Why Are Young People So Obsessed With Cults?
In this op-ed, linguist and author of Cult-ish: The Language of Fanaticism, Amanda Montell, takes on why American youth are so obsessed with cults.
“Omg have you seen the Nick Jonas SNL sketch about cult shows?”
“This hamster cult thing on Tik Tok is wild, I have to send it to you.”
“Are you watching the QAnon docu-series on HBO??”
In 2021, it seems like every other conversation anyone on the internet is having comes back to the same theme — cults. This is really no coincidence: Cults are a consistent American obsession, and our fixation with fanatical groups — from the Rajneesh movement to Peloton die-hards to Taylor Swift stans — only seems to be escalating. I spent the past two years writing a nonfiction book called Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, about the language of “cults” from Scientology to SoulCycle (it’s out now!), and whenever I’d tell a new friend what I was working on, they always hit me with the exact same response: “Wow, yes, I am obsessed with cults.” (Of course, same.) Amid bingeing last year’s dueling NXIVM docuseries, scrolling through TikTok’s “what’s something that’s not a cult but seems like one” trend, and overanalyzing Lorde’s new Midsommar-esque music video, we just can’t seem to consume enough cult-themed content.
But… what is behind American young people’s peculiar cult transfixion? Are we just a generation full of twisted voyeurs who are inexplicably attracted to darkness? Or is there something deeper going on?
Historically speaking, people’s attraction to cults (both the tendency to join them and the anthropological fascination with them) tends to flourish during periods of larger existential questioning. This culture-wide penchant for cults isn’t exactly new: it first took its modern shape in the 1960s and 70s, which, like now, was a peak cult moment in the U.S. Before that time, “cults” were not really a mainstream curiosity. Six decades ago, the average American might not have been able to name a single cult.
Our relationship to fanaticism pretty closely mirrors the history and many meanings of the word “cult” itself. A brief etymology lesson: The earliest version of the word “cult,” which can be found in writings from the 1600s, had the relatively innocent significance of “homage paid to a divinity,” or offerings made to win over the gods. The definition shifted in the early 1800s, a time of major religious experimentation in the U.S. Back then, “cult” denoted a new or unorthodox type of spirituality, but nothing inherently sinister.
If you’re super into horoscopes or witches, or if you dream of moving to a remote field to live out a cottagecore fantasy, odds are that 50 years ago, you’d have brushed up against some kind of “cult.”
“Cult” didn’t gain its spookier reputation until the mid-20th century — an era of hardcore American unrest, brought on by the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and the Kennedy assassinations. These events filled Americans with a sense of existential tumult (sound familiar?), and this widespread anxiety gave way to all kinds of new religious movements. At the time, spiritual practice was on the rise (in general, people tend to get spiritual during times of crisis), but people were rejecting the traditional Protestantism they grew up with; so, new (or new-to-mainstream-America) spiritual groups— from the Unification Church to Shambhala Buddhism to the Covenant of the Goddess — cropped up to quench that cultural thirst. Just like today’s “cult followers,” those seekers were mostly young, countercultural, politically rebellious types who felt the “powers that be” had failed them. If you’re super into horoscopes or witches, or if you dream of moving to a remote field to live out a cottagecore fantasy, odds are that 50 years ago, you’d have brushed up against some kind of “cult.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, all these emergent new religions freaked out old-school conservatives and Christians; so, by the 1960s, “cults” became associated with sinners and heretics. But they still weren’t considered a huge threat to society… not until the Manson Family murders of 1969, and then the Jonestown massacre of 1978. Those unprecedented tragedies put “cult” on the map as a national symbol of fear.
(It should be noted that a “cult” is not an inherently bad thing. There's no one agreed upon meaning of the word, and some innocuous and even healthy groups could be considered cults. A destructive cult, on the other hand, is when things get dangerous.)
But then (common story), as soon as cults became terrifying, they also became cool. At least among the youth. Pretty quickly, America’s ‘70s-era young people coined slang terms like “cult film” and “cult classic,” which described the up-and-coming genre of underground indie movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Bands like Phish and the Grateful Dead came to be known for their loyal “cult followings” (who’d quite literally follow them around the country from gig to gig).
A few decades later, dangerous old-school cults now boast a sort of nostalgic cool factor among cult-curious young people, having taken on a perversely stylish vintage cachet. These days, being obsessed with Heaven’s Gate is basically akin to having an extensive collection of ‘90s CDs and band tees. At an LA salon the other week, I eavesdropped on a 20-something telling her stylist that she was going for a “Manson girl” hair style: overgrown, brunette, middle-parted. An acquaintance of mine recently hosted a cult-themed birthday party in New York’s Hudson Valley —the epicenter of numerous historical “cults” (including NXIVM). The dress code? White slip dresses. Filtered photographs of guests sporting flower crowns and glassy-eyed “oops, I didn’t know I was haunted” expressions flooded my Instagram feed.
When folks who hold alternative beliefs are able to find each other (and radicalize) more easily than ever online, it only makes sense that “cults” of all stripes would start raging like wildfire.
The long and the short of it is that our cravings for connection, belonging, and purpose have existed since the dawn of humanity, and cultish groups have always popped up during moments of social turbulence when these cravings have gone majorly unsatisfied. What makes the 21st Century an especially culty time for America’s youth is that in this social media-ruled age, when gurus can be godless, when you can “join” a digital “cult” just by clicking “follow” with your fingertip, and when folks who hold alternative beliefs are able to find each other (and radicalize) more easily than ever online, it only makes sense that “cults” of all stripes would start raging like wildfire.
Think of modern groups of secular fanatics who are just as zealous as religious cultists: Anyone from Harry Potter die-hards to woo-woo wellness gurus. “What all of these groups have in common is they are groups that have been galvanized by the internet,” said theologian and reporter Tara Isabella Burton, author of Strange Rites: New Religion for a Godless World, in an interview with Religion and Politics. “They are groups that want to … rewrite the rules of being. There’s a focus on internal desire. What do you want? What do you hunger for? There’s a sense that the establishment of [contemporary] society at large is dangerous insofar as it stops you from achieving your truest self.”
We may not think of, say, people who are obsessed with astrology or Lady Gaga or Joe Rogan as constituting a “new religion,” but Burton said in her interview that as spiritual practice becomes more “eclectic,” these pop culture-adjacent communities become our new source of answers to humanity’s toughest existential questions. As our sites of community and meaning have shifted due to the web, withdrawal from traditional church, and mistrust of government leaders, we’ve seen the rise of countless alternative subgroups — some dangerous, some less so. For better or for worse, there is now a “cult” for everyone.
I’ve also found that today’s young people find themselves particularly attracted to “cults” because they help take the edge off the tyranny of living in a world that presents almost too many options for who to be (or at least the illusion of such). A therapist once told me that flexibility without structure isn’t flexibility at all; it’s just chaos. That’s how a lot of young people’s lives have been feeling. For most of American history, there were comparatively few directions a person’s career, hobbies, place of residence, romantic relationships, diet, aesthetic—everything—could feasibly go in. But today’s globalized, digitally-connected culture presents folks (those of some privilege, that is) with a Cheesecake Factory–size menu of decisions to make. The sheer volume of possibilities can be paralyzing, especially in an era of radical self-creation, when there’s so much pressure to create a strong “personal brand” (at the very same time that morale and basic survival feel less stable for young people than they have in a long time). As our generational lore goes, Boomer parents told us we could grow up to be whatever we wanted, but then that cereal aisle of endless “what ifs” and “could be’s” has turned out to be so crushing, all we want is a guru to tell us which to pick.
Following a charismatic figure provides a kind of identity template — a guide for how to look, how to think, and what to care about — which alleviates that chooser’s paradox. This concept can be applied to extremists like Scientologists and QAnoners, but also to devoted acolytes of celebrities, influencers, and “cult brands” like SoulCycle or Glossier. Just being able to say “I’m a Glossier girl” or “I’m a Swiftie” softens the stress and responsibility of having to make so many independent choices about what you believe and who you are. It cuts the overwhelming number of answers you have to figure out down to a more manageable few. You can simply ask, “What would a Glossier girl do?” or “How would a Swiftie react?” and base your day’s decisions — your outfit, your reading material, your social causes, all of it — on that framework.
That cereal aisle of endless “what ifs” and “could be’s” has turned out to be so crushing, all we want is a guru to tell us which to pick.
The good news is that the reason millions of us binge cult documentaries or go down rabbit holes researching groups from NXIVM to QAnon is not actually because there’s some violent weirdo that lives inside us all: American young people living in 2021 are essentially primed to be attracted to “cults.” That might not sound like good news, but there’s nothing innately bad about seeking connection, ritual, and identity in alternative spaces, and we ultimately hold the power to decide which “cults” we wish to belong to… because they’re not all equally risky. Just having the awareness that cultishness is all around us can help us keep an eye out for groups and gurus (even digital ones) that might be a little closer to NXIVM than Glossier. And from there, we can feel empowered to choose whether or not we want to “follow,” and if so, to what extent.
And all the while, you definitely don’t have to give up your love of marathoning cult movies and TikToks. If you still feel weird about it, feel free to copy me, and just chalk it up to “research.”
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