The Cult of The Manosphere

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform

to help entrepreneurs, creatives, podcasters, standout, and succeed online. I am a long-time

Squarespace user. I encourage you to check out sounds like a cult.com. All pretty thanks to

Squarespace's beautiful features. Like their design intelligence, Squarespace also offers

integrated SEO tools, and obviously you can set up an online store on Squarespace if you're

running like an e-commerce situation, or you can set up a fundraiser if you're feeling charitable.

Check out Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to Squarespace.com

slash cult to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Culties, I don't know about you,

but I personally like to keep my money where I can see it. Unfortunately, traditional big wireless

carriers like to keep my money where they can see it. That is why I am so eager to introduce you

to Mint Mobile. With Mint Mobile, you can ditch overpriced wireless and get three months of premium

wireless for just 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high-speed data with unlimited

pocket text, and it's all delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. No long-term contracts,

no hassle. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at mintmobile.com slash cult.

That's mintmobile.com slash cult. Up front payment of $45 for three month five gigabyte plan

required equivalent to 15 bucks a month. New customer offer for first three months only then full

price plan options available taxes and fees extra cement mobile for details. The views expressed

on this episode as with all episodes of sounds like a cult are solely host opinions and quoted

allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for

entertainment purposes only before we get into the rest of this episode. I did want to provide a

trigger warning that this conversation does cover topics of sexual assault and suicide. So if

those are topics that you find triggering, absolutely no worries. We will catch you next week

or just listen with a careful ear. The worst case scenario is happening right now. All these

fucking ice agents are absolutely in these forums. It's why I've been beaten or gassed or thrown

by ice at least half a dozen times now and every single time they can put their hands on me,

they've grabbed me by my chest. They don't do that to my male friends. Oh my god. I hadn't thought

about these ice agents extracurricular activities. I remember one time there was like a guy on a roof

and I was like do you feel really big and strong in your army surplus gear and he nodded at me

and then he shot my feet with pepper balls from a roof. This is Sounds like a cult. A show about

the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host Amanda Montel author of books including

cultish and the age of magical overthinking. And I am Reese Oliver. Sounds like a cult's

resident rhetoric scholar. Every week on the show we discuss a different fanatical fringe group

from the cultural zeitgeist from raves to romance novels to try and answer the big question.

This group sounds like a cult. What is it really?

And if so, which or three cult categories does it fall into a literate life, a watch your back,

or get the fuck out? After all, cultish influence appears in many many forms nowadays.

And sometimes the most destructive cults don't look how we think they should. This show is all

about both seriously analyzing and bringing a wee bit of humor to the absurd ways in which we attempt

to find meaning and community in 21st century America, which is a scary scary place people

filled with terrible horrible groups like today's unfortunate subject. The Manusphere.

Oh yes, I certainly hope we all fell that collective shudder. This episode today is kind of a

companion piece to our episode on in cells, which was our most listened to episode of 2025. We

recorded that with the iconic boys from last podcast on the left. But this time we're here to dig

a little bit deeper into the figureheads that influence this. I don't think it's a stretch to say

sickening corner of the internet and the content that's shared there. No, okay. So if you're like

Manusphere, what the heck is that? The Manusphere, which is the cutesified new name for

the pool at the end of the all-right pipeline. Oh, so it's like a nasty-ass water slide?

That's how I see it. Yeah, that's how I see it, full of acid. It's a cesspool of biopessentialist

nonsense, patriarchal garbage, and arbitrary rules for the very large and somehow somewhat go

here in group of men that claim to be better self-obsessed and emotionless because they don't have

opportunity to form community. We're gonna sit with that irony for just a second there.

I just love how lately sounds like a cult. We're done being measured. We're letting our

judgments free. No, we're really unsensorying ourselves lately. I noticed it with Chelsea the other

day and I was like, yeah, gloves are hot, baby. No, I love this. So the origin of this term

it was believed to have first appeared on yield blogs, but in 2009 as a play on the word

blogosphere. The Manusphere is defined by urban dictionary in several ways which to me really

signals the polarization of this cult. I can't believe you took your ass to urban dictionary.

It's an urban word. One person described the Manusphere as a network or group of blogs and

related websites that are run by and for men offering primarily with, love the grammar,

offering primarily with misogynistic topics and content. Our next Manusphere definition,

a group of websites made for men to discuss men's interest in issues without women nagging them.

Those of course are the men who are going to reject the label entirely as anti-men's rights

movement propaganda. Ah, of course. Like how anti-vaxxers prefer vaccine aware? Yes, it's just all

framing. There's pro-life, there's anti-choice, there's a lot. So here's the tea.

According to Relage, the Manusphere can be defined as a varied collection of websites, blogs,

and online forums promoting masculinity, misogyny, and opposition to feminism. Okay, that sounds

fair and technical, but the Manusphere is older than Urban Dictionary. The Manusphere has

a storied past, and in order to diagnose this cult, we're going to need to excavate that.

So I'm like going to choke on this phrase, as I say it, but the men's liberation movement,

as it's called, has its roots in the 1970s and 80s as a response to what the women,

women being like we want rights. But then of course, the Manusphere, as we know it today,

more so took shape with the creation of the worldwide stinking web throughout the 90s and the 2000s.

The Manusphere, much like an insidious mold, has slowly grown from the fringes of society

into the mainstream in several waves throughout the 2000s, all of which have been marked by

violence against women, various shapes of tragedy. But the Manusphere has experienced no win,

quite like the re-election of Donald Trump. Not to spoil anything, but the Manusphere's ultimate

cult leader is literally sitting in the most powerful office in the world. So that's unfortunate,

but really emboldening for them. And since then, phrases, rituals, and behaviors that were once

relegated to the internet's underworld are now broadly recognized and discussed.

Frazes like get back to the kitchen and repeal the 19th receiving millions of views on the app

formerly known as Twitter, along with sentiments like your body, my choice. Being used against

women, that one was coined by Nick Fuentes, who is I would say like a leader or at least a disciple

in the sea suite of this cult. He's a far-right pundit, I guess. He's a far-right activist. He's

a livestreamer. He's the worst. Google him if you want your nightmares on it. The Associated Press

has reported that these phrases have moved offline, quote, with boys chanting your body, my choice

in middle schools, or men directing it at women on college campuses. They highlighted a case where

a man held a sign that read women are property at Texas State University. So before we get into

our interview, we do want to touch on how the Manusphere makes its way off of our screens and

into our very real lives. The Manusphere received a significant media coverage following the 2014

Ila Vista killings in California. The 2015 Amqua Community College shooting in Oregon and the

2018 Toronto Van attack, as well as the online harassment campaign against women in the video game

industry known as Gamergate, all of which had perpetrators who had ties to Manusphere content.

We are here to continue digging into exactly how this abyss where your sex life goes to die

formed, who stewards it, how to get out of it, all with the expert help of two iconic guests,

Liz Plank, a fabulous journalist, podcaster, and the author of the book for the love of men,

and Kat Aguigazale, a grassroots congressional candidate for Illinois 9th District, who has

carefully studied the Manusphere to her own mental health detriment. Stick around for after the break

because you do not want to miss this conversation.

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform to help

entrepreneurs, creatives, podcasters stand out and succeed online. So whether you're just

starting out or managing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it super easy to create a beautiful website

to connect with your audience and to sell absolutely anything from products to content to even your

valuable time. I am a long-time Squarespace user. I encourage you to check out sounds like a cult.com.

All pretty thanks to Squarespace's beautiful features, like their design intelligence, which

combines two decades of industry-leading design expertise with cutting-edge AI technology to help

you build the website of your dreams that represents your brand. Squarespace also offers integrated

SEO tools. The website is optimized with indexed meta descriptions and auto-generated site map

and more so that you show up more often to more people in global search engine results.

And obviously you can set up an online store on Squarespace if you're running like an e-commerce

situation or you can set up a fundraiser if you're feeling charitable. Squarespace is just a household

name for a reason. It is just the service to use for website creation. Check out Squarespace.com

for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to Squarespace.com slash cult to save 10% of your

first purchase of a website or domain. Culties, I don't know about you, but I personally like to keep

my money where I can see it. Unfortunately, traditional big wireless carriers like to keep my money

where they can see it. That is why after years of overpaying for wireless, I am finally so eager

to introduce you to Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile exists purely to help you no longer overpay for your

wireless service. With Mint Mobile, you can ditch overpriced wireless and get three months of premium

wireless for just 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data with unlimited

pocket text and it's all delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You bring your own phone

and number activate with eSIM in minutes and start saving immediately. No long-term contracts,

no hassle. I truly find so many wireless providers to be so culty in scammy and Mint Mobile is like

a beacon of light in the market. I highly recommend it. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you.

Shop plans at mintmobile.com slash cult. That's mintmobile.com slash cult. Up front payment of $45

for three month five gigabyte plan required equivalent to 15 bucks a month. New customer offer

for first three months only then full price plan options available taxes and fees extra

cement mobile for details. Cat Liz, welcome to sounds like a cult. Thank you both for being here.

We just thought we needed like a coven. Yes. To discuss the atmosphere. I think we need a coven

in general all the time so yeah a coven could heal us. Could you individually introduce yourselves

and explain your hopefully lack of relation to the cult of the manosphere? Okay my name is Liz Plank.

My relationship to the manosphere is that I'm afraid of it concerned and I don't have anything

funny enough sad. No there's objectively nothing funny about it. I mean it is funny. It's just now

when it has like real life consequences I think is when it becomes harder to sort of laugh off.

Yeah maybe it used to be funny. I wish we could go back to a time where the

manosphere was funny. This sort of contained weird space and not in the way that it is now which

has sort of melded with our real life. Maybe that was like the 2016 trend that we all just lived

through. And when everybody was actually really longing for it was a time when the manosphere was

in there. You know when Hercules when those evil gods were in their subterranean cage. That's

how I think of the manosphere. That's a good point. And Kat introduce yourself to the listeners.

I'm Kat Abogazale. I'm running for Congress in the ninth district of Illinois which goes from

like uptown Chicago up to Evanston, West Discokey, all the way to Algonquin and Crystal Lake. I give

so much detail because early voting starts in a week election day is on March 17th. I am tied

for first against one person who was fully funded by APAC, another person who submitted a

position paper to APAC. And I don't do that. I'm under federal indictment. I was weird time at

this earlier. I'm going to court tomorrow for my federal indictment for protesting ice.

Blah blah blah blah. The reason I ran is because of shit like the manosphere. I covered the far

right for outlets like Media Matters, Mother Jones, The Teo News. The manosphere is very very very

intimately tied with all of that. And now essentially runs our country. And I have been consistently

attacked by far right chuds for my entire career. I'm really good at triggering them. They hate me.

It's part of the reason that they're going after me. And I can't wait to talk about the manosphere

with you ladies. Fuck yeah, dude. What do you do for like? Are you care? Yeah. Are you like

broad-dogging? Are you on? What are you like? What drugs do you do? Yeah. I mean like look, we're

all on an SSRI right now. Yeah. But yeah. I mean, people would be like, how do you watch Fox News,

specifically Tucker Carlson every single night? And like the answer truly was built different.

But like it is the best trading for voting for Congress because you've already had people like

docks and swat you and be really fucking awful. So when someone says like a petty comment,

you're like, okay, well, at least you didn't send me a rape threat. So that's cool.

Totally. Totally. Totally. The bar is the hell. Yeah. Okay. So as we will get into the

manosphere, it has many, many different leaders depending on which corner you are lurking in.

Kat, who in your opinion are the overall cult leaders pulling the strings behind the whole

operation? I mean, you have a lot of characters now. You have people like Andrew Tate,

but really the basis of the manosphere kind of started with Steve Bannon in its part of the

reason the right has been able to collect so much power especially online because men overall,

we told them your only value, especially in our culture is what you can produce and how you can

create things. And then we took away all that and punishing them for vulnerability. And instead

of creating third spaces and fostering community, we didn't do any of that. We just made things

worse. And then Steve Bannon saw that and was like, oh, I can capitalize on this and essentially

encourage these spaces where fear is the easiest human emotion to manipulate. And he said, hey,

all of the problems in your life are actually due to women or minorities or insert X group. So

I would say Steve Bannon is like the grandfather of it. Gross. Yeah. So gross. They all look so

gross. They all need a shower. I was rewatching this episode of Sex and City last night where Samantha

talks about Nixon because he couldn't get fucked. He fucked us all, you know, and that's the vibe

I get from the guys at the helm of this. I'm curious Liz. Like how have you seen figures like

granddaddy Steve Bannon, but also the Andrew Tates, the Jordan Peterson's not every man we know

is worshipping at their altars. But how have you seen these figures influence bleed into even

quote unquote, good guys everyday behavior these days? Yeah. I mean, I think in the way that any

cult functions, no one robs an empty house. People are sort of really colonizing men's brains

and to Kat's point have built a really powerful movement out of it. Steve Bannon not only saw

these online spaces, but have replaced third spaces, which have been defunded and literally like

national parks are shutting down and being like privatized. But Steve Bannon talked about this group

of isolated, basically sad men, right, who were playing video games. And he went, oh, this would be

great to build a movement around. And I think they've been very successful at creating a really

powerful story that is very appealing to a lot of young men who again, to Kat's point, don't have

the same access to social mobility. I mean, if you think about what being a man means, it's being

a protector, it's being a provider, he can't really do either of those things if you can't find a job

or if you need three jobs in order to just feed yourself or your family. And so here comes a

manosphere being like, you know what, you've never done anything wrong in your entire life.

You are perfect. And this sort of fantasy of what it means to be a man that you see in movies

and that your grandfather had access to the sort of James Dean, you know, tough masculinity,

you can access that if you buy my whatever the fuck they're selling. But you know, when you're

most likely to end up in a cult is when you're just unhappy, you know, and so if you have a big

group of unhappy men, yeah, the manosphere becomes a really enviable place to be that makes you

feel good, despite actually, as a lot of people have said, it's treating a wound that's real with the

wrong medicine. I just want to say before we clown on a bunch of people, which I love to do, I say

this a lot. I think that there is a cult for everyone. And if you insist that there isn't a cult for

you that like you could never ever fall into that, you're probably in one. I don't know what mine is.

I think it's probably that one from a wild, wild country that Netflix documentary, not like the

five people who try to poison a water supply, but the ones that are like making renewable energy

and dancing and shit. That sounds fun. Oh, like something let it fun. Yeah, yeah, 100%. And I can

tell because of the chair behind you that you would look gorge in orange. Thank you. Orange is my

favorite color. It's why it's our campaign colors. But I just really want to stress that it's

easy to be like, oh, I could never ever do that. No, you could. And Trump, I don't understand his

appeal like his appeal does not appeal to me, but it does for a lot of people. No, I would say

unhappiness definitely can be like a vulnerability that orient someone toward a cult. But also I would

say it's privilege. Like you're probably not going to lend your life to an organization that's

promising you transcendence and community and all of these things. If you don't have time and

money and other resources to spare, a cult doesn't want truly, truly the most down and out people.

It wants people who have something that's useful to it. And manosphere type men have, I was going

to say they have a lot to offer, but out of context, that's a total 20. There's potential.

They do. They have so much potential. Yeah, it's like the male loneliness epidemic

like any time a guy is complains to you at the male loneliness epidemic. I'm like, what are you

doing in your life with your friends? Yeah, literally. Actually, I am married to a man weirdly

enough. He's a lesbian man. If that makes sense, and to some people it really does, and to other

people will be like, what is that? It doesn't say, oh, love. Yeah. No case, he's my lesbian husband.

And he gives me so much hope, problematically enough, because I eavesdrop on him talking about his

feelings with his bros so much. They're like playing. They do so many sweet little things together.

And that could be the manosphere. I think it should be. People are like, how do you have

so many young men in your campaign? And I'm like, I don't know, we just don't treat them like

shit, like our campaign office is a third space. I remember one time we asked volunteers, we were like,

who wants to help us build some shelves? And then eight dudes just came all like under 30 and

didn't even talk to me. They like set high and then just built shelves for two hours. And they're

also, something love that. Building things is really important. Himbo's for good. So cat, where exactly

is the manosphere? If I were to for some ludicrous reason, seek it out. There are pockets on the

regular internet that I unfortunately stumble upon on the reg. But like, where are the hardcore dudes

congregating in lieu of like a beautiful man's and esk compound, IRL? Places that have really

fuzzy human trafficking laws. Places that allow a lot of freedom in various bullshit supplements

that you create. Like if they don't have a lot of regulation over say steroids or shit you put

in a smoothie, they love being there. I'd also say Miami. Okay. What about online spaces? You have

a whole range of places. First off, obviously X formerly known as Twitter, the child porn site.

If you're still on there, I'd recommend getting off. You also have a lot of forums. There are

lots of in-cell forums that get taken down and then pop back up. There used to be a lot more in-cell

focused subreddits. Actually, this is sad. I was looking at one for work and one of the mods put out

to suicide note and I DMed him and was like, hey, let's talk. We talked for a while and then he

just stopped responding and then I DMed the mods of the in-cell subreddit and they were like,

your woman, we don't give a fuck what you say. Horrible, horrible shit. And then like two weeks later,

there was all this controversy because they were like, how did we not know he killed himself? Because

like they don't give a fuck about anything except hate. They're motivated by hate. Okay. Like when we

were talking about potential, like I think that's what it is of like, it doesn't have to be this way.

But yeah, I mean, like social media is a cesspool. YouTube algorithms are made to radicalize you.

I've looked up like hairbrading tutorials and then like within two clicks, you end up on some

white nationalist Celtic and Setshtree hair tutorial. You know the Wikipedia game where you

try to find some random thing in as few clicks as possible through like hyperlinks on other Wikipedia

pages. You like give someone a really innocent place on YouTube and it's like how fast can you find

your way to white supremacist content? And I know the pipeline. If you start with hairbrading

tutorials, it's a hopskip in the jump because right there is Mormon stuff. I just have thick hair.

Yeah, I just have like Irish curls. It's just it's just flat on the top and wavy on the bottom and

I need help. You're like, I'm just trying to keep my hair up my neck so I'm trying to make

me a knot. Oh my god. Actually, I'm not trying to shave it all off. Liz, where have you seen

specifically these dudes gathering or heard of them gathering? Yeah, I'm in

X for sure. Good old reddit, boarchan, discord, you know, these more like dark social media channels.

There's a bunch of ones on the right, truth social. I can't keep up rough which ones are sort of

out there, but it's multiplied. You know, and it's really interesting. Your point about X and

what's happening with TikTok and its purchase and changes to people's data and they're tracking

your immigration status and just being owned by MAGA people essentially or MAGA sympathizers

is driving people away from the platform. So I mean, my dream is that we all eventually leave.

They all become cesspools and then maybe we all just go outside and talk to each other.

Do you think that the manosphere dudes should have some kind of like, this is a terrible suggestion?

You're gonna suggest some kind of coltie retreat bootcamp where they can become better, right?

Yeah, I mean, should they have a meetup if only they were in more of an echo chamber?

Yeah, if they could perceive the twinkle in one another's eyes and like the

quiver of one another's lips, maybe they would kiss each other and maybe everything would be okay,

they could do a craft. There was a clip going sort of around from an interview of a CEO where the

guest was saying, you know, we need an intervention with this male loneliness crisis because bad things

are gonna start happening and literally if you don't go hug a man right now, shit is gonna be bad.

And it's like, who needs to hug men? Many to hug men, right? Yeah, many to hug men.

I'm already hugging you and it's clearly not working. Often even when I think there's

well intentioned people who are talking about the manosphere and talking about the male loneliness crisis

and just talking about men in general, there's a lot of we need to do this and we need to do that.

And it's kind of, you know, I think we need to be specific. It's not actually women's

responsibility to sleep with men that they don't want to sleep with to reproduce with men that aren't

safe to reproduce with in order to sort of fix men. I think that actually perpetuates not finding

a solution when you think the solution is outside yourself. And the dismantling of the patriarchy,

again, women have tried. We are tried and very hard to sort of destroy a system that isn't yours

and that you're not upholding. So I think men need to be told how much responsibility they have

and how much purpose they have in this moment. I think it's actually a positive thing. It's not

saying, you know, oh, fuck you and like, you got to pick yourself up by the bootstraps. It's like

you have a really big effect to your point you have privilege and here's what you can do with it.

Yeah, I know it's like how kids need like a really constructive after-school activity to keep

them from getting into trouble because it gives them like purpose and it fills their time. And like,

you could also fill your time by joining a cold and doing weird shit and that is what they're doing.

Or you could, you know, build sets for the school play. So I want all these badass fear of men to go

to your local elementary or middle school and ask if you can help build sets for the school play.

My advice is so bad. But to Liz's point, I don't know how to fix a system that isn't mine. All I know

is how to podcast about it. And with that, I have another question. So the manosphere,

we've been mentioning that their primary mission surrounds like feelings of hate and whatever,

but they have constructed a culture around that center of hate. And part of that culture involves

a good old culty symbol. They love their culty symbols, including, say, Pepe, the frog,

and the woe jack and the red pill. And so I was wondering, Liz and Kat, if you could each

hick a manosphere culty symbol and try to make sense of it.

Okay, this is exactly like what I've spent my career looking at and talking about.

Here's my whole thing about all this shit, like the woe jacks, Pepe, all of that.

Fascists don't understand art. And like the manosphere is inherently tied to fascism.

The feeling that you're weak, so you try so hard to feel like you're strong or to project to people

that you're strong. And so you have these like viscerally unappealing designs that are like,

oh, when you look at them, like some of those like woe jacks that are like, literally, you'll

have entire photo galleries in these guys' phones so they can just post them all the time.

They're so repulsive. And I think a lot of this is kind of how AI artists, I use that term

very, very generously, get mad when people are like, real artists don't understand that this is

the next wave, not being tied to the culture to like general culture or to the people around you

and then also to art and not being able to understand art because it inherently requires an

understanding of empathy means that you have this shit. And that's their entire culture.

It's why they love AI-generated art, which once again, I am using that term very generously.

And why they loved NFTs, why they love Joe Rogan's logo, or why they loved when Elon Musk just

put that like kind of gritty filter over the X logo and they were like, this is so manly.

Just shortcuts to like, approximating humanity. Yeah, this explains so much. Okay, I swear,

this is like semi-relevant, but this also explains why like men's houses are so ugly.

Yes, yes. And also because that punishing of vulnerability also includes art and like artistic

endeavors. And this isn't the case all over the world. Of course, patriarchy is in every society,

but you know, I'm Arab and there's a lot of intimacy between Arab men in terms of like this is,

you know, someone in your life that like you kiss on the cheek, you know, that you go out and

hang out with like go get teased, Mokwuka, whatever it may be. And I just think that not

understanding art and being trained from a young age that your worth is in your physicality is

really bad. Again, I'm coming back to like school plays like everybody just needs to do theater.

Everybody needs to do theater. The death of homo social culture and creation of the heterosexual

marriage has destroyed everything. We just need to go back. We make all the boys, girls, all the girls

boys, and then we'll figure out what happens after that. Trans everybody is what on it. Everybody

needs to go read women with moustaches, men without beards. Oh, okay. Okay, beer here.

Reading list. Liz, do you have a favorite manosphere symbol? I mean, there's like the look

smaxing. I guess it's the latest one that I've really been mesmerized by with particularly this

really big streamer called Clivicula who uses a hammer to hammer his jaw to get it to be more

defined and look like a Chad, another term from the manosphere. And I just find that really

sort of fascinating, you know, and coming back to your point about men's houses are ugly. I was

also having this conversation with a man on my podcast recently about just the way that men kind

of don't take care of themselves. And often we'll start taking care of themselves when they're

dating a woman. That's when maybe they'll get a pillow, you know, maybe they'll get a bed frame.

Maybe they will own conditioner, you know, there's just like things that start happening.

And someone was telling you that women kind of have more experience nurturing themselves and

taking care of themselves, because society is not going to do it for us. Sure. And also we just go

to the doctor more. We wear more sunscreen. We get into less riskier accidents. We just are

sort of different nurture and nature are probably both at hand here. And so there's this sort of

expectation then that women are again meant to take care of men in conversations around sexuality

that women are these guardrails, right? And I was talking to a friend of mine Keith Edwards on

my podcast. And he was talking about Grindr and just gay guys and how I'm talking about happens.

And he was like, you know, when it's two guys, there's just no one to kind of be like, whoa,

whoa, whoa. So it's just sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex. Like it's just kind of like a free for all. And

it sort of reminds me of the way that women have this sort of unspoken responsibility. I mean,

unspoken invisible, I guess, invisible labor that they're sort of expected to do in their

relationships with men and in society at large, you know, coming back to the way that people

talk about the male loneliness crisis or talk about, you know, you all need to go hug a man

implied. And that is it's somehow women's job. I also think it's the reason that like men are

like every woman's pretending to be bisexual now because like women are more comfortable openly

saying they're bisexual. And I think it's because we have a lot of intimacy with our friends. And

like we have less judgment. It's the same reason that like lesbians have been able to avoid

homophobic crusades for centuries because I mean, sexism, but also just because like I think

there are a lot more bisexual men, but they get punished because it's seen as like gay or feminine.

And I think that it's not fake for women to say that I say as one of them, we're not punished

for vulnerability. That must suck. Yeah, homosexual behavior amongst women is not punished. I do

think in part because it is attractive to men. Yes, also that also that for sure. The male gays

looms large like sour. We're failing the backdale test every single minute of this.

Oh, should we go back to talking about brains? Yeah, yeah. You know what? I will say this podcast like

almost always passes the backdale test because I'm not really interested in men. No, it's like

Spotify wrapped every year. There is never a man on that list. Oh, that's a blast. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Why have I asked my age back guy? I found on Angie.com to change my grandpa's trachea tube

because I was so amazed by how quickly he replaced our air ducts. I knew I could trust him to change

pop-ups too while I was on vacation. Make a quick young man.

Oh, see? Pop-up trust you. I think we should call it doctor.

Connecting homeowners with skilled pros for over 30 years. Angie, the one you trust to find

them when she trust. Find pros for all your home projects at Angie.com.

If you're tackling a home project, check out Angie.com. From roofing to remodels and everything

in between, Angie connects you with skilled pros who do such a good job. You might trust them to do

other things like pull out your tooth or be your kid's godfather. Don't actually ask them to do

those things. Just let them get the job done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust.

Find a pro for your projects at Angie.com. That's a-n-g-i.com.

Okay, I just can't stop thinking about the relationship between patriarchy and masculinity

and taste in art. And I'm just thinking like probably people in the manosphere think it's gay to have

a rug. Oh, undoubtedly. Yeah, it's gay to be trying to attract women. Again, looks

maxing. You know, it's weirdly for the male gays. Yeah, yeah, no doubt you want to look like Timothy

Shalma, you know, whose jaw is ultimately the most snatched. Yeah. No, it absolutely is. It's

also there's so many words in our vernacular that come from like in cell culture, like chaz and

staisies and things like that. You're speaking my language right now. I mean, the Wojack is used in

like neoliberal spaces as like a doomer symbol. But like all of this is based on like the male gays,

like in terms of what they think that women that like men want, when in reality, we just want like a

dude that makes us laugh really hard. And then like also we'll go down on us and won't kill us.

And also doesn't turn on the big light or can be trained into not turning on the big light.

Oh, right. Like is it gay to have a little suddenly? That is gay.

Ladies get with the lighting designer. He will always want very many tiny lamps everywhere.

He will want too many lights. He will try to light smacks your life. And that will be your

problem. Also, I love the idea of looks maxing when it's like just trying to seem attractive,

which like women looks max every day. So that way we could like get a job. They're just inventing

things. It's my favorite thing when men, well men are famously bad at inventing language. It's not

their thing. You can trust that the manosphere is not innovating effectively with language,

but they do come up with words. Well, they come up with words that don't stick because they're

just synonyms for things that we already have words for. Like looks maxing is, you know, we already

have like getting dressed or you know, biohacking. That's just like taking a vitamin. And to bring

it back to cultishness, all of this is an attempt at building what I think is an ultimately pretty

unsatisfying culture. But I'm fascinated by the ways in which the manosphere's language

creates and us versus them dichotomy and discourages critical thinking and puts their cognitive

dissonance that I'm sure they're feeling scores of to bed. Could you each talk about some of the

most insidious pieces of manosphere lingo you've come across and how they contribute to this cult?

The men who are at the home of the manosphere telling men that they're going to get them laid

with women are men who don't like women. It's really that simple that Nick Fuentes is a virgin

who said that sleeping with women is gay, by the way. Yes, sleeping with women is gay. So that's

that end point and that's who you are you want to be. So it's really, I think, confusing and it's

really dumb. And Andrew takes similarly disliked women. I mean, I interviewed Bree Stern, the woman

who dated him and who is assuming him for battery and assault and just judging by her experience

and the experience of so many other women. I mean, this is a guy who just really doesn't like

women. And I think we're used to saying like, oh, they hate women, they hate women, but like,

you don't like us. That's the gay thing I've ever heard. So the manosphere is gay. That's just my

take. And I think a lot of guys should just be gay. Like, it's fine. That's okay. Just be gay.

Just be gay. Don't make it our problem that you don't want to be gay or you're afraid to be gay.

So yeah, I think a lot of our problems come down to men just not being gay. And I think they just

should live their best gay life and leave us the fuck alone. Yeah. And they're doing a lot of

linguistic gymnastics to avoid that fact and emotional gymnastics. I mean, I've had my fair share

of men who will really manipulate and gaslight their way to just never look at the mirror. And it's

pretty astounding. Kat, you got some culty lingo from the manosphere you want to roast for a sec?

Yeah. I mean, I think in terms of like what's in cities, I think two of the most in cities

things are first off the idea of black pill of like everything is bad and it will never be better

and just feeding off of this hopelessness. I don't recommend this, but if you've ever gone

into like online in cell communities, they're extremely, extremely depressing. And it keeps this

vicious cycle where you're just like, oh, yeah, everything is bad. It's never going to get better.

And I'm never going to get my dick wet. And it's like with any type of bigotry, you like meet

someone of that group and you take two seconds outside of this echo chamber and you're like,

oh, like there are so many things that get downvoted to shit on in cell forums. Being like,

I don't know, girl, my class was really nice. She was my project partner and we've been talking

and we might go see a movie. And I don't know if we're going to date. I just I'm really excited

like a friend. And then everyone being like, you're at disgrace. It's really dark. But also,

this is gone farther than the manosphere and in cell communities, but describing women as females.

Oh my god. Don't get me in started. The biggest fucking red flag. Yeah, please.

I think it is either a subconscious or conscious attempt to reduce women to their physiology,

their bodies. Yes. Because for example, when you think about the language choices that we use

to describe sex versus gender, mammals and birds and fish and reptiles and all the other animals.

Do it Amanda. Not human animals, okay? Not human animals is what I'm trying to say quite

precisely. In the animal damn kingdom that don't have gender because gender is a construct.

We don't refer to them as women because we're not acknowledging that we're not like that woman's

woman go. And ironically, my nickname for my female cat is woman because I think it's funny

and people do I think gender their animals in a human way and in a sort of anthropomorphizing

way to because we want to feel closer to them and it's like funny. But you can just see that

scientists are not out here calling like an insect a woman. But like we also say a girl when people

are like men and girls, that is also a red flag because it's the infantilization. It's the

diminishment. I've been watching the vowel this week weirdly and there's a lot of that of like

referring to women as girls and men as men. And when guys say female, especially when it just

comes out, like I always correct them because that's an adjective for soft second, you don't say male.

Like if you say male and female, I'm okay with it, but it has to be on both sides and they never do.

Can you imagine saying like I was talking to this male earlier? Yeah, I mean we say boy all the time.

And I'm cool with like there needs to be like an equal footing here if we're like ladies and

gentlemen, boys and girls, whatever. But when you are purposely only referring to one

diminished capacity, it's massaging. Period point blank.

Okay, we've got a couple more questions for you and then we want to play a game. Could each of you

tell us from your perspectives about some of the different subsects, denominations, if you will,

within the manosphere and how they're organized? I'm wondering if there's like maybe a pecking order,

for example, when you think about like men's rights activists versus the pickup artists versus

like the no-fap guys. Yeah, I mean there are a lot of different denominations in subgroups and

like ethnicities of the manosphere. So you've got things that are way more severe and scary like

the in-cell or involuntary cell of a community. But you also have guys that watch Jordan Peterson

and for some reason were amazed when he was like, you should make your bed. And they were like,

whoa, fuck, I didn't think of that. You've got like Joe Rogan bros that are a lot more like

normie, which is also from in-cell vocabulary. But now has come into like our lexicon. You have

guys that their entire thing is guns. You have the pickup artist community, which has like diminished

a lot. I think it's making like a minor resurgence, but like it's not like 2010 anymore, you know?

There's a lot of it I think that comes from self-help. I remember used to date this guy who was just

so into self-help books and spent all of his time reading these self-help books and then not

actually doing anything from them because it was like the action of doing the self-help book.

And I think that that's a big gateway to the manosphere and this idea of like making yourself

better because there are a lot of guys that want to improve themselves. That see that their life

is not satisfying in one way or another. A lot of it's because of capitalism. And our entire

society has been engineered to not make you question that. And so yeah, I think that it ranges and a

lot of it like a lot of guys are subtly in the manosphere whether or not they realize it. And then

there are ones who like that's their whole thing. That's all they think about. That's all they do.

They're like Elon Musk. They just want to like breathe their co-workers or whatever or they

think it's gay to fuck women or they fall into a right-wing rabbit hole. A lot of these are just

gateways between either the manosphere or far-right fascism. Well, all fascism is far-right, but you

know what I mean. I don't have anything to add. That was a really good explanation. I think at this

point, you almost have to actively try not to get sucked into the manosphere. If you're a man

and you're consuming videos or you're on a social media platform, I mean, I think Laura Bates

talks about this. It takes sort of seven seconds for a guy to be shown, soft core porn or some

sort of violence against women or some sort of AI slop of a woman. Like it's almost the sort of

current. And if you don't want to get dragged into that, I think you actively have to train your

algorithm, right? And I think that makes me sort of feel better in a way that a lot of these men

didn't start off that way, right? I truly do see these men. Yes, in many cases, it's like

perpetrators, but like ultimately the victims, you know, if you go back to Bell Hooks, it's like the

first victims of the patriarchy are men. And then they weaponize it and it turns it to something

else and then women get victimized by them, right? And that's where I get really angry too, because

all of those platforms are run by men. And so again, we have to make changes. We need better

algorithm. Who is in charge? It's not a woman. There's not a woman pulling the strings who's

making these decisions. It's actually a very small number of men. And I think about this a lot

with coming back to Kat's point about the things that are no longer or less and less available to

men because of capitalism and those five guys who are hoarding all of the money. I think a lot

about feminism. I read a lot about it and there's a lot of talk about the gender gap, right? The

difference between sort of men and women and inequality there. There's a growing conversation about

the gap between white women and women of color generally or immigrant women and that more granular

conversation. But there's actually a bigger gap between men than there is between women. There's

a lot of inequality between women, right? And we need to talk about it more. But between the

most rich guy and the least rich guy, like, there's a big, big difference. And I think that that

is actually powering so much of this. And it comes back to magical thinking, right? I can be Elon

Musk, even though you're not. And you should be glad about that. You should be happy about that.

But meaning you can be a billionaire, but it's a lottery. And that's kind of what that is.

You know, it's like, well, maybe. And so I'll just stick around in case it happens to me.

Yeah, I mean, there are so many cult parallels to be made about the analysis that you two have

just very coherently expressed. And I think what you're both getting at with the self-help

comments and the magical thinking of like, you're at the bottom now, but you could be Elon Musk.

I mean, it truly is no wonder that the manosphere is really unfolding in such a culty way in the

United States, which is like, I mean, our entire culture was set up for this. Like the self-help

industry is based on American dream philosophy, the Protestant ethic, Calvinism, like we've done

episodes on the self-help industry and so many different offshoots of it. And I'd never

thought about the manosphere as like a sort of subsective self-help in a way that sort of like

dark underbelly of self-help, but it is. Well, that's what's scary about it to me is that it's like

no matter what kind of content you consume as a man, you'll find your way to it. My boyfriend is

as left as they come. And he shows me stuff he gets on his algorithms all the time, mostly just so we

can laugh at it. But even I tell him like, you have to be careful with the extent to which you're

ironically engaging with this content because you're training the algorithm to feed you more of it.

And Lord knows it's already difficult enough to get it to show you anything else.

I just stress that to my dad because he watches a lot of YouTube and he like downloaded TikTok to

watch my videos, which is very sweet. But I was like, you have to be careful because like these

algorithms, especially because anger, you're a lot more likely to interact with something if it

makes you angry, whether it's leaving a comment, whether it's sharing it with someone, algorithms

reward that. So what are some of the entry and exit costs that you've seen with regards to

menosphere membership? I don't know if this is a good parallel, but I wrote a book called

for the 11 men. That was basically what I've been talking about, which is, you know, the patriarchy

hurts men and men have a stake in the gender revolution. And I interviewed this ex gang member,

ended up in a maximum security present. I mean, just like a through and through, you know,

quote unquote criminal, and he described sort of the way that he fell into a gang, which I think,

I mean, the man's here is a is a cult. It's also kind of a gang too, right? But the way he described

falling into a gang was the way that someone would describe falling in love. It was not the way

that I thought it would be, right? That this person had a really abusive childhood, didn't have

traditional means to income and again, protecting or providing. And the gang offered this sense of

community, as we all know, and it comes back to that, that these spaces really sort of provide that.

And I think a lot about it as sort of anything, which is sometimes the thing you want is going to

feel good in the short term. The thing you need is going to be maybe harder in the long term, but at

the end of the day, you know, has higher long term benefits. And what I see with the manosphere is

like, yeah, what you benefit from is like you immediately get everything's fine. You're great.

Everything that's wrong in your life is because of a woman or because of immigrants, right? Or

because of insert. So wow, that feels good. If I'm depressed, isolated, sad white guy living with

my parents in a basement, wow, that feels good. But eventually, what you lose is is everything.

Because that's actually so disempowering that the locus to your happiness and what's wrong with

your life is outside of yourself. So there's nothing you can do about it. And so I think you

definitely gain a lot in the short term. It feels good, just like a drug, right? Like, oh, I'm high.

It feels great. But then the high gets, you know, I think increasingly a little less high. And then

eventually you're just still depressed. And that's why these men are still in these, you know, they're

not gaining enlightenment at the end of that journey. Yeah, I think that's really, really insightful.

I also think like there's this idea of like sunk costs, you know, you don't have this community.

And then you're going in, you're like, well, these are my only friends because I've probably

alienated a lot of people in my life for this. Or because I've spent a shit ton on like these

shitty supplements and books. And if they don't work, then why did I do it the first place? And like,

I grew up Republican and I talk about this a lot. It's not fun to admit that you're wrong about

things. No human being likes doing it. I'm so impressed with my parents, like I fell to my mom

who grew up in a family that her mom is literally a GOP operative. And at like 55 was like, oh, I

believed a lot of actively like incorrect things and also some kind of shitty things and then

changed her mind. And that is way harder to do than a lot of people think. So I think like the

benefits that you get are those short-term highs. And then leaving ultimately improves your life.

And I think it's you a lot of empathy and a lot of perspective. But also there's shame.

I talk a lot about the reason that I started to wonder if Ronald Reagan wasn't right about

everything. It's because in high school, we moved to Tucson, Arizona, which is much less segregated

by income than where I grew up in Dallas. And I had a friend who was like much smarter than me who

couldn't afford to go to college. She wanted to be a doctor more than anything. But she couldn't

afford it even with like a better GPA than me, even though she was like much more talented than me.

And that just didn't make sense. And I was like, well, poor people should just save. Like why aren't

they just saving more? Because that's how you pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And there was a lot

of shame realizing that like, oh, that's not the reality. And even though I wasn't the one that

like came up with that idea, it doesn't feel good. And so I think there's also that fear of like, well,

I'm here and I'm believing things that I realize are shitty. But how could I possibly get out?

I think what's so important to note about this particular cult is that like some of the online

cults that we've analyzed on the show in the past, but with higher stakes, I think the entry and

exit costs are all totally abstract. Like you don't have to pay any money. You don't have to move

your house. And to leave, it's not like leaving Scientology. You're not going to have to like say goodbye

to your doctor and everybody like this whole like, I like how your person instinct was like your doctor.

Well, I mean, if you're a high-up Scientologist, like even your doctor is a Scientologist, like it

just takes over your life. In the manosphere, we forget you can literally just log off. You can

just walk by. You don't have to see it. Yeah, you don't have to see it. And when you're deep in that

kind of like addiction spiral, like Liz was describing, it's really, really hard to see that.

Our last question before our game is, what do you think is the worst case scenario here? Because

recently you're going to have to come up with a verdict to determine whether the manosphere is

a live your life, a watcher backer, get the fuck out. I wonder what it'll be. And in order to truly

make that decision, we want to know like what have you seen as like the worst that this can really get?

We're in it. The worst case scenario is happening right now. Like all these fucking ice agents

are absolutely in these forums. It's why, you know, I've been beaten or like gassed or thrown by ice

at least half a dozen times now. And every single time they can put their hands on me, they've

grabbed my chest. They're grabbing by my chest every time. They don't do that to my male friends.

Oh my god. The root of so much of fascism, so much of bigotry, so much of inequality is always

and will always be misogyny. Yeah, I think that's a great point. I hadn't thought about these

ice agents. I hadn't thought about their extracurricular activities, but yeah, they're definitely like

on the, I remember one time they there was like a guy on a roof and I was like, do you feel really

big and strong in your army surplus gear? Do you feel like really cool and masculine? And he

like nodded at me and I was like, no one's going to fuck you. And then he shot my feet with pepper

balls from a roof. Like that's just the definition. It's like that saying is like men are afraid that

women will laugh at them, women are afraid that men will kill them. Yeah, yeah, 100 percent.

Yeah, and I think it's the chapo guys who describe them as like, it's an unemployable force going

after employed people. I mean, right? Like these ice agents are the guys who don't have a job,

right? Who don't have the skills to sort of do well in life and who end up having this power

against people who do have fucking jobs and who aren't blaming other people for their fucking

problems and actually picking themselves up by the bootstrap, right? Like, you know, I often

think as the worst case scenario is like, what's not the worst case scenario to me? It's the ultimate

consequence of the patriarchy. If you take the patriarchy to its full extent, it's bad for men,

right? Like bad for women, again, is the first stage, right? It's the obvious stage. It's the one

we've been in for a really long time. And when I see what's going on, this is bad for men. Men

aren't doing well, duh. And I don't want to, again, harp on this. But like when we say we aren't

taking care of men, we really aren't, you know, it's like, who's the we? You know, yeah, patriarchy

sucks for men. Thinking that men don't need anything and that they must produce or else they're not

worth anything, like not having any kind of redistribution of wealth, not having funding. Sorry,

I'd be like, lasting, but even if you think about the male loneliness crisis is ultimately,

you know, people say, people don't care about mental health and we should invest in mental health.

Women vote for those things. Female politicians, right? Are you actually going to go to therapy?

Yeah, like it really is infuriating. And I really believe this. And it's backed up by data, you know,

men being exposed to women is a net positive. I'm not saying all women are great and not any women

has been problematic or cause problems for men. But men who marry women live longer or healthier,

go more to the doctor. Like we know there's data. You're literally going to live longer. But also

part of it is because we've been forced to like, it's like when people are like girls are so mature.

I don't want to have to take care of someone like their mother. Yeah, you know, yeah.

Yeah, no, men for sure need to take care of each other. I mean, deaths of despair are highest

among middle age unemployed undereducated white men. And that's the patriarchy's fault. And on

that note, we really, really want to play a game. This is Coltie quotes. So we are going to give you

a quote and you are going to guess if it is from a leader of today's cult or a leader of a

different cult. And you get bonus points if you guess who it is. Number one, Mr. President,

you are one of the greatest Americans that has ever lived. I love you.

Manusphere. Yeah, that's a different person. I think it's JD Vance. Manusphere. That's Nick

went to us. Oh, that checks out because he's gay because he's gay because he's gay. And that's

fall of him. I mean, I'm talking to you. Just do it. I mean, sick. Next quote. Knowing what to do

is useless without the emotional strength to do what you know. I'm going to guess Manusphere,

Jordan Peterson. So close. It was a cult leader and it was Keith Ranieri.

I was just watching the the vow like that now. Yeah, yeah, I am. You're

my act is so completely and totally uncensored that the only way I could really pull it off is

if I treat the audience like they're my best friends. That sounds almost too earnest for the

Manusphere, but that sounds like the Manusphere. That sounds like Joe Rogan. Yeah, like a flagrant

podcast. Like that's correct. Oh, my God, spot on. Okay, next quote. We're in this period of time

now, aren't we? But any day it could be cut short in righteousness. No one knows when it'll be.

It could be today. It could be tomorrow. You see, it could be next week. El Ron Hubbard.

Yeah, that sounds like a cult. Yeah, that's a cult leader. And that was very specifically David

Presh, the leader of the Branch Davidians of the Waco tragedy. Oh, deep cut. The next quote is

my unmatched perspicacity coupled with my sheer indefinitegability combined to make me a feared

opponent in any realm of human endeavor. And rotate. Yeah, I was gonna say I'm gonna take

and he like he's like synonym.com wrong for those words. Correct. Yeah, yeah, correct,

correct. And if anyone wants to know what either of those words mean, perspicacity just means like

insightfulness and indefinitegability. Well, the word fatigue is in that means tired inability to get

yeah, tartless, right? I take this as big a tree because I'm narcoleptic and I think that it's

discrimination. Yeah. Ooh, it's ableism. It's ableism actually. The word indefatigability is ableism.

It's ableist because no one with a human mouth can pronounce that.

The mind is endless. You put me in a dark solitary cell and to you, that's the end. To me,

it's the beginning. It's the universe in there. There's a world in there and I'm free.

It's that boxer guy. I'm one of the brothers. Oh my god. Yeah.

Those are full of such good guesses that I'm so amused. That is Tarles Manson. Oh my god.

Same thing. That's fine but different, you know. That's why this game never gets old. Okay, last

quote. I don't tell people you're okay the way that you are. That's not the right story.

The right story is you're way less than you could be. Jordan Peterson.

Yeah, that does feel like it could be Jordan. Wait, you're so good at this. That's right.

This was my job. I mean, I've done. Holy shit. Cat. Liz. Liz. Cat. We can't think you

enough for joining this coven conversation. If people want to keep up with you and what you're

doing, can you please tell us how? Yeah, so I'm running for Congress. You can find out more

at capriilanoi.com. You know, if you can chip in, that's great. If you can volunteer on our discord

discord.gg slash capriilanoi phone making door knocking phone bank from anywhere. That'd be

awesome. But most of all, if you know anyone that lives in the Chicago area, especially uptown,

up to Evanston, let's just go key all the way to Algonquin and Crystal Lake. Please let them know

about our campaign. I'm tied for first. I'm against two candidates who have met with and submitted

position papers to APEC. APEC's about to drop a shit ton of attack ads against me. I'm under federal

indictment because it's like I have consistently been on the front lines protesting ice. I am just sick

of how our politics is and I want a people led movement. I'm a grassroots candidate. Please text

like five friends, you know, that live in Chicago about this and remind them that early voting starts

February 5th and election day is March 17th, capriilanoi.com. Cat with a kid. Yeah, voting. Thanks for

letting me to yeah. Yeah, I'm Liz Plank. I'm feminist tabulous on what social media platforms I

I'll still be on by the time this comes out. Who knows? I'm on Instagram now. I'm still on TikTok,

but I don't know if I'll be there much longer. I have a subset called airplane mode, which was

just featured in Dermois, which was a pretty big deal. I still don't know how that ended up there,

but it was very sweet and it's like a way to get the news without being totally depressed. That's sort

of the pitch for that. I have a book called For the Love of Men right behind me and I'm working on

another one, which will be available in a little bit about what do we do about men? I have a

documentary called Not So Special about disability rights coming out in a couple months. Oh,

what? I have a podcast called Boy Problem. Sorry. My real job is podcasting Boy Problems, which you

can listen to every gay podcast. Gorge. All right, Reese, out of our three cult categories,

live your life, watch your back, and get the fuck out. Which do you think the cult of the

manosphere might pull into? This is truly one of those break the scale episodes where I wish there

was a category worse than get the fuck out. We need like a banish it or something like all of the above.

It is the get the fuck outiest get the fuck out up there with anti-vaxxers in cells,

flatter, there's probably worse. I couldn't hate it more. I couldn't love it less. I was really grateful

for Liz and Kat. They came guns of lasin to this combo and conversations like the one that we had

with them make me feel like there's hope. Is that delusional? Yeah, although this mirage is big

and powerful. It is still a mirage that we all can see. Totally. Oh god. Well, that's my show.

Thank you so much for listening. Stick around for a new cult next week. But in the meantime,

stay culty, but not too culty.

Sounds like a cult was created by Amanda Montel and edited by Jordan Moore of ThePod Cabin.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Montel and Reese Oliver. This episode was produced by Reese Oliver.

Our managing producer is Katie Epperson. Our theme music is by Casey Cole. If you enjoyed the show,

we'd really appreciate it if you could leave it five stars on Spotify or Apple podcasts.

It really helps the show a lot. And if you like this podcast, feel free to check out my book

Cultish, the language of fanaticism, which inspired the show. You might also enjoy my other books,

The Age of Magical Overthinking, Notes on Modern Erasionality, and Words Let a Feminist Guide

to taking back the English language. Thanks as well to our Network Studio 71. And be sure to

follow the Sounds like a cult cult on Instagram for all the discourse at Sounds like a cult pod,

or support us on Patreon. Pull us into the show. Add free at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult.

I just want y'all to know that my mom is like y'alls biggest fan. And can I please shout her out

during the pod? I covered the far right. So like I'd always talk about cults and shit like that. And

she fucking loves this podcast. It is her favorite podcast. Wait, Jordan, include that. Yeah,

hold it. If y'all want to say shout out to Susie, like if y'all want to give Susie a shout out,

my mom's the best. Susie, we would follow you into the woods wherever Pied Piper us, Susie.

Why have I asked my age back guy I found on Angie.com to change my grandpa's trachea tube?

Because I was so amazed by how quickly he replaced our air ducts. I knew I could trust him to

change poppups too while I was on vacation. Make it quick young man.

Ah, see poppup trust you. I think we should call it doctor. Connecting homeowners with skilled

pros for over 30 years. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your

home projects at Angie.com. If you're tackling a home project, check out Angie.com from roofing to

remodels and everything in between. Angie connects you with skilled pros who do such a good job.

You might trust them to do other things like pull out your tooth or be your kids godfather.

Don't actually ask them to do those things. Just let them get the job done. Well, Angie,

the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your projects at Angie.com. That's

ANGI.com. Why have I asked my electrician I found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster nibbles in

our yard for me? Because I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires. I knew I

could trust him to bury my sweet nibbles after his untimely end. Nibbles gone too soon.

May he scurry in peace. Sorry about your pet, but I just wire stuff. Nibbles would have loved

you like a brother. Connecting homeowners with skilled pros for over 30 years. Angie, the one you

trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects at Angie.com.