Sounds Like A Cult  By  cover art

Sounds Like A Cult

By: Amanda Montell & Isa Medina
  • Summary

  • A podcast about the modern-day “cults” we all follow. Each episode asks the culty questions we’re all wondering… Do you think SoulCycle is a cult? What about Elon Musk stans? Or the Royal Family? What about spiritual influencers? Is Instagram itself a cult? Sounds Like A Cult, hosted by Amanda Montell, author of Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, analyzes a different zeitgeisty group every week to try and answer the big question: This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? And if so, how bad is it?

    Follow Us:

    Podcast Instagram - @soundslikeacultpod

    Host Amanda Montell - @amanda_montell (Preorder her new book!)

    2024 Amanda Montell & Isa Medina
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Episodes
  • The Cult of Glossier
    Jun 4 2024

    Catch Amanda back on tour this summer in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Seattle!!

    Friday, July 12: The Big Magical Cult Show at Park West in Chicago, IL (buy tickets here!)

    Saturday, July 13: The Big Magical Cult Show at Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis, MN (buy tickets here!)

    July 29: The Age of Magical Overthinking book talk at Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, WA (free!)

    Time to Milky Jelly™ cleanse your souls, culties. If you were alive in 2017, and anywhere near our same millennial pink corner of the internet, then you KNEW what a Glossier girl was. The emblem of relatable-but-aspirational coolness helmed by cult leader… ahem, CEO… Emily Weiss (of The Hills fame) was so much more than a cosmetics line. Glossier was a lifestyle, a uniform, an identity template, a cultural phenomenon, a religion? Come on, those pink bubble wrap pouches??? If you had one, it meant you’d reached a certain kind of ~enlightenment~. Alongside the likes of other rare brands like Starbucks and SoulCycle, Glossier was a ”cult-followed” company through in through… but was something more sinister lurking underneath? Why did the brand take off as astronomically as it did? And what is the status of the “cult” now? At long last, host Amanda is (over)analyzing the spiritual movement that is Glossier with none other than beauty journalist Marisa Meltzer, author of the New York Times bestselling book Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier (out now in paperback!).

    Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod @amanda_montell

    To order Amanda's new book, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, click here :) To subscribe to her new Magical Overthinkers podcast click here!

    Thank you to our sponsors, who make this show possible:

    • Earn points by paying rent right now when you go to joinbilt.com/cult.
    • Visit BetterHelp.com/CULT today to get 10% off your first month.
    • Dipsea is offering an extended 30-day free trial when you go to DipseaStories.com/cult.
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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • The Cult of Tradwives
    May 28 2024

    First of all, we are downright GIDDY to share two iconic voices on this week’s episode—not only our expert guest, culture reporter (and personal hero of Amanda’s) Anne Helen Petersen, but also Sounds Like A Cult’s very own intern (actually recently promoted to coordinator 😎), Reese Oliver!!! Speaking of new voices, team SLAC has been cooking up additional cult leaders to add to the hosting rotation later this year, and Amanda is v excited not to have to converse all by herself 😂 In all seriousness, everyone at team SLAC has been feeling a lot of gratitude lately, and we want to thank you listeners for sticking around for this wacky roller coaster ride. NOW, onto introducing the “cult” of tradwives. Short for “traditional wife,” this disturbing cultural craze marries idealizations of biblical womanhood with romantic social media aesthetics to create a freaky wave of politically regressive influencers, who’ve rejected feminism in favor of oppression… but make it "cute?" In between churning their own butter and brushing their naturally birthed kids’ hair, tradwives evangelize a host of ideologies so racist and sexist, at first it seems like a bit… and then it’s not. SCARY!!!! Join Reese, Anne, and Amanda down the rabbit hole, as they attempt to puzzle out this confounding modern-day “cult.”

    Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod @amanda_montell

    To order Amanda's new book, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, click here :) To subscribe to her new Magical Overthinkers podcast click here!

    Thank you to our sponsors, who make this show possible:

    • Get 20% off your first order of Liquid I.V. when you go to LiquidIV.com and use code CULT at checkout
    • Go to stopscooping.com/SLAC and enter promocode SLAC to save an EXTRA $50 on any Litter-Robot bundle.
    • Dipsea is offering an extended 30 day free trial when you go to DipseaStories.com/cult.
    • Head to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to https://www.squarespace.com/CULT to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
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    1 hr and 19 mins
  • What happened to Isa Medina?
    May 28 2024

    Hi Culties <3 Isa Medina here, former host and co-creator of Sounds Like A Cult! With a special announcement....
    My New Podcast is Coming! I'M RIGHT YOU'RE WRONG hosted by Isa Medina & Lydia Keating. Click to subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your pods. If you want to stay up to date with me, my comedy, live shows & my new podcast, follow me on my instagram @isaamedinaa <33 Follow the podcast on IG @ethicalgirlies

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    6 mins

Featured Article: Delve into the Darker Side of Human Nature with the 15 Best Podcasts About Cults


Cults are fascinating. There’s something curiosity-inducing about stories of ordinary people who get wrapped up in groupthink that quickly veers into dangerous territory. Part of the appeal is because we think it could never happen to us, even though we suspect, deep down, that it absolutely could. These listens explore the nature of cults, the figures who lead them, and the followers who have been lured into their orbits.

What listeners say about Sounds Like A Cult

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Fun/Funny/insightful

I think they’re funny and insightful. The way they discuss language and culture reminds me of smoke circles in college lol literally talking about everything under the sun and how it all connects

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Very ‘not like other girls’

Interesting premise, but dear sweet baby Jesus in heaven above the level of obnoxious, quirky, NLOGs these two hosts are at is just… superior. Damn. After a single episode my face was hurting from all the cringing.

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  • B
  • 01-03-23

Gossip Without Substance

This is a witty and humorous Podcast, but it lacks substance. Although they choose interesting topics, they throw around the word “cult” with recklessness and abandon. Listen for yourself (and pay attention to how frequently they contradict themselves within each episode). The result amounts to less news and analysis than you’d get, for example, from Entertainment Tonight.

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1 person found this helpful