We’re baaaAAAAAaaaaack!!! Join us for a 🪐transcendent🪐 new season of Sounds Like A Cult, whose opening episode features Chelsea Charles, one of our sparklingly hilarious new co-hosts. An unscripted TV producer by day, Chelsea joins returning host Amanda to unpack this week’s nightmarish topic: Dance Moms . Indeed, we’re exploring every culty corner of the fanatically followed Lifetime reality show, which centers on a group of competitive child dancers, their high-drama mothers, and their verit...
Sep 17, 2024•1 hr 11 min
This is Sounds Like A Cult, a show with two sparkling new cult leaders, ahem, co-hosts!!!!!! We’ve been keeping this secret for months, and it feels downright ~transcendent~ to let you culties know: Joining host Amanda for the next season of Sounds Like A Cult are two brilliant, kind, warm, and hilarious recurring voices—unscripted TV producer Chelsea Charles and theatre/rhetoric student Reese Oliver (whom you may already recognize as SLAC’s beloved coordinator). Tune into today’s surprise bonus...
Sep 10, 2024•27 min
New Age love & wellness influencers turned baby NXIVM: That's kinda the best way we can succinctly describe this week’s cult, Twin Flames Universe, one of the most chilling groups we’ve discussed on the pod thus far. Several months ago, Twin Flames survivor Jessi Hersey, whom you might recognize from the “Escaping Twin Flames” doc on Netflix, slid into our DMs and made a very generous and compelling argument as to why Twin Flames needed airtime on Sounds Like A Cult. After all, it’s importan...
Aug 13, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Pack your hammer and your lack of cultural awareness, because this week on Sounds Like A Cult, we're interviewing Tia Levings, a former Christian fundamentalist, mission trip devotee, and survivor of church-sanctioned domestic violence. Tia is also the author of the brand new memoir A Well-Trained Wife . She joins to discuss the ever-so-common culty practice of recruiting church kids to go on white savior vacations all under the guise of bringing Sky Daddy and ultimate nepo kid Jesus into the li...
Aug 06, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Get Tickets to Isa Medina's Live Comedy Show in NYC August 24th! Click Here ! Follow Isa on Instagram to keep up with her upcoming comedy shows! Subscribe to Isa's new podcast I'm Right You're Wrong on Spotify or Apple ! If you want to support Isa's new podcast subscribe above, listen or watch the full episodes at the I'm Right You're Wrong Podcast Page ! <3 Ep 6: Friendship Breakups: Right or Wrong? Have you ever had a Friendship Breakup? Absolutely no worries if not! Sounds like you're perf...
Aug 06, 2024•41 min
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 l...
Jul 30, 2024•1 hr 15 min
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 ...
Jul 23, 2024•58 min
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 o...
Jul 16, 2024•54 min
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...
Jul 16, 2024•49 min
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-...
Jul 09, 2024•58 min
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 histor...
Jun 25, 2024•1 hr 7 min
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, a...
Jun 18, 2024•56 min
Listen to Isa Medina NEW PODCAST – I'm Right You're Wrong on Spotify or Apple Podcasts , or wherever ! Isa Medina is the Former Host and Co-Creator of Sounds Like A Cult Podcast. Follow Isa on IG @isaamedinaa for info about her live stand up comedy and her new podcast @ethicalgirlies. The episode preview ended at 23 min 40 seconds if you want to start where we left off and finish the episode <3 Right or Wrong? Nepo Babies: This week on I'M RIGHT YOU'RE WRONG, your gorgeous hosts, Lydia Keatin...
Jun 18, 2024•26 min
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!) WE TRIED OUR BEST not to get too roasty in this long overdue episode, where host Amanda and her special guest, music journalist and host of the Songs My Ex Ruined podcast Melissa Locker, examine the cult of jam bands from Phish to the Grateful Dead. Where freewheeling guitar solos, acid trips, tape-trading, endless noodling, and oodles of exclusive lingo re...
Jun 11, 2024•56 min
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!) 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 life...
Jun 04, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Catch Amanda on tour! 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 her...
May 28, 2024•1 hr 16 min
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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoic...
May 28, 2024•6 min
Catch Amanda on tour! Lace yourselves up for this haunting and twinkle-toed episode covering one of our most consistently requested topics: Ballet! Despite the tutus and baby pink palette, this ruthlessly competitive industry often seems less like a dainty art form and more like a doggone cult. Think about it: Why do we audience members just blindly accept and support an industry helmed by power abusive men, who have absolutely no problem taking little girls away from their families, working the...
May 21, 2024•59 min
Introducing the Magical Overthinkers podcast, a show for thought spiralers, exploring the subjects we can't stop overthinking about. Host Amanda is elated to share her latest audio project, based on her New York Times- bestselling book The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality . Magical Overthinkers is out this week on all major podcast platforms (as well as YouTube)! Links below. Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Apple Subscribe on YouTube Here is a look at episode 1, "Over...
May 14, 2024•1 hr 2 min
For our ~true followers~, behold a wee bonus episode to tide you over during our mid-season break, while host Amanda is on book tour and in production for the new MAGICAL OVERTHINKERS podcast (coming May 15)! Nostalgia is a warm-and-fuzzy coping mechanism for when the present feels painful, BUT it's also a key ingredient in sooooo many modern-day "cults," from Disney Adults to tradwives. How dangerous a weapon is nostalgia, really ? That's what this episode, featuring an audio excerpt from Amand...
May 07, 2024•41 min
You culties have been THIRSTING after this episode, and it’s finally here! With the help of the piss-your-pants funny duo from the Add to Cart podcast , Kulap Vilaysack and SuChin Pak, host Amanda unpacks the evangelical fanaticism surrounding these objectively not-that-special, too-big-to-fit-in-any-goddamn-cup-holder water vessels, which contain not just the keys to hydration but apparently our very souls. Sit back and *drink it in* as Amanda and guests go in on the accessory-cum-religion that...
Apr 16, 2024•51 min
Host Amanda's new book The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality is out TODAY!!! Get your copy wherever you buy books (including audiobooks). The book is about magical overthinking in the Information Age—how our deep-rooted cognitive biases are clashing with contemporary culture to create a new era of delulu. Themes covered in the book include celebrity worship, nostalgia, and today's topic of discussion... the cult of manifestation. This special episode features an exclusiv...
Apr 09, 2024•53 min
Order a copy of Amanda's new book The Age of Magical Overthinking ! Catch Amanda on tour!!! Stereotypes say that homeschool kids are a little, well, ~quirky~ but is that because they grew up in a "cult" of sorts? The American homeschool landscape is currently undergoing an especially fraught *paradigm shift* with upwards of 2 million kids being taught at home as of 2023. This surge is fueled by a range of sociopolitical factors, from the relatable (school shootings are scary!!!!) to the undeniab...
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Order Amanda's new book! https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Age-of-Magical-Overthinking/Amanda-Montell/9781668007976 Get ready to live, laugh, love, and possibly get into an “aisle fight” over this longgggg overdue episode, featuring the iconic Griff Stark-Ennis from the Petty Crimes podcast! In what may just be our *pettiest* episode ever, Griff joins Amanda to discuss the cultish fanaticism surrounding the pottery brand, Rae Dunn. You know those farmhouse-style mugs and platters found ...
Mar 26, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Come party with Amanda on tour!!! Ahoy, and welcome to our first ever "Interview a Listener" episode of Sounds Like A Cult!!! Could you imagine a more tantalizing subject for this week's ~dive deep~ than this gazillion-dollar industry of floating compounds where the lines between leisure and obsession blur worse than a Carnival cruiser's vision after 12 "free" Mai Tais?? Joining the pod as Amanda's guest host is Sounds Like A Cult devotee/former long-time cruise ship employee (she's fine) Emmy M...
Mar 19, 2024•59 min
It's a cult of one dynamic almost too frightful for this show. When your very own caregiver poisons, manipulates, exploits, and lies to you for personal gain... it's the cult of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome, a nightmare phenomenon made internationally famous by the notorious (iconic?) Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a victim of child medical abuse, who played a role in the murder of her cult leader of one, aka, her very own mother. To explore the many culty angles of this week's unique subject, host Amand...
Mar 12, 2024•1 hr 18 min
First of all, what the hell is going on with culty leggings companies that have too many Ls in their brand name: LuLaRoe, Lululemon... sounds like a conspiracy!!! Anyway, after many long years of listener requesting this topic, Sounds Like A Cult is finally diving into the spandex heart of darkness that is Lululemon. With the help of special guest hosts Taz and Marah, the ridiculously charming voices behind the Sistas Who Kill podcast, host Amanda is unraveling how this bougie "It Girl" athleisu...
Mar 05, 2024•1 hr 4 min
You're invited to The Big Magical Cult Show !!! Catch host Amanda on tour this April to celebrate her new book, The Age of Magical Overthinking . Half the events are star-studded bookstore stops (where she'll be in conversation with the likes of Molly Ringwald and Pauline Chalamet!), and the other half are these wacky, witchy variety shows, featuring cult-followed podcasters (like Kelsey from Normal Gossip and Ceara & Griff from Petty Crimes), drag burlesque, musical guests, and more. There ...
Feb 28, 2024•2 min
Would you sacrifice your phone, passport, dignity, and freedom to move into an isolated pod for 10 days and compete against a sorority of strangers in search of True Love™, all for a world of fiendish reality TV consumers to see??? Sounds like cult behavior to me!!! This week, just in time for the Season 6 premiere, we’re FINALLY covering the cult of Love Is Blind, one of the most ~radical~ reality dating shows to have graced the airwaves. We’re joined by former cult member… ahem, I mean, contes...
Feb 20, 2024•52 min
Grab your rosary and slap on your plaid skirt (although you WILL need to recite six “Our Fathers” if it rides even one millimeter above the knee!!!) because this week’s theatrical episode is here to validate and possibly trigger all our former Catholic School #religioustrauma girlies. Recovering Catholic Aiden Arata—writer, “queen of depression Instagram,” and Amanda's former college pal—joins the pod to unpack all the pageantry and horror of this objectively bizarre (and yet totally mainstream)...
Feb 13, 2024•1 hr 11 min
