Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Jared Leto

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

From his Jesus-like hair, erratic on-set antics, and fanatical 30 Seconds to Mars music fandom to his glazed-over sexual assault allegations and literal in-person cult compound, Jared Leto basically represents every possible meaning of the word “cult,” from the cheeky to the gravely serious. He may have Hollywood’s support in the way of an Oscar and desirable roles like the Joker, and many of his music stans worship him enough to follow him off the grid, but Jared Leto might be inching from “cult-followed” celebrity closer to full-blown cult leader. This week, with the help of listener tips, Isa and Amanda are here to untangle the story. In honor of Sounds Like A Cult's one-year anniversary, we're hosting our very first ever live show! It's virtual, meaning anyone from anywhere in the world can attend. On June 15th at 9 pm ET, join Isa and Amanda to ask questions, play games, hear us talk about never-before-discussed cults, and dive into alllllll other things culty. Details and ticket info can be found at momenthouse.com/soundslikeacult For 50% off your first Care/of order, go to TakeCareOf.com and enter code CULT50

Before we start this episode, we want to mention that we will be discussing accusations of sexual assault at some points, which may be disturbing to some listeners, so do take care. Hi, sounds like a cult. I'm Marissa, calling from Florida. I think the cultiest thing about Jared Leto is his event on Mars Island, where people pay thousands of dollars to hear him play his music and give sermons from what I've heard. I know he could be a cult leader because I saw 30 seconds to Mars open for Muse, and I get it now. Just being in the same presence as Jared Leto had like a comforting, warm feeling where I was like drawn to him, even though

I can't stand him. Hi, my name is Mary Beth. I'm from Texas, and I personally think that Jared Leto is a successful cult leader because he looks exactly like the very first cult leader, Jesus Christ. How are you not supposed to follow and become obsessed with a man that literally looks like our Lord and Savior? This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern-day cult we all follow. I'm Amanda Montell, author of a book, Cultish the Language of Fanaticism. I'm Issa Medina, and I'm a comedian. Every week on our show, we discuss a different fanatical fringe group from the cultural zeitgeist, from flat earthers to people who are just really obsessed with Trader Joe's, to try and answer the big question.

This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? To join our cult and see culty memes and BTS pics, follow us on Instagram at SoundsLikeACultPod. I'm on Instagram at Issa Medina, I-S-A-A-M-U-D-I-N-A, and I'm on Instagram at Amanda Underscore Montell. And feel free to check us out on YouTube, where you can watch our show, or hit us up on Patreon, where our show is available at free, at patreon.com, slash sounds like a cult. What if I wanted to break? Wow, sing it!

Yeah, that's the only part of the song I know. I don't know if I could sing a single 30 seconds to Mars song, but there are posters that hung loyally on my one friend, Kate Yingling, shout out, on her bedroom wall in high school, I can't unseal them. Wait, I thought you were going to say on your bedroom wall, and that would have been really frightening. The only reason I knew the lyrics just now is because I literally just listened to the song. Yeah, but you said that it soundtracked her whole childhood. I don't know, man, I just had a CD case full of, like, Death Cab for cutie and show tunes,

and that's all I listened to during those years. Oh, yeah. We're not talking about that today, we're talking about the cult of Jared Leto. If you didn't know by the title of the episode. Right, we really wanted to build up the moment. Yes, a long lead, we vamped, and here we are. Jared Leto is one of those celebrities who, to me, is like maybe a Russell brand. He's one of these, like, really out of touch, privileged white dudes who,

after enough years of being famous, embarked on a path to destruction. Yeah, and now that you mention it, I think for a while I thought he was Russell brand. Russell brand. I know, he's like the hotter Russell brand. Yeah, if you could even call him that. Right, I know, again, Hybristophilia to fetishize these fucked up men. But, you know, Jared Leto, a 90s heartthrob. Jared Leto has been in so many movies.

I mean, this man was literally in Fight Club, he was in Suicide Squad, he was the Joker, he was in Panic Room. What? Jody Foster and Kristen Stewart. Legendary film. But he won a goddamn Oscar. Yeah, he won an Oscar for his role in, what was it called? Dallas Buyer's Club.

Yeah, because he, like, lost a bunch of weight. Yeah. And was, like, the epitome of method acting. But I think what's interesting about him is that he is not, like, an actor on the fringes. Like, I feel like Russell Brand is very fringy. But he too is not mainstream famous. Jared Leto is interesting because he's, like, up to all these extremely culty antics. But he is lauded and celebrated by the Hollywood establishment with all of these roles and all of these awards.

I guess he is technically celebrated by the industry because of his, like, accolades. Yeah. But I don't think he is, like, very... He's not beloved. Yeah, he's not beloved by the industry. He's got a bad reputation. Yeah. So a lot of people have slid into RDMs because Jared Leto, you could say he has, like, a cult following in terms of stanhood.

Like, we could have covered him in our celebrity stan episode. But I think this is really unique because it's one of those moments where it doesn't just sound like a cult. It kind of looks exactly like a cult. Yeah, he has started an in-person compound where he dresses like Jesus and leads people on spiritual exercises. Also, if you look slightly under the hood, he has been accused of some extremely predatory sexual behavior. So over the years, Jared Leto has really come to represent all of the different interpretations of the word cult from the cheeky to the more extreme. It is Midsommar energy. Yeah.

And I feel like he's leaning into that. Yeah. But let's go back a bit. Like, who is Jared Leto and what is his origin story? The thing about Jared Leto is, like, he didn't start off that privileged. I mean, he went to a private school growing up, but I think he grew up from a pretty humble background. Like, he was a breakout star. He actually has so many accomplishments in this industry, and he's been, like, a working actor since the early 90s.

Yeah, you could call him a triple threat. Yeah. Actor. Rockstar. Creep. Look at Amanda writing jokes, you know, different way of defining threats. The delivery, the pause. Thank you.

I'm so proud. Thank you. Thank you so much. But he is a really talented man, which I, like, it pains me to say, but first and foremost, I think we should start with the fact that he's 50 years old. Yes. When you Google this man, you see his face. He does not look 50. Yeah.

But, like, Brad Pitt is not aging like that. Brad Pitt's still so hot. I think a lot of people have described his fame as someone who has been, like, riding the wave of his breakout stardom for years and years, so he jumps from, like, one project to the other. A bunch of our listeners called in saying they don't understand why he's so successful, and I have to agree because come to think of it, Oscar or not, I actually can't remember a single one of his performances. Some might know him for his turn, his breakout role as Jordan Catalano in the 90s ABC teen, my so-called life, which, shamefully, only aired for one season, but I fucking love that show. Really? I never watched it. Oh, teen angst at its finest.

It was the same energy as Freaks and Geeks. Oh, okay. Like, it was just a brooding show about, like, inner turmoil during your adolescence, and he was, like, the hottie that the main character played by Claire Danes had a major crush on. Okay, and that is, like, that's a role made for stardom, like, that's going to project you into stardom. A thousand percent. But he wasn't, like, a Corey Feldman heartthrob or, like, a Jonathan Taylor Thomas heartthrob. He was, like, an artsy heartthrob. Yeah.

Okay, actually, I have no idea who those people are. I think something else that caught everyone's attention was that he's, like, a self-proclaimed method actor. A method acting, for those of you who don't know, is, like, when you become the character in and outside of the role. It's the Daniel Day Lewis bullshit. Yeah. Isn't method acting also just a thing to, like, bring media attention to shows and movies? Oh, that's an interesting idea. I've always just thought of it as, like, supreme self-indulgence, like, giving actors the biggest excuse in the world just to, like, pardon the phrase, drink their own Kool-Aid.

Yeah, I think it's a combination of both because then if people are, like, oh, like, he prepared for six months for this role, then it creates, like, buzz around. He did meth to play a meth addict. He'll go to any extreme for his art. Exactly. Yeah. So he garnered attention from being a method actor as well. But then he ultimately started a band with his brother, 30 Seconds to Mars, which is what I feel like he's most known for. I know Jared Leto best from the movie Requiem for a Dream.

Did you ever watch that movie? Mm-mm. Oh, my God. This is, like, a very, very disturbing film about hard drug addiction. But when I was in high school, my friends and I used to get high on weed in, uh... On weed. Not meth. In my friend who was a fan of 30 Seconds to Mars, Kate Yingling, again, shout out.

We used to get high in her basement and watch Requiem for a Dream on repeat, which is, like, so disturbing. It was euphoria energy. Young people doing really depraved things to fill the void. Yeah. I think Jared Leto is where we differ in generation a bit. Because a lot of these references that you're saying, I really have no idea. Freaks and Geeks, I watched when I was in high school on Netflix. Oh, my God.

I watched it as a child. Yeah, okay. So we are three years apart, but... Which is not that much. It's not that much, but technology moves so quickly and there's, like, a technological, quote-unquote, paradigm shift every five seconds. But you're right. 30 Seconds to Mars was when he really branched out in his fame.

No one worships celebrities more than music fans. Yeah, and I never thought about why, but I was talking to a musician the other... Not, like, a famous musician. I was talking to... A struggling musician. No, I'm just kidding. But I was talking to some musician the other day and I was like, I don't understand how pop artists are so, so famous.

And it's because when you listen to a song, it's only, what, two to four minutes long. So you can hear it on repeat 24-7. You listen to music when you're grocery shopping, when you're walking, when you're in the car. So it's content that you are constantly consuming. And it soundtracks your life and you become really emotionally attached to the music because it backdrops certain emotional moments in your life. Yeah. You perceive the lyrics as speaking to you.

Speaking to you. Yeah. That's why a lot of Disney Channel stars, I think, go from Disney acting to immediately wanting to become a pop star. Like Miley Cyrus, Serlina Gomez, Olivia Rodrigo, because it's like that next level of fame. It is that next level of fame. And the worshipfulness among music stands is just more hardcore than people who love movies. I think.

Yeah, 100%. It's more spiritual. Talking about music can be a lot less pretentious than like talking about filmmaking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pop music and rock music. Yeah. It's more populist. It's like for the masses.

Yeah, like the song, The Kill, it was playing on Hot 995. Yeah, Hot 995. Yeah. Hometown Heroes. Yeah, and especially like this music, 30 Seconds to Mars' music was like kind of anthemic, right? Yeah. It was huge. And so people became consumed by it.

So that's sort of the like metaphorical cheeky cult following in scared quotes that Jared Leto has. The band, 30 Seconds to Mars, the members of like their cult following or their stands are called the echelon. And they go as far as like going around the world to see them live at different locations. Like following fish or following the Grateful Dead. Yeah, exactly. And we'll talk more about the echelon in depth in a bit. Yeah, but I think that Jared Leto was like, oh, if I can do this with my band, he was like, I can do this with myself. Yes, yes, yes.

You know, it is really funny. There totally could be like a gateway from pop stardom to cult leader. Yeah. But most people don't go there because it's more work ultimately. It's so much work. It's like saying you wanted to be the president of America. I'm like, do you have money problems you have to deal with? It's like when you are a cult leader, you are the most important person to all of your followers and you have to act like they're the most important person to you.

It does sound like it requires a lot of admin skills organization. His assistant must be exhausted. I think you're totally right. He probably had sort of self absorbed inclinations that the band then allowed him to exploit. But at this point in time, he's really crossed a line from celebrity with a cult following to something much cultier. And we should talk about the ways in which he's crossed that line. Hi, this is Bethany from Denver. And in my experience, the cultiest thing about Jared Leto was the time I met him at a show and he put his hand on my cheek and told me I had sad eyes.

Hi, my name is Jane and I'm calling from Los Angeles. And I think the coolest thing about Jared Leto is his Met Gala outfit in 2018, I believe, where he went with his own decapitated head. Hi, my name is Teresa. I am from Rochester, New York. He has an island that people pay piles and piles of money to go see and like commune with nature and his band. So we touched on this a little bit, but I think first of all, he's so self absorbed that he has this sort of cult of personality. Yeah, he is known to kind of make interviewers uncomfortable when he is on red carpet or media tours, he indulges in the starstruck nature of his fans. Classic love bombing where you make someone feel special and seen in order to control them later.

He is very, very protective and controlling over his public image. So in 2013, Jared Leto went to the trouble of buying the rights to like silly modeling photos from his my so-called life days. And then he got them scrubbed from the internet by threatening legal action because he wants to protect and curate this very specific image of who he is now. It's also so weird because sometimes he says things just to create controversy. And then he'll deny that he said it. He's full of contradictions. He's giving hypocrite vibes because he which is so cult leader. It's so cult leader because it's also like the brother of gaslighting.

That's like what that is hypocrisy and gaslighting really do go. Cheek and jowl. Yeah. Hand to hand cheek and jowl. But he's referred to himself as anti greed. But if you make a living off of being like a prominent figure, first of all, there's like nothing wrong with it because that's like an industry. That's what entertainment is. Yeah.

But like you inherently can't be anti greed if like you are charging people to interact with you. Yeah. And you are charging brands for you to literally just like say things about them. Like that is that is greed because you could like I bet you he's not going to like give free promo to things. No, absolutely not. He just he sends all of these mixed messages that he's at once above the man and stick it to the man. But at the same time, you can tell from his career and the way that he interacts. He's fully participating in the man.

Yeah. Show me this man's like tax forms. I want to see I want to see anti greed in your taxes. My God. And so I just want to say like there's nothing wrong with wanting to make a profit. We all live under this capitalist society. I always say, you know, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. The problem we're highlighting here is that he's trying to present himself as anti greed and greater than God separating himself from us.

But he's just like everyone else. His marketing tactics have also been so culty over the years like to promote his album in 2013. He hosted a giveaway called the sleepover where six lucky fans were invited to sleep in his bed with him. Wait, what? Yeah, we looked into it and he actually did not end up sleeping with them at this event. He ended up leaving because he had to get up early. So it was kind of false advertising and honestly promising to sleep next to your fans is weird, but then not doing it almost makes this whole story even weirder. And he also speaking of the controlling aspect is so sensitive about criticism of his music.

It doesn't feel good to have a listener or a critic disparage your music or say something that you don't agree with about your music. But he like Elon Musk will freak out over his critics. No, he'll even freak out to his fans at concerts. Like there was this moment we can play the clip, but there was this moment where one of his fans wasn't standing up at a concert and he stopped the whole concert. He pointed at this man and was like, if you're able to stand up, you need to stand up. Hey, yo, you with your fingers in your chin beard, what are you sitting on your fucking ass for? This is the 30 seconds tomorrow show. Okay. If you can stand up, you better be up off your fucking ass right now. You hear me?

I feel like we see artists do this all the time, you know, like call out audience members and it's like fun and friendly, but it's done in like a lighthearted way. I feel like the way Jared Leto said this felt really targeted and aggressive. So we should also talk about Jared's reputation as a motherfucking creep. I also don't like the word creep when what we mean is predator. When I think of the word creep, I think of like a spider. I think of like a centipede. When I hear the word creep, I don't think predator. I don't think a guy who takes advantage of his power to sexually exploit young women. Yeah, many women have gone on Twitter, Tumblr and different like groupie forums to tell stories about their encounters with Jared Leto.

And I think that's why there was so much uproar when he was the one to present Olivia Rodrigo with her Grammy because she's such a young artist. And it's like kind of weird that they would pick an openly accused creep to present a Grammy to like a really the youngest artist right now. That is chilling. You know, it really does reflect the amount of power that Jared Leto holds in Hollywood because the fancier someone is, the harder they are to truly materially cancel in like a conviction or firing type of way. So while the public can call attention to a powerful person's transgressions, if that person's employer or movie studio look at all the allegations and decide, you know what, this person is actually too important or too profitable to cancel for those things. And they'll just kind of sweep it under the rug and eventually the public will kind of put it out of their minds. So yeah, with Jared Leto, the larger cults of Hollywood and patriarchy might be allowing him to carry on his own little cult.

And you have to look at a person holistically like not every one of these facts or alleged stories alone like lends itself to a cult leader accusation. But when you look at everything together, it feels cult leader. There have also been a few testimonials from some of his co-stars in movies. Should we give a few highlights? When he was on the red carpet for the Suicide Squad premiere, he himself said that he sent used condoms and anal beads to his co-stars, Will Smith and Margot Robbie. But later, not a great gift giver, not a great gift giver, but later in an interview, he was like, obviously, like, I didn't do that. Like it was a joke. And now I'm being like accused of sending used condoms to people, but like, I don't know.

I know he was like, I don't understand why people are saying that. I'm like, you literally said it yourself, babe. It is such a cult leader pattern to constantly give these contradictions such that no one ever really knows if what you're saying is true. They just glom onto your energy. Yeah, exactly. And he has that power over a lot of his interviewers because he is a star. And so people are a little starstruck and nervous to talk to him. And so he's able to kind of like abuse that dynamic.

Yes. So he's been accused of other erratic behaviors by co-stars. He was said to have snorted lines of Arabiata sauce for House of Gucci. Sounds painful. He sent Margot Robbie a rat on Suicide Squad, which now we don't know if that's true or not because he's going around saying that like a lot of those things aren't true. But I don't know like why his co-stars would like immediately sign on to that prank. It's also like a total abuse of his power and his dynamics because like the kind of shit that he's saying. Like no woman or like person of color would ever get away with like saying weirdo fucking shit like that.

He has definitely exploited his white man Russell Brand ass privilege. I'm just like grouping him in with Russell Brand not only because they look alike, but because I feel like they claim this position of spiritual authority coupled with Hollywood stardom in a way that is so representative of like who gets to be a cult leader these days. Yeah, and it's also representative of how like Hollywood is a space where like cult leaders are rewarded because he has all this like weirdo and creep energy and accusations yet he's still being hired. He's still getting auditions for major roles being called to be a part of major projects. If the industry likes you, it will keep giving you work. If the industry believed or cared about the accusations against him, they would not want to be associated with him and he wouldn't be getting work. Because it's like, oh, he's an artist. Yeah, he's weird. Yeah, I feel like in the industry, like the suits, the agents and the representatives love to like give the excuse that artists are just artists and that's why they like take forever to email you back.

They just can behave badly because you can write it off as like, oh, he's a creative. Yeah, and that is giving cult leader vibes. So let's talk about the echelon, the actual cult fan base of 30 seconds to Mars. So we talked about the echelon a bit earlier and how it's like this 30 seconds to Mars fan base, but according to fans, the echelon is quote, Believe, hope, emotions, understanding, music, support, world, unification, love, shouts, communication, freedom, happiness, tears, dreams, it is the family. What? It absolutely sounds like a cult slogan. It's all this like highfalutin grandiose, larger than life terminology that's meant to unify this group that is assembling around clearly something that's so much more than this music.

It means everything to them. Yeah, and I think the echelon was the first time that Jared Leto leaned into being a cult because what he has done is that he himself calls his fans a cult. He's like, I hate the word fan. It just seems so dismissive because we have this cult, this family, these believers who understand it seems fitting that there was a name to reference them. So I don't think that Jared Leto particularly thinks that the word cult is negative, which is kind of RMO too. That's RMO too, but I feel like his cult is bad. It's bad. Context is everything with language.

And when we use the word in a sort of joking metaphorical cheeky context, listeners sort of automatically pick up on those intentions. But when he uses it, it's so fluid, it's so subjective that those who want to see it as something positive will. He's Coindamotto, you wouldn't understand, and that's become the hashtag for the echelon. You wouldn't understand. That's such us versus them vibes. Yeah, and I think it's important to highlight also how like, you know, we talked about in the Stan episode that like there are fans and like that's fine. But I think the problem with Jared is that he exploits the like dedication that his groups have. He's just like, let's see how far we can go exactly. Exactly. So we have gotten to the final level of cultiness that is Jared Leto, and I think we have to talk about it.

It's Mars Island. It's the thing that caused him to reemerge in headlines recently. The thing that prompted so many of our culties to slide into our DMs about him. He has started a literal festival retreat in person cult compound called Mars Island. It is leading in on the fandom that they have from 30 seconds to Mars because it's originally made for fans and it's hosted by the band. Yes. And it was started in 2016, but I don't ever see his brother who's like his co-band member in a lot of headlines like it's primarily Jared. So Mars Island is referred to as a summer camp and grown up summer camp sounds low key fun though.

It is fun and that's the thing is like that's why we like to provide different levels of cults because like cults can be fun if they're safe. Most of the fun of a cult is being able to commune in person to have that IRL sense of belonging. It's like an extreme theme party. Yeah. Even though nothing bad has come of Mars Island yet, a lot of the things that are happening there are kind of weird. Yes. Mars Island went like more viral in 2019 when Jared tweeted a photo of himself in all white and like this Jesus clad outfit and he was surrounded by hundreds of fans wearing all white as well. And again, what did he do?

He leaned into it and he captured it. Yes. This is a cult hashtag Mars Island. You know what's funny is that I, I camped council this Jewish retreat the other week for little kids and there was this one Shabbat dinner where we had to wear all white. And as culty as it looked, I cannot lie. It is fun to wear all white in a passive group of people on a summer camp also wearing all white. I could see how that would be fun, but I will say I think that's more for you than it is for me. There is a cult for everyone.

Well, you actually love all white also. I feel like you love an all white outfit. And I think for me, the problem with that is that I spill a lot. I was wearing regular jeans yesterday. And I don't know if you noticed, but I spilled like orange juice all over them. The orange spots, they kind of looked cool because like the, Oh, like splatter paint looks like splatter paint, but it was orange juice. You're protected from ever joining a cult literally because you spilled too much.

Yeah. But about these photos onlookers have noted that they gave off people's temple vibes. That's Jonestown. Obviously you can't make that one-to-one comparison, but that was the sort of impulse people were getting from them. And this isn't Mars Island's first instance of outright calling themselves a cult. They've put it on merch. It's appeared in their music videos. Again, it really seems like they're just trying to get ahead of other people accusing them of being a cult so that they can do whatever they want.

Yeah, because ultimately this retreat is like this all-inclusive festival where just the band plays. No other bands. And no other outside performances. And people just participate in like community and wellness activities and tickets range from $1,500 to like $6,500. And apparently like the higher price points can get you exclusive VIP experiences with Jared Leto. But he's anti-greed. But yeah, he totally anti-greed. And with everything he's been accused of, like why would you pay money to put yourself in that situation?

Because people believe what they want to believe and everybody has a problematic fave. And this is a high-key, high-key problematic fave. There are other levels to exclusivity of Mars Island. There's a section of the band website that's password protected. It's unclear how you would even receive the password. So that adds an extra layer of us them division and secrecy to the whole event. And in 2020, they held Mars Island in Croatia where for 12 days people were like meditating silently and completely isolated from their friends and family. Which again, honestly sounds restorative.

Yeah, Croatia is really nice, I've been. But it does give culty energy. It's where Game of Thrones was filmed. Yeah. But the funny thing about that 2020 retreat is that it happened like right before COVID. And so when Jared Leto came out of the retreat, he wasn't it for two weeks after the world was shut down. And he was like, I had no idea. Oh my goodness.

The privilege to be able to go on this blissful retreat and have no idea that the world was so sick. But I think some of the most culty elements about Mars Island are not even necessarily the conformity of the all-white outfits. But it's how yoga and meditation render you so vulnerable. And there's such intimate things that who knows who's running those events. They can make a person seriously susceptible to undue influence. Certainly separating you from friends and family to the point that you wouldn't even be able to hear the news about COVID is pretty culty. And the capitalistic nature of it all, how much money it costs to attend. Those are all super culty elements.

But I think we have to talk about it. You know, let's talk about what kind of level cult this is. Hi, this is Mia from Denver, Colorado. I think the cultiest thing about Jared Leto is definitely his method acting. He will make his coasters lives a living hell, but he gets away with it under the guise of quote unquote artistry. Hi, this is Kiefer. I live in Bend, Oregon. And I think the cultiest thing about Jared Leto is that he seemingly does not age.

I feel like he must be drinking blood or doing something wild. Hey, culties! Amanda here again reminding you to please sign up to attend our live one-year anniversary virtual event. It's going to be so much fun. We've been preparing something very special for you all. There's going to be the opportunity for private one-on-one meet and greets. We're going to be selling merch that you're not going to be able to buy unless you attend the event. Tickets are only $15 and if you can't attend the live event the evening of June 15th,

then you can still buy a ticket and for seven days after the event ends, you'll be able to watch it back. So go to momenthouse.com slash sounds like a cult for more information on tickets and merch and we hope to see you there. Issa, what do you think? Is the cult of Jared Leto a live your life? A watch your back? Or a get the fuck out bloody cult? I think you're going to disagree with me. Controversy!

Because I think it is a high watch your back. I started out thinking like this dude is shitty and weird, but if you like his music and want to rock out, go for it, just watch your back. But now that I'm thinking about it, that more harmless fandom is what emboldens people like Jared Leto to get away with the more abusive behavior. And for that reason, I think it has to be a get the fuck out because also an individual narcissist or creep is not necessarily cult leader status. But when you combine that creepery with celebrity and the protection of Hollywood and the transcendence of music and a literal physical retreat far away where he can do whatever he wants to people knowing they worship him. That's just more than a problematic fate at that point. If you are going to pay $6,500 to spend time with someone and you think you're developing a personal relationship with them, like that's low key on you.

You know what I mean? But if we're talking about Mars Island and him taking advantage of his stands, like, I don't know, it's just not black or white because you're going to this retreat and you're participating willingly to get his attention. But I guess it's the type of attention that he gives you and it all needs to be consensual because even if you agree to go, that doesn't mean you agree to everything under the sun. I mean, it is really tricky because so much of the participation and even the most notorious dangerous cults of all time could be framed as willing. It was voluntary. So I think the voluntary aspect, you're right and you absolutely have a point and from what we know, there are no hidden levels, there are no hidden costs, there are no hidden hierarchies. But there could be things happening on Mars Island that we don't know about. Yeah, and I think that's why it's like a high level watch your back for people to think that they were going to have like a personal relationship with them.

It's like reaching. It's starting as parasocial. Exactly. And that's something that we all need to be aware of no matter what kind of fandom we're participating in. A figure could be extremely problematic, but you could still be a fan of that person and not have it necessarily consume your entire life. Whereas, you know, say our flat earth or episode, go back and listen if you haven't already season one. Yeah. You know, that is something that like influences your beliefs.

Yeah, exactly. It's about what he's ultimately preaching at these retreats. Well, that's our show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with a new cult next week. But in the meantime, 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.