Oops a politically flavored episode of Sounds Like A Cult!!!!! Would you believe it if we told you we recorded this nearly SIX MONTHS AGO and just crossed our fingers it would resonate whenever it ended up going live??? This week, host Amanda is joined by Puck reporter and former MAGA youth recruit, Tina Nguyen, author of the 2024 memoir The MAGA Diaries, who’s here to shed light on the culty modern movement that is conservative youth activism: why it exists, how it works, and why there’s no left-wing analog. Culty times people!!! Intrigued how this episode will land with you culties 👀😵‍💫✌️

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 Amanda's new Magical Overthinkers podcast and/or watch full episodes on YouTube, 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
• 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.
• Go to stopscooping.com/SLAC and enter promocode SLAC to save an EXTRA $50 on any Litter-Robot bundle.

Learn more about host Amanda's Italian writing "cult" ;) It's a Live Your Life!!!

https://trovatrip.com/trip/europe/italy/italy-with-amanda-montell-oct-2024

If you’ve ever seen a suburban lady wearing a tee shirt that reads, “I wine because he whines” or “I’m not a normal mom, I’m a wine mom,” then you have likely born witness to a follower of this week’s “cult.” Wine moms may have nailed the merch aspect of modern-day fanaticism with their culture of “rosé all day,” and there’s certainly valid solidarity in venting about the hardships of American motherhood over a glass of Prosecco or two. But… ten? At the kids’ soccer practice? Is any group that aims to cutesify alcoholism en masse ever not at least a “Watch Your Back”-level cult??? To help figure it out, please welcome this week’s special guest, survivor of both the wine mom cult AND the cult of MLMs (no small feat!!), author and sobriety coach Emily Lynn Paulson.

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 Amanda's new Magical Overthinkers podcast and/or watch full episodes on YouTube, 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
• 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.

From TV executives abusing kids on sets to Scientology's "Celebrity Center," the cult of the entertainment business can getcha from about 6,000 different angles. After all, what other mainstream American industry is glamorized and lusted-after to this extreme degree, only to betray its most successful acolytes with financial and physical exploitation, social isolation, dehumanization, and a destroyed sense of self-worth to the point that entertainers dying early tragic deaths of despair is not only accepted, it's practically a meme??? This week, host Amanda offers a lil history lesson on the cult of Hollywood before getting into some juicy personal stories and an analytical discush with the one and only Maria Bamford, iconic comedian and author of Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere. Who are Hollywood's true "cult leaders," and do their worst behaviors earn it the title of a GTFO-level cult? Tune in to find out!!!

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 Amanda's new Magical Overthinkers podcast and/or watch full episodes on YouTube, click here :)

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

• Go to stopscooping.com/SLAC and enter promocode SLAC to save an EXTRA $50 on any Litter-Robot bundle.
• 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.
• Earn points by paying rent right now when you go to joinbilt.com/cult.

Listen to Isa's new podcast: I'm Right You're Wrong! Isa is the co-creator and former host of Sounds Like A Cult<3

Click here to Subscribe/Listen on Spotify Podcasts

Click here to Subscribe/Listen on Apple Podcasts

Botox & Filler: Right or Wrong?

Does getting botox and filler contribute to unjust beauty standards? Or are women literally not allowed to have anything anymore? This week, your perfect little hosts, ⁠Isa Medina⁠ and ⁠Lydia Keating⁠, discuss whether it's right or wrong to get botox and filler. Are we making things worse by not aging naturally or are we just trying to survive the dang patriarchy? Can women even make mistakes? Factually speaking, no. But your hosts are here to look at both sides! In classic fash, they debate the extremes and chit chat about life as perfect beautiful women. xx love you!!

Subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts and listen to other episodes covering topics like: Friendship Breakups, Tipping Culture, Nepo Babies, Stay at Home Moms and more😘

Follow Isa on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@isaamedinaa⁠⁠⁠⁠

Follow Isa's new podcast on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@ethicalgirlies⁠⁠

You culties preyed and preyed for us to analyze the cult of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, and at long last, host Amanda Montell and coordinator Reese Oliver are blessing you with one of our favorite episodes in a very long time 🥲 To the undiscerning eye, Netflix’s new “America’s Sweethearts” series may look like an innocent little feature on the NFL’s most treasured cheerleading squad… but to us, this was a true crime documentary about a profoundly conformist, exploitative, isolating, hyper-patriarchal, physically perilous, but also inspirational and glamorous CULT. The question is not if the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading team is culty—I mean, hello, duh—the question is how bad is it??? Tighten your Kelli knots and spritz another coat of hairspray, because we are not holding back this week 📣

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 Amanda's new Magical Overthinkers podcast and/or watch full episodes on YouTube, click here :)

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

• Go to the App Store or Google Play store and download the FREE Ibotta app to start earning cash back and use code CULT.
• Shop the SKIMS Soft Lounge Collection at SKIMS.com. After you place your order, select "Sounds Like A Cult" in the survey and select our show in the dropdown menu that follows.
• Earn points by paying rent right now when you go to joinbilt.com/cult.

Catch Sounds Like A Cult host Amanda Montell, Theydy Bedbug, Rara Darling, and other special guests on tour!

PAST EVENTS BELOW (MORE DATES COMING SOON):

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

July 14: Chicago, IL — The Big Magical Cult Show at the DEN (buy tickets here!) DATE & VENUE CHANGE

To subscribe to Amanda's new Magical Overthinkers podcast and listen to (or watch!) the rest of today's episode on monogamy, click here :)

If we can love our children and friends separately but equally, why not our romantic partners? Such is one of the many compelling thought exercises in favor of polyamory, a relationship structure that is by no means new, but has experienced an explosive recent surge in popular media—everywhere from New Yorker thinkpieces to Succession plot lines to reality shows like Couple to Throuple. Some questions, though: Is polyamory really more "natural" than monogamy? Why do some people make being "poly" their whole personality? Who even has time for multiple partners? (And is it prude to ask such things???). This week's episode is actually a feed drop from the Magical Overthinkers podcast (because host Amanda is *not* a podcasting monogamist ), featuring the brilliant philosopher and host of the Overthink podcast, Dr. Ellie Anderson. Listen for a sparkling discussion of romance, jealousy, history, and media, and consider subscribing to Magical Overthinkers wherever you get your pods!

To order Amanda's new book, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, click here.

Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod @amanda_montell @theydy.bedbug @mxraradarling

Class is in session and boy oh boy is it perturbing. Teaching is not just a profession, it's a calling to shape young hearts and minds—one that looks all wholesome on the outside, but once you're lured in, actually comes with labor exploitation, emotional manipulation, weird power dynamics created by the tenure system, and other sinister qualities that high-key resemble a cult. The cult of teaching is perhaps our single most passionate and consistent listener request in Sounds Like A Cult history, and to help us bring it to life, we're doing another "Interview A Listener" episode, featuring current New Jersey public school teacher, Charlyn Magat. Today's topic is of course massive and complex, and this conversation is just a small piece of it, informed by Charlyn's individual experience. We'd love to continue exploring the topic further, including potential episodes about the cults of Teach for America, boarding school, etc.!

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:

• 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.
• Get 20% off your first order of Liquid I.V. when you go to LiquidIV.com and use code CULT at checkout
• Earn points by paying rent right now when you go to joinbilt.com/cult.

Catch Amanda back on tour this summer!

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

Imagine you’re a little kid and your parents are actually your bosses. Now imagine that, as your professional superiors, your parents' job is to engineer and exploit every single precious moment of your childhood for millions of people on the internet to behold, all in exchange for clicks, comments, and ad dollars. Sometimes they prank you, embarrass you, and/or produce a whole ‘nother sibling purely as a career move. Now imagine if your parents manage to figure out at some point that this dynamic is power abusive and manipulative, and they decide to stop sharing your face with the world, scads of strangers who’ve gotten parasocially attached to you since before you were born start flipping the f*** out. Such is the uncanny experience of a kid born into the cult of family vloggers, this week’s culty a$$ subject, featuring journalist Fortesa Latifi, who is currently writing a book about parenthood and content creation.

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:

• 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.
• Go to the App Store or Google Play store and download the FREE Ibotta app to start earning cash back and use code CULT.
• Go to stopscooping.com/SLAC and enter promocode SLAC to save an EXTRA $50 on any Litter-Robot bundle.