Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Y2K

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

Grab your flip phone, frost those lips, and feed your Tamagotchi. This week, Amanda, Reese, and Iman are (be kind) rewinding to The Cult of Y2K with PEN15 co-creator and star Anna Konkle (@annaryankonkle). Join us as we take you on a  magic school bus tour of butterfly clips and bedazzled Razrs all the way through to the very real panic that computers were about to end civilization and ending with why the early 2000s have become one of the internet's favorite religions. Were we really nostalgic for low rise jeans or are we just mourning the last time the internet felt like somewhere you visited instead of somewhere you lived? We dive into Y2K doomsday conspiracies, tweenhood, Britney Spears, ugly bedrooms, and why today's version of Y2K feels like a collective coping mechanism. Now excuse us while we update our AIM away message, inflate the living room furniture, and wait for the world to end... again. Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult on Youtube!Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod, @amanda_montell, @reesaronii, @chelseaxcharles, @imanharirikia.  Pre-order Iman's new book, Once in a Timeline, here! Your pre-order helps make more books possible! Thank you to our sponsors! Make your summer wardrobe feel easier. Go to https://Quince.com/slac for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.  Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at https://MINTMOBILE.com/cult Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Mean it. The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes, of Sounds Like a Cult are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. When I look back to Y2K, it isn't that dissimilar to today in a way that I find both scary and comforting with teens having aim or craving going on their own to the mall or craving all the social firsts.

Like the social firsts are the same. They're just on steroids. Y2K was that first major panic and excitement born from the emergence of widespread internet use and dependence and the internet was cool and fun and something you could use but not a religion. Used you. Not abuse. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. This is Sounds Like a Cult.

A show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host of Amanda Montel, author of books including cultish, the language of fanaticism. And I'm Reese Oliver. sounds like a cult's resident rhetoric scholar. And I'm Yaman Hari Kiha, author of female fantasy, and once in a timeline, which will hit bookshelves on October 13th. Every week on this show, we discuss a different group or guru that puts the cults in culture, from Botox to one taste, to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? And if so, which of our cult categories does it fall into? Live your life, a watch your back,

Or a get the fuck out. After all, cults and cultish thinking exist on a spectrum, and not all cults are equally destructive. For every dangerous, nefarious modern-day cult you'll find in the wild, like Maga youth or people who are way too obsessed with Elon Musk, you'll also stumble upon a more harmless, more innocently communal group, like, I don't know, people who love fan fiction or Shrekheads. So everybody, grab your flip phone,

Don your flared jeans and head on over to your nearest neighborhood bunker to prepare for the end of the world. Because today we're talking about a subject that's evocative of both a colorful and nostalgic 2000s aesthetic and a digital doomsday panic. That's right. Today's topic is the cult of Y2K. And can I just say before we get into the rest of our intro, y'all don't even know the treat of a celebrity guest that we have joining us later. Any fans of Penn 15 in the cult? Because we have recruited the one, the only, Anna Conkel into the cult of Sounds Like a Cult today. Co-creator and star of the iconic early 2000s-based Hulu series, Penn 15, co-created with Maya Erskine. Anna also has a new memoir out.

And she's going to be joining us later to analyze Y2K from all the culty angles. It's such a delight. but we have much to discuss before that. I actually think that we are the perfect people to be discussing this cult because Amanda and I grew up in the first wave of Y2K and Reese is a part of the second wave resurgence of Y2K. I am. I'm witnessing it. I feel in a weird liminal space because I was like cognizant a little bit of Y2K, mostly just like through media and watching people.

So it's like this new wave is both new and nostalgic for me in an interesting way. also because you are, dare we say, an old soul and ever so precocious. Oh, thank you. So you were cognizant of trends at the age of two the way I was cognizant of trends at the age of 12. I had an American girl doll book that I read at the age of like seven or eight, not like one of the books that was associated with the dolls, but like they had like lifestyle books. And one of them was a girl's guide to fashion.

And I read it and it was like, don't just wear whatever's trending. Make it your own. And I remember reading that advice and being like, and I was never the same. Your world opened up. Wow, shout out to the cult of American girls for influencing you at such a prime age. That's amazing.

Hallmark of my Y2K cultness. What's your guys' remembrance of Y2K? I mean, Y2K, for me, I don't think of it as Y2K, the aesthetic, the brand, the Ove, the title. I just think of it as the era of my youth because I came of age in Y2K. So when I think of Y2K,

I think of like the painful, embarrassing experience of being a tween girl, which is why Penn 15 was such an important show for me, because there is such extreme dissonance of wanting more than anything in the world to grow up as fast as possible, but also just being unable to understand quite how young you really are.

It's something that you can only experience when you're looking back on it, which is why it's so fun to talk about it now that we see Y2K is this, I don't know, romanticized, nostalgic wonderlust. It's crazy. What about you, Amanda? I mean, I do have more romance around Y2K now than I had fun during the actual era because I was a super late bloomer. Like, I was just this fucking pipsqueak, but surrounded by hot girls with boobs during the early 2000s who could dress like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. But I remember in sixth grade, I went to the mall with my best friend who was six months younger than me. And the checkout gal at Claire's thought she was my babysitter. So I could not embrace the Y2K aesthetic at that age. I was just too

puny. Speaking of Claire's, a mecca of Y2K. Oh my God. A holy space still alive today. So yeah, I find it fascinating that the Y2K aesthetic is back. I am generally interested in nostalgia-based cults. We have covered many of them on this show from American Girl Doll. We did that episode to Disney adults. And I also remember the turn of the millennium being one of my first memories of learning about a conspiracy theory because of the doomsday end of the world discourse around the computers getting fucked and the world ending as soon as the clock. struck midnight on the year 2000. And I was really fascinated by that. So those are kind of the two angles of Y2K, the like aesthetic, nostalgia based angle and the doomsday angle. And we are going to

touch on them both and how they're connected throughout today's episode. Well, let's jump into the history of the cult. And we can talk about the connection between doomsday spiraling and cute butterfly aesthetics and clips in your hair and sparkles and bedazzles and big colorful. clothing. So Y2K refers to an early 2000s fashion and lifestyle aesthetic, also known as Cybercore, which focuses on neo-futurism. So think like bright colors, prints and patterns, but also the introduction of technological advancement. But funny enough, the term Y2K wasn't actually popularized as a mainstream descriptor for this era, in the 2020s, but we'll get back to that later. Amanda, I don't remember calling Y2K Y2K until the 2020s,

do you? Well, Y2K specifically referred to the end of times a bit. I remember Y2K being a doomsday event, but not necessarily that era. The term can also describe the vibe shift in the 2000s in the wake of 9-11 and the subsequent war on terror. So society started answering the public's paranoia with the introduction to and the advancement of so much new technology. Think iPods, colorful MacBook desktops, and Motorola razors. And people were simultaneously feeling more isolated and more connected than ever. Now experts don't necessarily agree on the origins of Y2K fashion and aesthetic, but the trend cycle most commonly associated with Y2K was particularly popular in Asia, especially

Japan, China and South Korea. So this can be seen in the 2000s in the rise of the Harajuku girl in cyber fashion, as well as in present day with the success of K-pop artists who gravitate towards Y2K clothing and accessories. It's so funny to me to think about that being where Y2K fashion started because it really can look like that so much of the time. And it can be so, Amonial mentioned during our interview, like Olivia Rodriguez. And she's so cute looking like Gwen Stefani and everything. But then like when I think Y2K fashion, the picture that is seared in my brain is that, that picture of Ashley Tisdale. And I feel like you know which what I'm talking about.

That whatever on the carpet with like jeans and like two skirts and three belts and a pair of sunglasses. Just too many accessories. Never enough layers. The layers were layering in the most trashing, the gauchel pants, the foam flip flops that were like three inches tall. So many layers. So many good things about Y2K fashion. I'm seeing a sequined handkerchief as a belt. Yes. Lots of like elastic sequin headbands and fedoras. Bro, the way I wore so many headbands and like peacock feathers in my hair. But again, I was not cool. I did not turn one look. It was so bad. And also, we will get into the true ugliness of the everyday Y2K girl versus like the red carpet version and the contemporary softened version. We will get into that disgust with Anna later. We will. But back to the limited two of it all. Let's dive like a Lisa Frank dolphin a little further. into what the Y2K aesthetic actually looked like. So Y2K's style initially took its cues

from the retrofuturism trends of the 70s. So lots of bright colors, lime greed, some bright orange, so much hot pink, oh my God. But oftentimes also a lot of metallics and keeping in theme with the 90s also lots of leopard print. So we're combining a lot of different aesthetics here. We've got some of like the neo-futuristic stuff.

There was a lot of like tribal aesthetics happening at the time. A lot of animal print, like I was saying. Also a lot of psychedelia, psychedelic pieces, like tie-dye lava lamps. I kind of think some of that was remnants of the celestial aesthetic movement of the 90s. I know y'all remember that. Basically, the people yearn for a Cheetah Girls' Reunion tour. The people yearn for fun. The people yearn for funky.

We want prints and patterns and draping and lots of skin, all kinds of fun stuff. And the toys and technology were equally as bright, bulky, and eye-catching. I know everybody remembers or has seen El. Woods' bright orange Mac. Gameboys, digital cameras, bedazzled sidekicks. My sister had a really cool, I don't even know what kind of phone it was, but it was maroon, and it slid horizontally and vertically, and I was jealous. Basically, any opportunity to make graphic design choices that were like chunky, sparkly, in your face, lots of fun, was very accepted and welcome. This was a very maximalist era. We had no time for your clean girl bullshit, which could also be seen in the interior design choices.

I'm thinking about some of the sets of those iconic Nickelodeon shows. Like, Brain Surge was a little bit later. But just like Nickelodeon, I think, is a pretty good example of some of the earlier maximalism. Zoe 101. Yes, Zoe 101. All of the bedrooms, Hannah Montana's bedroom. That was a little later. Anywho.

We are forgetting Scandy Minimalism and all the grazed apartments of yesteryear. We want butterfly chairs. I want bead bags. I want my furniture to be inflatable. Whimsy is the name of the game. More is more. If you are a participant in this cult, the walls in your room were covered in post. your windows had beaded curtains in them and your bed was absolutely swallowed by throw pillows.

Maybe it was even a waterbed. Oh, wow. It's funny that you said the graze apartments of yesteryear because it would really be the graze apartments of future year. But that's the funny thing is that like Y2K means these two things that are so closely related but slightly different. It means like the actual era that we earnestly experienced and the comeback. And I mean, this is how the trend cycle works. The psychedelic, nouveau-resch-inspired 60s, aesthetic came back in the 90s. Like, I remember being a child of the 90s with, like, glow-in-the-dark, P-Sign stickies on my bedroom ceiling and whatever.

But the early 2000s, decor style, I remember coming back in the early 2020s, and it was renamed as dopamine chic or like the dopamine trend. Dopamine decor or whatever. Dopamine decor? Yeah, because I think people were longing for a time when you wouldn't get these small, unsatisfying hits of dopamine by scrolling on your phone, you would get like a deluge of dopamine by entering your colorful bedroom. But was it really all that happy? That is an important question to examine. And it brings us to the moment when Y2K becomes less of just like a cult followed aesthetic trend and more of potentially a sinister cult. Well, it's no coincidence that the return of Y2K aesthetic

has coincided with end times because in the years that led to the turn of the millennium, the public began speculating about the threat of the Y2K scare, which was also known as the year 2000s problem. So for those not familiar, this referred to a series of computer programs and errors that were unable to store data or distinguished dates past the year 1999. The idea was that computers couldn't process that many zeros and all technology was going to end at the same time as the world the second that the clock turned midnight on the year 2000. The lack of information and clarity around this led so many people to speculate that society was headed towards a technological apocalypse that it led to mass hysteria, even encouraging

true devout believers to purchase firearms, generators, very large piles of money, and stock up on food and water. So you know your typical culty doomsday prepping. Of course, the clock struck midnight, the year 2000 began, and da-da-da-da-da, nothing happened. Companies simply fixed this problem and upgraded their computer systems and moved on. But the problem was addressed.

The conspiracy theories certainly set the tone for the decade to follow. In fact, then US President Bill Clinton even referred to the Y2K scare as the first challenge of the 21st century successfully met. Way to buy yourself on the back there, everybody. Not Bill Clinton taking credit for nothing happening. He's like, guys, crisis averted. Just doing my job.

Thank God. But some might say that anxiety still lingers. It's inspired a string of Y2K themed music movies and media, as well as a series of spinoff conspiracies, such as the year 2010 problem, the year 2020. problem and of course some conspiracy theories around leap years. Yes. And if this wave of conspiratorial thinking corresponding to new and unpredictable technological advancements sounds familiar, that is no coincidence. I think now's the time to get into a deeper analysis of the cult of Y2K and all that that means with our special guest, Anna Conkel.

Anna is an actress, writer, director, and as we mentioned, her comedy series, Penn 15, was ripe with Y2K nostalgia, really positioning her as a Y2K scholar of sorts. She is the high priestess of Y2K. So after the break, tune in to our interview with Anna Ryan Conkull. The first ever All-Electric 26 Subaru Trail Seeker is the EV for the Trail Obsessed, with up to 4444,000. kilometers on a full charge and DC fast charging from 10 to 80% in about 30 minutes in ideal conditions. Plus, ample ground clearance and symmetrical all-wheel drive make the 2026 trail seeker the most capable EV Subaru has ever built. Test drive it at your local Subaru dealer or visit Subaru.ca. Wow. Anna, nah to some. Welcome to Sounds like a Colts. Thank you for having me. For those who don't know who you are, could you please introduce yourself to our lovely listeners?

Yes, my name is Anna Conkel, and I am a co-creator of the television show Penn 15 that one may or may not have watched, and both are valid. And famously, you're the author of a new memoir that we should promote. That I'd love to cover. And it's called the same one. Yes. On sale now. It's so great. It's so great.

Okay. But today we're here to talk about the cult of Y2K. There are many ways into this discussion. But when we say that phrase, the cult of Y2K, what does that mean to you exactly, Anna? That is a great question. For so many years, Y2K was just about the environment in which I truly grew up and, you know, was 13. And so for me, it equals tween and the in-between. And for me, wasn't a teenager and wasn't a kid and this freaky in-between time that was under-discussed.

the irony is like the environment was tween too i think the internet was tween and so that inherently feels kind of like pure and wholesome and decentralized like the internet and you and i and anyone who's like generally our age we're just kind of like finding ourselves we couldn't organize into something akin to a cult but now y2k has transfigured into a whole separate beast how do you think that it has become the like cult followed things since we earnestly experienced it. It's sort of strange to me on one end, on the other. And it feels the natural course of like looking back and trying on something that isn't current and sort of cosplay in it.

And it was weird after Penn came out for Maya and I probably like three years in looking around. And I think it was just in the zeitgeist, but like teens were suddenly wearing the things that we were and there was a longing for certainly simpler times and probably like a sweetening of what it really was like. You know, and we all do that and our parents did that of like, back in my day, I had a walk to school or whatever. And the internet being a part of the time now and not then is pretty huge. So I think it is all connected to that specifically. And in terms of like the way that we bring Y2K into fashion, It's very interesting. I do think that it's not exact. The little sunglasses, for example, in real life, they were like the big Paris Hilton glasses. So everything's not literal, right? It's referential, I guess. Yeah. Well, I wonder if you think that there's anything particularly culty about the nostalgia associated with the Y2K researchers. Do you think that there's something about desiring uniformity? Do you think that there's a desperate yearning to be?

a part of a community when we're so isolated because of technology or post-pandemic? Yeah, I mean, to be honest, in some ways, it feels like, and the sort of mission statement of Penn 15 is like, it's all a mirror to any time because sometimes when I look back to Y2K, it isn't that dissimilar to today in a way that I find both scary and comforting, But with teens having aim or craving going on their own to the mall or craving, you know, all the social firsts, like the social firsts are the same. They're just on steroids. They're just now there's like these avatar versions of happening with firsts that I guess

were there in Y2K, but it was like the baby seed. And now it's so mega. But I don't know if there's like a feeling with the times now of everyone being way more isolated versus Y2K were maybe because the internet wasn't as integrated or like it is or as high speed or whatever that it wasn't as fragmented. Yeah, I feel like during Y2K, you're absolutely right. Like so many of the angsts that existed among young people then are the same as today. It's just that there are more uncanny ways of expressing those angsts and more uncanny, I guess,

fuels to put on that fire, if that. that makes sense. But back when we were tweens during the Y2K era, the internet felt like a place where you would go and you would like do a thing, have your AIM time or blog or whatever, and then you would leave. And that felt almost like going to church on Sunday. You're not like a deep dyed believer, but like you're going to go in and then you're going to get out. And now the internet is the water we swim in. It follows us everywhere. We're on the internet right now. And So in that way, I feel like cults often form around major cultural shifts. And Y2K was that first major panic and excitement born from the emergence of widespread internet use and dependence.

And do you think that now people are romanticizing this time when like the internet was cool and fun and something you could use but not a religion? You. Not abuse. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I personally do fantasize around what life would be if we could have just not introduced high-speed internet. If it just stopped at dial-up. Because we did get to the World Wide Web. Like, it did connect us. And it was the beginning of a time where, yeah, you could connect with people across the world. And there's got to be something really positive and amazing about that. And I think it is. But what happens when it not. It never stops. And I think also being able to look back to the beginning of something is much more reassuring than looking forward and going, that was the beginning of something that will never stop,

probably, unless tech and AI implodes and steals all our money from the banks. And then we are left with like no power, internet or tech. Sorry, this is going to become doomsday, which is why there's a cultiness around it, right? That's kind of what we're here to do. Yeah. I can't help but wonder if people will romanticize this time when the AI panic and excitement, whatever. Like, it's the same thing now with regard to AI. I mean, I do think that the consequences of AI are even scarier, but it does seem like not a natural consequence. In fact, a very unnatural consequence of what happened with the digital boom during Y2K. It is very doomsday. I'm seeing it already of people being like, dang, remember when Twitter was good like two years ago? It's just always

the cycle. I'm thinking about a lot of things. I'm thinking about the ritualistic behavior of visiting the computer and being able to thus leave it that might have existed in an earlier Y2K time. And it doesn't really exist anymore. And I'm wondering, Anna, what rituals or ritualistic behaviors that you pick up as being performed by the Y2K cult today? Or maybe even just how things have changed. Like I'm thinking about things like the endless scroll. I think that in itself is kind of ritualistic. Yeah, I mean, my mind just went to like a tomagocchi and then it went to the Sims and then it went to just this constant need to want to play out what we experience as human beings again and again and again and again. And the avatar of living an identity on the internet and a life through the internet is, I think,

just that same quest of being human in the world and seeing it reflected back at you again and again. And it's like now with tech, there's just layers that are never ending. And I think to bring it back to tweendum, the irony is that what you experience in middle school and at age 13 is the first internal need of like socializing and seeing your experience played out in front of you as a means of understanding yourself, which is why I think friendship is really interesting and important at that age. But the rituals, I think that experience of being on aim and putting. up an away message, curating the quote of the away message, and then curating like the profile on aim with like, how many asterisks are you going to do? Or like, what's the song quote you're going to put on like, who are you? That searching for identity, it's just on steroids. And so the drive is so strong in us. So it just seems like it is going to continue to advance. That's so true. And I think

because trends move so quickly and because we are so physically disconnected so much of the time while engaging with those trends, triangulating an identity among, you know, it's like, oh, this person is putting on face gems and like this person is listening to this music. And now, I don't know, that music is cringe now. It just becomes so much more disorienting. And so you don't even have time to like fully experiment or like fully acquaint yourself with a ritual. That's so true.

And that's something I've been trying to put words to recently and have failed, which you just did perfectly, that the seeking of identity and that one, it's sort of beautiful. and that nowadays there are so many different identities to point to where you're like, oh, that's me. Oh, that's me. But there's something stunting about it is my instinct. Yeah. I think in the first iteration of Y2K, the emphasis on self-expression was a lot more so about experimentation. And in this iteration of Y2K, it's about solidification. It's about selecting one of many options for an identity and then building an entire ethos around it. It's like picking the box that you categorize into. Because there's influencers, is that why for the most part to point two? Because before,

as a kid, there was Britney Spears or to be alt was to be goth. Like, it felt way overly simplified, where you're like, am I on that lunch table or I'm that lunch table? And now there's this rainbow, which is like in some ways stunningly beautiful, but then it's all monetized and perfectly curated and it's for sale. And like, it's just bizarre. I think it's just like the marriage of social dynamics and capitalism that just keeps pushing this idea of like branding being an end-all be-all. Even, you know, there was colloquialism going around at the beginning of the year, about 2026 rebrands, which was like a TikTok trend and lighthearted and joke, but just the idea that we're moving away from resolutions and this idea that we should like pick one new thing

to try or explore or experiment with and try to better ourselves through it. And instead pick a new identity to push outward to the people who consume you. It's just, it feels a little, as you mentioned, Doomsday, which brings me to my next question. A big marker of the first wave of Y2K was this end of the world panic around technology where so many people, especially young people, were convinced that at the turn of the millennia, the world would dramatically end at midnight because technology could not conceive of time moving past the year 2000. Can you think of any similar moments, say, in recent history, that we could have experienced that panic where things started to get a wee bit culty?

I mean, politics certainly right now, I'll say, kind of choosing which side of the aisle you're on feels tied to survival. Oh, my God. Speaking of Y2K and politics and cults, you mentioning that makes me think of Spencer Pratt. I don't know if like the country is paying attention in the same way, but an early 2000s reality TV villain was running for mayor of Los Angeles and polling well. That feels very doomsday as well. And it also feels connected to this Y2K nostalgia that we keep referencing. And I kind of want to problematize it because as wonderful as life was before the iPhone in certain ways,

as a tween in the early 2000s, I was fucking miserable. And I guess that had more to do with being a tween than anything. But I actually appreciate the Y2K resurgence, the like revised history of it all, because it allows me to kind of block out some of the uglier parts of that time in my life and enjoy the nice bits. It's a do-over. Yes, it's a do-over because I never really got to enjoy the aesthetic of Y2K at that time because I was fucking depressed.

And now I can't. And that feels like healing of my inner tween, you know? I love that. I've never thought about it that way. But I do think that that impulse to want to like heal your inner child, heal your inner tween through a trend or a commodified aesthetic or, I don't know, a community where like someone somewhere is benefiting in probably nefarious ways, that can make for some culty stuff. I don't know.

Reese, what do you think? I agree with what you're saying. I think that like part of the Y2K nostalgia for me, I mean, like, I wasn't there. I mean, I was there, but I was such a baby that it always felt kind of like what my cool older sister was doing. But also in hindsight, now looking back on it, I am seeing like a lot of aspects of it that weren't so great, like heroin cheek. And in some ways, I feel like with this new wave of Y2K, we are confronting it with fresh

eyes. And in some ways, you know, the rise of the GLP one, et cetera, I feel like we're letting ourselves have a do-over with a little bit too much grace, I think. I think this nostalgia is being utilized in different ways by different people. I think there's a very wholesome way to live in this nostalgia. And then I think there is a group of people that are leading into this nostalgia and taking advantage of it for the worse. And that kind of leads me to this next question that I'm kind of scared to ask.

Do you think that people today are more or less susceptible to Y2K style group think? Because it feels like pretty much every six months, TikTok is like, the world is ending and everything's over. And everyone's like, okay, yeah, great. And then repeat. I mean, I feel like that is the way of the world, that it always repeats that way and that there's this need for us to constantly be reflected back in what we're watching or doing or seeing or working, like the minutia of how we survive every day, what we're eating, how we clean ourselves, like the little minutia. And then there's, will I die tomorrow? Will I survive?

What will happen next week? It's like the small and the big next to each other always. think. And so the doomsday just, to me, feels like something that is a human that we crave it. And it's a way to get an answer of what next week will look like, even if it's a really bad answer. It's something we just want to know. And I think the thing with the internet and AI is that it's exaggerating and making everything that we need and crave good and bad, like more extreme. I have a question that we weren't planning to ask, but who do you think were the cult leaders of the Y2K aesthetic and way of thinking during the actual early 2000s? And who do you think are the Y2K cult leaders now?

I mean, Britney Spears is a go-to. I've been thinking a lot about the first time, like, her music video came on TRL. And it was like mirroring back what we wanted to be, which was like to grow up. and have boobs and be pretty and sexualized before we were ready to, maybe me at least, and wearing things that were like kid, like a safe sexualization of things. So I think that, which was probably, we know, like, really hard on Brittany. She was like a saint. The patron saint of ranch culture. Yeah.

There it is. And for our parents, too, I think, to some degree, it was like a safe, quote unquote, sexualization of like a teen. It's sort of sanded the corners of real sexuality and real womanhood and real teendom and a real mirror of all of us what we really looked like. And it was just very white Americana cookie cutter. It's so funny that you went there to like the pop culture side. Because when I was thinking about what my answer to that question might be, I was thinking like the people running Y2K end of the world forums online, like recruiting people to think that. Okay. The world was ending. Wow. Why2K was two very different times. Yeah, it was everything at once.

But on the news, it was like, oh, you know, like there are these like kooky wild freaks, like, who think that at least that's what I remember. My memory is that that was there, but that it was also like people on the news saying it's unlikely, but there is an unpredictability to what three zeros will do to the computer systems and that it could read it as, that a date no longer exists because some of these systems aren't set up for those zeros and will it set off nuclear bombs? Oh my God. I wasn't tuned into that broadcast. Okay, wait, but this is a parallel to today because, again, it's on steroids, as you keep saying, but today it's like, we have Zara Larson and we have Elon Musk. Mm. Pickybacking off of what you were saying, Amanda,

like about how maybe Britney Spears or the Spice Girls or Destiny's Child could be looked at as, cult leaders of Y2K fashion and the Notties. But then if you look at the cult leaders of Y2K fashion today, you might look at someone like Tate McCray is like basically wearing all of the same trends and fashion looks as the heroes of the knots. Olivia Rodriguez, wears a lot of the same like schoolgirl Harajuku core outfits that Gwen Stefani did in her no doubt days and her early music days. So basically everything that's old is new again. My question for you is like, why does Y2K fashion feel like almost tribal? In that when you're walking down the street and you see a group of five to 10 teen girls all

in their like Brandy Melville drip, you know what you're seeing and the hair is on the back of your arms raised and you're like, they are approaching. They are here. From as you mentioned, the tiny sunglasses, which maybe are not exactly period accurate, to a lot of metallics, bedazzling a la Zara Larson. Is aesthetic nostalgia then functioning like a belief system? Are we worshipping some sort of like romanticized version of early internet? Why does this sort of tribalism exist? I feel like it is a sweetened version of what it really was.

And the little sunglasses are an interesting example, I think. Like it's not literal, but it's the feeling of cutesy camp a little bit. And the silly furs, like there's almost like a dress-up. feeling with it that I think is different from parents being tweens in the 50s and how they dress because it's like helpful to go to the different generations of like is this something that just always is or is this that's actually different but it feels like the Y2K tweened um was like cutesy in a way that is easy to be reachable but it's also probably nostalgic from a kid perspective of childhood of like I'm wearing little heels and I'm wearing like sparkles I think the reality was

uglier in the sense of like even thinking of the computer and even thinking of set design for pen 15 it was like we were always designing it was like no the bedroom actually wasn't that cute like that corner had like gross dirty laundry with period blood and the computer in the living room like there weren't stickers on it that cost a lot of money and it was a tool for the whole family and you know what I mean so there's this practicality ugly large not convenient mechanism that actually threaded through that time really robustly. But I think we're looking back on it and seeing convenience and seeing cute and seeing small. And like, that's the zoom out for me. I think like the cute girlishness is such a big part of it because I think a lot of our corrective

nostalgia is making it a lot more fadden than it was. Because like, you know what? My older sister, who I thought was so cool was wearing every day in the year 2000, board shorts, lived, died, breathed, in plaid board shorts every day. So I totally see what you're saying. I was thinking, too, like, the times that we're living in obviously shape how Y2K fashion was reimagined. Because, like, we're living in highly conservative, dare I say, fascistic times when you have, like, maga wives who are like lip plumped and Trump wife face and the hemlines are long.

And we're not living in sexually liberated times anymore. No. And there are like pros and cons to living in sexually. liberated times for women. But right now, Y2K aesthetic, it would be cutsyer because the culture right now doesn't want women to be sexually free. But I wonder, Anna, like, can you talk a little bit more about how you resisted the urge to romanticize the Y2K aesthetic on the set of Penn 15? Yeah. And I was also going to say really quickly that an issue we ran into with Penn 15 was like sourcing material for set dressers or for the costume designer.

And at the end of the day, the images that are readily available were pop stars and was red carpet. And I mean, now it's like there's an influx of our everyday life and images we're going to look back on and be like, oh my God, I didn't need to take a picture of that. But back then, like, we were taking out our yearbooks

and taking pictures of the yearbook and going like, this is actually what we were wearing. It wasn't what Lizzie McGuire looked like. That's what I wanted to look like. And I think that brings us back to what it was like kind of de-glowing or de-dreamifying Penn 15. That was a constant thing, whether it was in the writer's room or on set or in direction. I think part of that was the energy in which Penn was created in, which was like a rejectness,

which was supposed to be true to being a tween. And going like in TV largely, we have seen the Lizzie McGuire version that we all loved or Raven And then there's after. There's teen and there's Save By the Bell, but there's also 902.1. But this tween version that is R-rated is experiencing these wild first before you're ready has been inherently told that it's too ugly or too weird or too unsavory or too just not worth telling to be on screen. And so it became important to us and a great mission statement to let that continue to seep into everything where it's like we're constantly. conjuring a memory. If we conjure the TV that we've already seen or the characters or the sets or whatever that we're told was our history, then we're missing the nuance and the poetry.

That's the whole point of making this thing, you know? But I do think that what makes me and Maya laugh and excited or sad or whatever is like the ugly next to the pretty, whatever that means in a memory. And so it's sort of annoying going on TikTok and going on Instagram and seeing the parts of Penn 15 or the parts of tweendom or Y2K that are extracted because it's not the point to me. You know what I mean? It's like overly beautified and it's the opposite that unites us. And it's the opposite that makes tweens hopefully relate to Penn 15 now. Whenever I talk about Penn 15, the episode that I always tell people to watch is the Spice Girls episode because I think it's so perfectly does what you just mentioned you sit out to do. It's juxtapose.

is something that is like ripe with really fun, beautiful glitzy nostalgia, which is the Spice Girls, with sort of like this underlying coding of social racism and the ways in which like teen girls are categorized and we feel like we all have a role to play and we want to be included so badly. And when you're young, you don't know where it's like microaggressions and xenophobia. You just know in and out, like mean and nice, cool and loser. And that's what you're experiencing. So that's always the episode that I fall back on because I feel like it just really, really demonstrated what you guys set out to do. And it captures such magic of that era. Before you ask the next question, I just want to say, when I went to your book tour event, Anna,

just the other week, you mentioned that a very, very, very early version of the TV projects that you wanted to work on with Maya actually started as a story about a cult. Yeah, it did. Yeah. Really. And I, actually think you did end up making a show about a cult because being like in a tween click is a lot of people's first experience of being in a cult. Whoa. So true. That's so interesting. Well, also like going into the writer's room, I think me and Maya's instinct was to like break story

from an emotional arc and like the climaxes. So often it's like now I know through having done it longer where it's like, well, how can we get the physical real explosion to happen in the third act or whatever. And in Penn, it was like, well, wait, wait, there's an emotional climax. And sometimes that would look like talking about experiences that you've like sort of gaslight yourself into going or from society from going like, well, that's not a big deal. And that's me being sensitive or whatever. And one of them was Maya's experience of like being a woman of color, a girl of color and like around a group of mostly, you know, white friends in her middle school was like them coining her scary spice. And then she would

say in the writer's room, but I played into it and I like did it. And then we started to unpack that and go, you were essentially in a position of clowning to please this group because that was the position that you felt accepted in. And that's fucked up. But it's amazing to look back at the time in that room and going like, she was nervous talking about it. And there were things that I was nervous talking about going, well, this doesn't qualify as something legitimate for an episode of television or whatever. And I think it was helpful having each other validate that like if something feels big emotionally, it's probably because it was. 100%. I identified with that so much. And it's funny because like on a top global level, the original surge of Y2K came in the wake. Yes, of like the technological uprising, but then also 9-11, the recession, the war on terror, all these like big global paranoias that led to the social current of it's cool to care. It's cool to be politically engaged. Like, it's honestly cool to be earnest. And similarly, the resurgence of Y2K came in the wake of

really terrible political isolation, the pandemic, which led people to feel more alone than ever, all of this fear over the world ending, the environment, technological advancement. But instead, it led to, like, a sense of nihilism and, like, it's cool to care as little as possible in young people and might as well give up now because we're living on a tiny little floating rock and we're all going to die soon. So on like a top level you have that kind of social conformity. But then also when you get closer and you look at social costs more intimately, we all just want to feel like we belong to something and we're accepted. And I just think at the end of the day, I would rather take five years off my life than spend more time being 12 again. I wasn't expecting that. I wasn't expecting

that landing. That's fascinating. Every day either feels like the best day of your life or the literal end of the world. So keeping those two ways of looking at conformity in mind, what do you think the social costs are then of not conforming? And what do you think they were then and what do you think they are now? I mean, my mind goes first to how much disdain. I have for social media in the internet in general. And yet how especially right now, but in general, I use it and I'm on it and it's a part of my life. And thinking about my parents in Y2K because I'm thinking about tween experiences because that's me, but like how they operated in their work life, the internet wasn't that much a

part of it. You know, they were like getting fucking paper memos and signing things and you had to send it through a carrier and all of these aspects. So I'm going there to just say that it feels almost impossible to be a functioning member of society without using the internet. And people are not using social media, but like even those people not using social media have like burner accounts and are like connecting with people through their burner accounts. You know what I mean? So it just feels sad that I think we all know that in general, it's not fantastic for mental health. It probably doesn't feel that good when you've been on a screen

all day. And yet it doesn't feel like there's a lot of options. Is that too sad? No, that's too real. It's realistic, yeah. Yeah. There's like a neo-lud-eyed movement among the Gen Ziers that's really making me happy right now. Like there's things like whimsy-maxing and going analog. And like some people are like building their own tiny little computers. They're like making computers. Like I turned this polypocket princess compact into a little computer.

And that's what I'm using instead of a phone now. There's like a branch of the internet where stuff like that is happening. There's a branch where people are the dumb phone, the brick phone, all of that. I think we're reaching a point where I think it's going to flip the other way. analog stuff. It's coming back. It's trendy. Obviously, there's so much political polarization right now, but I think we're going to see techno-polarization where you're going to have the Neo-Ludites versus like people who have outsourced their whole life to every LLM. You know, you've got the AI Dumers versus the AI utopian-minded people. I don't know what they call themselves.

Yeah, whatever. I think that's going to be the polarization that we end up seeing. And I don't know, we'll be here on Sounds Like a Cult covering it all. We'll be in our commune somewhere far, far away. Do you think like in a meaningful way? Because my mind goes to and I'm like, and I just actually said to my partner the other day, which I'm sure isn't that big of a revelation, but being like, yeah, in 50 years, we're going to have towns and businesses that are operating like rejecting screens and where there's no internet. Like it does feel maybe 50s too close. But do you think that in a meaningful way it could be? Because it's one thing to integrate it with like how you live your every day, which bowing down to people that are working more in analog ways. But if you're employed in a bigger company or whatever, like, where are your options? And are there companies even able to operate that way competitively? It seems like no. Probably not. Yeah.

It's like my friend Jenna, we're all coming up into the workplace and she works in a STEM-related field. And she is finding that she is encouraged to use AI by the workplace. And her deadlines are reflective of that. So she's saying, like, I don't want to use AI to get this thing done. But they're expecting me to do an amount of work. in an amount of time that is physically impossible for a human being to do. And I think instances like that are going to become the norm.

And like we'll probably see more neoludite cults starting, you know, like compounds in the woods. Sign us up. Dance around the Maypole, bitches. Girls trip. Okay, now is the time in the episode where we're going to set up a little game to close us out. This is just a classic game of Would You Rather Cult of Y2K edition. Anna, would you rather go back to using a flip phone for an entire year or have to live with the Amish for a month? Ooh, both I like. I think a flip phone, maybe.

That's a good answer. Next, would you rather find out people are talking behind your back on Ask FM or a Reddit thread? What is Ask FM? It's like FormSpring. It was when people could anonymously submit questions and you had to anonymously answer them. So like if I had an Ask FM, anyone could ask me a question about anyone or anything and I had to answer and they were all anonymously posted. Oh my God, I missed that. It's like the questions feature on Instagram, but way cooler. Also known as FormSpring. Okay, I think Reddit. FormSpring

sounds really scary for some reason. Form Spring was more personal. Reddit, at least you don't know the people. No, FormSpring is like confronting you to your face. anonymously, Reddit is talking about you behind your back. Yeah, keep it behind my back. I can't handle it in my face. I don't want to know. Keep it in the designated community you have to talk shit about me, I guess. I would never talk shit about you to your face, Anna, ever. Okay, thank you. Only on a Reddit thread, of course. Boundaries. Would you rather be stuck in a doomsday bunker with established members of the

Mormon Church of the Latter-day Saints or college-aged Y2K conspiracy theorists? Oh, Y2K college-age and conspiracy theorists. That sounds fun. Like, Mormons can't even drink. Yeah. That feels complicated. You guys are just refreshing the countdown to the end of the world over and over again. Yeah.

They're like asking you about your family history. They're like taking genealogical notes. And everyone, it also was the thing of being like, let's get crazy tonight. It could be our last night. Like, I do feel like we had a weird sleepover where we just basically drank too much soda and we're like, we're crazy. Absolutely. Okay. Would you rather have to replace all your pants with low-rise jeans forever or have to dress in the Heaven's Gate uniform every Saturday, no matter the occasion?

You would have to wear the outfit that they wore when they died, which was like all-black Nike decades, and they were covered in a purple shroud. Okay, well, not that. Not that. I guess low-rise. It's tough because then you'll also be 90 years old wearing your low-rise pedazzo. Lucky jeans. Every Saturday. It's a tough one. It's just every Saturday. It's not every day.

It's every Saturday. Every Saturday. And I have to wear a bald cap too? I'm wearing the jeans. Okay. You're wearing the jeans. Every day. I might take the Saturday.

Anna, last one. Would you rather live in an exact replica of a Swedish prison cell or replace every single piece of furniture you own with the inflatable version, including. your bed. Inflatable. Of course. Is that hard for anybody else? I feel like that'd be really hard on my back. But is a Swedish prison they're having better? It's a lot better. It's like a Marriott room. Yeah, it is nice. Look at that. It's a prison, but it's kind of like an IKEA prison. It's a Rall-Larsen prison. Make it Y2K. I mean, I know I'm getting too deep here, but like we're going to need like a whole kit at all time. Or is, or unless it's like really good.

quality plastic for the inflatables. What kind of quality are we talking is my point? Like a patch kit. Thank you, a patrick kit. A whole kit. We can allow it to be as, I feel like, stirre as fine a plastic as you want. Yeah, I'm into that. Although microplastics, but it's okay. Just give me the macro ones. Skip the middleman. Yeah, this is a macro plastic life. All righty. Thank you so much for joining us. on today's whimsical fun episode. If our listeners want to follow you and your cult, where can they do that? Well, of course, on Instagram.

I'm not sure what the handle is exactly, but it's there and you can find it. I think it's Anna Ryan Conkel. That sounds right. I don't think it's Conk. I think it's Anna Ryan Conchle. Thank you, Amanda. I'm a true follower. I mean.

And vice versa. We met so long ago. You liked Penn before really anybody did, I would say. Well, the story is that. I was working as a beauty editor when I met Anna. That was my day job. And I was supposed to interview Kim Kardashian that morning about some sunglasses collab. And I told them, you guys, I have a hard out at 11 because I have a more important

interview. And it was you and my- Because I felt like I was in a cult at that fashion magazine. I was such a theater kid dweeb surrounded by like devil wears Prada hotties. And I was like, oh my God. the Penn 15 gals are going to be here. I'm going to be like with my fucking people. And I was like just about to come out with my first book.

And I have never done this before or since. But I like brought you two galleys of my book because I was like, it was in my mind, I was like, you made something that means so much to me. I need to like give you an offering. Oh, that is so culty. It was so culty. I would have followed you into the woods. We took like a Polaroid together.

It's on my fridge to this day. And I remember Casey and I, my husband Casey and I had only just started dating, but he and I met in middle school. And we watched Penn 15 together. And so it was like very meaningful. And now we're married. Oh, that's crazy. Beautiful. Thank you for sure. That day really does stick out because all of the press and doing that for the first time, it does feel like high school. It does feel like popularity contests constantly. Like Hollywood in general can feel like that. And it was a very human. great experience and talking to and meeting you really like it felt different. So thank you. Stop! For 100%. I just loved you so much and do and like root for you. Like I just, I love that you exist. Um, anyway, um, but I'm very cool and chill and normal and what to be able. Me too. Me too. Amazing. Well, that's our, that's our interview. Thank you for having me.

Okay, y'all. Now's the time for our verdict. Out of our three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, and get the fuck out. Reese and Amman, which do you think the cult of Y2K falls into? I was going to say I'm watching my back, but honestly, I feel like the version of it that I'm participating in is like DeZara Larson kind of con version. Which I think could still be watch your back because, you know, think about the implications of the way you're dressing. But ultimately, I think I'm going to go live your life. What do you think of on?

I think I'm going watch your back because I think the Y2K aesthetic is definitely a live your life, but there's like a dark underbelly of all those bedazzled low-rise jeans. And I think that any trend that also rides on the coattails of general paranoia and anxiety around the future is watch your back. Because of all of the follow-up conspiracies, it's inspired. So I'm going to go watch your back. Yeah, you know, this really kind of seems like a cult that shows up very differently for men versus women. You know, men are like the conspiracy theory side and women are kind of the more aesthetic side.

I mean, that's kind of how a lot of cults work. Honestly, yeah. And on both sides, it's probably low-key a watcher back. I mean, of course it's possible to dip a toe into the aesthetics of Y2K, literally. I'm going to a bachelor's at party next weekend that is like Zara Larson, Lisa Frank, Y2K themed. And I'm so fucking excited and stocked up on outfits and can't wait to live my life. But I think for young people succumbing to the more extreme versions of the body standards that were originally set in the Y2K era, that can get pretty scary. And the techno-conspiratorialism stuff is scary too.

So even though Y2K itself is like such a decentralized cult, like there really is no leader, the vibes feel slightly watcher back to me. So fair. But I'm not willing to die on that hell. If listeners have respectful dissent to our verdicts, please share it on our Instagram. That sounds like a cult pod. Well, that's our show. Thank you so much for listening.

Stick around for a new cult next week. But in the meantime, stay culty. But not too culty. Sounds Like a cult was created by Amanda Montel And edited by Jordan Moore of The Podcaven This episode was hosted by Amanda Montel, Reese Oliver, and Amon Haririakia. Our managing producer is Katie Epperson.

Our theme music is by Casey Cole. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it If you could leave it five stars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It really helps the show a lot. And if you like this podcast, feel free to check out my book, Cultish, the Language of Fanaticism, which inspired the show. You might also enjoy my other books, The Age of Magical Oversthinking, Notes on Modern Irrationality, and Wordslet, a feminist guide to taking back the English language.

Thanks as well to our network studio 71. And be sure to follow the Sounds Like a Cult cult on Instagram for all the discourse at Sounds like a cult pod or support us on Patreon to listen to the show ad-free at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult.