Sounds Like A Cult

I listened to half the day the hammer episode came out, I have not been able to finish it. Every other episode works tho 🤷‍♀️ Update:snark episode, hearing multiple valley girl voices is nauseating. The pod has not been holding interest in a while. Good bye friends.

This show has a great premise but is getting hard to listen to recently. The take aways of the episodes are more the host’s personal opinions and less of the actual impact whatever this week’s subject is having on society. Pushing through the pithy gossip and hot takes is getting laborious, although they do a great job of selecting guests and do excellent work of prompting them to share insights. These hosts are certainly very intelligent but perhaps are falling into the trap of catering to more impressionable people than of the critical thinkers who tune in. I’m a huge fan of Chelsea’s effort in bringing the conversation back to what the latter audience members came for but if it’s just a numbers game, I guess they’re doing all the right things. Amanda’s impressions and accents are charming and unique, as the episodes have gone on, other hosts are also leaning that very unique way of speaking for some reason and it feels ingenuine. That being said, Im here for the research and hard work that goes into unearthing the underlying nefarious-ness of certain organizations that walk among us, undetected. Also, yes, men suck, we all know this, but it feels like they are ready to attack and put down any male mentioned, fanning the dangerous tire fire of separation between the sexes.

This show was great. Was. Now it’s just garbage. If you actually have interest in the sociology, psychology, and impact of a real cult or cult leader, this is just a bunch of stoned girls with vocal fry giggling about why they think they’re better than people with different interests than they have. There was a host named Isa a long time ago and the dynamic between her and Amanda was intelligent and thought provoking. They were fun to listen to. Then something happened and it just rotted. There are no true cults or anything genuinely interesting to learn about anymore. (At least not on this show). I’ve listened for years. Less so recently because it’s so hard to get into an episode or finish one. But the cult of dog people was so absurdly stupid I finally threw in the towel. I’ve bought and read all of Amanda’s books. I’m not a fair weather fan. But she doesn’t seem interested in bringing anything worth hearing about to the table anymore; and seems hell bent on adding insufferable co-hosts. These aren’t cults. They’re just blips in pop culture and American culture. Don’t suggest you’re exploring cults if you’ve fully given up the enterprise. You can spend 6 minutes in Oregon and encounter strangers from 40 different cults, the people who survived them, and the life experience they gained in doing so. The material exists in spades. But Gilmore Girls Goldendoodles I guess? Why should women discuss anything deeper than that? 🙄

Quality varies with this podcast. The latest episode about dog people is a perfect example. A chunk of the conversation was the two hosts going on and on about what they dislike about dog people. The interview wasn’t particularly revealing or well-done. Other episodes have been fantastic. YMMV.