Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Boarding Schools

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Grab your trusty #2 and find the desk with your name tag on it, because class is in session this week at Sounds Like a Cult! Our /pedagogically inclined/ episodes are always RIPE with juicy insight, and today’s topic is no different. Be it Hogwarts or Pacific Coast Academy, boarding schools have long shrouded themselves in an air of mystery and exclusivity that has most recently led to a culture-wide obsession with the Dark Academia genre. But is this intrigue secretly supporting a sinister institution? What culty rituals and traditions lie behind the plaid and ivy? Let’s find out! Amanda and Chelsea are thrilled to be joined by the wonderful Ceara O’Sullivan from the Petty Crimes podcast to discover what lurks within boarding schools' hallowed (culty) halls. Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod @amanda_montell @chelseaxcharles @reesaronii Watch the new season of Sounds Like A Cult on YouTube! To order Amanda's new book, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, click here. To subscribe to Amanda's new Magical Overthinkers podcast, click here :) Thank you to our sponsors!  Dipsea is offering an extended 30-day free trial when you go to DipseaStories.com/cult.  Go to the App Store or Google Play store and download the FREE Ibotta app to start earning cash back and use code CULT.  Visit BetterHelp.com/CULT today to get 10% off your first month. Shop the SKIMS bras at SKIMS.com. After you place your order, select "Sounds Like A Cult" in the survey and select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. Further reading: Psychopathology and Dissociation among Boarding School Students in Eastern Turkey National Museum of the American Indian: Boarding Schools Time for America to Get Over Our Ivy League Obsession A Brief History of Boarding-School Scandals

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This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Overcome your fears with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash cult today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, h-e-l-p dot com slash cult. 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. It was, I would say, quite similar to a college dormitory, except in some ways a little more like a prison only because unlike a college where every student is either 17 or they're

an adult, these are all children and you have to keep them safe. And all they want to do is run amok. And so doors have to lock. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Amanda Montel, author of the books, Cultish and The Age of Magical Overthinking. And I'm Chelsea Charles, an unscripted TV producer. Every week on this show,

we discuss a different fanatical fringe group from the cultural zeitgeist, from Catholic school to Costco. To try and answer the big question, this group sounds like a cult, but is it really? Ah! And if so, which of our cult categories does it fall into? A live-your-life, a watch your back, or a get-the-fuck-out?

After all, not every culty seeming group these days is equally destructive. The point of this show is to scrutinize how cult-ish influence shows up in everyday life, to poke a little bit of fun at human search for meaning, and to critique how power abuse shows up in places you might not think to look. Like culting boarding schools. Did you ever want to go to a boarding school growing up, Chelsea? Absolutely. So I grew up on the facts of life.

Hashtag Nick at night. So I was obsessed with the idea of going away, leaving my parents behind. Yeah. Fuck mom and dad. What did they ever do for us? Absolutely. What about you? I don't think I was ever bougie enough to aspire to like a boarding school lifestyle.

Okay, so I grew up in Baltimore where there is this very stark culture contrast between public school kids and private school kids. I took a lot of pride in being a public school kid. Like I don't need that expensive pedigree. Now I regret it because, you know, the connections, we're going to learn about them. They can get you somewhere. No, I don't really regret it. But I do love the genre of boarding school campus novel. Like there is romance around it, which I appreciate 100%. TV definitely sensationalized boarding school for me.

At the end of the day though, if I'm truly honest with myself, I think I just wasn't cool enough to have that aspiration. I hated being a teenager and I didn't want to like put any effort into the experience of being one. I was just like, get me out of here, whatever school you want to plot me in, who cares? That's fair. But enough about us. Today, we're talking about a cult that is no doubt alluring to the both of us, but that we aren't

ultimately in and have never been in. And it is the cult of boarding schools, as we've been mentioning, often used as the backdrop to so many cult classic films and TV shows, these institutions are more than just scholastic settings, they are characters in their own right. Boarding schools are steeped in culty phenomena from secrets and rituals to power hierarchies, legends and mysticism. Anyone who's a fan of the facts of life,

of Zoe 101, of sex education, of the show Wednesday. What is it about Netflix and boarding schools? I don't know. There is this undeniable romance attached to boarding schools that continues to pique our interest and that is indeed quite culty. There is a very famous boarding school in the South where a lot of girls that I ended up going to college with went to and they had the most, when I tell you the craziest stories I have ever heard

in my entire life. Yeah, cause it's Lord of the Flies. Yes. On the surface, the cult of boarding schools seems honestly not that sinister. Like, yes, it's ritualistic. It is elitist, et cetera. But you think to yourself, at least I think to myself,

you don't see like headlines about boarding school deaths or whatever. And that could either be because there's a major coverup see like headlines about boarding school deaths or whatever. And that could either be because there's a major coverup conspiracy Illuminati style going on, or it could just be because the truly dangerous cultish aspects of boarding schools are more buried than that.

And as it turns out, it's kind of both, but for as of right now, I wanna talk about the latter. So I didn't know this, but boarding schools history goes back really, really far, centuries in fact, to around 597 AD in Canterbury, England. For the sake of today's episode though, we're gonna stick to discussing US boarding schools, particularly through

the lens of our special guests today. Kira O'Sullivan from the show Petty Crimes, which many listeners here might be a fan of. And spoiler alert, she had a grand old time at her boarding school, which is valid. I don't want to invalidate that, but here it sounds like a cult. We are in the business of invalidation of poking holes. We're in the business of invalidation of poking holes. Exactly. And she made her case, you will hear it, for the glamour and positive culty side of boarding schools. But we can't deny its sinister origins. It really is important first and foremost to lay a foundation touching on the not so lighthearted history of American boarding schools.

We learned, reading a piece published by the National Museum of the American Indian, that American boarding schools were originally designed as an assimilation tactic for Indigenous children. We touched on this in our Cult of Catholic Schools episode, and as it turns out, these two origins and stories have quite a bit of overlap. We're also going to link these sources in our show notes for those who'd like to do some further reading. But according to this piece published by the National Museum of the American Indian, quote, boarding schools were founded to eliminate traditional American Indian ways of life

and replace them with mainstream American culture. And ever since then, these institutions have continued to be bastions of highly conformist standards and rituals. And I didn't understand how sinister the foundation of this industry was because the media has glamorized these institutions so very much because I think we're fascinated by wealth and by the most elite corners of our society. But we just had to sort of lay that foundation because it will inform our ultimate decision about how bad this cult really is. Damn, girl. That was so, wow, that was amazing.

You know, listen, sounds like a cult is a tonal, it is a tonal gymnastic act, let me tell you. I'm like, we're teeheeing about Wednesday, the show on Netflix, and now we're talking about white supremacist Conformity in the American education system I don't know what to tell you if a listener can handle a lizard can handle it and if they can't it's like This is sounds like a cult in a nutshell. Yeah, no when when I was working on on the on the outline I was like, yo, this is a little dark but I I was like, I mean, we are talking about cults.

The origin of the whole idea is is fucked. So for sure, like we can't glaze over that. Yeah. Ultimately, like this whole show is a bit and also not a bit. Like, I keep saying that until I'm blue in the freaking face. But like, there are important points to be made about cultishness in American society that we have to sneak into our like giggles about plaid skirts. Absolutely.

So I wanna keep quoting from this article, "'Boarding Schools' were founded "'to eliminate traditional American Indian ways of life "'and replace them with mainstream American culture. The first boarding schools set up started in the mid 19th century either by the government or Christian missionaries. At boarding schools, indigenous children were separated from their families in cultural ways for long periods of time, sometimes for four or more years. That's, first of all, what?

Totally, and like we take it for granted this idea that like, oh yeah, in the name of excellence, sometimes you have to snatch a child away from their parents, but this origin story is so nefarious. When you take a look at it, you're like, wait a second. No, we need to problematize that notion. Absolutely. The native children were not only taught to speak English,

but were punished for speaking their own languages. Their own traditional religious practices were forcibly replaced with Christianity. Hashtag the fucking cult of colonization. I hadn't really thought about the role of boarding schools in that process because yeah, like what's the easiest way to strip a child of their culture to take them away from their community, from their parental figures. And I guess we've just continued that practice. It's just it has a new flavor now. Yeah, I mean, to your point, this same model has been practiced forever for every indigenous

culture. I mean, every culture that is not European, people have to assimilate. And that's terrifying. Yeah. And like, I was doing my little googlings in preparation for this episode and my algorithm pointed me towards a few articles specifically about Ivy League schools, generational wealth and politics. And there was one that I'm going to quote from from Newsweek and opinion piece titled Time for America to get over our Ivy League obsession. And it said the following quote schools, schools like Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania have long served as finishing schools for the wealthiest and the whitest of the old money American elite.

Historically, the young men who attended them didn't have to be particularly talented to warrant admission, and they didn't have to work particularly hard to graduate with a gentleman seat. Despite these realities, Ivy League schools often tell their students, you're here because you deserve to be here and you deserve to be here because you're the best." And it just made me think like the horrors of these 19th century assimilation boarding schools really like fulfilled the fucked up vision of those originators, right? Because now these prep schools and these boarding schools are just like a factory for white elite nepo kids

and the rest. And yet there's so much romance surrounding it that like so many of us don't question that. I'm like putting that together, gross. It is gross. But while the inception of these style schools is clouded in gloom, there must be some okay outcomes to this form of schooling that explains their longevity through history. 100%.

These schools are still around. And so perhaps they have remedied some of their worst history, their worst reputation. Maybe they're a net positive now, I don't know. We're gonna fucking find out. And with that, now we're gonna be switching tones, okay? Again, this is what we do here on Sounds Like a Cult. It is a mix, it is a mishmash, it is a hodgepodge of the oh no and the ha ha.

If you can handle the cognitive dissonance, you can handle our show and with that shall see introduce today's guest Today on sounds like a cult we have a very special guest SNL writer and petty crimes co-host, Kira O'Sullivan. Welcome to Sounds Like a Cult. We're so happy to have you. Hi, thanks for having me. Very excited to be here. And now a word from our Cult Followed sponsors who make this show possible. Can you believe that the holidays are already coming up? That means gifts, grocery shopping, maybe even a vacation. No matter what you're purchasing this holiday season, make sure you're feeling that holiday magic with Abbada and get cash back on every purchase.

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I do. I love sounds like a cult. So I was very excited about coming on and I attended a boarding school, loved it, loved it a lot. First of all, where did you go to boarding school and where was it located? So I went to a boarding school, I'll say the name of it, you can keep it in or keep it out. In Northeast Ohio, it was a former military school, all boys school converted

into a coed boarding school founded in the 1800s. Very East Coast style boarding school, very classic. And I loved every minute of it, baby. Really? Yes, I did. That's so funny. So this is not going to be one of the episodes where someone who like defected from their evangelical youth group comes to spill their guts and like find the sort of ex-vangelical community that they've craved since their defection. No, you're like, I'm here to convince everyone to go to boarding school. Oh yes, I'm here as a recruiter, actively. She's a missionary. Right. You know, that's so hilarious because I did a little stalking and initially they had you tied to this other style school that was like homesteader and it was in Ohio as well. Wait, who they?

Well, the internet. And so I initially I was like, oh my God, this is like so interesting. And the kids were doing farming like in the woods. Okay. So, okay. So the lore suggested that Kira was actually like tilling soil. Okay. So here's what you need to know about me.

My dad worked in trucking. So I moved around a lot. Okay, Teamsters! Yes, truly. And it is those Teamsters and their fight for their rights that kept us moving. I'll say that. During the tense oil situation of the early 2000s, I was in a different state every year. I went to a different school in a different state for sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, and ninth grade. And so for eighth grade, I did go to that quaint little school with an emphasis on gardening. But by ninth

grade, I was at boarding school. And for my freshman year, I was a day student and I desperately wanted to be a boarder. I did not want to be a day student. And sophomore year, once again, my family moved away and I became a boarder. So I experienced it both as a day student and as a boarding student living on campus. Okay. So we're already getting the us versus them division, the hierarchy, the power dynamic between the day kids and the boarders. That makes sense. So what were the living quarters like? It was, I would say, quite similar to a college dormitory, except in some ways a little more like a prison, only because unlike a college where every student is either 17 or they're

an adult, these are all children and you have to keep them safe. And all they want to do is run amok. And so doors have to lock. You have to know where everybody is at any given time. And so I lived in a dormitory and all girls dormitory with a dorm master, probably 40 girls living on the hall. And I was in a bedroom with one other girl, a little dorm room. And then at different times I maybe had two or three girls living in the same room as me, it depended on the year. Oh, super cool. That was so cool.

Chelsea's like, back away slowly. Twice. I mean, it sounds like a dream, and what child of the 90s watching The Emperor's Club, the, in my opinion, superior film to the Dead Poets Society, okay? Like what child consuming this content is not like, I would love to go to a boarding school, but then the isolation, the rituals, the horrors.

Could I just ask, like, what made you love it so much? And also why did you suggest it if you did love it so much for this show? Yes, that's a great question. So I loved it because having been a kid who moved around so much during their childhood, I craved stability and consistency. And my mom always said like, A, we wouldn't have been able to afford it. B, we wouldn't have thought about sending you to a boarding school.

She always said like, I had kids because I wanted to hang out with them. So it wasn't ever her intention for me to go to a boarding school, but I wanted to so badly. And just because of the situation with our lives, it ended up being the right fit. And I loved everything about it. I loved how intense it was. I loved how round the clock it was. I loved how intense it was. I loved how round the clock it was. I loved how

involved it was. I loved the rites and the ceremony and the history and the lore and the pomp and circumstance and the uniforms and the school six days a week and the three sports a year and the you must play an instrument or be in the choir. Fancy formal sit down dinners, sit down lunches. I mean, I loved all of it. Now what made me suggest for it to be an episode is that I think that there are many things about it that are cult-like. Okay. So when you say that, do you mean some of the traditions or what do you specifically saying? What are you saying?

Well, what I'm saying is I thought a lot about it because I was thinking like, well, what makes it like a cult? What makes it unlike a cult? And something that makes it not like a cult is that it has a definitive start point and end point. It ends when it ends and it's over and you miss it like hell and you wish you could go back but you're free, right? There is an exit path. Exactly. So that's not called like, but what is called like is this big financial element. Oh, yes.

I mean, when I went to boarding school, which was, I'm 31, so it was a minute ago and it was $38,000 a year if you were paying tuition. And I'm sure it's more now. And I didn't even go to a particularly expensive boarding school. It was $10,000 less if you were a day student, but like 40K, 50K a year, that's a lot of money. That's somebody's salary.

I looked at the number, it's like 71 right now. No. Yes. Whoa. That's insane. Listen, whoa. Wait. So sorry. To back it up, why was it a good fit? And like, how did you choose what was the reputation and why was that ultimately the

right call for you at the time? Such a good question. So this school had the reputation for being a school where every kid did everything. And it wasn't just like, oh, that's something that's normal. It was an expectation. There was a three sport commitment each year. So you had to do a sport in the fall, the winter and the spring, or you could do music sport, which was kind of a joke. You had to be like really, really excellent at music, which meant you got to like go to the music building after school and like maybe like hook up at a practice room.

But not many kids did that, to be honest, mostly everybody's played sports. And then there was also like everybody did orchestra or band or choir. Everybody did the theater and musical, like everybody did everything. And it was so constant. And I just was such a rigorous child that I was loving it. I loved what a close relationship I had with my teachers who were also like my dorm masters and were also my coaches.

And it was just like helpful for a kid like me. Like when I was struggling academically, there was study hall in the evening where you would walk to a big room and study in silence in the same room as like 200 other kids so that you'd actually get your homework done. And that was from like seven to 10 PM. I mean, it was heaven. So what you're describing is perfect and it's necessary to express on this show because this is a nuanced and subtle and for some really aggravating idea that cultiness, some qualities that we associate with cults

are actually kind of beautiful and really click with certain aspects of the human spirit. We do to a degree love to toil for like the fruits of our labor. Like we like keeping busy a little bit. We love communal rituals and mysticism. We love to have structure. We love for other people to come up

with what fills the grid of our life because it takes away that chooser's paradox that can feel so overwhelming. And yet when all of these elements are taken too far, that's when it can start to get sinister. When there is a high barrier to exit, when there is a high barrier to entry, and we're already getting into that with the cost, when there are these like power dynamics

and it's impossible to question things and people start getting hurt. And I wanna talk about that. I think the most sensible way into this culty analysis starts with the isolation aspect because it is so culty and it is so objectively weird to take children away from their parents. My dad grew up in a notorious, really destructive cult called synanon. One of the tenants was to take children away from their parents and to raise them separately by folks who

were called PODs or parents on duty, because there was this theory there that your parents enable you and that your parents like bring out codependent and otherwise negative qualities in you. And it's much better to be raised in this communal, but at the same time, very structured formal atmosphere. We found a study, an academic study, if you can believe it, from the Journal of Childhood and Adolescent Trauma,

titled Psychopathology and Dissociation Among Boarding School Students in Eastern Turkey. She's niche, but she's applicable. The study is from 2021. And in it, researchers found that, quote, "'Loss of the primary attachment figures of early childhood constitutes a significant trauma for the children who are sent off as boarding students,

which in turn necessitates the encapsulation of the self, leading to concealment of the person's true identity. The manifestations of this problem, projecting into adulthood, are regarded as the boarding school syndrome, okay? Which consists of the following, denial of pain, overachiever who is an underestimator of self, depression, anxiety, intense need for control, burnout, substance use disorders, narcissistic personality disorder, unquote. So my question for you is first of all,

how did it feel to be away from your parents at such a young age? How did you cope with that separation? So being away from my parents, I think the way that I coped was for long stretches of time, I would not think about them. I would just think about school and just think about what was in front of me. And then every so often something really devastating or tough would happen, like I'd get my period for the first time, or I would have a situation with a boy or something.

And I would think, I really wish my mom was here and I would kind of break down. But for the most part, I just compartmentalized it. And I can say too, like, you know, I keep saying like, I loved boarding school. It agreed with me. I wanted to be there. It was a good fit for me. I did see for kids who did not want to be there, who did not fill out the application, begged to go, but you know, somebody else filled out the application, packed the bags and sent them.

They had a much different experience and they had some of those things that you talked about. And like even friends who didn't go to the same boarding school that I did, where I had a good experience, some of the more intense East Coast boarding schools, I know a lot of kids there who were really, really medicated by the school. Okay, so there, yeah, consent, important in life in general, but it's tough when you're a kid because kids don't always know what's best for them.

But like in general, being forcibly torn from your most intimate community, aka your family unit against your will is like probably not gonna be great for you. So it worked for you. And like, look, I've spoken to Jonestown survivors who were like, hot take, I had a good time. I know this was net negative, but like I vibed and that's valid for them. But can you talk about some of your observations of how this boarding school syndrome, this like overachievement, but underestimation of the self, like some of this real pain and negative mental health consequences manifested in other students. For sure. One thing that was really hard is like teenagers are going through everything and they might be experiencing anxiety or depression or wanting to have a lot of sexual

partners for the first time, experimenting with substances, all these kinds of things. And that's all, you know, maybe part and parcel, or as you said, like, in some ways, maybe even caused or exacerbated by this boarding school syndrome. But what's tough about this particular environment is that there aren't caregivers present. There are dorm masters, there are prefects, there are deans, there are headmasters, there are these types of figures, but like, there aren't parents. So there was a lot of kids having to parent other kids, and we didn't know what we were doing. To me, that was the part of the experience that I look back on as being the hardest.

STACEY That makes a lot of sense. I think we're coming to understand more and more as a society the importance of having just any semblance of parental love in your early childhood. Like you don't need to have perfect parents. You don't need to have super mom or super dad or whoever, but like some type of parental figure needs to provide like emotional maturity and stability in your life. And it's so fucking wackadoodle-do to me

that like that is not accounted for in this boarding school environment. ["The Time of the Year"] Now is the time of the episode when I tell you about how much I used to hate bras. Underwire bras, torturous. More limiting than the strict hand of a boarding school headmistress. Okay? Then I discovered the comfort and delight of skims bras. I am not joking when I tell you that these are the only bras that I wear. The

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The point is you need to check out Skims. Shop Skims bras at skims.com. Now available in 62 sizes from 30A to 46H. If you haven't yet, be sure to let them know we sent you. After you place your order, select podcast in the survey and select our show in the drop down menu that follows. This show is sponsored by Better Help. It is Halloween season and you know what's scarier than a devil costume? Not being in therapy. I'm kidding, except I'm not. Because therapy is a wonderful tool for identifying your fears, both rational and irrational ones, and attempting to heal from them, to overcome them. I was just

journaling today about how I need to hit up my therapist because I've been going through some stuff. And what's cool about BetterHelp is that it is entirely online. Designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. I myself used it during the pandemic when I couldn't access my normal therapist and I didn't know what to do. BetterHelp makes it super easy to dip a toe in the world of therapy. You just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Overcome your fears with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash colt today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash colt. Kira, earlier we talked a little bit about the hefty price tag that usually comes with attending one of these illustrious institutions.

So the general consensus is that American boarding schools are usually comprised of students from very affluent socio-economic backgrounds. Can you speak a little bit about the culture at the schools? Like were you around around super rich kids or do you feel like there was a mixture? I didn't even go to one of the most affluent boarding schools in the country. I will say I was surrounded by some pretty insane wealth. My family, I think, was pretty affluent as well, but it wasn't to this degree. And one thing that is interesting about boarding school is that with the uniform and the dorm rooms and this closed setting, no kids have their own cars other than the day students. A lot of things

are provided by the school, yada yada. You're all eating the same meals. It is in some ways like an equalizer. And so it can obscure people's wealth in a sort of interesting way. But then it would rear its head at times. Like you would realize like, Oh, that's interesting. At the end of the school year, you don't pack up your bags. You just throw all your clothes away. Huh? That's interesting to me. That's some rich shit. Yeah, like I just remember watching like kids do that. And then I would literally like go through their stuff and be like, well, this is a North Face backpack

and this is a pair of Ugg boots. So I'm gonna take these. That is so much worse than what I thought you were gonna say. I thought you were gonna say that they would like pay people to come pack their stuff up for them. Same. No, not even worth it.

Wow. I'm gonna need to hear more culty up for them. Same. No, not even worth it. Wow. I'm going to need to hear more culty-ass anecdotes like this. Pretty please, give us the tea. Okay, so I was selected to participate in something called the Student Affairs Committee, which was called SAC. And it was a small group made up of a couple students and a couple teachers. And when a student got in trouble, they had to appear before SAC and plead their case to not be expelled.

And I just remember thinking like, this is too much pressure for me. I can't handle this. This is too much peer to peer. And then afterward I would leave like the SAC meeting and everyone would be asking like, what happened? Tell me what happened, what happened? And I just was like, this is too pressurized and regimented and this is no bueno.

Oh my God. Oh my God, I have so many questions. So one thing I observed is like a quick way to tell if somebody's family was really wealthy would be if their dad was really, really old and their mom was really, really young. I remember being so surprised. Like some of my classmates would be like, Oh, my dad's health is like not good. Like I'm worried my dad is going to die.

And I was like, Oh my God, that sounds horrible. And then I'm realizing like, Oh, that man is 89. Their dad is like ancient. That was a bit of a telltale. These are natural causes. Yes, these are natural causes. His time is up. Oh my gosh.

His time is up. So but like, you're so busy, right? Like you're busy until 10 PM. You don't have time to think. You don't have time to question. Was there anyone ever at the school who in a moment of intense pressure or pain or feeling abandoned or isolated or like everything was too much, did you ever observe anyone be like, Whoa, I need to step back and be like,

what are we doing here? And in those moments, like, who could you go to, to express pushback? It's such a good question. It was a bit of a sink or swim setting, I feel. So I remember having some classmates deal with like, I'm overwhelmed. This is too much. I can't keep up. And oftentimes they just wouldn't come back the next year or they wouldn't come back after spring break. It was a pretty tough setting in that way.

You talked about the sort of like Renaissance man or like Renaissance student aspect of this particular school. And that feels culty to me because I can just think of analogs in other much more destructive, infamous cults like NXIVM or Scientology, where you're like encouraged to take so many different types of courses and so many different types of things from science to personal growth to horseback riding or whatever, as a means of becoming a fully actualized transcendent being. And in this culturally accepted academic atmosphere,

I feel like some things similar is going on. Can you talk about those pressures that you felt to be like this fabulously well-rounded, transcendently impressive young person? Yeah, it was really pressure filled. And something I observed about boarding school is that there was a lot of hierarchical roles and awards to be won. And we had morning meeting in the chapel three days a week with the entire

student body. And like in front of the entire school, like people's sports performance would be celebrated and musical performance would be celebrated and there were just so many ways in which you could either be winning or losing. And so for kids that are like inherently high performing, they are being constantly rewarded in kind of a very serious and ceremonious way. And then for the rest of their life, or at least for a pretty long time, they have to deal with this expectation of like, I'm going to succeed and people are going to acknowledge it and I'll be pretty consistently rewarded for how good I am at a bunch of different things. And that's the way I think life will be. So there's that component. And then for kids that maybe aren't so naturally high achieving, it's really hard to watch this and feel like, wow, I'm failing a lot of the time.

Yeah, it's like American dream flavored elitist, which doesn't sound like a good foundation for pursuing healthy work-life balance or like intimacy moving forward. So a quick little anecdote, Kira. I went to college, people often compared it to a boarding school. It's like 800 students.

Felt like sleep away camp. But right before we were kind of like ushered in to our freshman year, we do this thing where the parents, as they're sending you off, they go to the chapel and they do that little, you know, that little thing where you're like going to play a soccer game, that bridge thing with their hands and all of us just run through and they're like African drums playing in the background. In essence, that's it sounds really, really beautiful, but it's also it's a tad culty. Okay. Were there any culty traditions like that at your school? Yes, many. Okay, let me list some fun, culty traditions. Okay. One, whenever a student was being acknowledged for like profound athletic achievement,

they would be given a gold medal award. And it was understood that whenever somebody won a gold medal in the chapel, everyone would automatically stand right away and give a standing ovation. We would have formal sit-down lunches headed by a teacher at the table and then a mix of senior, junior, sophomore, freshman, upperclassman, underclassman, first year, second year, third year, fourth, whatever. It was understood that the freshmen would bust the dishes. That's the way it's gonna be.

Whenever there was a new play or a musical on opening night, everyone would dress black tie. Oh. And this was not enforced by the school. This was like the students liked it and would like do it themselves. Yo, I'm into that. I'm into that. Me too.

Yeah. A costume party, a theme. Absolutely. I mean, there is a reason why so many of the culty rituals that have emerged from the Taylor Swift Eras Tour are invented in a grassroots way and governed by the fans because it's so fun to participate in the creation of this cult society to which you belong. It starts

to really feel like yours and an integral part of your identity when you author pieces of it. Gabbana Totally, totally. This, I don't know if this is necessarily a cult thing, but I do just think needs to be acknowledged. On boarding school campuses, people are having sex in the oddest places because you are not allowed to have someone. And granted, like again, I went to school over 10 years ago. I'm sure it's so much different now. It's so much less heteronormative than it was then. Then it was a time where it was like, if the

boys aren't in the girls rooms and the girls aren't in the boys rooms, then no sex could possibly be happening. And that's just what was assumed. And you know what? The lesbians were having a great time. But for us straights, people were making out in the photo lab, people were getting fingered on the cross country hill, the practice rooms of the music building were seeing a lot. It was wild.

That just has to be said. Constraints are hot. Like forbidden shit, listen, we're talking about high schoolers, so I'm going to stop. But it just sounds sexy. Even the idea of having to hide that aspect, you know what I'm saying, is even culty in itself. I mean, I get it. They're kids. But it's respectability politics that's associated with all of that, right?

Like, there's a reason that you have to hide. So the dark academia genre is obviously defined by, you know, these exaggerated boarding school settings that create this sort of moody, gothic atmosphere. My favorite book is The Secret History. Of course it is. You can tell that by looking at my face. There's such allure surrounding this old money idea because it is so in contrast with the American dream rhetoric that is shoved down our throat and yet we know it exists and we crave it.

I'm saying we as a generalization, but I was just texting with another podcaster friend the other day and I was like, LOL, my toxic trait is like, I still believe in the American dream. And she was like, fuck the American dream. I want generational wealth. And I'm just like, there is, I think now a conversation among Gen Z, who are wiser and more savvy about the lies of our society. And thus they've taken this sort of like fantastical interest in dark academia because it's like, oh, these are people who don't have to work hard and they get money. I mean, I'm just spitballing, but I think that fascination has informed the

whole dark academia, fashion, aesthetic, subculture, et cetera. As a boarding school alum, what do you make of the net innocent, I would say, but nonetheless, still very culty fanaticism that has emerged surrounding dark academia? Kite I mean, my observation of the genre is that I see a lot of truth in it. Students whose names are on the sides of buildings, that's very, very real. Boys who are moody and brooding because daddy has so much money and they're a legacy student at this boarding school and therefore like they have a hard time deciding what they even want in life because it's all decided for them, that's very, very real. Female students having a love interest with a young male faculty member, that is very, very real. And so to me, I like, I see the genre and I'm like, yeah, it might be a little intensified,

but there's a lot of truth there. There's a lot to get behind. Okay. So obviously, because you had a good time, we've discussed a lot of the sort of relatively innocuous aspects of the cult of boarding schools. On a more serious note, what would you say is without a doubt a dangerously culty aspect of it? I think without exception. And I feel this way as somebody who like I'm a comedian now, I'm a TV writer now, but like I worked at the Institute of Neuroscience at UCLA. And like, I don't think 14 year olds are meant to be away from mom and dad. That's kind of to me,

the elephant in the room. There's no getting around that. Like I had a great time. My boarding school was lovely. Like I knew that my teachers and my coaches cared so much about me and they were so invested almost to the point where I'm like, y'all are not being paid enough for this. You shouldn't be up past midnight helping me study, but you are. And that's amazing. But like there's no replacement for mom and dad or your caregivers. Like I really feel strongly about that. Do you feel like it had a long-term effect on you emotionally in any type of way,

just being away from your parents? Yeah, I do. Like I didn't quite hit me until maybe my junior year of college that I was like, oh wait, I might never live with my parents ever again. And I stopped living with them when I was 14 and I really, really miss them. And it's weird that I miss them and I'm 20 years old and I'm dealing with really, really bad homesickness. It kind of impacted my attachment style as well, I would say. Like I became high school a big boyfriend girl. I kind of always

had a boyfriend and through college was sort of the same way. In therapy, something that I've talked about or something I've kind of reflected on is you weren't with your parents and you also were moving around a lot. That part's probably part of it too, but I felt the need to make sure somebody was with me so that I would be OK. Yeah, oh, that sounds lonely. So on a less emotional level, I want to sort of ask. This is me like conspiracy theorizing. But one of my impressions of the boarding school industrial complex is that it's like kind of a feeder into elite institutions.

So like, if you go to a ritzy boarding school, like Chote or something like that, you're much likelier to get into a school like Yale, automatically have really sort of behind closed doors, powerful connections at that school that could then open the door into a government secret society or some kind of really powerful lobbying group against tax breaks for the ultra wealthy or there could be a doorway into big tech.

I'm wondering what your impression of that conspiracy theory that doesn't even sound that conspiratorial is and how can that sort of stratify society? Well, it definitely stratifies society. I'll start there. One thing I think some people don't know about is the concept of post-grads. And a post-grad or a PG is a fifth-year student who is somebody who's identified as having a lot of promise and could go to a Yale, could go to a Princeton, play football there, could play basketball, hockey there, or they're just like, they're a star in some type of way, but because they were at a less rigorous

academic institution and a less structured institution, they're not ready for that Yale or that Princeton. So they get sent to a school like my boarding school as a fifth year student to get them ready to go. That was really interesting. And the PG's, oh my God, because they were like, they were one year older. So they were like so massive and so hunky. But that it's real. Like these schools are feeders for that to the point that like they even have this like specific step they put in between. And then even beyond the fact that like these types of prep schools feed into these

high institutions, like, I mean, we would literally have reps from Ivy League schools, like come have dinner on campus every single Wednesday night, all through senior year. And like, my advisor would drive me to the East Coast for whole weekends to stay at Ivy League. So there were like literally personal connections with these institutions beyond that. and I think it's important to note, the way people, you know, get jobs because of really strong alumni connections at their excellent and prestigious colleges, those connections are even stronger with people who share an alma mater of their boarding school because they're smaller and they're more intimate. And because they were so young at the time, they feel such a strong kinship.

So there's definitely a lot of boarding school alums getting each other those types of like government jobs that you're talking about. Wow. Yo, just to say it, the PG program, what an amazing initiative like on there. I mean, I think that's, I've never heard of that in my entire life.

That is super cool. How do you, yeah, how do you get selected and do they take 32 year olds? I will say one thing I thought was amazing about it is it was like oftentimes students who went to a public school, but like they were amazing and they like had a lot of academic promise but their school didn't offer AP courses or whatever, and they wouldn't quite be able to hang, but this intermediate step helped them get there. So it was actually really cool for a lot of kids. They were usually there on a full ride also.

Kira, on her missionary bullshit, I'm like, how bad does it really get? And you're like, we have an amazing program called the PG. She's like, it's actually pretty awesome. It's amazing. Okay. So I want to talk about boarding school major scandals. I am reading these directly from a Vanity Fair piece titled A Brief History of Boarding School Scandals that listed some just absurdly culty things that have

happened at various institutions over the years. And I would just like, love to get both of your takes honestly. Okay, here's a controversy for you. Chote Rosemary Hall, alma mater to of course, President Kennedy, expelled 17 students for masterminding and attempting to run a cocaine ring out of their Wallingford, Connecticut dorm rooms. Two students were arrested in April of

84 at JFK airport after flying back from a spring recess trip to Venezuela and attempting to smuggle 350 grams of cocaine into the United States. The two students, Derek Otis and Catherine Cohen, pled guilty to smuggling while the other 15 pled to aiding and abetting. What about this boarding school drug ring? How industrious of them, right? I'll say. I know. Enterprising. I mean, I've never seen something quite so organized. It's just, it's setting them up to fail because like, what the fuck are you gonna do when you're not at home with your parents? Yeah. You know? If somebody hands you something and says I'm doing this, are you gonna do it too? You're like, I guess so. Fuck yeah. I'm 16, my brain's soft, like I'm gonna do whatever.

Literally still have my soft spot. I'm having sex on the cross country hill. I'm doing ecstasy tonight. Okay, let's just do one more controversy. Goes like this, quote, in her fourth and final year at Miss Porter's school, you know that one? I certainly do, all girls. Okay, all girls, what can you tell us about it? What's the hearsay? That the girls get down was the reputation back in the day. Okay, brat.

A student named Tatum Bass was expelled from the All Girl School after skipping classes and being caught cheating on an art history exam. After her 2008 expulsion, the former honor roll student asserted that her behavior was prompted by a group of students who called themselves the Oprichniki after the 16th century Russian torture squad. She claimed to have been repeatedly taunted via text and Facebook, as well as in person, to I guess like commit these infractions.

This is the shit I think of with boarding schools, right? Whoa. That is insane. Whoa. This was around your era. It happened. Wow. The secret societies were societies. Whoa. This was around your era. It happened. Wow. The secret societies were societies.

Okay. I know, I'm like, my school had no secret societies. It's like, somebody else will be listening, they'll be like, yeah it did, Toots. Like, you were just too busy, like, participating in all the activities. Okay, now's the time when we're gonna play a little game. Yes, we're gonna play a lovely game of Would You Rather.

Cult of Boarding Schools Edition. First things first, would you rather be stuck with a roommate who snores like a freight train or who has an insatiable need to talk about their latest conspiracy theory at 3 a.m.? I would rather have the roommate who wants to talk about their insatiable, interesting conspiracy theories. And I will say I had a roommate that was worse than both of those. I had a roommate during boarding school who was disposing of their menstrual pads in the garbage can in our bedroom.

I'm telling you, you need a mother figure. Okay, number two, would you rather have a slightly unfavorable rumor following you for all four years of school or have one very controversial scandal follow you for all four years of school, or have one very controversial scandal follow you for your freshman year only? I'm going to say the very controversial for your freshman year only. That could be good lore. As it fades away, the memory of it could add a little depth and dimension to your reputation. I think so. And I think, you know, I feel like everybody at boarding school has one

of those, some big pop, something that they did that was terrible or whatever, but you can make it through. All right. Last, would you rather, would you rather tattoo your boarding school's crest on your chest or tattoo a satanic pentagram on your ass? Oh no, I'm getting Lux at Veritas on my chest. Satan will not be touching my body. Oh my God, Satan is the only person allowed to touch my body.

Okay, here's another version of this question. Would you rather tattoo your boarding school's crest on your chest or tattoo the petty crimes logo on your tuchus? Oh, I'll take petty crimes on the ass. There we go. I know that's right. And with that, Kira, thank you so much for joining this episode of Sounds Like a Cult. Oh my God, Kira, thank you so much for joining us. If people want to join your cult, where can they find you? So I host the podcast Petty Crimes with my friend Griff, and each week we investigate basically petty interpersonal drama submitted by our listeners and we arrive at a verdict and decide who's guilty and what their punishment might be.

It's easy listening, it's fun, it's episodic. Check it out. Very compatible listening, this sounds like a cult. I'll say. Amazing, thank you so much. And if you'd like to go to boarding school, you're welcome to. You're encouraged and required to.

I will say, I mean, for some kids where what's going on at home is tough, boarding school is a safe haven and they're happy to be there. So that's a good point. That's one thing that's got to be said. I'm so glad you did. Chelsea, I have a very important question for you. Out of our three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, and get the fuck out.

Which do you think the cult of boarding schools falls into? For me, the cult of boarding schools is definitely giving watch your back. I mean, after talking with Kira and after doing my own research and the second hand stories I've been able to come from friends, those kids still live a very unsheltered life. And for me, I don't know. I think it's just a little too much freedom at too early of an age. Okay. So for you, it is ultimately like the chaos that makes this a watch your back. Yes. I would say the chaos and the hefty price tag. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I was on the edge of my seat waiting for your verdict.

I was like, are we gonna get, are we in a get the fuck out moment right now? Okay, I'm gonna set up my answer like this. I'm gonna tell you the culty things I love about this, and I'm gonna tell you the culty things I hate. So as we've discussed ad nauseam, I'm loving the immaculate aesthetic, the romance, the sense of ceremony, the bonding that happens

in these institutions. Boarding schools know their way around a solidarity forming liturgical practice. You know what I'm saying? They get that to a T. And that is the culty shit we love to see. But there are many things that I don't love. I cannot get over the origin story. Okay? Like nothing good can come from those values. I do not love the practice of shipping your kids off away from the home to row crew, master the cello, get a Harvard degree, become a senator, or become like a shameful empty husk of wasted potential. Too much pressure. And the final thing I don't love is to your point, there seems to be very little emotional coming of age

support or developmental tools. Like so much privilege, so much pain. What a cult. All things considered, I too have to call it a watch your back. The thing from our interview that really stuck out to me was when I was like, Kira, what would happen to kids who are like, I'm struggling, or I question why power is distributed this way or whatever. And she was like, it was sink or swim, baby. And I'm like, that doesn't seem healthy, not for $71,000 a year. Right. And I mean, who's to say what type of emotional ramifications any student of, you know, boarding school has to deal with as an adult,

having their first sense of safeness like stripped away from them. Yeah, and you made such a good point that I like now regret like blitzing past in the interview where you were talking about like the respectability politics of having to hide your sexual activity or whatever. Like I wanna return to that for a second. The purity culture of it,

because even though some boarding schools are secular, they don't have the resources or maybe necessarily the values to like healthily teach a sex positive education to these students. It's too much to have teachers do that intimate labor alongside like fucking social studies, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So there's like an inherent purity culture that I don't know how you can get past.

Absolutely. And you will want your kid to like grow up and just have their own worldview, right? But there's something to be said about these people that are stand-in parental figures and their thoughts, their opinions, their worldview could potentially shape how a child at that boarding school interacts in life. That is such a good point. It's like these parents either have to not give a fuck how their kids turn out basically, or they have to put a delusional amount of faith in the people who work at this boarding school. It's like what if there are like some shady teachers and shit. Exactly I don't know the politics of this

dorm mistress. Exactly. Exactly that's shady as hell. Good point. All right, well, that is our show. Thanks so much for listening. Stick around for a new Cult next week. But in the meantime, stay culty. But not too culty. But not too culty. Sounds Like a Cult is hosted and produced by Amanda Montell and edited by Jordan Moore

of the PodCabin. Our theme music is by Casey Cole. This episode was co-hosted and co-produced by Chelsea Charles. Thank you as well to Reese Oliver and Katie Epperson and to our partner, All Things Comedy. And if you like the show, please feel free to check out my books, Word Slut, A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, and The Age of Magical Overthinking, Notes on Modern Irrationality. If you're a fan of Sounds Like a Cult, I'd really appreciate it if you would leave a rating and review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.