Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of The Kardashians

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

The Kardashians: a harmlessly entertaining reality TV family or a dynastic conformist controlling cabal of K-named cult leaders? In this ~intense~ episode, Isa and Amanda chat with comedian and New Yorker writer Meg Indurti to unpack the cult-like influence of America’s most (in)famous family. Major Devil’s Avocado energy this week! Grab your Liquid I.V. in bulk nationwide at Costco or you can get 15% off when you go to LiquidIV.com and use code cult at checkout. Get Honey for FREE at JoinHoney.com/CULT Our listeners get 10% off their first month by visiting our sponsor BetterHelp at BetterHelp.com/cult

The views expressed in 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. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Amanda Montell, author of the book Cultish the Language of Fanaticism. I'm Issa Mandina and I'm a comedian. Every week on our show, we discuss a different zeitgeisty group that puts the cult in culture,

from celebrity doctors to Starbucks, 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 feel funny promoting my Instagram on this episode, but I am in the cult of Instagram and you can find me there at Amanda underscore Montell. You can also find me on Instagram at IssaMandina, I-S-A-A-M-E-D-I-N-A-A, and I also am in the cult of Instagram, but famously don't have as many followers as Amanda, so if you guys want to give me a follow, that would be amazing.

And feel free to check us out on YouTube where you can watch our show or hit us up on Patreon at patreon.com slash soundslikeacult. And there our episodes are available ad free. Or are you trying to accuse me of being an Instagram cult leader because if so, I'm flattered. Yeah, you are the Instagram cult leader. Oh, thank you. You're welcome.

I would actually argue that the Instagram cult leader is the subject of today's episode because we're talking about the cult of the Kardashians. So you might think that this is one of our more lighthearted episodes, but you'd be wrong. Yeah. It got pretty intense in our interview with our guest. With our guest. We're going to interview Megan Durty.

She's a writer and comedian and we got really in the weeds of like why the Kardashians are evil or good. And it turned into this whole conversation about capitalism. This is the entire thesis of our show, right? Is that we're talking about groups that we all affiliate with on some level, but actually do have these more sinister ties to deeper, cultish aspects of the culture, whether it's politics or beauty standards or sex. And I feel like the reason we ended up going so big picture, like ultimately ended up talking

about capitalism was because the Kardashians have such a large influence that their umbrella covers everything. I mean, there just are so fucking many of them. Yeah, that's true. I mean, for one, like immediate family, they are a basketball team. Seriously. I mean, if we're talking about sort of like cult like media families, the one that instantly springs to mind for me is the Duggars, the subject of that, that TLC reality show, like

12 kids and counting 13 kids and counting. The Kardashians are just like a really, really mainstream version of that. The Duggars belong to a fringy Christian sect called the Quiverfuls, but you could argue that the general influence that the Kardashian has had over our beauty standards, over the way that we interact with each other, over the way that we interact with influencers and brands and celebrities is a religion in and of itself. Yeah. I mean, even over the way that we speak, it's crazy.

You'll have to stay tuned for the interview because there is a moment when Issa a little bit goes to bat for the Kardashians. I do want to preface this episode by saying I did kind of give myself the role of devil's avocado, which is what we're going to call it because I do not by any means ever want to be a devil's advocate. I'm a devil's avocado and it's for the sake of the podcast. I wanted to make sure that we were looking at all sides of the argument because I feel like the Kardashians, especially, are this group of influencers who are constantly talked

about. And Shadon. And Shadon. And it's usually on one side of the spectrum. People either hate them or they love them. And so I was like, let's have a nuanced discussion about it. We're not at all trying to shit on the Kardashians just for the sake of it. I mean, sure, I have intuitions that I disdain them and refuse to watch their shows and engage

with them, but this is not a podcast about intuition. This is a podcast about analysis and we're trying to understand where those intuitions about this is a cult even come from. Where do they stem from? Yeah. And I do watch their shows. I feel like we have to get that out there. Okay.

Actually, I never watched Keeping Up with the Kardashians, but I did watch their latest show on Hulu and then I was like running around being like, oh my God, Kim is such a boss. Yeah. Go off. And then I was talking about it with Meg and she like went off on me on like all the reasons that they're bad. And I was like, we have to talk about this. Yeah.

You and Meg are friends offline, real life friends. Real life. We had been planning to do this show already. Then our loyalists were like, yeah, you absolutely have to do the Cult of the Kardashians. Cult spelled with a K, obviously. And you were like, I'm bringing Meg because the second I started defending Kim, she was like, they are toneless billionaires who've appropriated every culture to build their own clout.

They are subtly having the most destructive influence over our entire culture. And I was like, yes, go off. Yeah. But actually, now that I think about it, I'm unearthing a repressed memory. That's a Teal Swan reference. No, I'm unearthing a repressed memory that I actually too have sort of inadvertently defended the Kardashians because in my first book, I go to bat for vocal fry, which is this vocal quality.

That vocal quality is more often than not associated with the Kardashian style of sort of like Blase Valley girlish delivery. And I take issue with that because there is nothing inherently bad about vocal fry just because it happens to be noticed in the speech of young women. There's a lot of shit wrong with the Kardashians, but it just doesn't have to do with vocal fry. That's true. That's the least of their problems.

There are a lot of different sides to the Cult of Kardashian story. And we got sort of big picture in this episode. There were some nitty gritty elements that we know exist that we didn't have time to touch on. So if there's enough interest, we might do a part two. Yeah. We just want to say like right upfront, there's no way we could cover every single aspect. We would have had to do like documentary style research and we just like haven't had the

time. But if you guys have anything else you think like we need to look into more deeply, like if you think there's one subtle culty aspect of the Kardashians, then DM us or comment on our posts and we'll do a part two. And that's true of every topic we cover because these topics could lend themselves to an entire 12 episode series in and of themselves. And we want to make sure that we're covering what is interesting to the people. Yeah.

I feel like it's nice to define who we're talking about at first, but we're talking about the Kardashians, like the Kardashian Jenner family. So it's like Chris, Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, Kylie and Kendall. This is another way that they're like the Duggers because the Duggers kids all have J names like Johanna and Josiah. I mean, it is famously culty to name all of your children things that start with the same letter. And then there's Rob who like really isn't very active in the cult.

So if you don't know their brother Rob was named after the Kardashian family patriarch, their father, Robert Kardashian, who was a powerful lawyer in Hollywood, best known for representing OJ Simpson in that infamous murder trial we all know about. So the family has always sort of been steeped in controversy. Robert, the father passed away in 2003, but the Kardashian family's intense rise to fame really goes back to a sex tape of Kims that was leaked around that same time period. Kim was pretty much a no name at that point, but she was friends with Paris Hilton. At one point she was even her assistant and she really aspired to be a socialite like

her. And thanks to the leadership of their mother, their momager, Kris Jenner, the family has marketed the living shit out of themselves in the years since they've launched various businesses and partnerships. And now the collective family is worth over $2 billion. First question that I think we should talk about really quickly before we talk to our guest is like, who do you think is in the cult of the Kardashians? Like, do you think it's just those five girls and the mom?

Or do you think like it's the whole family or do you think it's everyone on the show? Like we often describe, I think there are cults within cults here. And I think everyone who's born into this family is automatically inducted into this cult, held to a beauty standard, expected to be public facing. I mean, the kids, it will be interesting to see what becomes of them. Like will they defect in 20 years and be like, I was super fucked up, like an ex-scientologist? Yeah. Will they become leaders themselves?

Yeah, we don't know. And it is one of those situations where like people have asked us, do we think like toxic families are cults? And I feel like I don't know that's not for me to say because it depends on the family. Like your parents obviously control your finances, they control where you live, but something You literally need them. You literally need them. You're literally a minor.

But something that is new is like the lack of consent to become like a public figure. Privacy is something that you literally cannot take back. And these kids are born without privacy. I think that lack of consent that family members have actually brings up an interesting point about who the true cult leader of the Kardashians is. Because we talk about Kim a lot with our guests, but I actually think it's Chris, the mom. Like she's, in my honest opinion, the true sort of narcissist puppet master of the whole operation.

I mean, she's not only like queen bee momager vibes, she's also constantly pressuring all of her kids to procreate as much as possible, like spinning every precious life moment into a monetizable commodity, which is so fucking cult leaderish. And I also think that as the conformity of their K names suggests, the women born into the Kardashians play a more extreme role in the family cult than the men. And that is a trope. Like women in classic cults are often held to a more repressive standard and expected to do more labor to recruit people into the fold.

Here's a classic cult moment for you in the children of God, often referred to as a sort of Christian sex cult of the 1970s era. Women were expected to engage in something called flirty fishing, where they'd be coerced to learn men they'd meet out in the wild into the cult by having sex with them. So bear with me making this connection. But to a less explicit degree, the women and the Kardashians are also expected to use their sexuality to attract fans in a way that Rob is not. Classic cult moment.

When your parents post your face and identifying details about you without you being old enough to weigh in and say that that's okay with you. And we'll discuss Sharon Ting more in depth during our cult of mom fluencers episode. But yeah, there's definitely the cult of the family itself. And then there's the cult of all of their followers and supporters and viewers. Even people who don't follow or watch the show or anything like that are implicitly in the cult of the Kardashians because they have suddenly and not so subtly shaped culture in such a radical fucked up way.

I think the people that are at the most dangerous part of the cult are people who are part of the extended family. Part family member, part follower. Yeah. And it's these people who the family takes a liking to and they start inviting them to the Christmas parties and to the holidays. And they are also influencers and therefore their life and their income. And their worth.

And their worth comes from the family and like if you're kicked out of that, you no longer have like an income revenue unless you like have built your platform enough yourself. One example is Jordan Woods, one of Kylie's ex best friends who was involved in a cheating scandal with Chloe's ex husband, Tristan. And even though Jordan did make a mistake, the Kardashians were over the top vengeful about it and used every little bit of their power to try and silence her. I think it's just so insanely culty how betraying this family is on any level, big or small, they could ruin your life.

It low key reminds me of ex-scientologists. It really is so powerful when any celebrity at all sort of invites you to bathe in the glow of their light. I know like three half famous people and I myself feel like blessed when I get to go hang out with them because their gravity is just so compelling and it really draws you in and you really do feel chosen. And the Kardashians being some of the most famous people alive, their gravity is like that of a black hole.

I myself knowing people who are like, don't quote me on this math, but like one bajillionth as famous as the Kardashians, I already feel like there would be exit costs if I stopped talking to those people. You know what I mean? I would have exit costs if you stop talking to those people. Something else that I think is really culty is their legal influence. Because of their money, they have so much power to take things offline. Like, do you remember when that picture of Khloe Kardashian was unedited, got online

because her grandma accidentally posted it? Yeah, yeah. Her bikini pic that hadn't been facetuned. Yeah. Her lawyers literally got it scrubbed from the internet in 2021. Like how much money and power and influence do you have to have to be able to get something scrubbed from the internet? So imagine being their friend or being their family friend.

Like you are friends with someone who has like the power to end you. Dude, a hundred percent. So the exit costs are sky high. I keep making these celestial references, but I feel like it's the only way to communicate the stakes and the magnitude of the power that this Kardashian clan with a K holds. You know? Like because it's not just one person, it is this dynasty. And what's also terrifying is how quickly they were able to build it.

Like this isn't old money necessarily. Like they started off with money. They started off wealthy, but this isn't like, I don't know, some sort of political cult that has roots that go back, you know, 200, 300, 500 years. This is new money, baby. And the fact that they were able to just augment their collective wealth, not only wealth, but influence on the masses so quickly. Like who knows where our culture will be in 10, 20 years because of them.

They've built that wealth so quickly. And I think that's why they kind of have like this, these big egos and these big heads that kind of lead them to have this us versus them mentality of like, don't fuck with my family or I'm going to fuck with you. Like they say that on the show all the time. How does this family still keep all these guys around? Like once you're in, it's like the mob, you can't get out. We have a very loyal, strong vibe in our family.

Yeah. One thing else that's quite culty about them is that they create this illusion of populism. Like, I'm just like you, I really care about family. I was watching a video the other day analyzing the diets on the show, Gilmore Girls, don't ask. It was an algorithm thing. The person making that video, a nutritionist was talking about how oftentimes people on screen will eat in order to humanize themselves because we all have to eat.

And I feel like the Kardashians on their show do things that like regular humans do. They get into fights with their siblings. It's like celebrities. They're just like you. Yeah. Like they are imperfect and they create that illusion, which is very strategic to mask the fact that they're nothing like the rest of us. We should go out and we'll get a hot dog on a stand, you and I.

I wonder if they have like those arguments because like at the end of the day, they are running a business together. Of course they're going to be like us versus them, but I bet you they have arguments, you know, internally about like how much they're getting paid or how much airtime. I mean, their final season of keeping up with the Kardashians didn't watch it, but I did see a lot of clips on TikTok. Yeah. I've never seen it either.

I refuse. I did watch the new one as we know, but the old one ended because Courtney was done with the show. She was like, I want to live my life and I don't want to do it in front of the cameras anymore. And now they're all executive producers on the show, so they all get to decide like how the show is edited to make them each look good. Oh my God.

But I bet you Kendall is barely in the show and Kylie isn't in the show at all. So they probably get paid like different amounts of money. I wonder how close you can really feel to your family members when like you're making money off of them. This whole episode just kept reminding me of succession. You know, it's like the family on succession creates this public image that everybody's like hunky dory, or at least they try to, but behind those doors, they're going for the jugular.

Yeah. And you have to speculate allegedly, allegedly, allegedly, allegedly. You have to speculate that it has to get bloody back there. Oh yeah. I mean, there's literally scenes of them like hitting each other and stuff. Part of that populist image, and we speak about this with our guests, is creating the impression that they're victims, that they're so innocent, and also getting really, really defensive whenever anybody questions them or accuses them of setting impossible beauty

standards that are negatively affecting the mental health of young people. They just totally play innocent, which I mean, we all play innocent in our everyday lives. That's what we do as humans. But when you have as much influence and clout as they have built, it starts to become not only problematic, but culty. Everyone is affected by like the repercussions of like the societal standards that the Kardashian's inflict upon society. Oh my God, that sounds like something I would say.

I am literally going off today. We're going to chat with a brilliant guest. My friend and comedian, Megan Dirty, she does stand up. She's a writer. She's written for The New Yorker. Fancy. So fancy. And she's currently writing a book of short essays.

And I think you're really going to enjoy it. You want to tell our listeners who you are and what you do. I don't know why I asked you like that. Oh my God, I feel like I'm in the front of a classroom right now. I just like starting off the convo. Who I am and who I want to be. I'm Meg Indirty. Full name is Megan.

I'm a stand up comedian, humor writer. Came from Chicago. Now I live in LA. And I write for The New Yorker, contribute to The Onion. And I do stand up everywhere. I produce a show right here in LA called The Big One. And yeah, that's me. That's her, ladies and gentlemen.

Okay, so can you please tell us about your relationship to The Kardashians? Hatred. Out of the gate. Yeah, The Kardashians. I mean, I think despite my best efforts, I know a lot about them just because they're just on, what do you call it when they're on the side? The peripheral. Oh.

Peripheral. I was like, yeah, rear view. Side view. Neither of us should drive. I made 12 U-turns to get here today. You did. You did. And we all survived.

There's always something going on. There's like some sort of scandal or they're attached to someone where there's a scandal. And so it's just sort of like this thing that we are all sort of forced to know about. Like someone once said that they're kind of our royal family. Yeah. And I think that's pretty accurate. We actually mentioned that because we did an episode on the cult of the royal family. English people by and large are certain that the Kardashians are a bottom shelf royal family,

but nonetheless, they do serve this sort of monarchical role in our society. I kind of think they're like a higher top shelf royal family in that they have more influence. Like the royal family is only relevant to like English people. No one gives a crap about them. The royal family like pays to be in the Daily Mail. The Kardashians just like are everywhere. Yeah. I agree that they are sort of like everyone knows them in the world.

And they obviously started off by like paying in that same way. Like they invested a lot in their influence before they became like natural influencers. I think part of it is also luck, right? They've also just sort of like from the beginning, like being attached to OJ, being attached to Ray J and then Kanye and then Caitlyn Jenner. Wait, do they all end in A? Oh my God. It's like I was rapping.

I can start rapping. OJ. They're like what's going on? They're like pop, pop. Anyway, buy my album on SoundCloud. It's just all these like famous, like not even just like slightly famous. These like world famous people, they've always just sort of been attached to them. So they've always, and Paris Hilton too, she was like Paris Hilton's like friend.

Assistant, actually. I mean, so the Kardashians like already were rich. And we forget that. Yeah. People really do be forgetting that because she says some shit like people just don't work hard anymore. I have the best advice for women in business, get your fucking ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days.

You grew up in Beverly Hills, dude. Yeah. Yeah. And it ends with Paris Hilton to the point where then you got to be her like friend slash assistant. Your dad was like a rich lawyer. And she's not the only celebrity, but like a lot of celebrities have zero understanding of how like the rest of the world actually lives.

Yeah. And that's why I think a lot of people get frustrated when they speak on it because it's like you don't know, but it's like to not have health insurance or like have to work to live. So it's like really condescending when you are like pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Totally. I thought it was funny because we really wanted you on the podcast and like we were chatting and then we started talking about the Kardashians and I was on this high horse.

She was like, I was like, I literally have been like watching the Kardashians on Hulu. So I've been consuming this Kardashian propaganda. So I was on this mentality of like Kim Kardashian is actually a boss. Whenever I would condemn them or not understand a reference, you would judge me like I had done something wrong. I don't judge like a cult. Yeah. No, but like I was like, you know what?

I don't like all of them, but I do think Kim is like a really hard worker and she's helped her whole family like get to where she is. I don't think she's perfect obviously, but I appreciate that she has kind of like lifted her whole family like up with her. But then we were in your kitchen and you were giving me kind of a similar look. We went on like a rant for like probably like a seven and a half to 10 minutes and I was just like, damn, do you want to come on the podcast? I know that was like my audition.

I was like, please let me ask. I think so much of Kim Kardashian's fame and all the Kardashians fame has just been built on like stealing from other people. Like they're called culture vultures, which I think is great. One because it rhymes and two because it's accurate. Like they have one been accused multiple times of like stealing from indie black designers for their fashion spaces, but also just like everything in the way that they look. There's this really incredible New Yorker article called Instagram face.

She kind of like really dissects how we like borrow from like Latino women and South Asian women and like black women, predominantly black women in American culture to sort of like borrow all of the assets of them, but then put it on like a white woman's body. Yeah. I think that's sort of the only way these features can be appreciated. And I think the Kardashians are like a kind of weird black mirror representation of that. They've done essentially everything, but straight up blackface, like, you know, over spray tan.

I mean they've done like spray face, dude. Yeah. They've done spray face. They've used really dark makeup, their features, their plastic surgery, the way that they dress, even like the people that they marry and attach themselves with, like that's weird. Don't say that. All of history's most notorious, most dangerous cult leaders have also been culture vultures. Like Keith Ranieri stole all his shit from Scientology.

All New Age cult leaders steal their shit from Buddhism, Hinduism, evangelicalism. They do the sort of Frankensteinian thing where they pull all the most compelling bits from all the spiritual practices that people have flocked to over the years and they create something quote unquote new, but really it's just something optimized to get people to flock. Like teal swan. And like familiar. Yeah.

Yeah. Like she took all the little bits that she likes and she put them together and was like, I've created something new. Classic cult movie. And actually speaking of appropriating from black culture, the most notorious leader of all time, Jim Jones, calculatedly studied the mannerisms of black civil rights leaders and spiritual leaders from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Angela Davis to Father Divine. And he appealed to black followers by co-opting that language as a way to suggest that he

could be trusted. So honestly, this is a theme with cultish leaders. What do you think would define the cult of the Kardashians? Like who do you think is in it? Do you think it's like the family or the people who've been in the reality TV show? The stands. Or the stands. I don't like would never want to bash reality TV.

I understand why people like it. People in the cult of the Kardashians are like everybody who follows them on Instagram and kind of like even the people who hate follow, I feel like. Totally. Yeah. Kind of contribute. I don't follow any of them. Contrary to Devil's Avocado.

I don't follow any of them either, but at the same time, you can't escape their influence. If you are on social media, you are in the cult of the Kardashians. I actually never see them like on Instagram or anything like that. Oh, neither do I, but I see people who look like them and that's enough. Every time I feel insecure about my eyes not being a certain shape or my butt not being a certain size, that is the cult of the Kardashians rearing its ugly head. 100%. And I think him is incredibly hot.

Yeah. There's a part of me that's like jealous. Do you think that their kids are like in the cult? In the cult and is it like yet? But I think they are. What do you think of the consent behind children being like public figures? Like all their kids are already public figures and they don't get to choose that. I guess like they're like physically in the cult.

I don't know. Would that count as them being mentally in the cult because it's like maybe they grow up and are like, whoa, this is a fucked up family. We are sometimes asked by listeners, do you think that toxic or powerful families can be cult like? And I think definitely because think about it. It's like a group that you can't leave because you depend on your parents for everything. And they're bringing you up with certain standards, certain ethics and the exit costs can be very

high. Yeah. I was thinking like exit costs because like if they do want to leave like the wealth of the family, they have to create their own wealth and what's the only way they can if they're in an influencer family is to become an influencer. So they're like double in two cults. Wow. That is something I feel like we'll see in our lifetime of just like one, at least one

of them will be like, this whole thing is a ruse, like they will like take it down from the inside. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'll be interesting to watch. The revolution of the Kardashian. We're looking at you north.

Honestly, I do have faith in north if any of them or stormy. Stormy. Stormy. What would you say is the number one cultiest thing about the influence of the Kardashians? I would say it's the way that they've defined beauty. I know like beauty shifts over time and like it's always changing, but they really like kind of borrowed from every culture and ethnicity and kind of like makeshifted themselves and become like the most beautiful woman on earth.

Yeah. And a lot of the surgery that they like perpetuate is like permanent expensive surgery. Like when they first got BBLs, like they weren't common and now people are like going to South America to get like cheap BBLs. And it's like actually one of the most dangerous plastic surgeries and like has the highest rate of like death. Oh, beauty standards have never been more impossible to meet. And at the same time, we're in this sort of like faux body positivity era where it's

like you have to look like a Kardashian, but you can't express self loathing if you don't. Yeah. So we're just caught in this mind fuck of an era. Speaking of the members of the family being in the cult themselves, like they all got surgery to look like him. Yeah, they did. And that's that was really sad, wasn't like highly looked completely different. Yeah.

Even the Kardashians don't look like Kardashian. They don't. It's like an impossible standard that they can't even live up to. Yeah. I think on their new show, something I did notice was that I think there are literal beauty filters on them. Oh, yeah. Like even in the verite.

Oh, there was like this whole YouTube series where this guy like kind of discusses like Photoshop and all of that. And he uses Kylie Jenner's Instagram a lot to be like, this looks really good, but this is where you can spot that this was like, their stomach was curled in and her neck. It's like, Oh my God, do you guys ever like take a really good selfie and then you look at it later? You're like, I don't look like that. Yeah.

It's like that where you it's like this impossible standard that like they can't even live up. Yeah. And they've they've even upped the like anti and that they started to do it with like motion picture. Like it's a film now. Like the filters are applicable to like it's so uncanny. This sounds over dramatic, but like I'm afraid to one day have a daughter who has to like come of age in a culture made by the Kardashians.

Yeah. Where that's just the norm. There was this really funny thing on Twitter that went viral where Kim posted something on her Instagram story and her hand was on it and she was like, oops, sorry for the pale hand and black Twitter was like, we, what do you mean pale hand? This is how you look. Like you just got a really intense spray tan. She's so self-deluded.

Yeah. Where I'm like, this is just your natural skin tone like like your face is not right. With like the Kardashians, what do you think is so dangerous about that? Is girl boss feminism branding? It's like they've essentially been really good chameleons of like tapping in to the narrative of each year of being like, okay, this is how I can stay relevant. Now it's like really empowering to be a woman who's in business. So I'm going to like talk about that and I'm also a busy mom.

So I'm going to like talk about that. There's this like form of girl boss feminism where it's so palatable and it doesn't like really challenge the status quo and when you like consolidate a revolutionary movement like that to like such a degree that it's mainstream that you can put it on merch. Yeah. When you can put like a pizza or a patriarchy and dilute it to such as lesser degree that everyone's on board. It's no longer the thing.

Yeah. That you're fighting for. And she does a lot of that in like the makeup that she sells in the way that she defends herself when she gets criticism. She's like women get a lot of hatred. Oh my gosh. Like when Kendall Jenner started producing like her own tequila and she got so much. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think like a lot of Mexican people and Latinos in general were frustrated because her commercial she was like riding a horse and she had like Mexican men around her and it was high key cultural appropriation and she got so much shit for it on TikTok that then she went on Jimmy Fallon late night. They're so good at turning the narrative. They're so good at being the victim.

Yes. And she turned the narrative and like she didn't even claim victimhood but she just changed the narrative to be like you know when I wanted to create my own business I wanted to be a woman led company and I noticed that tequila companies are primarily led by men. And so I went into an industry where like women just weren't there and I was like yeah bitch but you also went into a Mexican industry. That's like Hillary Clinton being like you know I've noticed like it's only men bombing Middle Eastern countries.

Yeah. I really want to do that. You know it reminds me so much of when Z-Way had that one guest on her show and they started having the like quote unquote oppression Olympics where like she asked him a question about banking and he's Jewish and he was like what do you want to talk about banks for and it was just like this. That was so Adam Pauley. It was just this like hilarious spoof on like twisting the narrative to talk about how like

you're actually in the oppressed seat. I feel like anytime they get any criticism they like don't address the actual criticism like they don't talk about black fishing or like the fact that Kim like endorsed these like diet pills diet lollipop thing and like when people criticized her for that she was just like you know we can all believe in whatever we want to believe like you know she just says very yeah diplomatic diplomatic political things and I think the thing that frustrates me the most about when Kim Kardashian or any of the Kardashians are diplomatic and like apolitical is that they'll be so apolitical on things that actually matter but then when

an election comes around she'll endorse like Rick Caruso okay so like you are literally taking a stance on actual politics on an actual election but then when people ask you a question about your ethics and your beliefs you'll be evasive yeah. This is like what took me from like the Kardashians are annoying to like I hate them. They're a whole like prison reform thing that Kim did you guys do you guys remember that like she essentially worked with the Trump administration. Oh with the Trump administration. Well that's not the issue with it right because I mean I think their issues with both administrations

to me that's like the perfect example of what she does and what celebrities do when they think they're solving this problem but they're completely misunderstanding the problem itself like she has this like New York Times article written about her like where she's talking about like oh yeah it's really hard to run a business and free prisoners and be a mom and it's like wait this is about you and that's not what liberation is about it's not about like your journey it's about like liberating people. I looked up her net worth 1.8 billion dollars is her net worth she is the problem that sort of level of inequality is sort of what traps people in poverty and like what pushes people

into crime and what pushes people into jail and it's like she is the problem that she's trying to solve but she's trying to solve it in like a way that doesn't actually help it. Yeah we were talking about this the other day but it's like in one of the episodes of the new season like she's writing on this whiteboard and being like I need to get this man out of jail before his death sentence and then in the next episode she's going on her brand new private jet and I'm like what the fuck. Yeah I think a lot of the evasiveness that we were talking about her avoiding pointed

questions is very much connected to the fact that she and the whole family refused to acknowledge the amount of power that they truly have over our entire society. Political power, beauty standards power, power to maintain and encourage racist behavior. Remember when the whole family on some reunion was asked like do you feel like you have a responsibility not to perpetuate unmeetable plastic surgery standards and they were like no we don't feel responsible for that at all it's like yes you are you created this culture. Do you think that you are promoting unattainable standards of beauty in any way? No I don't because I think we get up we do the work we work out.

We all really enjoy taking care of ourselves and being healthy so I think if anything the only thing we're really trying to represent is just being the most healthy version of yourself. For me it's also the doubling down of lying that they don't get plastic surgery or like denying it and saying that they just work out and that they eat healthy and it's like no. You have a nutritionist, you have a plastic surgeon, you have a dietitian, you have a photo editor.

You have a surrogate? Yeah. You have six kids and you have that body bitch. You have a billion dollars yeah that all helps for sure. There was like one statistic I learned that it was like 30% of people come in bringing in a photo of Kim for like their plastic surgery thing. People try to look like her. I really love what you said.

She has defined that Instagram face. Yeah. I really love what you said about them denying the power that they have because it's like they have so much political power that we didn't elect them but now she's working with the president to free prisoners like wait what? Yeah. What? That's not democracy.

That's not power but while they have the power they also play the victim like oh like I'm a woman being criticized on the internet like oh like it's so hard being a business leader and a mom and it's like no you're a billionaire. Oh my god we got a comment once because we said something critical of Kim in another episode and someone said it was women bashing women and I'm like first of all Kim Kardashian isn't a woman she's an empire. She's literally a figurehead for a whole problematic mode of existence at this point but also how much of a cult like interpretation of feminism is it that now we can't breathe

a word of valid criticism even of amoral, cloud chasing, greedy reality TV billionaires just because our genders happen to overlap a little bit. Maybe I'll be playing devil's advocate this episode. Let's go. The way that they humanize themselves on their show really makes you empathize for them because you see like all the hate comments that they get and like it's such a propaganda thing because it's this idea that like their life isn't perfect why do they feel comfortable showing off their wealth on TV like that you know like in 2022 there's like so much homelessness

the world is boiling and getting crazy and like they feel comfortable showing that level of wealth only because they then turn the narrative and are like yeah but being rich like sucks it's like that fake narrative that even if you get everything you want you still won't be happy. I'm gonna call bullshit on that but also like we're not talking about happiness we're talking about survival yeah and they're flipping the narrative to be like oh my life is so hard it's like your survival has been always and will always be sorted. It's two things right it's like yeah like there's no amount of wealth that can protect

you from like depression and like the reality of life but that doesn't take away from the fact that that also affects people who aren't immensely wealthy except you have the resources and the networks and the material benefits of like food housing water shelter health insurance so that you can actually like deal with those problems so like I'm not gonna play you a fucking violin when you like went to a private island over the pandemic to throw your birthday party and then posted about it on Twitter and then got mad people roasted you like of course I'm gonna make the getting mad for me there was the scene where like Kim Kardashian on her latest season was like for all you trolls out there like shitting

on us like I'm gonna find you and I'm gonna and then she was like well I'm not gonna threaten you on national television that's not what I'm gonna do but she was like stop because that hurts our feelings and I'm like actually that is literally what pays your bills so they have a lot of influence and a lot of these influences can lead to like people having plastic surgery or like changing their face or like even thinking that they themselves could be influencers maybe what whole T negative effect do you think this has on like people's like day to day lives like how bad do you think it could get I mean I think it already is getting bad they've sort of created like the influencer industry this industry of like

oh you don't actually don't like have to have a talent like you can just be an influencer it's become like this self-fulfilling prophecy machine of like everyone feels like they have to do it yeah you know like I feel like we're all like public personas like you also feel like you have to be hot on Instagram and you have to look a certain way like logically we can understand everything that the Kardashians have perpetrated but also we still live in the society where we have to like participate and where beauty is currency especially if you're like a woman or woman identifying person they created all these like standards now that we all have to follow and that's like the page that we're all on yeah or like

we have to be on right yeah it's so destructive here's a fun stat for you in 2019 a Bloomberg study reported that 98% of American middle and high schoolers reported wanting to be an influencer 98% yeah yeah a lot of people used to want to be like lawyers doctors and like space people astronauts but now they like are literally want to be like youtubers oh yeah in 2018 a study that was conducted in the US the UK and China found that three times as many kids wanted to be youtubers as astronauts and honestly call me a conspiracy theorist but I pretty directly blame the Kardashians for this cultural shift yeah yeah I think you could pretty much draw it back to them can I read this quote yeah it's by Charles

Hamilton from his book Black Power which is also by Kwame Terrey he says we are in an era of tremendous influence to the pop culture medium where many become politicized not through long hard study and organizing but through the passionate portrayal of our struggle through emotional speeches movies and television it complicates the politicization process it is quick intense theatrical and sincere but it is not very likely deep and sustaining yeah and I really liked that last line where it's like theatrical and sincere because it it can be both like it's not that I think all these people are like malicious or fake yeah it's that those are real and sincere but then it's there's no substance behind

it maybe not Kim herself but the Kardashian culture and like sort of the machine that they created like have created this culture where it's like everything's sort of very shallow yeah surface level and we don't interact beyond that yeah and I think the danger of that is the fact that like people are so addicted to instant gratification that they think that advocacy and posting online is enough but when it comes to like actual social and cultural change you have to implement long-term policy movements and you have to like be consistent in like maybe volunteering in the community or maybe leaving your house and getting off Instagram for five minutes yeah they have created a generation that is like so addicted

to being online and then on top of that they have so much power and influence that like at the snap of their fingers they could literally like control this country she's like a person who could like literally change a lot like with homelessness if she gave away like half of her wealth you know I don't think it's even just about giving away her wealth because it's not just about money like I think so many organizations are like so rich and they're trying to solve homelessness or different issues it's these issues that are so complex but she has also influence over people that could help with like grassroots movements kind of situation and like that's the sad part for me is that like you have so much

power and you're not doing anything this is how I feel though I also don't think she should be the one yeah everything that's why I said money because it's like she has enough money that she could give it to the people who know what they're doing yeah like there's a lot of people working towards like police and prison abolition in terms of like actually creating meaningful change and they know what they're doing and they know what they're doing and they don't get like the New York Times headlines or the money but she's created this trend of like okay I'm gonna do like this bare minimum thing and get a lot of accolades and post about it and make it kind of like a self-fulfilling journey yeah I'm

gonna like inspire everyone else this is where the boundaries between influencer and cult leader become really really blurry because we talk about this a lot but when you start to claim expertise on every topic from how your face should be structured to how to solve the prison industrial complex babe you're a cult leader I'm sorry like what is an influencer it's someone who's telling you what to wear and telling you what eye cream to use not someone who's telling you about policy in the most shallow Instagram carousel type way okay devil's avocado and that's what we're gonna start calling it because I don't want to be a devil's advocate the devil's like stop advocate for the devil but I will avocado

for the devil okay devil's avocado she is a public figure so anything she does is inherently going to be with herself at the center of it that's the only way to like get people to pay attention is her to use her power of like her personal influence I disagree with that but I'm not done with my personal avocado I mean what she does really well is she does bring people on board with her and her team that like have been working on these issues for generations like she hasn't started her own organization I think she's working on starting her own organization for the criminal justice work that she's done but she's primarily in the past like couple years been working adjacent to other existing organizations and

I don't think she like makes her donations public but she has like shared her Instagram with figures and organizations who like help with these kinds of issues you know it's interesting cults have always arisen during times of broader societal turbulence like in the 70s so it's actually really no accident that now in these chaotic modern times when we have so little trust in the powers that be followers would turn to someone like capitalist queen Kim Kardashian who five minutes ago was promoting her reality show and weight loss lollipops and lingerie for what to do and think politically you know it's Kim's willingness to seize that power that's giving toxic savior complex profit cult leader vibes to me for me I don't even

think that her working in the criminal justice space is the cultiest thing about her I think for me like the cultier and cultiest thing about her is the idea that she came from nothing and the idea that she like has built herself from the ground up because it perpetuates this narrative that if you come from nothing you too can get to where she is and if you don't get to where she is then there's something wrong with you yeah then there's something that's like the whole America but she does it through this like map of her own success and like if you follow like her success it's like she got plastic surgery she did different things that like put her in the public spotlight that weren't necessarily like deemed as positive

at the time like you know her sex tape leaked then she went on TV to talk about it then she got plastic surgery then she did a plastic ball player then she divorced him then she dated like a rapper and then why do you know this biography so well I mean it's just like who she's dated it's like so public but other people think they need to like follow that same map and I think it's dangerous when people are getting literal plastic surgery so that they can like become influencers she's created like an army of Kim robots yeah okay but I do I still disagree with the first point that you made I think the issue is that she has this power and I think you can't solve the problem by like giving her more power yes

you know what I mean like this what I'm trying to say is like the actual solution isn't this like individual victory which I think is often the way that we're taught about stuff because that's a very like American way to think about it is like oh like this one individual person can change it the only time that any like true progress has been made throughout histories through like collective action yeah often celebrities are politically under informed and reactionary and they're too invested in capitalism because that's where their wealth and power comes that they would never completely have solidarity with working class people I also think that social media emboldens people to be even more reactionary because everything

is just the instant gratification oh now I'm an expert because of the Instagram carousel Kim Kardashian claiming to have any kind of expertise or influence in this space and really capitalizing on that is further perpetuating that style of political engagement the solution to this stuff isn't like an overnight thing either or like even like a quick thing it's like so much of it is like fundamentally changing the way we live it's this long hard arduous annoying not beautifully photographed process right okay so I think the way that you're like talking about it makes total sense and I agree like I don't think we should be giving her more power that's definitely not a solution but I also think that's kind of thinking about

it in like this zero some mindset where like if she helps with this just because she also gets more clout from it then it's like a overall bad thing like I think she's ultimately still helping people you know what I mean but we didn't elect her but we don't elect nonprofits and honestly we don't elect most politicians that's true but I mean like the only reason she has power is because she has money we can't just like trust her opinions and morals to be on the same page I 100% agree like I don't trust her opinions I don't trust her morals but I do think that a lot of people do though I think the inherent problem with like American politics and government is that like we function on like a lobbyist mindset like it's like

lobbyist is like the problem and like the NRA and Kim Kardashian is now just another lobbyist but at least she's trying to do like prison reform and I don't think that makes her like a better person not really because it's like she's not really helping anything like freeing a few people from prison and doing it in like a high profile way isn't prison and that's the problem is that she's creating this illusion that that's what activism is and that's what reform is and that's not activism at all what she's doing is an activism I think part of it is performative but like I can't speak on like what her organization or what the organization she's worked with have done specifically but like you guys

are speaking like hard and true fact as though like she's not helping like push policy reform forward like I don't know what specifically she's doing about it but like do you do you know for a fact that like she's not helping like long-term policy reform in the criminal justice system I think if I know enough about prison and police abolition to understand the long-term goal is to ultimately get to abolish the police and prisons right that's the ultimate goal but part of doing that is redistributing our funds less from the police and military and more towards healthcare schools jobs housing I don't know beyond her like freeing some people from prison and like saying that she wants to do more of that I think what she's

doing is sort of like individualizing a lot of the issue where she's like she's really like this person this person this person so she's creating like characters out of these people of like this person deserves to be free so then she's still buying into this narrative that like some people deserve to be in prison some people don't some people made these choices and other people don't and so she doesn't fully understand the reason we have jails the reason we have prisons or like the entire mindset of it like she's still very much like perpetuating the system so I don't know what specifically her organization is doing towards like the long-term goal but I know there's a lot of organizations that are I know okay so that's

the fundamental point that you guys have both made but how is it against how does it go against because her ultimate goal isn't like prison police abolition it's to like get the people that she thinks deserves to be out of jail out of jail and also I just want to say like I'm asking these questions to like keep it interesting yeah everyone shits on the Kardashians all the time like we know they're not perfect but like I think you made a really good point about how like her gaining more power through advocating for criminal justice is bad because now she's gaining power in the political space as well if the effect of that is helping a couple people like along the way do you think that like the negative

benefits of her gaining political power outweigh the positive work that she's doing in the space I think that's a really tough question because it's like no but I think we use that as an excuse all the time to push marginal reform the lesser of two evils yeah is like the way that America votes and the way America does everything and it's sort of like a way that we justify sort of like never making an actual like radical profound radical change yeah and so that's a tough thing to answer like that's hard because it's like how do you define positive gain versus everyone so many people would have different definitions of that yeah to bring it back to like I'm curious to know from from both of you and

maybe even I myself will weigh in what role do we think Kim Kardashian should be playing as an influencer in the society in a way that would make it like a live your life level cult instead of something more destructive like where should what should her lane be it's not my place to say what they should do but as long as they're transparent about where their wealth comes from like where they started their plastic surgery like all the things that make them who they are then their followers can make an informed decision on choosing to buy their products or to do what they say but I don't think they would ever do that because that completely shatters their yeah and an image of course part of the whole

reason people buy into the Kardashians is because they're these like aspirational like this is who I want to be I want to have this super skinny waist and huge ass giant tits date the hottest person have like biracial children because now it's like cool to be black their brand keeps them from being themselves which is also like in a way I think that's for them well that's why I'm saying like my answer to that question is that the Kardashians can't exist anymore because if tomorrow they decided to be transparent they would still have the following that they have they might just not have as heavy of an influence because people would have to understand like what they're getting themselves into but it's like I think

that's their most destructive aspect I don't think we can go back I think if even tomorrow they were like yeah I've had all this plastic surgery and this is where we came from like the damage is done what do you think that they should do well I like in the smallest version of it I think they should definitely not go into any political situation I think that in general that celebrities shouldn't do that I'm not defending politicians by any means but I think the reason that someone like Kim Kardashian Bill Gates Elon Musk all of these people the only reason they have power is because of money and that money means that they make decisions for all of us without us weighing in on them but some of these decisions

like have ramifications for the whole world like Bill Gates decision about the vaccines like affected who could get the COVID vaccine so I mean he's like best case scenario right like a not an insane person this is the thing is like we stand on the same side of the political spectrum like I agree with everything you're saying I just feel like we're already like in this capitalist society I don't think that people with money should have influence over politics but that's just the way it is and it's never but I think we have to change that yeah how do we change it I don't think I don't think you can I don't I mean that's a whole other conversation I know that could go on forever there's a really great academic

essay by Rosa Luxemburg that's reformer revolution and she says reform is the means revolution is the end people were like well let's reform slavery let's reform like let's reform the monarchy like that was like the suggested solution forever until there was a revolution to get rid of it and I think that is the ultimate solution I just have to appreciate how like this is an episode on the cult of the Kardashian became about capitalism about like capitalism and policy and I think that just really says a lot about how cultish a society we live in that these boundaries are so blurry and it's important to talk about how blurry those boundaries have become I would like to lighten the mood a little bit and play a game the game is a

Kardashian themed two truths and a lie we'll read three facts in scare quotes one of them is a lie and you'll have to identify which okay when Courtney was a teenager she told her family that she wanted to have enough kids one day to start cold Kim was denied a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame because she wasn't the right category of celebrity and Chloe once competed on Donald Trump's celebrity apprentice is the second one the lie no the first one really one she didn't say that yeah the second one she was denied a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame a spokesperson for the Hollywood Walk of Fame told the New York Daily News in 2013 we don't have a category for reality stars the committee would be happy

to consider reality stars if and when they get nominated to win and Emmy Oscar Grammy or other major award and you know actually that makes sense because I feel like their whole vendetta like I'm growing bigger and bigger is to like be deemed like a certain category of celebrity want to be taken seriously yeah I'm gonna work in there so that's what's being taken seriously I'm like you're literally a billionaire babes yeah they'll never they'll never have that yeah and that's the chip on her shoulder and all these cult leaders have one yeah but I think they're trying to get an Emmy with their new show and that's why there was like an episode I'll tell you cuz I watched it Chris is like in her office

and Chloe's like what is that why do you have an Emmy and she's like I bought it she's like I bought the Emmy because you have to fake it until you make it and then I think they're trying to get an like a reality TV Emmy from the Hulu show I love how you called that whole thing of vendetta because I think you might have meant crusade but vendetta is an even better way of describing it because there is an energy of vengefulness behind everything they do that's the one thing celebrities can't buy coolness yeah we can always roast them on Twitter and they can never take that from yeah second two troops in a lie here are your three quote unquote facts number one Kim only wears a bikini in public when it's overcast

to hide her cellulite from paparazzi number two Kim Kardashian once admitted that she hopes her daughters get plastic surgery so they can look more related to her number three Kim's last will and testament includes instructions about how she wants her hair nails and makeup done if she ever becomes a vegetable okay I really hope number two is a lie yeah okay I'm like that's even fucked up for her yeah the last true truth said a lie one the original purpose of keeping up with the Kardashians was to drive business to the family stores dash and smooch two anyone who enters Kris Jenner's house has to sign an NDA three Kris's birth name is actually spelled with a C the first one is a lie I'm really glad that you

thought that the first one was a lie because per cultishness the subject of this podcast I think this highlights the fact that like we think of cult leaders even cultish leaders like the Kardashians as these evil geniuses who had a master plan from the start yeah but really they're just these opportunists who started just being like I want to up the publicity for my stores and ended up ruling the world yeah and they say things like if you get a no you're not asking the right person like and because they are literally opportunists and they won't stop until I get what they want and they'll never get what they want and they'll never because they'll always be something else that they can't yeah I can't

wait to like Elon Musk loads up a spaceship with all these people and they're like we're getting out of here and they can don't look up yeah 100% that's what's good yeah thank you so much for being on this admittedly tense but really productive episode I was like did I do something wrong no sorry I got heated no it was fun for me too I enjoyed it I enjoyed it I love I love this thank God it was you if people want to keep up with your work where can they find you oh Instagram is where I mostly post up Meg in Dirty should I spell that yeah me G I N D U R T I and also my website which is Megan dirty dot com and she writes for the New Yorker yes you she's lit tricks so Issa out of the three cult categories

live your life watch your back and get the fuck out what do you think about the cult of the Kardashians I feel like since I've been playing Devils avocado everyone's gonna be like you're gonna think it's a live your life I think it's a watch your back I mean I literally watched their show on Hulu and was influenced so much by just one season their propaganda there I mean if they're good at one thing it's production baby kudos to their producers because they know what they're doing like they really create like an engaging show that makes you believe what they're saying but I think the reason I enjoyed it this season was because it was like pretty much scripted like it's so fake I watched

it like as though it was a scripted show all of the arguments that you're making right now lend themselves to my verdict which would be a get the fuck out no no no I think it's a watch your back a hi hi watch your back simply because I'm in it but I don't follow them I don't not follow them to like not hate follow them I literally just like don't think about them I don't care about them it's just like I watched their show when I like was really tired and hungry and I just ordered a sandwich no I know I don't watch or engage with them either but regarding some of the points that we made with our guests they are inescapable much like a black hole but I feel like if we were to give them like a get the

fuck out society would be like already so much more fucked than it is you know what I mean like I feel like it's unfair to give really should be a get the fuck out I think they would have to start like scamming people for their money like putting people in like literal danger that like wasn't on purpose on purpose I think they are actually putting a lot of people in danger but from a distance yeah no I don't think that they are intentionally diabolically hurting anyone but I think they are so ignorant or in denial of the power that they wield much of which happens to have extremely destructive consequences that I think it's a net negative but just because it's a negative and I agree I think it's

a negative but I don't think that makes them like get the fuck out I think it was funny when you said I think it's a watch your back because I'm in it and I know it was a joke but I think that actually does highlight the fact that it is a whole lot harder to evaluate a group that you engage with because you want to you know sort of justify your engagement with it yeah I will say there are nuances though I think they're kids they're get the fuck out I think the family is get the fuck out if a family has like that much power and influence over you it's like not healthy and unless they literally are having these conversations with their kids being like you don't have to do this you don't have to be in the show

then it is really dangerous to like put your kids on this like platform yeah this level of a platform you know I do I do and I agree that the stakes are are higher for the children because they're an actual like physical proximity to these people but the reason why I'm leaning get the fuck out is because I think everyone's life would improve if we boycott it the Kardashians I think someone else would take their place I think that's kind of fatalistic because the Kardashians I think are special I I do think they're special but I also know that like historically they're not the only ones who have like stolen from like black or brown culture you know like oh definitely not been doing that for generations think of the scale

think of the scale someone else would have done that I don't I I don't believe that necessarily and fatalistically someone else would have built the cult that the Kardashians have built but it is hard to say it is impossible to say and I think it's all right to land on a slightly mismatched verdict no it's literally not I'm ending this right now no we are ending it right now we will this episode is ending this is obviously incredibly subjective subject matter yeah in the way that you said I think it's a watch your back because I'm in it it's easy enough for me to say it to get the fuck out because I actively dislike it you actively like dislike yeah I actively dislike it I guess there's like different levels of followers

yeah and different levels of like being a part of the cult like we're talking about society in general I think society should watch their back yes it's not the sort of thing where the Kardashians need to be banished to Siberia and should be like imprisoned in the way that Keith Ranieri was imprisoned yeah I just think we just need to be more aware and I think we are getting there because people are becoming like more cognizant cognizant of the fact that celebrities are not religious spiritual self-help geniuses yeah I think everyone just like needs to be aware that like of the consequences of like what they their takes of the cult like influence that exists everywhere you know fair enough high high high high level

yeah I convinced you okay high high high level watch your back um that is our show thanks for listening we're gonna be back in the new cult next week but in the meantime stay close to you but not too close 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 Casey Colb 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.