Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Cheerleading

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

A pseudo-family dynamic, decades-long commitments, physical peril, members who "would literally die for" their leader (coach): Competitive cheerleading is not just an off-the-beaten-path sport, it's a *lifestyle*... and this week, co-hosts Amanda and Isa get the inside scoop on this modern-day “cult” from special guest Morgan Simianer, star of CHEER, Netflix’s the smash-hit documentary series about the top college cheer program in the USA.   For listeners of the show, Dipsea is offering an extended 30-day free trial when you go to DipseaStories.com/CULT

This is Sounds Like A Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Issa Medina and I'm a comedian. I'm Amanda Montel, author of the book Cultish the Language of Fanaticism. Every week on our show we discuss a different fanatical fringe group from the cultural zeitgeist from Disney adults to Trader Joe's to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? To join our cult, follow us on Instagram at SoundsLikeAcultPod. I'm on IG at Issa Medina and I'm on Instagram at Amanda underscore Montel.

And for bonus materials, juicy cult discussions and more, feel free to hit us up on Patreon at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult. Now let's get right to this week's topic. This is actually a much, much, much requested topic. Is it? I feel like you requested it. It was much, much, much requested by me. You're like, yeah, everyone's in our DMs.

I'm like, I don't see it. We had, I think, three DMs about the cult of cheerleading, pegged to Netflix's runaway hit docu-series cheer who season two just premiered, if you know, if you don't, to Gigi, the girls that get it, get it. Oh, these culty acronyms. We're interested in discussing the cult of cheerleading, a cult that I was wildly unfamiliar with until I watched this docu-series, but that has become the quick subject of my deep fascination.

Yeah. And I feel like it's very fascinating to you, Amanda, because you went to like an arts high school. I went to a very traditional high school. So like, I did know about competitive cheer. I didn't take it very seriously until I saw the show. But I feel like to Amanda, you were like, did you guys have cheerleaders at your high school? Are you kidding me?

No. We didn't even have a football team. Okay. Yeah. We had like a renaissance fair. Oh my God. That is the nerdiest thing I've ever heard. It was so fun.

It was so fun. But actually sounds fun. It was so fun. Did you guys like eat the turkey leg? Yeah. There was like fair food. There were performances. As you know, my calling, food.

When I think of cheerleading, or at least before I saw the show, I thought of, you know, popular girls in your high school who wear the little outfits and hold the pom poms and shout rah rah during the games. Yeah. Yeah. And those do exist. Yes. But these are not the cheerleaders that we're talking about today.

We're not talking about casual extracurricular high school cheerleaders. We're talking about competitive cheerleaders because this, my friends, is a sport, any culty one at that. It is Amanda's favorite sport. It is now. It really, really is. It makes sense because it's like bright and fun. Once you take away like the sparkles and the DJ set and the lights, it is actually a bunch

of highly talented, really in shape gymnasts doing like trillions of flips, lifting each other up, holding each other up in the air for two minutes and 40 seconds, but at high speed. It is incredible what these athletes can do. And you're right. Cheerleading is not taken as seriously as a lot of other sports that are objectively less impressive. Yeah.

Like fucking golf? Yeah. Cool. Are you kidding me? Yeah. So it's a wonder that cheerleading is not a national phenomenon, but there are a few reasons for that. First of all, there is no professional cheerleading league.

So if you get recruited to college for cheerleading, that's the end of your career when you graduate. You cannot continue on. There is no cheerleading in the Olympics, which is a wonder to me. They just added skateboarding like this past Olympics. I wonder if they're going to add cheerleading, honestly, especially now that it's such a cultural phenomenon due to the show. Yeah. The show has had like such a large impact.

Netflix honestly controls the world culture. It really is. But yeah, the most prestigious college cheer team is not at like one of those big state schools like Alabama or Texas or Virginia. Hello. It's this one teeny tiny little junior college in rural small town Corsicana, Texas that is helmed by this royal queen of a coach named Monica. It's a community college, right?

It's a community college. And that cheer team, the Navarro cheer team, is what's documented in the show cheer and you get this window into the world of competitive college cheerleading. And very soon, you're going to be hearing from a special guest who is one of the stars of Netflix's cheer who's going to lend us some insight on the cult of cheerleading from an insider's perspective. Yeah. She's got some scoop and you love her.

So stick around. Yeah. You're going to love her. This whole show and competitive college cheerleading is focused around Daytona, which is the largest competition of the year. It's like their Olympics because they don't have that. Yeah. It's like they're Super Bowl.

Yeah. So cheerleaders spend their whole year practicing their routine, which does include the most acrobatic sense you've ever seen in hopes that they will win Daytona. And the Navarro cheer team has won championship after championship after championship. So they're the team to beat and that's what made them so compelling to watch. Yeah. And I think as a sport, it is so interesting to see the way they challenge themselves because with other sports, you score more goals or you run faster or you beat your own time.

Whereas with cheerleading, because the performances are so complex and so artistic and so artistic and the point system is really about every aspect of the performance, they have to really challenge themselves and always take it like one step further, which can be dangerous at times. It's true. One of the reasons why we knew we had to do an episode on this other than that, I'm like totally in the cult of people who love cheer is that as an outsider, there are so many seriously culty things about cheerleading.

First of all, it completely takes over members' lives, especially when you're in college, when you're living with these people, you're eating with these people, you spend all day practicing with these people. Another super culty thing is that they have to monitor their weight. Because some of them are being thrown up in the air, they have to maintain a certain weight and even the people who are holding the others up in the air have to maintain a certain body strength. Yeah.

And I think just checking weight, always culty. Yeah, it's a little red flag. People are so worshipful of the coach that they say things like they would literally die for Monica. Yeah. In season one, I would die for her. I would take a bullet for her. She's like a mother to me.

And you see why when you watch the show? Because she is so involved not only in their cheerleading, but in their schooling, making sure that they're on top of their grades. If they have troubles in their personal lives, like she's so there for them. This leads me to the fact that a lot of the people on particularly this cheer team come from challenging childhood and the cheer team becomes this sanctuary for them. It really does become this pseudo family and this source of respite. Yeah.

We always talk about how a lot of people who like join cults are people who need community who are vulnerable in one way or another. Yeah. And what these kids ended up coming to was this community of cheerleading and a lot of them, yeah, like Amanda said, come from broken homes and this is their family. It's the combination of being vulnerable with also being hyper ambitious. Like they're doing things that almost no one else can do. And when you have that level of drive and competitiveness combined with like, this

is my family, I have nowhere else to go. Shit starts to get culty. Yeah. Something else I thought was pretty culty was that there's competition within the team. So something that you'll find out specifically with Navarro Cheer is that the team is way larger than the team that competes at Daytona. So within the team, they have to compete to be able to get on mat. Which they say make mat.

Make mat. That means that like you're going to be one of the people performing at Daytona, performing LL competing. Yeah. This is a sport. It is though. It's like, it's a performance and a sport in one. That's why I love it.

But speaking of language, like make mat, they do have their own special lingo and they have all these chants and rituals that help them stay bonded and motivated. Another culty aspect is social media control. That's something that I noticed in the first season. They all have social media before the show really went viral. The coaches would tell them not to post things that were like too scandalous or didn't represent the team. They had to live and breathe the brand.

Yeah. They had to live and breathe the brand, which is something that you see with a lot of cult. You have to embody the identity of the group before your own identity. Yeah. Because college cheerleading, at least at this level, is so hyper competitive, naturally it's also very exclusive. Not everybody can do it. It's cost prohibitive because a lot of these kids grow up doing what's called all-star

cheerleading, which is cheerleading that's not associated with a school. It's cheerleading associated with a gym and that can be very, very expensive. Yeah. And it's not just the fees of joining that gym. It's the fact that these kids and their parents have to travel. They have to book hotels, the outfits alone, the outfits alone, the makeup. All of these things are so expensive. I remember when I was in elementary school, I played like peewee soccer for like five

minutes and then my mom was like, wait, I have to like drive you to games on Saturdays? Nope going to happen. Oh, the families of these cheerleaders are all in on them from a very, very young age. You have to be. Yeah. It's like being a child star. Yeah. It's like dance moms, dance mom vibes, but not all of these kids had that growing up.

Our guest is an example of someone who didn't have a lot of money growing up. And so she was at a disadvantage when she got to Navarro. Yeah. There are also incredibly intense us them rivalries in cheer. The docu series covers the rivalry between Navarro and their number two competitor, which is Trinity Valley. They really do like go for blood when they compete against these people. Yeah.

I feel like that's something a lot of sports do, but I feel like with cheer specifically, it's crazy because the two highest ranked teams in the country, they're like 20 minutes down the street from each other. The two foremost cheer programs in the country are these junior colleges in like, I don't want to say bumfuck Texas, but like kind of bumfuck Texas. There's actually like one of the two things I remember from econ and college. Well, there's this economic theory that says if you were on a beach and there's like a popsicle stand in the middle of the beach, like where would you place the popsicle stand

to be the most efficient place to sell popsicles? A professor asks you and I was like, I'm an idiot. So I said like the other side of the beach, you're supposed to place it right next to the existing popsicle stand. Because you'll get the spillover. Yeah. Exactly. And those are lessons from my college days.

Behavioral economics is very real and very fascinating. And so that kind of makes sense that like two of the best teams were like right next to each other. Yes, econ insight. Hell yeah. Fucking C plus. So all of these culty aspects considered spoiler alert. I still think that cheerleading is mostly a live your life.

And we'll go into all the reasons for that, but it just really goes to show just because something seems freakishly culty on the surface doesn't mean it is. And I think that the fact that we interpreted so many of the chance and parts of the culture of cheer as culty says something about how fringy cheer really is in terms of college athletics because I mean, we touched on this a little bit in the cult of NFL episode, but college football culture is objectively so much cultier than cheer. A huge part of the show cheer chronicles how serious the injuries from cheerleading can be.

And that is certainly no joke, but I just think it says something about how subjectively we view cultishness that when people get injured in college football, that's just to be expected. But when people get injured in college cheerleading, that's horrifying and not worth it. I also think it's because leadership in football, it runs so deep whereas with cheerleading. And so the leadership really stops at the coach. As we saw with cheer on Netflix, Monica specifically is a really good coach. Leadership of having good values is what can make or break a community into like being culty or not.

Totally. So let's talk about some of the positive aspects of the cult of cheerleading because at least from what I saw on cheer, it seemed like these young adults were doing these wild stunts and, you know, letting cheer take over their lives 100% voluntarily. One of the reasons why I became so obsessed with the show is because their fanaticism was infectious. I, as someone who is completely non-athletic, found myself wanting to be a part of it. Amanda learns what sports are.

I mean, cheer just really spoke to me. It's exciting. Yes, it is. And I feel like it's a really healthy way to get excited about something. Cheer seemed to provide these young people with a sense of distraction from their problems with a purpose in life, with an outlet for negative emotions, you know? And it also has taught them really valuable life lessons. They are only going to be there for a certain period of time and then once they graduate

from that community college, they're not allowed to be on the team anymore. So they can like take those lessons with them to a job application or an internship. It really is like so beneficial to them. I agree. And, you know, we do critique overt competitiveness a lot on this show. So I decided to look into some studies on whether or not super competitive sports were really, truly healthy for young people. Cheer obviously doesn't have the reputation of being a super competitive sport, but it

is. I found a 2019 study from JAMA Pediatrics of almost 10,000 kids that showed that team sports offered mental health protection in some kids that had adverse life effects. It lessened depression, it improved social skills and emotional regulation because it's so social and it's so communal. Like remember in the show, they would get into circles and they would like hash out their problems in real time. I could easily see how that could benefit the way that you interact socially for the

rest of your life. Yeah. No, it teaches them communication skills, problem solving, how to have a healthy argument. Yeah. And I think we have to remind ourselves sometimes America takes things to the extreme. Yes. Like if you go to any other country, like my cousins in Columbia, they all play soccer. They jog, they run, but they don't take it to the extreme here in America.

It's like, again, falls to the leadership, whether that's the coach or the parent of being like, here, you should do the sport. You should feel passionate about it, but you're just a kid. Like if they start to show symptoms of severe anxiety or something that like isn't healthy for them, then the parents should take the initiative or the coach should take the initiative to be like, okay, actually, you need some time off and like we need to reevaluate how much time you're spending on this. Speaking of the pressure that parents can put on their kids, I found an article written

by a psychologist named Dr. Michael Oberschneider. Oh, German? Yeah. Sorry. Oberschneider. He wrote this piece saying that while excessive pressure and stress from competitive sports can lead to things like anxiety, steroid use, eating disorders, chronic injuries, especially when the parents are putting too much pressure on their kids, as long as the sport still

remains fun and balanced, then highly athletic children and teens do better academically, emotionally, socially, research shows that competitive high school athletes display greater confidence, self-respect, leadership skills, graduated higher rates, and in some cases end up earning a little bit more money later in life than they're not athletic peers. Amanda, are you describing me? I was going to say I competitively ran cross country in high school, but my parents, as supportive as they were, they weren't on my back about it. So it was actually the healthiest thing I could have done, because every day after school

I would run six miles and then I would get home, shower, and do my homework, and that's the best thing you can do for a kid. Totally. I mean, I didn't play sports. I'm not built for it, but I remember how life-consumingly passionate I felt about theater camp. When we were rehearsing to do the final performance, nothing felt more important in the entire world, and that's that same feeling, like whether you're going to perform on the mat or you're going to run a race or play a basketball game, which I love.

And even at theater camp, they're 100% were teachers that had so much power and were so beloved that they could have taken advantage of it, but the positives so far outweighed the negatives, and I carry those lessons that I learned with me today, like that sense of authenticity and confidence, and I think that's what cheer brings to people's lives too. I completely agree. And specifically with Navarro, cheer, Monica, their coach, didn't play favorites for no reason.

She put people on the mat because of their skill set. She had a point system. She had very particular reasons for why people got on the mat. It wasn't like culty in that she was like, oh, this kid does me this favor, I'm going to put them on the mat. That's such a great point because the line of communication was also very open between her and her cheerleaders. So if someone wanted to ask her a question or express skepticism about a choice that

she made, they were able to have an open conversation with her, and she always had a reasonable justification for why she decided to exert her power in one way or another. Now I do want to present a balanced argument here because there are some things about the larger institution of cheerleading that are culty in a bad way, specifically in the context of all-star cheerleading, which is separate from college cheering, but that a lot of college cheerleaders still participated on the side. Some successful cheerleaders, including some of the folks who were on cheer and became so famous on the show, are beloved and profitable enough that they're worshiped without question

on the level of gods, which leads me to the most serious point here, which is that there are these overlord cheer organizations who have so much power in the all-star cheerleading industry, namely Varsity Brands, who have not always protected the kids who cheer against power abuse like they should. These overlords are companies. Once they start putting profit over the well-being of children, that's when you can start seeing things fall apart. Yes, and there was an incredibly upsetting story that broke after cheer season one came

out. We were devastated to find out that one of the stars of the show, a guy named Jerry, was found to have sexually assaulted and harassed minors who he met in all-star cheerleading. As he became a leader in his space, he abused his power. Yes, and what was troubling about that is that two of his victims wanted to come forward, but felt as though they couldn't because he had so much star power, particularly after season one, they didn't feel as though anyone would hear them, not their peers, not the higher-ups, no one, and at first they were right.

This is a problem that is not exclusive to cheerleading, obviously, but because the lives of children are in their hands, they need to be extra, extra responsible. Yeah. We've discussed the cultiness of cheerleading from a couple different angles, but I think what we're missing is an insider's point of view. That's why we are hashtag-blessed to be able to introduce our very special guest, Morgan Siminer, a star of cheer seasons one and two, a very proud Navarro cheerleading champion. We got to talk to Morgan about all things cheerleading and whether she thinks cheerleading

is a cult or not, and listen out for Amanda's voice shivering, shaking, just Morgan's number one fan truly. I've never fangirled over anyone the way that I fangirled over Morgan. Listen, through one of the most talented people and just the nicest people. First off, could you tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, and how you got first inducted into the magical cult of cheerleading? My name is Morgan Siminer. I'm 24 years old.

I'm living in Dallas, Texas, currently. I started cheerleading for Navarro College in 2017-18, so I did cheer when I was younger, but it didn't have the same competitiveness that they had at Navarro, so I had a lot to learn when I went to Navarro, and I was really behind a lot of other people. Most improved though, truly. For those of you who haven't watched yet, you have to, but literally a queen. When I watch the show, I get this visceral feeling of wanting to belong with the cheerleaders. I want to know the chance, and I want to feel that sense of family that everybody seems

to feel. Can you talk to us a little bit about what it felt like being in the Navarro cheerleading family, and then what did it feel like when you had to graduate and couldn't be a part of that family anymore? It has been an amazing opportunity in joining the Navarro cheer, as itself is an amazing team, family, atmosphere, community. Every single thing, they are absolutely amazing. Even the cheer program itself is insane, so just to be able to be a part of it is a once-in-a-lifetime

opportunity, and I'm very grateful and blessed that I was able to be a part of it. We think of each other as brothers and sisters. You're going to have days of you fight. You're going to have days where you're mad at each other, but at the end of the day you always love each other, and we'll have each other's back no matter what. To be able to leave that and that whole family and support system is very difficult, but the thing is, even if I'm not currently cheering, I'm still in contact with a lot of people that do go there, or even alumni that previously went there, as well as still staying in touch

with Monica. The fact that I have that is what's keeping me sane at this point, but I do miss the atmosphere and cheering with my best friends and family. Something that I feel like is a green flag for the cult of cheerleading is that it's not in or out. Just because you graduate doesn't mean you can't come back and support the team, and Monica is always going to be there for you, and your teammates are always going to be family.

Yeah, and even though Monica commands a lot of respect and is intimidating, there isn't a sense of fear or threat of being excommunicated for saying the wrong thing. That tight-knit, unconditional love type of community aspect is both culty and healthy at the same time. How many hours a week would you spend with your cheer team? Like 24-7. Yeah. Like literally, we were together every day, because obviously you live in an apartment

with them, or a dorm, or you're half a roommate, you have teammates that come over to hang out. You're having classes together as well on top of practices, and then some people do all sort of cheerleading outside of that, so you're on the same team on an all-star program. So you'll wake up in the morning, go to class, be with your teammates still, go to practice, still be with your teammates, and then you guys carpool to go to another practice for all sorts of cheerleading. So you're together, and then you eat dinner, you study together, like you're doing study hall, literally 24-7, you are with each other.

It's like you guys are spending all this time together with a set goal in mind and with a unified goal, and that's something that's really healthy, because sororities spend all of this time together, but they don't really have a goal, they don't have something that they're working towards. They're not trying to be champions. At Navarro, everyone knows why they're there, what to expect, what they're aspiring to, what that will take. It's all spelled out pretty transparently.

Just another green flag. So people obviously worship your coach. She's like a mom meets mentor, meets spiritual leader, and she's so beloved, rightly so. What do you think is the most ridiculous thing you ever saw Monica ask someone to do that they just did no questions asked? I don't know if there's anything that she asked anyone to do, but there's some funny memories of her that I just looked back on and I'm like, what on earth? One time we had a football game and it was so hot outside that literally the soles of

her shoes melted on the turf track. Oh my gosh. Literally, it was absolutely insane. There's just little things like that, but we all are just wanting to be the best at what we do. So regardless, you know, something might seem crazy, like she comes up with these pyramids in her head that are from Dancing with the Stars or some video that she saw on the internet and she's like, oh, I wonder if we added this to it and we're looking at her like, you're

crazy. And then we're like, okay, but we're going to try it. We're going to be the ones to do it. So we're like, no, we're crazy because we're the ones that want to do that. Whoever thought of chucking someone into the air and see how many times they can flip and spin that person's psychotic, but yet I'm the crazy one that does it. Exactly. At least you can acknowledge it.

When it gets to the point where Monica's like, okay, we're going to do this again because it doesn't look good. We're like, oh my gosh, we've already done this pyramid so many times, but then the bigger picture of it is that she's doing it to help us because she wants us to be successful and we're coming to this program because we want to be the best of the best. She's taking time out of spending time with her family to be with us to help us become you know, the best versions of ourselves on and off the floor, which technically she doesn't need to.

Like she doesn't owe us anything. We are always so like thankful because that's why people are like, you worship her. I mean, like in a sense, yes, but she does so much outside of just practices, making sure everyone's classes are put together and everyone's passing their classes, helping them get tutors, helping in so many different ways that are outside of just your practice that she's literally like a mom and is willing to do anything and everything to like help all these kids that are on the team. I was so struck by some of the like team bonding exercises that were featured on the show.

Like you have those chants. Like what was the one that you said before every competition? You'd be like, we can, we will, we must. Can you remember any sort of culty team traditions and what did those sort of like team bonding rituals mean to you? What role did they play in your sense of camaraderie? We have handshakes that we do with each other before we perform or before we do a full out and that sort of a thing, but it's more and like even the chance as well.

Like it just gets you into like a let's go mindset. Like you are ready to go. Like this is your moment. Like it like hypes you up. So it just like gives you like this feeling where like feel like you can do anything like everything to be perfectly fine. So we will say like the we can, we will, we must. And then also like at the end of practices, we say the serenity prayer and it's just like,

you know, the whole team standing together, we're, you know, one team regardless of if it was good practice, bad practice, like we're still, you know, a team, you're still going to work through everything and you have each other's backs and it's just like ending practice on a good note regardless if you had a good practice or bad practice. So just kind of like all brings you in together and just like, it doesn't get you hype. You're just like, yeah, let's go. Leading up to competition, you're probably thinking like all the ways that something could go wrong, but like right before you get on the mat, you get into the mentality

of like, I'm doing this for my team and now it's exciting and now it's fun and like fuck it all. We're just going to kill it. Yes. I also appreciated how like if something didn't go well, it's not like you would be punished like Monica or even the coach of the competitor team. We won't even name it would, um, would like get off the mat and be like, it's okay. Like I'm not upset.

Are you upset? I'm not upset. Like it's okay. And there was that sense of acceptance. Yeah. Yes. I mean, and that's how it is. Like we are humans and we make mistakes.

We're not, you know, robots, we don't do everything perfect. Like you have your off base, you have, you know, mistakes that happen and it's just like a part of it that we just accept it, learn to how we can fix it for next time and then move on. Like that's like one of the main things I've taken from leaving Navarro is just, I mean, you think of it as like, yeah, you're just there to cheer, but like, you know, we're doing school at the same time. So like we're graduating with degrees and like still doing other things that are outside

of cheerleading. But the bigger picture of it is, is like you have life lessons that will carry, like you'll take them with you and carry on with you the rest of your life. Like whether it's being on time or, you know, being organized or having confidence in yourself regardless of what you've been through in your past or, you know, things you struggle with or, you know, your family background, anything of that sort. Like we got your back no matter what and you're going to be accepted and you're going to live your best life.

Obviously, like the cult of cheerleading seems like mostly very positive thing, but we do have to ask this question in this podcast. We want to analyze it from every angle. Do you ever think about it and you're like, okay, wait, that was actually kind of culty in a bad way? Um, I don't know. Like I feel like people like seeing a bar cheer differently than obviously like what I've experienced because what's put out there on the show, um, so like sometimes, you know,

when we're like angry with each other or having a bad practice or, you know, something's not working right and we're arguing with each other, it seems like it's like, whoa, like there's like, you know, like a higher authority and what they say goes and stuff like that. But like at the end of the day, we are there as a team, like working together as a team and doing what's best regardless if it's good for you or not. Like it's for the majority of the team. So we just like work through that, but it seems kind of like it's like has like higher power.

It's like obviously like Monica's the coach. Like she's the queen of life, but you know, I'm saying totally, I feel like there's moments where you feel the power dynamics a little bit more than other moments. But ultimately, because there are so many people on the team, it's like checks and balances. You guys kind of end up balancing each other out. And what's the absolute worst that can happen, right? Maybe like somebody who really wanted to make Matt doesn't make Matt or even there was that storyline in season two, where one of the team members, Lidarius quit the team because

he didn't feel like Monica had his back anymore. But that same line of genuine communication was still open. And in the end, they were able to resolve things healthily and move forward. Yes. And like that's something that you need with the team, like you have to have people that are strong or willing to like call people out, but then there's also the silent leaders. Like I was one of the silent leaders. So I wouldn't say anything.

I would just keep my mouth shut. And then if something was like a reoccurring problem or something, then I would speak up. And when I would speak up, people would be like, whoa, Morgan talking. Yeah. Which is so admirable. I want to be more like that. I talk way too much. Okay.

So for our little game, we're going to ask you to teach us a classic cheer chant. And then we're going to teach you a little culty chant that we say on our podcast. Okay. And then I'll say like, we can't, and then you guys will repeat. We can at the same time. Okay. And then I'll say, we will. And then you guys say, we will.

And then I'll say, we must. And then you guys say, we must. And then it's just kind of like, after that. Okay. Amanda's going to bounce off the walls. I'm so excited. Just scream it. Ready?

Yes. We can. We can. We will. We will. We must. We must. We must.

Okay. I need to go work out like right now. I need to go do something. I need to go do something. So now we're going to teach you a little sounds like a cult chant, but our listeners aren't going to hear it until the very end of the episode. So listeners, stay tuned. You already are like so beloved, but if our listeners haven't heard of you, how can they

find you on socials? What do you want to say to our listeners? Hey, how's it going? Just thank you for your support. Thank you for your love. If you want to go follow me on social media, my Instagram is Morgan and LYN. And on Tiktok, I think it's Morgan Len 97. And then I think all other social medias are Morgan Seminer and thanks for everything.

So Issa, out of the three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, or get the fuck out. What do you think the cult of cheerleading falls into? It's kind of, I think it's hard. I do think that we have been very nice to cheerleading because we are very biased and like, Hey, as long as we acknowledge it, you know, nothing has ever not been biased in the history of the world. Exactly.

So I will say there are two analyses here to make. There's cheerleading and then there's like Navarro cheerleading as well. And we got like such a good inside look at Navarro cheer that I really think that one specifically is a live your life. Like it is bulletproof the leadership that they have. Yes. How safe they are and how good they are about keeping everyone's well being in mind. Agreed.

And I think on the other hand, I would say it's watch your back like yeah, I would agree because the fanaticism is so intense. And because the seeds of that fanaticism are planted when participants are so young, young. That's the thing that gets me is that if a kid starts doing anything that young, you kind of have to make sure to tell them to be careful. Yeah, especially because it is such a difficult sport that it takes over your life in such a profound way. It doesn't just take over your time.

It takes over the way that you look, the way that you dress, the way that you do your makeup, who your friends are. And I think that for the most part, that's a very, very positive thing in the ways that we've described. People naturally crave connection and belonging. It is so profoundly human to want to be a part of something like cheer. And I think that having healthy sources of community like that can actually protect you from the influence of a more get the fuck out level cult, you know.

But cheer is a profitable industry at the end of the day. And because there is the chance for power to be abused under those circumstances, the larger cult of cheerleading has probably got to be a watch your back. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, it's fine. I mean, it's like, I don't care. I'm going to go watch it on YouTube as soon as I get home. I have.

I have been watching so many cheerleading videos. Well, that's our show. Thank you very much for listening. We'll be back with a new cult next week. But in the meantime, hit it, Morgan. Stay culty. But not too culty. Sounds like a cult is created, hosted and produced by Amanda Montell and Issa Medina.

Kate Elizabeth is our editor. Our podcast studio is all things comedy and our theme music is by Kasey Kulb. Thank you to our intern slash production assistant, Noemi Griffin. Subscribe to Sounds Like a Cult wherever you get your podcasts. So you never miss an episode. And if you like our show, feel free to give us a rating and review on Spotify or Apple podcasts and check us out on Patreon at patreon.com. Slash sounds like a cult.