothers.
Don't buy ever. I've actually had a lot of people asking me questions about this process.
And I will say, don't get weed on the islands.

Speaker 4 Like, because you might not, like, sometimes they'll, unless it's right in front of you, never. How many times do we have have to say this, never go to a second location.

Speaker 4 Did I hear about what happened? Uh, you hear about what happened to me when I was on a cruise?

Speaker 4 Last time I was on a cruise, I was like on a week-long cruise doing a gig, and it was the longest I had gone without smoking weed in a very long time, you know, and it was like the last night of the cruise, and I'm like sitting there with my fellow performers that I just got to know, Ashley Ward, wonderful actress.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Ashley Ward, wonderful Kingsley, a lot of hilarious people. And we're just sitting there enjoying a beer at the end of the night.

Speaker 4 And I remember I just turned to them, like, I mean, I've known you long enough now. I feel like I could be honest with you.
I'm kind of going crazy because I haven't smoked weed in a week, you know?

Speaker 4 And then they were like, and then Langdon like magically pointed and then a bag of weed was just floating along the deck. It's just like, look, weed.

Speaker 4 And then it was just like a bag of weed appeared out of nowhere as I was complaining. Whoa.
Yeah. And then I actually bought a pipe at the straw market.
And then I was just like, oh my God.

Speaker 4 And so I went.

Speaker 4 Oh, he works in mysterious ways. Yeah, it's like you should have asked them the first day.
Yep. You know, we're just shown up.
Yeah. Also, the key is, yeah, stick to cocaine.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 That's what I say when you're on the boat. Much easier to boof.
Just get it from the store.

Speaker 4 Get it from the people working there. Yeah.
On the boat. Not us, though.
No, I'm not selling. That's ours.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That stuff's ours.
All right.

Speaker 4 Listen, guys. It's November 3rd to the 7th.
Come, come, you know, again, boof it. Crime wave at sea.
It's not at land. Calm.
It's not on the land. It is out on the water.
Left.

Speaker 4 And also, September 21st, Henry and I are going to be in Kansas City, Missouri at the Truman Theater. Also, October 24th, we're in Redway, California at the Matteel Community Center.

Speaker 4 Gonna be the best show of the year. Always is.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 And November 30th, Henry and I are going to be in Columbus OH at the Newport Music Hall. I'm very excited about that.
And don't forget Epstein Country.

Speaker 4 Is that Epstein Country? Oh, yeah. I thought that was South Florida.
No, Epstein. Well, that's where he's really from.
That's where he really made his nut. Oh, in Ohio.

Speaker 4 Yeah, with the Lex guy from Victoria's Secret. Oh.
Lex Wesley. Oh, that guy was a bad man.
Yeah. You know, Ohio, you know, they don't get enough credit.

Speaker 4 They start shit, and then other people take credit for Ohio's work all the fucking time. I think people are starting to catch on.
You know, the Wright brothers, have we ever talked about this?

Speaker 4 They're from Ohio. North Carolina sitting here claiming they're first in flight.
The plane was made in Ohio. They drove it to North Carolina because the beach is windy.

Speaker 4 And they're fucking sitting here saying that they're the first in flight.

Speaker 4 The Wright brothers are from Ohio. The plane was built in Ohio.
They fucking took it down to North Carolina. The air unfortunately failed them in Ohio.
Yeah, it did.

Speaker 4 It really did.

Speaker 4 It did. And that's why they lost it.
Yeah, they have bad. The air is bad.
Don't count your wins. Don't collect the metal until you're on the podium.
Yeah, no, exactly. But we know what Ohio does have.

Speaker 4 I can't wait. I'm going to Ohio over break.

Speaker 4 i'm very excited are you yeah sure ham salad baby oh yeah great bridgetown meets i love shouting out bridgetown meets get that ham salad take care of janet rosing that's what i'm talking about this is you know they every time i plug them they give her free food that's amazing my mother-in-law

Speaker 4 that's amazing

Speaker 4 wow

Speaker 4 so go do me a favor go to bridgestown if you live in cincinnati go to bridgetown

Speaker 4 desperate trying to get his mother-in-law's approval

Speaker 4 I really want her to like me. We've talked about this.
Every parent in the world likes Eddie more than his mother-in-law and his father. She loves me.
She loves me.

Speaker 4 It's just that everybody else loves him way more because he's not fucking their daughter.

Speaker 4 So go to Bridgetown Meets. Let them know that the ham salad is delicious and you need some, and you're here on a rec from Janet Rosick.
Yeah, I'm helping my

Speaker 4 have the ham salad.

Speaker 4 We'll edit that into something that won't get me in trouble. Oh, good, great.

Speaker 4 Another great joke lost. You didn't even hear it.
That just got edited.

Speaker 4 That's what you get, folks. You fuckers.
August 21st, Elysian Theater, Dead Men Tell Some Tales. Cody tickets that out as well.
I love you guys. Hail, Satan.
Hail Annabelle.

Speaker 4 Next week, we'll be back with Molasses Flood Part 2. Yes, we promise.
We love you guys very much. Also, we know that it's black shrep, not back strep.

Speaker 4 Oh, Marcus up, but we're going to leave that to Marcus because that's his fuck up. Yeah, we're going to have to get swallow in that because we don't know jack shit about shit.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Marcus has to kill the fake stripper. That's his fucking life.
That's his mistake. It's on his ass.

Speaker 4 Old backstrap never had a chance.

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Speaker 4 I'm not going to open, I'm not going to say to you what I was going to say to you because it's a direct come into from what we were talking about on side stories that it's actually like a super inappropriate way to open.

Speaker 4 Okay, like about the baby names.

Speaker 4 Oh, the baby names. What about the baby names? We were talking about the 11 baby names it got like banned.

Speaker 4 What's inappropriate about it?

Speaker 3 Oh, like commander.

Speaker 4 No, commander's allowed. Commander's allowed.
Oh, you can name your child commander in America. Yes.
Okay.

Speaker 3 I maybe came across some list about the names that were banned in Australia. Maybe.
And they were just like very gently.

Speaker 4 Jesus Christ. You can't be named Jesus Christ.
But obviously, Jesus is fine. Fair.
Again, unless you're ice. And you can.

Speaker 3 You can't be named three.

Speaker 4 Yeah, the Roman numeral three. Yeah, I-I-I.
Yeah. I thought it was ill.
I was like, what if it's ill?

Speaker 3 Oh, so you would pronounce that I-I-I.

Speaker 4 I'm thinking people would be angry, yeah. Wow, is that why it is just so sad?

Speaker 4 That's why we have her here, Amanda Monster.

Speaker 4 Thank you very much.

Speaker 4 I am glad that you're here.

Speaker 3 I'm just here to help us all read.

Speaker 4 You can't name your kid Nutella. I know.
That's insane. That's so fun.
One brand. Literally, Adolf Hitler Nutella.

Speaker 4 But what if you put them together? Adolf Hitler Nutella? This is my son. Adolf Hitler Nutella Cranberry.

Speaker 4 You think you should be allowed. Throw a cute little thing in there too.

Speaker 3 My spouse really likes the mouthfeel of the word chlamydia and thinks it would make a beautiful first name.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 It would take an amazing publicist to like rebrand the optics of chlamydia into like a beautiful baby name.

Speaker 4 I'm a lovely how about the girl cliffydia cliff cliffydia cliffydia um you take someone else's name you take cliff yeah

Speaker 4 cliff yeah cliff okay you know yeah instead of clifford it somehow feels worse

Speaker 4 that's not good

Speaker 4 georgeria

Speaker 4 the bowel

Speaker 4 georgeria well now that just sounds like a bowel issue it is in the south right it's like you ate too many kling peaches and you get georgeria herbes herpes herpes well i guess that is already a name Herpes.

Speaker 4 Yeah, herpes. Herpes.
Yeah, but herb. Herb.
Herb, which is my grandfather's name. Oh, okay.

Speaker 3 Oh, this is actually a fun game. If you take different sexually transmitted infections, you have to, yeah, you twist it just one letter to make it a beautiful name.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. That is a fun word game.
This is my buddy Shades.

Speaker 4 That's only if he's cool.

Speaker 4 Because it only works if he's got sunglasses on at all times. Oh, yeah.
And instead of Liv Tyler, it could be LIV.

Speaker 4 Oh, wow. Oh, my God.
This is a great way to sell your book.

Speaker 4 I did write.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 3 Relatedly, I did write a book called Word Slit. And sometimes, like, autocorrect will change it to word slit, which feels more vulgar.

Speaker 4 That's worse. It feels worse.

Speaker 4 Words slit.

Speaker 4 Natalie, my wife, just said a whole thing. Somebody just called her a slit on YouTube, and she loved it.
Okay. Because she was just like, it's been a long time.
There was that punk band, the slits.

Speaker 4 Oh, my God. Right.
So technically, they retook the word back. Yeah.
So in a way, it's cool to be able to get a bunch of people.

Speaker 3 Okay, Reclamation.

Speaker 4 Reclamation. I'm switching.

Speaker 4 I'm so fused.

Speaker 4 This is my daughter, Reclamation, Hitler, Cranberry, Nestle, Zabrowski.

Speaker 4 Oh, my God. By the way, you can name your kid Hitler.
You can't.

Speaker 3 Not that. Just not Adolf Hitler.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 Okay, yeah. That's kind of weird.
Like, because you think, like, because also, it's, because they're like, oh, well, no one ever, no one knows Brandon Hitler.

Speaker 4 And it's just like, I feel like hitler's the important part of the name totally like i feel like more people recognize hitler than adolf hitler they're like who's that yeah they would be like oh if you just met an adolf you'd be like oh i bet you're a difficult man yeah i bet you like regulation yeah but then not necessarily you want to kill us all does adolf still have a bad rep like in germany i imagine i do believe

Speaker 4 they don't have a lot of patience for it over there okay okay they're they're right they're not ready no one's ready and that's good they're pretty upset with it do you know that the hitler family, like the people, like the lineage of Hitler's family, they've all got together and agreed not to have children so that all dies off?

Speaker 4 No way. How hot is that? Whoa.
Okay.

Speaker 4 Imagine how hard it is for them to not fuck. Like now that they've

Speaker 4 said that they won't.

Speaker 4 That's very erotic.

Speaker 3 And that's on edging.

Speaker 4 It really is. And I'd be like, I dare you to try to put another

Speaker 4 answer on me.

Speaker 4 I dare you my

Speaker 4 god i'm ready to boof this conversation

Speaker 4 all right okay let's get down to this okay

Speaker 4 okay ass tax great amanda montell host of the very popular podcast sounds like a cult is also a an accredited author oh very big time author thank you you've done a lot of this apparently you're very smart oh we just did your show and got some social cred so thank you oh my god i love that yeah we more more popular now thanks to you sounds like a cult okay i'm talking like Yoda.

Speaker 3 Scramble together the right order of that sentence. I appreciate you both so much for coming on the show.

Speaker 3 It was the episode on the cult of incels, and it was our most well-received episode of all time. And that is a miracle because I was scared shitless.

Speaker 3 My asshole was clenched throughout the entire editorial, Rasha.

Speaker 4 Sure, yeah, yeah, same. Oh, absolutely.
Oh, yeah, no,

Speaker 4 they came for the DMs. Yeah.

Speaker 4 The men, men were real, some of the men that happened to catch some of what we were saying. Some of them were pretty upset.
Whether were they?

Speaker 4 But the thing is, is that mostly they just look like men that, how do you put this, have sex with the fish they catch?

Speaker 4 Oh my god. So

Speaker 4 it is whose eyes are on either side of their heads.

Speaker 4 Yes. So they weren't, and they're not a threat.
Right. So you're like, when you know you're making that type of person angry, you're like, oh, we're in the right vein.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 They're alphas, but don't know the alphabet. Oh my God.
Ayo. Okay.

Speaker 4 I see you. okay words

Speaker 4 yes yes that's right

Speaker 3 um well our sweetie pie uh mostly female and non-binary listeners were eating you up they were loving it they were like men on sounds like a cult what it was honestly it was a dei situation you on sounds like a cult honestly thank you for it and i just feel like the time for the 40 year old white man is coming yeah yeah yeah no it was honestly it was a diversity hire it's time for us to come it's time for our representation yeah yeah yeah that's all that it it was.

Speaker 4 Been here for years.

Speaker 4 Right, right.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 3 They're all, they've always been here.

Speaker 4 Can I ask you straight up, right? So you're now deep into cults.

Speaker 4 You're deep into cults.

Speaker 3 That sentence sounds like up to interpretation, but yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 Like, do you feel that your life has changed? Because, like, on one angle,

Speaker 4 did you expect this to be your life?

Speaker 4 Not at all.

Speaker 4 How did you start?

Speaker 3 Great question. Okay.
So context, the backstory, the lore is that my dad spent his teenage years against his will in the cult Synanon. Are you familiar?

Speaker 4 Yes, I'm all very familiar.

Speaker 3 So I grew up on his stories, which were enrapturing. Like he, he.

Speaker 4 The OG crew? Like that guy. What did they old? The old guy.
Chuck Diedrich. That guy.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 The man, the myth, the ledge.

Speaker 4 That shit's fucking terrifying.

Speaker 3 It's absolutely terrifying.

Speaker 3 So he was 14 when his father, sort of inspired by the blossoming countercultural movement of the late 60s, moved him and his two toddler age half-sisters onto what they believed was this socialist utopian compound, this experimental way of life.

Speaker 3 It started out as like a drug rehabilitation center that then

Speaker 3 grew to accommodate so-called lifestylers. Yes.
Yeah, people who just wanted in on that kind of communal living situation.

Speaker 4 Because he seemed to really help people for a while.

Speaker 3 It did, you know,

Speaker 3 and then it kind of spun out of control. He didn't really know when to drop the

Speaker 3 Adolf off of the Hitler or the Hitler off the Adolf. It got bad.
So, anyways, yeah, my dad arrived and he was 14.

Speaker 3 And who knows, some combination of nature and nurture, and the fact that he had grown up in like Manhattan School of Hard Knocks at that point caused him to be like pretty skeptical and freaked out by the whole arrangement as soon as they got to the compound.

Speaker 3 It was a weird place, even by then. Like, kids lived separate from their parents, and everybody dressed in these like neutral, super conformist coveralls.

Speaker 3 You know, people had to shave their heads as punishment. Everybody engaged in this really traumatizing ritual called the game, which was like catharsis therapy.
And he wasn't loving it.

Speaker 3 So he kind of flew under the radar in the cult, escaped off the compound every day to attend an accredited high school in San Francisco because he knew he wanted to leave and attend college.

Speaker 4 He was a willful kid. Totally, totally.
The exact opposite in school. Oh, really? I left the school I was supposed to be in.
To join a cult.

Speaker 4 Except the cult of marijuana.

Speaker 3 The cult of marijuana, totally. Oh my God, I'm in it as well.
Hello.

Speaker 4 Not today.

Speaker 3 I am on the right drugs for this interview.

Speaker 4 Nice.

Speaker 3 But, you know, a little iced oat cortado moment. But yeah, so my dad, ironically, though,

Speaker 3 Cinanon wanted to, it wanted to avoid outside hospitals whenever possible. It was this like closed system.
And so Cinanon had its own microbiology lab.

Speaker 3 And my dad, at the age of 15, was tasked with running it.

Speaker 3 And that was like maybe irresponsible of the the cult to be like, hey, kid, culture these like cult followers fingertips for tuberculosis microbes.

Speaker 3 But there he like fell in love with laboratory science. And that's what he majored in in college.
And then he went and got his PhD.

Speaker 3 And now he's a neuroscientist and has been doing research my whole life. I grew up in Baltimore where he does research at Hopkins.
And

Speaker 3 yeah, so like ironically, that lab was kind of like a sanctuary of empiricism within Sinanon's like irrational grounds.

Speaker 3 And so, yeah, he left as soon as he could. And I came of age on those stories.
I kind of like cut my journalistic teeth, I guess, on like probing my dad for details about this lifestyle.

Speaker 3 And the most fascinating thing about my dad's Cinanon stories to me was the language that Cinanon would use to manipulate its followers. Like, yeah.

Speaker 4 I'm very, very excited because you wrote this whole book, Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism. And I

Speaker 4 am, I'm like you in that, where I am fascinated with cult lingo

Speaker 4 because it's in the details that you see why people like get sucked in. Totally.

Speaker 4 And it's the recreations and the changings of definitions that we see every day on a mass scale right now with how our government is reacting to the world and information. Yes.

Speaker 4 And they're using the same exact tactics that cults use. That is so true.
But it's very, it's very interesting.

Speaker 4 And like, what was the kind of, can I ask, like, what was like the first cult that you cracked into as just a journalist? Ooh.

Speaker 3 Well, the, the first interview that I did while I was putting together my proposal for this book was with a survivor of the Happy, Healthy, Holy organization, the Kundalini Yoga Cult.

Speaker 4 No, explain.

Speaker 3 Oh, okay. So.

Speaker 4 Triple H, the wrestler?

Speaker 3 No, it was, she, she, she, so 3HO does have some like famous like alumni, like, Russell Brand was a part of it. Adrian Brody was actually a part of it, Demi Moore.
Like, they were, you know, it's.

Speaker 3 What as kids? No, as adults.

Speaker 4 So, what, what is the, it's just because it's a, okay. So, it's, like, one of those where there's, like, a main guru that everybody goes to.

Speaker 4 Is it the very, is it the style of the other guru that used to be like, you're fat, you're fat, you don't do it right. You're, you're, look at Mr.
Tubby. Mr.

Speaker 4 Tubby's doing this triangle pose and he's not over.

Speaker 3 Oh, was that the Beakrum guys? Yes, yes. So, it, yes, it was in that same universe.
So this guru was named Yogi Bhajan and he was this con artist who arrived to America.

Speaker 4 Was he good at yoga?

Speaker 3 That's a great question. I have actually no idea.
It was like so beside the point. You know what I mean? It was like about the dogma.

Speaker 3 And if you've ever seen photos of a group of people in a group of white people in all white and white turbans gallivanting around a desert, that was the kundalini yoga. Coachella.

Speaker 4 Oh,

Speaker 4 Yeah, Coachella.

Speaker 3 That's Coachella. No, like literally, it is giving Coachella.

Speaker 3 So I, you know, we live in Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 You can't attend a birthday party without running into like an ex-Scientologist or, you know, just there is something about LA that attracts, you know, cultish affiliates because it's a town of manifest destiny, you know?

Speaker 4 Like, this came out of nowhere. This is all sand, baby.

Speaker 3 Literally, like.

Speaker 4 It's not supposed to fucking be here. We made this out of pure manna.

Speaker 3 Out of pure, exactly. Out of like pure delusion.
And I don't know, like the quest for celebrity and fame feels religious to me. Like the quest for celebrity.

Speaker 4 I've never really met any like cult people in Los Angeles because I just stick to the people I know and only know their ideas. It sounds really lonely.

Speaker 3 You're like, that's my cult.

Speaker 3 No, and that is kind of the argument that like we, you know, I went into the project thinking like, oh, I'm, I'm too skeptical. I'm too cynical.
I would never end up in a cult.

Speaker 3 But it was all very humbling because I really do think that there's a cult for everyone. And sometimes my friend group of theater kids feels like a cult as well.

Speaker 4 Oh, it is.

Speaker 4 It's a whole thing. Can I add, which one would you join?

Speaker 4 If there was some, if you could with no,

Speaker 4 because obviously what one of the big maxims on last podcast is that if you're going to join a cult, the key, you got to get into management.

Speaker 4 Of course. Genuinely.
You got to get into management because that's when the cult's working for you. Right.
You're working for the cult.

Speaker 3 I do, yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, a structure that I kept finding in all of these groups, or so very many of them, is that there would be kind of a charismatic, populist, opportunist man at the top, a guy with kind of a chip on his shoulder who felt, you know, sort of entitled to a certain level of power that maybe he didn't feel like he had access to as a kid.

Speaker 4 I don't need you to roast me on my own fucking show.

Speaker 4 I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 I know. I feel like everyone who maybe felt a little left out in high school now has podcasts.
Oopsie doodle.

Speaker 3 But yeah, and then they're surrounded by like an inner circle of like beautiful young women who sort of exchange their sexuality and privilege for like a little bit more power.

Speaker 3 So if I could be in the top spot,

Speaker 3 not in the inner circle, but like truly at the top, let's see.

Speaker 4 Who would you kiss? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Who would you kiss? Are you a Keith Ranieri girl? Are you a Jim Jones girl?

Speaker 3 Am I a Jim Jones, Diva?

Speaker 4 Steve Baldwin. Let's see.
Steve Baldwin.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I can't even bite.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 Do you can't get me?

Speaker 3 No, you really can. Let's see.

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 3 This is an earnest answer, but what cult would I join? The cults that I've like orbited and almost joined have been helmed by celebrities.

Speaker 3 Like living in Hollywood, you know, like I have had an experience or two where, you know, like some celebrity that I admire has like slid into my DMs and been like, oh my God, I like just discovered your work.

Speaker 3 And I'm like, what? It feels like, it feels like a message from the great beyond. It's like, how did this God actually

Speaker 3 find a way to communicate with me? And then, you know, they'll like invite you to a party or something. And then you really do get sucked in.

Speaker 3 I feel very susceptible to like the orbit and the gravitational pull of a celebrity that I admire.

Speaker 4 Look at Jared Lito. Literally, that's such a great example.
He's doing a great job.

Speaker 3 He really is. Did you hear about the sleepovers?

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. I know you've had it.
I heard he was in trouble, but I just don't know what happened. I know he's got like eight or nine people after him, but what happened?

Speaker 3 There's a lot of allegedlies in

Speaker 3 this story. Come on, look at him.
Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly. Well, okay.

Speaker 4 It's Jared Leto. He's been talked about like this in a very,

Speaker 4 very broad manner for a long time.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, okay.

Speaker 3 He has. I mean, okay.
Let me give you an anecdote, okay?

Speaker 3 This is an anecdote. This is like totally fucking allegedly, allegedly, allegedly.

Speaker 4 Yes, this is lord. We'll do uncle dotes here, but we'll take an anecdote.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you'll take an anecdote, okay?

Speaker 3 It's feminism. That's feminism.
This is an uncle dote, an anecdote,

Speaker 3 a cunty dote. Okay, so he, when I was in college, I was friends with this girl who just looked so, so, so, so young.

Speaker 3 And when she was like 19, she met Jared Leto at a party in LA and they developed a sort of relationship. And he has, allegedly, a compound of a home.

Speaker 3 And he keeps like, allegedly, like handguns and random drawers.

Speaker 3 I think he has a lot of paranoia, but he also like whips up his followers, allegedly, into a sort of, I mean, the sleepover thing is like allegedly, allegedly, allegedly.

Speaker 4 Sleepover. Yeah.
I would love it if we had one. We do sleepovers.
I wish.

Speaker 3 It's the sweet.

Speaker 4 Belly to belly.

Speaker 3 Bromance.

Speaker 4 Looks beautiful. Belly to belly, feet to feet.

Speaker 3 That's gorgeous.

Speaker 4 Can you imagine, though, if we had like a nice, like, everyone has a sleeping bag and we're all over and we're having a good time? I mean,

Speaker 4 a good time's over for me.

Speaker 3 Honestly, yeah, I think he just like blurs the the intimacy boundaries with his fans and because he operates in so many different mediums it's kind of like a catch-me-if-you can situation like i find it so fascinating nowadays that like if uh an influencer who say starts out on youtube and develops a cult following there um starts to become really problematic or like reveals their true colors that have been there all along and is you know

Speaker 3 proverbially canceled or whatever, they can just like switch platforms and go to TikTok. Like this person I'm thinking of specifically is like Jeffree Star.
Jeffree Star was like,

Speaker 4 I know that tangentially through my wife. She is a big, she followed all of that.

Speaker 3 Natalie, Natalie is a Jeffree Star diva. So like Jeffree Star, you know, it was revealed that he's like super racist and has just like so, so many problematic attributes.

Speaker 3 And he kind of fell from grace on YouTube. So then he like was reborn, like literally resurrected on TikTok as a farmer.
And now he like has a compound and he's farming.

Speaker 3 And so the people who only know him on TikTok are like, I'm not fucking getting those pumpkins.

Speaker 4 I imagine he's

Speaker 4 good at only white pumpkins. Yeah, especially kind of seed.
This one's too orange.

Speaker 3 Yeah, literally, the two orange ones are checked out. But now the people who only know him on TikTok are like, how could anybody be mad at Farmer Jeffrey?

Speaker 3 So I think like people who are masters of the rebrand, masters of the resurrection,

Speaker 3 who like sort of refuse to step back, who kind of like, I mean, Keith Ranieri was like this too. He was like a failed MLMer.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 And he was a

Speaker 4 Keith Ranieri to me is like the lowest of the low. Truly.
Like, I view him as such a hack. Like,

Speaker 4 I know that's the saddest one. Like, that's what I don't like about it.
That's what you don't like. Is that he's a fucking hacker?

Speaker 3 Have an original thought, my guy.

Speaker 4 He stole everything from Scientology.

Speaker 3 Of course. And we know how much you love L.

Speaker 4 Ron. L.
Ron is the only reason why is because, unfortunately, until our current president, he was the number one con man of of all time.

Speaker 4 Thank you for saying that. I would put him closest.
L. Ron is the closest to the guy that really figured it out.
You know what I mean? What about the Pope?

Speaker 4 He still has to be chosen.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Totally.
No, L. Ron chose himself, and that's the American dream.
Yes.

Speaker 3 No, but like, it's true. L.
Ron,

Speaker 3 the language of Scientology, one of the most fun parts in this book to write.

Speaker 4 Have you read Dianetics?

Speaker 3 I have, I have, I've flipped through. I've perused.
I've flipped through it I haven't read cover to cover what's your favorite chapter

Speaker 4 I like the clams

Speaker 4 you know I I found so one of my best friends growing like guy really helped Shane Morton who did all the makeup for a show I did called your pretty face is going to hell he was the first person to give me the proper literature on satanism and ritual magic and all that kind of stuff and one of the things that he

Speaker 4 told me, which I thought was interesting, he's like, the key is you don't want to get locked into a guy's pattern. Okay.
Because what they'll do is

Speaker 4 like as we see a lot of cults are presenting a very complicated lock that can be opened only by help of the guy that's giving you a bunch of fake like information about what goes into the lock to reveal an empty safe.

Speaker 4 Yes, nothing's in there. But you've been on the problem.
You've been there for so long in this process that you have to pretend with the guy that there's something in the safe.

Speaker 3 Totally. It's the self-delusion, emperor's new clothes, sunk cost fallacy, all of it.
There's so much psychology.

Speaker 4 in there. And the Scientological, like those things that they do, all the turns of phrases.

Speaker 4 So I was, for a while, I was driving around with Technique 88, LRH's, one of his last recorded like talks on a CD. Someone gave me all the Scientology tapes, and I was putting in the car, right?

Speaker 4 And I was listening to him driving around. I'm listening to it for days, weeks.
I'm listening to it. And then I begin to realize like.

Speaker 4 Oh, he just started to make sense. I'm now actually following what it was that he was sort of talking about.
And then I'm realizing, oh, I'm caught in the pattern. Yes.

Speaker 4 I am a literal lemming doing the thing. I've just finally listened long enough that I've decided that the gobbledygook is coming together.
Yes.

Speaker 3 Yes. Oh my God.
Why as podcasters do we like Loki do this? But like, it. I love it.
No, I, yeah, it is.

Speaker 4 What else would I be doing?

Speaker 3 Of course. It is absolutely fascinating.
And L. Ron Hubbard really was,

Speaker 3 again, the master of the rebrand, the sort of failed sci-fi writer who was like, you know what would be much more clever and much more profitable to turn this into a religion. I mean, J.R.

Speaker 3 Tolkien could have done it.

Speaker 4 He could have done it in a second.

Speaker 3 He could have done it in a second because they both are, they both are, if I may say so, and this is without reverence for L. Ron Hubbard, but I know you have it.
I do.

Speaker 3 I am a Lord of the Rings, early, by the way.

Speaker 4 Everyone's allowed to make fun of L. Ron.
It's fine. I understand.
Yeah, he's not. Yeah, I don't actually.
But I do, but I don't.

Speaker 3 But I do. No one understands that type of rope walk better than me, but like they are both masters of language.
And like, you, like, you don't need to be that clever in coming up with like neologisms.

Speaker 3 You just need to be able to twist existing language effectively enough to get people who know how to use that exclusive rhetoric to feel like they're on the inside of something.

Speaker 3 The very way that when you're a little kid learning pig Latin on the playground, it's literally just gibberish. It's just a, it's just a phonetic puzzle.

Speaker 3 Like you're not saying anything that can't be said in plain English, but just the sheer fact that you've learned it and other people around you know it too and the kids who don't know how to speak it are instantly less cool.

Speaker 3 It fills you with a sense of not not only intellectual, but moral superiority. And L.

Speaker 3 Ron Hubbard, with his dictionaries and the way that he would co-opt language from scientific fields that he admired, like chemistry and software engineering and linguistics,

Speaker 4 clever. He did it as a bit, too.
He knew the more science stuff I throw in this, the more people are going to think it's legit.

Speaker 3 I mean, he named it Scientology. It's so on the nose.

Speaker 4 It's everything he ever wrote. He knew it was easy for him to make it up because he had already written it a decade ago.
But he also was a highly prolific author and some of it was fine.

Speaker 3 But, you know, like, yeah, he wasn't even really a failed space fantasy writer.

Speaker 4 No, he actually, it was just packed, filled with shit. This is my problem, though.
So, this is a thing I run into. Maybe, I don't know if you not, you guys don't have to because I,

Speaker 4 how do I say this? I love the con. Yeah.
I am a part of a person that understands that the con

Speaker 4 and the salesmanship of esoteric principles is as important as the principles themselves. Of course.

Speaker 4 And that I love the con because I know that as a person, that you can, as a regular human being, if you understand it, you can learn how to use these types of skills that can genuinely help you as a human being.

Speaker 4 Absolutely. What's the difference between a con man or con person and an actual spiritual leader? Well, like the sting, you know, you're just a thief.
I don't know. Like, what's the difference?

Speaker 4 But really, though, what's the difference between if the con can help you? Yeah.

Speaker 3 is he is he a criminal is it a criminal is it criminality if the con itself works to actually do something for you so actually the criminality dimension is really interesting because like psychological coercion is itself not a crime that's why that keith ranieri um conviction was so unprecedented or or precedent setting because he he his

Speaker 3 the main way that he destroyed people or really really negative negatively affected people was by lying and gaslighting and manipulating.

Speaker 3 And of course, he committed physical crimes too, but not.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he was a rapist. Yeah, he was a rapist.

Speaker 3 He was a sexual predator, but not to everyone. So, like, if he had gone like 80% of the way, it would have been awful and tragic and destructive, but it wouldn't have been criminal.

Speaker 3 But he was founded on, or he was founded guilty on, found guilty rather, on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.

Speaker 3 And so that was such an important conviction because those are concrete criminal, like federal criminal crimes.

Speaker 3 Whereas like so many people who I believe have really powerful cult followings these days, I'm talking like QAnon conspiratualists, Instagram therapists who teeter up towards QAnon.

Speaker 3 Teal Swan's making her way back. Teal Swan, yes.
Like,

Speaker 3 we are speaking the same language. Like they're, they're,

Speaker 3 it's really hard to hold them accountable criminally, which is why becoming aware of this language, which to your point is the abstract key that is like, or the, it's the lock and the key. Yes.

Speaker 3 You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 And it turns out it's all it is. It's not tools that are leading you to helpful information.
No. It's just what the information is.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So I think like the

Speaker 3 helpfulness in some of these groups, because they would not be alluring were they not on some level helpful.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 3 They provide what the theologian Tara Isabella Burton describes as what religion provides, which is ritual, meaning, identity, and community. That's interesting.

Speaker 3 And we crave those things as human beings, especially during times of crisis and tumult and lack of agency and lack of control.

Speaker 3 And to your point about using, you know, some of these con artist techniques for good,

Speaker 3 there are like linguistic techniques that are, you know, deceptively simple that a lot of grifters really take advantage of unabashedly.

Speaker 3 Like even just the power of repetition, even just the power of rhyme rhyme can be so impactful in making something false seem true.

Speaker 3 And the awareness of that effect is not enough to help you resist it, but people can use it to spread true information too.

Speaker 3 Like we need to make true information a little sexier, I think, with cult leader tactics.

Speaker 4 Honestly, you're on a thing I've been saying for a while in my head, I've been thinking about the concept of

Speaker 4 a good idea doesn't just win on its own.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 4 A good idea actually must be sold and has to beat a bad idea. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And it's really hard for the good people because they don't understand that you actually do need to take some tactics from the other side to beat the other side.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they might not be natural like marketers.

Speaker 4 Like there are not marketers. Oh, no.
How many sensitive, fucking wonderful puff people have we met in our life that have, you know, like the people at the Puppies Beyond Borders.

Speaker 4 Oh, I joined that one. But you know what I mean? Like, that's like a thing where like they don't have the skills of a Stephen Miller.
Totally.

Speaker 4 But they're like bringing puppies to your house. I'm like, that's, you know.
Puppies need a Stephen Miller. Puppies need a, you know,

Speaker 4 like, that's where they name

Speaker 4 an evil genius. Truly fucker.
I don't even, he's not an evil genius.

Speaker 3 No, they're not evil geniuses. They're, they're opportunists.
Yes. They need opportunists, people who are listening, people who can pick up on populist cues and package them.

Speaker 3 It kind of reminds me of how like the best apartments always have the ugliest photos on Craigslist.

Speaker 4 Sure, yeah, you know, exactly. My house looked like shit when I looked at the Zillow thing.
And then you go in the thing, and it's like, oh, it's actually,

Speaker 4 we're going to do something with this.

Speaker 3 Literally. But yeah, I think, you know, I can't fault anyone for like falling for genius marketing.
Like that, that's the whole thing.

Speaker 3 But it is fascinating to learn about the tactics that make false or dangerous information seem true.

Speaker 3 Like there's this cognitive bias called the rhyme as reason effect, which suggests that rhyming statements

Speaker 3 aid in processing fluency. They make information feel more organizable and thus easier to remember and thus true.

Speaker 3 So there was a study that found that participants rated the phrase, woes unite foes, as more truthful than woes unite enemies, just because it rhymes.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. I mean, look at Al Sharpton.
Literally.

Speaker 3 Honestly, that lilt, like that lilt that some of these folks use and not

Speaker 3 yeah, the pattern. It is.

Speaker 4 I saw Al Sharpton speak one time, and I've never seen anyone have that much control over an audience of people.

Speaker 4 And it was like just because of his rhythm and his like way, he knew when to like elevate his voice and when to take it down. And it was like half the shit he was talking about was nonsense.

Speaker 4 But like it was, but he had like, he had like 150 people ready to like storm anything. And it was just wild to watch.

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Speaker 4 Now, I want to ask you a question because we touched on religion a second ago a little bit. And as a staunch atheist, I look at most religions.
I grew up in Catholic school.

Speaker 4 I look at Catholicism as like a type of cult, but I also understand the need for community and religion and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 The Catholic Church, I can't stand, but it helped my mother out when she needed some stuff at times.

Speaker 3 I do love stained glass.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I'm fine with it. It fucked with my mother.
The Catholic Church, as far as I'm concerned, can go fuck itself. Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure.

Speaker 4 But how do we feel about like, obviously, like a Joel Osteen? Like, is he a cult leader or is he just a thief?

Speaker 3 I mean, this is like, this is the type of semantic question that I'm like always going to filibuster, not even filibuster, but like sort of like play with and reckon with because this term cult is so subjective and so context dependent.

Speaker 3 And looking at the etymology of it is a really fascinating way to understand it because the word cult didn't have such sinister undertones always, you know?

Speaker 3 Like, for example, I think it's so fascinating that in some romance languages, the word cult actually means what we would conceive of as a sect, and the word sect actually means cult.

Speaker 3 So like it's reversed. Basically, like the earliest usage of the term cult could be found in writings in like the 16th, 17th century.

Speaker 3 And back then, it just meant homage paid to divinity or like offerings made to win over the gods.

Speaker 4 Because it used to be a little bit more segmented and people with the religions were a little bit more regional.

Speaker 4 And you'd go to your local saint and then you'd become sort of the, especially within the Christian framework.

Speaker 3 Yes, it was more like kind of grassrootsy and ritualistic and then as time went on in the United States in particular the like hotspot HQ of cultish belief in my opinion which we can talk about later but we fucking really did it yeah we really really did but it by the 1800s the word cult came to describe groups that were you know deviant um but but not necessarily nefarious um and then it like really wasn't until and then of course like during the 50s and 60s and 70s, this time that some scholars refer to as the Fourth Great Awakening,

Speaker 3 the word cult was kind of used to lambast some of these like alternative spiritual groups that were coming up during that time, this peak cult era that we think of.

Speaker 4 But I do find it interesting, so immediately you could see, just like a way a cult leader does, that the change of the term is probably gamified by

Speaker 4 interested parties, other religions, the major religions, the the U.S. government, all that kind of stuff.
And they see, oh,

Speaker 4 people are all breaking off.

Speaker 4 You're in their little pods. So we try to, we're trying to keep people together.
The more we have little offshoot groups, that's bad for us. So we're going to call them cults.
Yeah. Bad.

Speaker 4 Those are bad to be in that.

Speaker 3 Totally. And I also think it's funny that as soon as, well, I'll put it this way.
Basically, that is absolutely true. And yet, the word cult was still not on the mainstream radar.

Speaker 3 It had not like like taken a seat at the table of everyday English, not until the Manson family murders of 1969 and then the Jonestown Massacre of 1978.

Speaker 3 And that's really when the word cult became this national symbol of fear. And that gave way to the satanic panic of the 1980s and things like that.

Speaker 3 But I find it really fascinating that as soon as the word cult became something that everybody knew to be sinister, it also became cool.

Speaker 3 And that's when we developed terms like cult followed and cult classic to define, you know, to describe like deadheads and things like that.

Speaker 3 So this word is like so context dependent and sort of wiggly.

Speaker 3 And that's why like when I talk about these groups, unless we're literally talking about like Jonestown, QAnon, you know, groups like that.

Speaker 3 If I'm, if I want to have a productive conversation and not make people feel shamed or not like shut down conversations completely, I'll either get really, really specific with my language, call it like a new age, high control conspiracy theory, or I'll hedge my language and just say that the group is cultish.

Speaker 4 Because it just, yeah, honestly, I do think that it's a good way to kind of put it because people can't.

Speaker 4 I get it.

Speaker 4 Everything's a cult. Now we're in the post-ironic cult.

Speaker 4 Now we're in the cults that are openly saying that they're a cult because they think it's cute or they're like, or also very interesting, like the Zizians, that new crew, that new crew of fucking villains on the scene, a good old-fashioned, I'm glad we got some trans representation in their action.

Speaker 4 It's really nice. Henry, we told you this is none of your zizz.
Hey, i'm just hey hey

Speaker 3 you fucking derail me i am so into this game where we replace one letter

Speaker 4 i am so happy about it

Speaker 4 that just makes me light up like a twinkle too oh my god but these guys are with it's not centralized It's another one of these new features that we're starting to see where

Speaker 4 they don't need a compound in Uruguay anymore. That's right.

Speaker 3 No, it is really interesting how, you know, we

Speaker 3 traditionally, or I guess since that era in the 70s and 80s, when everybody started to understand what a cult was, we traditionally thought of them as, you know, a compound where people like dance around barefoot, like the mid-samar thing.

Speaker 4 Oh, sure. And then Heaven's Gate.
Heaven's Gate became the new proto-model.

Speaker 3 Exactly, exactly the cult of the 90s, you know, beginning of digital technology.

Speaker 4 Spacey eye and super skinny losers. It's the truth.
And I mean this in the nicest way possible.

Speaker 4 It became the way, which I also speaks to your your point of why it begins, people really start to think, I can't ever be in a cult.

Speaker 3 Exactly, exactly. And so we now in the digital age, we fail to realize that the new compound is a forum.
It's a comment section, you know, like we don't. It's in there.

Speaker 3 But yeah, we don't necessarily need. one single charismatic leader with a face.
You know, QAnon, I mean, we could argue all day about who the leader of QAnon is.

Speaker 4 Yeah, neither one of them are Mr. Charisma.

Speaker 4 Truly.

Speaker 3 Well, that's that's right, too. And I think we talked about this in our incels interview.
Like the standard for charisma for an influencer type cult leader is like way lower.

Speaker 4 Sucks, dude. Keith Ranieri can suck my dick.
Keith Ranieri's such a hesban, low talent. Like, where does this guy even get? I mean, I guess obviously, he pulled in Smallville.

Speaker 3 He, but he just pulled in Smallville.

Speaker 4 She's a flip. She's doing that.
Oh, flip.

Speaker 3 Wait, what? Tell me. Well, she's.

Speaker 4 I don't understand what. First of all, pulled in Smallville.
She's a, what is, what, give me anything. I know we're speaking the language of culture.
All right. All right.
So, Allie, what's her name?

Speaker 4 What's your,

Speaker 4 we're on a first nickname basis. Love her.
She is, um, Keith Ranieri did a uh, he has a bit of a sex cult called Nexium. It's over.

Speaker 4 There was an HBO. The New Babylon of the World, which is Birmingham, New York, which is not.
And then he brand, he had this lady, they branded a bunch of people. It was a whole spiritual cult.

Speaker 4 A lot of midnight volleyball,

Speaker 4 a cappella,

Speaker 4 sashes, that's his whole thing. But Ellie Mack was like his main right evil

Speaker 4 henchman. Okay.
And now she got out and she's going to, she is in the process of flipping. But she lives in like Brooklyn.
And now there's like Pap pictures of her. Have you seen her?

Speaker 4 Look at the pap down. Oh my God.
What's Pap? Like get her

Speaker 4 up.

Speaker 3 Pap smear. Be a feminist.

Speaker 4 I was getting hot. Come on, bro.
So I'm getting hot.

Speaker 3 But I think that is so interesting because, and I think it does have to do with the irony that is like the most celebrated attitude on social media right now.

Speaker 3 Like, if she could, I think in this, in this culture where irony and humor is so celebrated, she almost could completely rebrand her reputation if she played it right. Like, I know, you know?

Speaker 3 What do we do? I don't know.

Speaker 4 Because as a 40, as a 41-year-old man, all right, I've watched things go from ironic back to full-throated, everybody like feels things again, back to ironic. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Now we're back, and now we're in a post-post-ironic whatever. I feel bad for the Zoomers.
They're not allowed to be cringe. Right.
They're not allowed to feel vulnerable. No, it's fucked up.

Speaker 4 Yeah, they're not allowed to be vulnerable.

Speaker 4 That's our fault, by the way. All they're doing.
Yeah, of course. No, I know.
They're all just, they're just like making stuff up and they're all like.

Speaker 4 pretend i mean this is nice as possible i want to help but it feels like a lot of the younger generation are sort of doing this thing where they are acting very mature without having experienced a single thing.

Speaker 3 I've seen it too.

Speaker 4 Yes, where they are acting very like, you know, and it's hard because what do we do for these kids? Oh my gosh. How do we help these kids? Because they're not going to understand.

Speaker 4 Because I believe, believe me, you can't. I regress when you get a little older.
Yeah. I mean, look at me.
I'm wearing fucking, you know, colorful clothes. Yeah, I'm dressing like I'm 14.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but it's different. It's like a thing where it,

Speaker 4 how do we teach them at some level this irony thing?

Speaker 3 It's gonna kill you. I know, I know.
It's so, it's so hard.

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 4 I'm the first one guilty.

Speaker 3 It's really, it's so, it's so tough. And I really, we did, we recently did an episode on the cult of Mark Zuckerberg where like the true, true evil,

Speaker 4 he is like a little bit of an evil genius and an opportunist.

Speaker 3 I know, but like, but, but, like, Instagram, yeah, and even like Instagram is for old people at this point, but like I really blame the surveillance culture of social media and just like the

Speaker 3 addiction, absorption, addiction cycle on social media for so much of the like lack of

Speaker 3 experimenting and lack of freedom and lack of liberation that like a lot of young people feel. I sometimes do talks in

Speaker 3 college on college campuses. And I find that, well, first of all, there's such a split in culture.
Like there's so much polarization

Speaker 3 on college campuses. And also like higher ed is dwindling in a way that is so sad.

Speaker 3 But I do find that like among my, you know, readers or potential readers or the folks that I'm talking to, there is, and this is beautiful in a way, but also heartbreaking in a way.

Speaker 3 There is such anxiety surrounding

Speaker 3 potential to cause harm that people are so afraid of making a mistake, of being cringe, of saying something they haven't yet already heard,

Speaker 3 That, like, they're, I find that people aren't allowed to be like inauthentic in an actually authentic way, if that makes sense. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 I had to pretend to be somebody

Speaker 4 to become somebody else. Yeah.
Yeah, but you're not an actor anymore. No, but I'm not you once you're getting back in.
I'm getting back in.

Speaker 4 You know, I didn't mean to do this and this.

Speaker 4 I'm sorry, that was a bit of an outbreak.

Speaker 3 Permission structure.

Speaker 4 That's a class of motion.

Speaker 4 But I got to be,

Speaker 4 I got to pretend in a vacuum.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly, in a vacuum.

Speaker 4 I got to go be, I am very thankful for the years that we got to do sketch comedy in Tallahassee. Nobody had any idea what we're doing.

Speaker 4 I'm very thankful the first couple years of Murder Fist was no one could see. Yeah, there was no internet.
I didn't even have an email address.

Speaker 4 We've been doing comedy together for 22 years. And And so it's like one of those where

Speaker 4 that's what's hard is that. So now

Speaker 4 they're naturally, you're naturally as a younger person looking to model yourself off of somebody

Speaker 4 higher than you. You're looking to do it.
And that's what do we do when it's like only grifters?

Speaker 4 Even the ones that are like on the good side of the grift, you have to sort of understand that they're grifters first.

Speaker 3 Right, because there's so much incentive to be overconfident on online.

Speaker 3 And like, we have phrases like, shoot your shot, crush it, kill it, like war language, like the language of violence to incentivize.

Speaker 4 Let's go is the most aggravating fucking thing for me. I can't even do that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's like so high temperature when,

Speaker 3 yeah, I really do, I really do feel grateful that I was allowed to,

Speaker 3 I guess, come of age in an environment where there wasn't so much also like choosers paradox. You know, now like we see so many potential identities online to like triangulate amongst.

Speaker 3 And that's really overwhelming. And I think it, it paves the way for culty grifters to come in and be like, you know what? Here's a low stakes example.

Speaker 3 It's like, there are too many, too many options comparatively for like who to be and what to like. And, you know, it's like that fleabag monologue.

Speaker 3 And so when someone comes in and is like, you know what, you should be, you should be a glossier girl. And this is what a glossy, does that, do you know what that is? Glossier.

Speaker 3 Oh, it's a makeup brand. Okay, never mind.
Let me choose a different, different different different rational

Speaker 4 goop goop

Speaker 3 Let's do goop. It'll be like you're a goop girl and this is what a goop girl eats and this is what a what a goop girl These are the podcasts that a goop girl listens to This is what a goop girl reads.

Speaker 3 This is how goop girl looks. Then all of a sudden it takes the pressure off of that chooser's paradox.

Speaker 3 And again, it isn't always bad, but like my favorite way to participate in cultishness is to have like a finger in a bunch of different cultie pies and to like experience irrationality and ritual and mysticism within the confines of a space and then be able to tap out and do something a little bit culty elsewhere.

Speaker 3 And when a group doesn't allow you to have one foot out the door, I think that's when it becomes a little too cultish for comfort.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. It's like, you know, you stop being friends with someone you can't, that tells you you can't be friends with a certain people.
Exactly. You know, it's one of those things.

Speaker 4 But I think it's super important for people to remember that I think you're doing, that's exactly it, is that you can experience any idea that you want.

Speaker 4 It doesn't mean you you got to take it with you too. Totally.
You can go learn the idea and then leave the idea behind.

Speaker 3 I know. I think that's so important to communicate.
I actually heard it interesting. I was like doing an Instagram live today with, which is like LOL so choogie, but and saying choogie is chugging.

Speaker 3 And we're going to get past this moment now. But I was doing an Instagram.

Speaker 4 Trinch. And it's okay.

Speaker 4 Freaking me.

Speaker 4 As long as you don't name your child Adolph Hitler, you can do anything you want. Anything you want.

Speaker 3 As long as you don't name your child Nutella.

Speaker 4 That's crazy. Crazy

Speaker 4 is fun. It's also a nice name.
That's a nice name. I wonder if Nutella themselves has anything to do with it.
Honestly, I bet you they do. Those goddamn Dutch hazelnut bastards.

Speaker 3 Genuinely, did they trademark it like a Parasultan and that's hot? They're like, you can't, I don't know. Any fucking way.

Speaker 4 Dude, they have to tell you if it looks like a Nutella.

Speaker 3 I'm going to be thinking about that for the next 10 minutes. Okay, but I was doing this dumbass Instagram live.
No, it was very special.

Speaker 3 Anyway, I was in conversation with Jane Borden, who's a writer who wrote a book about utopia called Cults Like Us Us and like Apocalypticism. She's cool.

Speaker 3 And she was saying that a cult leader, and there are so many cool like axioms and quotes to like help define what a cult leader is because it actually is like, again, kind of nebulous.

Speaker 3 But she was saying a cult leader is halfway between an abusive lover and a dictator.

Speaker 4 Okay. Yes.
You know? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like an abusive one-on-one lover. And that's a type of cult that I've certainly been in.
Hello.

Speaker 4 Well, yeah, that's even just high control. Just what you can be in a high control group of two.

Speaker 3 Literally. Yes, absolutely.
And the terminology is different.

Speaker 3 Like what might be described as grooming in a one-on-one dynamic could be described as brainwashing in a cult dynamic, but so many of the techniques are the same.

Speaker 3 And I love all of those little axioms and aphorisms and maxims. Sorry, I read the thesaurus this morning, but I love all those different terms to describe.

Speaker 4 Those are good words. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 It's a defense mechanism. But I love like all the little phrases that we have to help us orient ourselves around what a cult is.

Speaker 3 Like quotes like, I'm sure you've heard them, cult, or cult plus time equals religion or like um a cult is a group where the leader thinks he can talk to god a religion is a group where that leader is dead

Speaker 3 you know and they're so it's just so interesting because it just it illuminates how in the digital age in particular the definition of what a cult can be is i think changing yeah can i can i ask like some current people that i'm worried about and like i want to get your opinion on since you're you're kind of an expert oh i hope i understand the references well i mean you know those they're very out in the open.

Speaker 4 The first one's Kanye and what's going on in that warehouse. What do you know?

Speaker 3 I don't think there's anything.

Speaker 4 Doesn't he just do it? It's like everyone's hearing you're hearing like calisthenics being done and music being pumped into Koreatown.

Speaker 3 Oh, I think Kanye has officially crossed into the event horizon.

Speaker 4 I think Yee, by the way. Yee, party.

Speaker 3 Please.

Speaker 4 Yes. He changed it today.

Speaker 3 Again, the rebrand, the resurrection. Yeah, ye.
Sorry. Oh, Yee, Yee, I-I-I.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I-III.

Speaker 4 You should be illegal today. Just out.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think sometimes about when a celebrity crosses from cult-followed into cult leader. And I think Kanye is crossing the threshold.

Speaker 4 You know, he is just, it's the whole thing of,

Speaker 4 do you go crazy because this shit drives you crazy? Or do you, because like, I, I don't, I feel like Kanye, unfortunately, wants to be a cult leader. Yeah.
I feel like he wants it too much.

Speaker 3 That's a huge part of it.

Speaker 4 It's like a thing where you're like, but he's got a crew following following him. Apparently.
They're all on the panel. They're all dressing up together.
They're all on the page.

Speaker 4 He's got black KKK outfits. I know, but again, that's just, they're having fun.
Like, that's the honest part of his day. He gets to put the.
He had a school that was shut down by the government.

Speaker 4 It was a bad school.

Speaker 3 It was a bad school. I think cults are supposed to be fun.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 In a way, right? Yeah. I always kind of think about that with Scientology where I'm so jealous.
Like, the idea of like, you put on your...

Speaker 4 your space exactly you got to go in there and you got all your lapel awards and you go in and you're an admiral of a spaceship and it doesn't matter that you look like a pear.

Speaker 4 You're going to goddamn space and you're fucking not gay anymore. That's for certain.

Speaker 3 I don't, if I'm sure it feels so satisfying to like have a hierarchy to ascend, you know, like instead of just living in pure chaos.

Speaker 4 Like I

Speaker 3 like the rest of us dogs. But yeah, I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 3 I guess when thinking about celebrities and other public figures and who has officially crossed over into that dangerous territory, I mean, of course, like I I think about like who's using the worst of cultish language.

Speaker 3 And one of the techniques that signals like, okay, red flag

Speaker 3 to me is the thought terminating cliche. And that's a term that this psychologist coined in 1961, this guy named Robert J.
Lifton.

Speaker 3 And it describes a kind of stock expression that's easily memorized, easily repeated, and aimed at shutting down independent thinking. or questioning.

Speaker 3 And this is like the number one most nefarious technique that all cult leaders have in their arsenal. So like in Cinanon, the group that my dad spent his teenage years in,

Speaker 3 the like key thought terminating cliche was act as if.

Speaker 3 So if anyone wanted to like question a protocol or express like any kind of pushback because they were feeling cognitive dissonance about their membership in Cinnanon, someone would say, act as if.

Speaker 3 And it kind of sort of meant fake it till you make it. It was basically like, oh, you're questioning this because you don't yet understand Chuck Diedrich's like vision.
And

Speaker 3 you're not deep in enough. So you need to act as if you understand it until you do.

Speaker 3 And then certainly you will because Chuck's wisdom, and this reminds me of so much of what you were saying earlier about like the pattern getting like sucked down the whirlpool, like eventually you will understand it.

Speaker 3 And it was really effective because if you've sunk 10 years of your life and so much money into this group that was promised to be transcendent and it's not feeling that way anymore, you're going to be highly motivated to want to trust that thought-terminating cliche.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 So, when pushback is met with a phrase like that, and you know, like we hear them in everyday life, like phrases like boys will be boys, you know, or like everything happens for a reason, it's all in God's plan.

Speaker 3 It is what it is, it is what it is. Literally, those are all, those are all thought-terminating cliches.

Speaker 3 I mean, in QAnon, like one that I hear all the time or in those type of spaces, it's like someone is you know poking a hole in some kind of logic, and someone's like, Oh, you need to do your research.

Speaker 4 The do your research thing is like, well, that's kind of that really hits on what we were talking about on our episode together. The Intel episode, yeah.
Yes, the concept of

Speaker 4 secret knowledge

Speaker 4 that you don't have access to.

Speaker 4 And it's literally in Google. Morons have just really weaponized it on the internet.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Because the internet's nothing but gate-kept little corners that you don't really understand and you feel out.

Speaker 4 I feel like that's also part of you and I, maybe even what our fascination is into this, is that I looked at something like Scientology, and there's like always just a little part of me that's like

Speaker 4 100%. What if it's in the center of this thing? What if the answer I'm looking for is in the center of this little thing here? And it's like,

Speaker 4 but what are you looking for?

Speaker 4 Your life's great. Power.
What the fuck do you care about?

Speaker 4 Ultimate knowledge.

Speaker 3 All of those things are true at the same time. It's like, yes, like I have,

Speaker 3 I love my life. I appreciate so much.

Speaker 3 And yet, like, I don't know whether it's capitalism or just like the existential pain of being a human on earth and having like awareness of our mortality or whatever, or a combination of the both.

Speaker 3 But, like,

Speaker 3 there is always more that I'm going to want to know and find out. And it always feels like the secret to life is like just around the corner, you know? That's how it feels.
It is how it feels.

Speaker 4 But that's why it's very lucky you wrote this book because the secret of life is actually in this book.

Speaker 4 It's in cultish the language of fantasy.

Speaker 4 In occultish, the language of fanaticism by Amanda Montel. No.
And the answer's in here. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I do have a couple, another person I want to ask about, if that's all right. Please.
How do we feel about Mr. Beast? I don't trust this motherfucker.

Speaker 4 I'm terrified of this. Are we taking shots at Mr.
Beast? I just saw someone peeping. Everyone was like, oh, are we?

Speaker 3 We have an episode coming up.

Speaker 4 We have an episode coming up. You can't wait to listen.
Yeah. This guy is terrified.
Can I also ask something genuinely, what's the difference between a bad boss and a cult leader?

Speaker 4 Like, because that's the thing. Mr.
Beast seems to be kind of.

Speaker 4 boss.

Speaker 3 I do think, like, when you go down the checklist that, you know, folks like Robert J. Lifton have put together,

Speaker 3 one that always pops out at me is exit costs. Like, what is,

Speaker 3 how high is the barrier to exit? And what do you feel like you'll lose when you leave? Yes.

Speaker 3 Sometimes it's just psychological loss.

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 3 We haven't recorded the episode yet. And actually, my co-host Reese, member sweet Reese, love Reese so much.

Speaker 3 love both of my my cultie hostees Reese and Chelsea everybody please go check them out but um they uh Reese is gonna be handling that episode and I just can't wait to listen and learn more because you know the the weird thing is that like because the podcast about is about the cultish groups we all follow um we'll we'll just like never run out of topics and i i can never know about them all so i'm i'm excited to tune into that one as a listener no that's honestly that's very fascinating.

Speaker 4 I would like to listen to that too, because he's somebody that I don't trust. I got my eye on this motherfucker.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 I was like, especially when he did that thing, that humble brag where he's like, you know, I actually don't have any money myself. I had to borrow money from my mother to do blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 4 And you're like, what the fuck? The performative populism. You got to do a lot of piece of shit.

Speaker 4 I got so mad. I like literally, you know what flipped me out the most about him? It's like, I had never heard about him.
And then I was just like, and then I had like my

Speaker 4 godson was staying with me. And he's like, can we watch Mr.
Beast videos? Like, sure, whatever the fuck you want. I don't give a shit.
And then he puts it on. I'm like, 100 million views.
So wild.

Speaker 4 What the fuck are you talking about? People just signed a deal with the fucking devil. Like, what is going on?

Speaker 3 I'm so curious to know what's in your YouTube algorithms right now.

Speaker 4 Oh, my shit's all Disney stuff. It's fucking.

Speaker 4 Are you a Disney adult? It's how I, it's how I, uh, this stuff's so aggravating and upsetting. Body cam footage.
Yeah. Okay, cool.

Speaker 4 This is, I've been following, all I've been watching every single day of the Laurie Vallo trial and P. Diddy trial.
Okay. And all my goblins.
That's cool. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I guess funk music in Disney for me. And dogs.

Speaker 4 Sweet. With the Diddy trial, do you think that now that they're trying to get him on the racketeering?

Speaker 4 I find it interesting that if you look at sort of what Diddy did versus what Keith Ranieri did, they are both similar, but it's interesting to see because he has no central like doctrine, it's just about glistening pornography.

Speaker 4 Yeah. That's all he wanted in my life.

Speaker 3 I mean, I do perceive

Speaker 3 Diddy, is that

Speaker 3 what I'm calling him?

Speaker 4 Sean Cole.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I do. I do.
I do perceive him as a cult leader. When I, I, some, some documentary came out right before the trial that I watched late at night.

Speaker 3 I did not have good dreams that night, but I, uh, yeah, I, I was like, wow, this feels like a cult story.

Speaker 4 You should listen to the trial footage. I will.

Speaker 4 It's very, very interesting because what you're seeing is the defense and everybody else is doing the same thing is basically the constant, oh, she benefited.

Speaker 4 So there's no way she could have been an involuntary.

Speaker 3 Oh my God, that literally feels like defenses that people make of cult leaders. It really does.
It was all voluntary.

Speaker 4 Well, because I do understand at one point, but when, you know, then you hear about the actual details of

Speaker 4 the freak offs. Same thing.
It's like, oh, no, I'm not saying from my own self that it's all voluntary. You're allowed to like freak offs.

Speaker 4 You're allowed to want to make and do and produce freak offs, Amanda. That's not your fault.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 But no, it's the, with the. There just can't be a guard at the door.
It's the, well, literally, where is the line?

Speaker 4 The hallway video with Diddy shows exactly what you'd get. That is

Speaker 4 the best. Those are the exit costs.

Speaker 3 Yes, and that is the crime. Yes.

Speaker 4 And then Keith Runieri, same thing. You can have a bunch of skinny women in a field if you want, sure.
But once you start branding them, that's when everybody's going to get real upset.

Speaker 3 Literally. Like, I should make a Coachella Midsomar like Venn diagram.

Speaker 4 You really should do it. And then, and then we should really take it back and we should be monetizing these brands.
Honestly.

Speaker 4 You really should be wearing a shirt with the, with the brand, with sounds like a cult brand image. Yeah.
I'm talking about like with the irons.

Speaker 3 I do.

Speaker 3 Aye, aye, aye.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I do.

Speaker 4 I do need to get more into merch. Y'all are so good at your careers.
Yeah, you do. We'll talk a little bit later.
I know

Speaker 4 you're doing my Eddie's Deli shirt.

Speaker 3 I love it.

Speaker 4 I love it. New merch, new merch alert.
But the meaning of the merch alert. No, this is not.
This is literally, this is work that you've done here.

Speaker 3 I do care. I do care that it's pretty.

Speaker 4 I honestly did it a lot.

Speaker 4 You should. You're an elegant woman.
Oh, my God. And you wanted to look elegant.

Speaker 4 You're a very elegant lady. Look at that.

Speaker 3 There's So much.

Speaker 4 What would you do if a bunch of people just started following you and were like anything you say?

Speaker 4 I'm into it. Would you denounce it?

Speaker 3 I would totally denounce it. It's very stressful to me.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I would

Speaker 4 say that. Yeah, yeah, sure.
Yeah, I bet you.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 When does last podcast in a left become a cult? I've been working on it. Well,

Speaker 3 this lady over here.

Speaker 4 You guys are going to come to Henry Zabrowski's Thought Academy. I'm going to make your thoughts.

Speaker 4 I would love to.

Speaker 3 And that is the thing, and we've been saying this the whole time. Like, Like, we critique what we love.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 3 We critique what we love. And that is like the lifelong journey that I'm going to be on is like teetering.

Speaker 3 Every second, I'm just going to be like on the edge of falling into a cult, starting a cult. And that's, and, and, and I, and I won't apologize.

Speaker 4 Henry Zabrowski's Thought Academy, Fake Breasts for Your Thoughts. Fake breasts for your thoughts.

Speaker 4 Doctor, your thoughts are.

Speaker 3 Where do I spill my blood?

Speaker 4 Your thoughts are a carpenter's dream. Here comes the thought, doctor.
I'm so there.

Speaker 4 Check out the language of fanaticism. Cultish, Amanda Montel.
Smart lady, huh? Sweet.

Speaker 4 Sweet.

Speaker 4 A smart fucking lady, huh?

Speaker 3 A smart lady, if you can imagine it.

Speaker 4 Don't take a look at it, huh?

Speaker 3 If you can imagine it.

Speaker 4 Sounds like a cult podcast. Check it out where all podcasts are found.
Now you got to get out of here before our studio catches on fire. Yo!

Speaker 4 Or Nori.

Speaker 4 We have called ice on ourselves. Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 Yes, it is just, just because, honestly, I'm looking for a break.

Speaker 3 Honestly, it's just a little, a little pris time.

Speaker 4 Make me ice. Yeah, I got crushed ice.

Speaker 4 Yum, great.

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