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A review by fern_mollett
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
5.0
In this TikTok famous book, Amanda Montell talks about the "cult-ish" language of the every day. This was a really quick, engaging read with many modern anecdotes (it was so strange to read a book which referenced newer MLMs, Insta influencers, TikTok and QAnon).
She starts by addressing cults themselves. What are they? Who is vulnerable to cult messeges? She introduces her book by talking about "actual" well-known and deadly cults: Jonestown & Heaven's Gate. (The comparison of D. Trump's speech patterns to those of Jim Jones' would have been more entertaining if these two men didn't encourage such violence and got people killed).
Montell explains how cults reel people in, and who they target. We'd like to believe that those vulnerable to cult "brainwashing" (which isn't real, btw) are uneducated, superstitious, gullible, weirdos. But turns out its the exact opposite. She focuses on cultish language to explain. Cults and cultish groups use niche jargon ("the box" instead of gym, "Venti" instead of large, "vessel" instead of body, etc.), love-bombing, and thought terminating cliches ("it is what it is", "boys will be boys", "fake news") to stop critical thinking and nuanced dialogue and reel followers in.
She also never shys away from how white supremecy, racism, capitalism, christian language, and privilege all play vital parts in "brainwashing" followers. And reiterates many times that the reason so many cult(ish) leaders are succesful is because we are conditioned to automatically trust the voices of middle-aged white men. To further expand on this Amanda speaks about MLMs, cult fitness groups (SoulCycle, CrossFit, etc), Instagram influencers, all the way up to the "New-Age-Thinking, woo-woo-health" to QAnon pipeline.
She finishes by reminding us that we already operate inside a cult; the cults of capitalism and the cult of social media.
She starts by addressing cults themselves. What are they? Who is vulnerable to cult messeges? She introduces her book by talking about "actual" well-known and deadly cults: Jonestown & Heaven's Gate. (The comparison of D. Trump's speech patterns to those of Jim Jones' would have been more entertaining if these two men didn't encourage such violence and got people killed).
Montell explains how cults reel people in, and who they target. We'd like to believe that those vulnerable to cult "brainwashing" (which isn't real, btw) are uneducated, superstitious, gullible, weirdos. But turns out its the exact opposite. She focuses on cultish language to explain. Cults and cultish groups use niche jargon ("the box" instead of gym, "Venti" instead of large, "vessel" instead of body, etc.), love-bombing, and thought terminating cliches ("it is what it is", "boys will be boys", "fake news") to stop critical thinking and nuanced dialogue and reel followers in.
She also never shys away from how white supremecy, racism, capitalism, christian language, and privilege all play vital parts in "brainwashing" followers. And reiterates many times that the reason so many cult(ish) leaders are succesful is because we are conditioned to automatically trust the voices of middle-aged white men. To further expand on this Amanda speaks about MLMs, cult fitness groups (SoulCycle, CrossFit, etc), Instagram influencers, all the way up to the "New-Age-Thinking, woo-woo-health" to QAnon pipeline.
She finishes by reminding us that we already operate inside a cult; the cults of capitalism and the cult of social media.