⭐⭐ 2/5 Stars – Exceptionally thin on the linguistic elements, and full of basic filler on cults – all of which I already knew!
Format: Audiobook (Spotify)
Read: April 2024
I came to this book via Jameela Jamil’s podcast. I first heard the episode with Amanda a year or so ago on cults, then checked out her podcast Cultish which was fine, but pretty basic and not interesting enough to keep up listening to. Last week I listened to her join Jameela again to talk about her new book The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality and thought it sounded interesting. This is turning into a roundabout story… but I remembered Spotify lets me listen to 10 hours of audiobook a month and they actually have up to date stuff (unlike my library) so I looked for the new book, couldn’t find it and decided I’d check out the old book – Cultish – in the meantime.
So essentially this is one of those “sure I’ll give it a go, I just need something to listen to right now” choices!
And… it was not really what it advertises itself to be. It’s extremely thin on the actual linguistic analysis or anything meaningful about “culty” language, in my opinion. I was hoping to learn about things like Neuro-linguistic programming techniques, but instead 80% of it is just a regurgitation of everything I already knew about well known cults from documentaries, podcast and reading Wikipedia articles over the years (Jim Jones, Heaven’s Gate, Wacko, Scientology, Synanon, NXIVM etc), a handful of personal stories from the author who occasionally remembers that she mentions language in the title of her book. Is there anyone who would actually pick up this book that doesn’t already know everything about Scientology, or for that matter MLMs? It just felt like endless filler, and I’m not sure who the audience for it is?
I thought several times about DNF’ing this but it was quite short, and most of it I had on while I was gardening so it was easier to just let it play then find alternative listening!
The last couple of chapters were more interesting once she got off the high control religious groups most people recognise as Cults, and into “Culty” things in modern day culture, such as how brands and influencers employ similar techniques to sell products. I don’t know much as much about culty exercise trends (Peloton, Crossfit etc) or modern day influencer “gurus.” I found the QAnon section quite interesting too, in light of my recent fascination with Love Has Won and internet cults (I didn’t know 5D is a QAnon thing).
In summary, it is a very confused book and I didn’t find the ideas in it to be very well organised. It’s a bit all over the place, scattered with personal stories and almost completely neglects its premise!
The audiobook narrator I also found to be a little lifeless and definitely didn’t help with my lack of enjoyment.
REVIEW SUMMARY
I LIKED
- It is a compassionate look at cults, with no judgement on those people who got sucked into the more harmful ones.
- The chapters on culty language as a marketing tactic for brands, influencers and social media was the most interesting part.
I DIDN’T LIKE
- Premise of this book is misleading! It is extremely thin on any meaningful content on language analysis.
- 80% regurgitation of basic information that anyone with a casual interest in cults or MLM companies already knows.
- Ideas are not well organised, and I ended confused on what the point of the book really was.
