What gives cults a bad name?
For starters, a cult is usually described as a social group with an unusual or excessive devotion towards a certain religious or philosophical belief.
Remember "Heaven's Gate?" A group of 39 people participated in a ritualistic suicide in 1997 because they believed that by ending their life, they would board an extraterrestrial spacecraft to take them to "Heaven's Gate." Yeah, that constituted a cult.
So it stands to reason cults, in general, remain highly controversial.
Sometimes, however, the bizarre rituals and demands of an organization can feel like a cult, even though they are not.
Curious to explore this concept further, Redditor FlintTheDad asked
What's something that's not a cult, but feels like a cult?
Corporate Cult
Certain corporate cultures can be oddly suspicious.
What Is SalesForce?
"It's a customer relationship management platform, in the parlance. It's a database for logging, accessing, and connecting work information, e.g. a sales lead, the quote, the correspondence, the sales docs, the budget, the implementation team, etc., etc. Companies attempt to use it as a be-all end-all management tool and stretch it beyond its capabilities."
Cutting the BS
"Salesforce. No, I don't want to build a community, go hiking or join a hundred online classes to learn the basics. Make a couple of well-explained, to-the-point training videos ffs."
Cult-Adjacent
"Under Armour's corporate culture creeps me out. Companies should not have an official chant. I would consider them cult-adjacent at the very least."
Too Much Enthusiasm
"I agree, another one is Sunglass Hut. I was a sales manager for a year and a part time associate for a couple years prior while I was in school. At the first region meeting they 1. 'Strongly encouraged' aka forced you to donate to their charity... that they run... and make profit off of. 2. Made everyone wait in the lobby before letting us into the conference room, and the only way in was where the higher ups lined the doors cheering and screaming while music blasted and you had to high-five them all. (Of course this is pre-[the virus]). In general, they don't treat you like a human being, it's either act like a camp counsellor (enthusiasm levels) for minimum wage or you'd never climb the ladder. Spoiler alert, there is no ladder to climb. The whole company mentality is very cult-y."
Tech World
These Redditors thought tech culture in general bordered on the cult-y.
Be Popular
"If you are a tech worker - your job. Upper management puts in foosball tables, orders lunch and has off site things on weekends (which is a daycare nightmare for parents), and expects you to spend every waking minute thinking about your job and having a device ready to answer email at any time of the day or night. Then, they have quarterly layoffs where they sweep out the unpopular. Yet, they want your loyalty and insist you are family and blah blah 'cultural fit.'"
Graduate Magnets
"I've been at companies like this, and they suck. But also it's super easy to leave one company for another in tech, the skills are very transferrable and in demand. Those 'tech' companies, are really just some other business trying to attract tech talent by providing those amenities and taking advantage of recent grads."
"Most people I know out of school get a job like that, and leave for greener pastures shortly after. If they really cared about their employees they'd just fix what's wrong and listen to their employees."
Creepy Benefits
"I'm 27 and have worked some random jobs, a lot of places gave tried setting me up with women at work. And a lot of couples who've been there for a long time met there."
"It's creepy AF when your boss is forcing women to flirt with you, just so you stay at the job."
Financial Cult
Does it pay to be involved in these? These Redditors didn't think so.
Multi-Level Marketing Schemes
"Herbalife. In fact, most (if not all) MLM schemes."
"Some pyramid schemes are actually classified as financial cults by Cultwatch, so not far off!"
Pyramid Selling
"General knowledge is such that MLMs and pyramid schemes are very easy to identify and debunk, so they have to transform it into an ideology pretty quickly after you join."
"if you can convince your new innitiates that everyone else criticizing the Cause is against progressivism, and that you're actually fighting for a better solution to capitalism or whatever stupid sh*t, and that YOU are the TRUE core of the Cause, when people tell you the stupid cult you've joined is ridiculous, you will take it personally and it will re-enforce the us-versus-them isolationism that fuels cults."
"watching crypto currency NFTs go from a dumb meme made for trading racist drawings to an art auction platform that gets immediately debunked as a pyramid scheme exploiting tech-illiterate artists to 'we're revolutionizing art as a whole. we are a brand new system, a way for artists to be powerful and influential, we are changing the world, if you disagree with this you are LITERALLY a luddite that hates art, the world, and us' happened literally over the course of two weeks lol."
– No-Bewt
"Brooklyn Nine-Nine" Reference
"Nutriboom"
"Woah there brother. Your amino acid levels are looking dangerous lol."
"Ah yes! The power of financial freedom. Boom Boom!"
Homeowner's Associations
"Used to work in a gated community pool. Some were cool, but most were the most awful bunch of wealthy jerks. Never wanted to follow the rules or cooperate and their kids always acted like little punks. It also felt kind of incestuous as well because those people were occasionally sleeping with each other. Not in the pool. I would just hear the pool gossip."
Play At Your Own Risk
"The ticky-tac cul de sac built behind me has been trying to strong arm me into paying HOA dues ever since I put no trespassing signs facing them in my woods. The whole reason I did was due to their stupid kids playing in my woods, getting hurt, and then being blamed by them for having an unsafe yard. Dude, it's an acre of unimproved woods with sticks, stone walls, and 200+ years of random shit thrown in it. It's not a goddamn public park, so your lawsuit means nothing. I was here before your house was built - why would I want to join your HOA when one of the conditions is that you all have free access to my land? You can feel free to stop trying to complain about me to the city, because they know I don't care. How do you like the HAM antenna I just put up on the edge of my land? Oh, is that an eyesore, too? Good."
"Also, I have no idea where those noisy guinea hens came from. I think they wandered in from the other guys land that you've been trying to co opt so he gets rid of his pigs and turkeys. Yeah, that's it."
"Retired Fun Police"
"I moved from an over zealous HOA in Virginia four years ago because they were a nasty group of retired fun police. We recieved a notice that our yard had too high a % of crabgrass! They attempted to fine us $100 per month until it was rectified. We received said notice in November. My partner elegantly told them to stuff it. This was after five years of various infractions such as storing a garden hose under our lattice covered back porch, paint chipping off a railing, anti bird cages attached to outside vents, yard lantern either out or wrong color all with pictures showing how entitled they were to trespass when ever they needed more $ for their coffers. They notified my next door neighbor her mailbox post needed painting, it looked like everyone else's prior.. They're passive/aggressive way of pointing out a wayward residents was NOT putting an American flag on their mailboxes on patriotic holidays. LOL I recall seeing many in noncompliance!"
I once belonged to a performing group in which our director participated in an organization that claimed to improve people's lives as long as members participated in frequent group sessions and paid a high monthly tuition.
I was a kid, and while this well-being organization may have had positive intentions, the changing behavior of our director creeped us out. He was suddenly cold and not as enthusiastic as he once was with us in rehearsals, and we all blamed his cult for changing him.
When we raised a stink about it one time, the director decided to quit the organization.
I'm not sure if what he participated in was actually a cult, but my friends and I remain skeptical.
Redditor Still-Tangerine2782 wanted to hear from all the healthcare workers out there.
"Doctors of reddit, what’s it like when you go in for a doctors appointment? Do you and your doctor discuss what’s wrong with you like it’s a group project? Do you not go at all because you’re your own doctor?"
Sounds like it's time for the medics to take their own medicine.
The Community
Doctor GIFGiphy"My mom's a GP and she usually just self diagnoses most of the time but will sometimes get a second opinion. She doesn't really go to another doctor, just calls them to ask about stuff. Her contacts are filled with all kinds of doctors. It's like a secret underground community. For stuff like getting ultrasounds etc, then yes they do discuss stuff like it's a group project."
JustChard
The Internal Monologue...
"I was at a lecture a couple of years ago, performed by two doctors who’d undergone treatment for breast cancer and written a book about it together. I remember her talking about her diagnosis. She was a breast cancer surgeon herself, you couldn’t make it up."
"She walked into the room, saw her own scans with the doctor and her heart dropped, she barely heard a word he said because she couldn’t stop the flood of information she was getting. Looking at the scan she knew if she’d need surgery, chemo, radiotherapy, how long it would be, what her estimated survival was."
"I don’t think they discussed it like a group project, but I suppose she couldn’t stop herself from listening to her own internal monologue since it was her own field. I remember her saying she’d found it, in hindsight, an incredible learning opportunity regarding how to interact with patients, and that she thought about it a lot."
Pain_Free_Politics
Specialties...
"It depends on what I'm going in for. As a background, I'm an oncologist so I've trained in internal medicine before. For most internal medicine type stuff, I don't bother going in unless I need something that I can't easily get for myself (e.g. labs or images). For specialty stuff I wasn't trained in, I go in and try to give them the best history I can, but let them do their own thing."
alkahdia
30 seconds flat...
"I don't get involved in the management. I let the Doctor seeing me lead that, unless they missed something huge and i would just double check. The main difference is i can present the whole history and relevant info in about 30 seconds flat and the doctor with that info can just give me the management plan in about the same time. Fastest consultations ever. Very methodical."
triple_threattt
I Stay Away
"Doctor here. In general, we are not good about going to the doctor."
"For me it’s physicals about half as often as recommended and that time I had strep a year and a half ago that didn’t resolve with 'whatever antibiotics I had in my medicine cabinet.' When we do go in, it is like a group project. We usually hash things out together but ultimately I am going to defer to someone with more expertise than me in that area who can make an objective decision."
nellyann
In general, none of us are good about the doctor. So I feel ya.
New Bits
Chicago Med Episode 6 GIF by NBCGiphy"I was sat in in a consultation between two doctors with one needing an ultrasound. They knew each other through work already so it was very friendly and casual between the both of them. The patient doctor trying to figure out what was going on on the ultrasound screen and the doctor doctor was teaching him the bits he didn't know."
kr4kenz
Language
"Doctor here (neurologist)." I'm not good at going to the doctor. I don't go often but when I do I usually just STFU, especially if it's a field of medicine I have no idea about (like say... derm). That being said, the doctor usually knows I'm a physician as well, and so the language terms to be more technical. I also find that we practice less defensively with each other since we can be more open ('We could do ABC tests but honestly what you probably have is X so take this and if it doesn't get better then we can do ABC')."
Telamir
Participation
"I hope you get some doctors in here to give personal answers. Paul Kalanithi did address this a bit in his book When Breath Becomes Air. At first in his cancer treatment he was very involved in the decision making and the way he described the conversation with his oncologist was more like a collaboration."
"Later, she reminded him that he didn't have to participate in the decision making and that he could just let her be the doctor and focus on himself. He ended up taking her up on this offer. So even between the same patient and doctor, the relationship varied."
aaoch1
generic conditions...
"Dr here - it is a bit dependent on the field of medicine involved. For example I don't know much about neurological issues so if I went to see a neurologist I certainly wouldn't be chipping in. For more generic conditions I have previously offered my thoughts to my doctor about what it could be. Ultimately I still go to the doctor as they can prescribe drugs/order tests for me that would be difficult/questionable for me to do myself."
drbigmac69
Strangers
Sunglasses Hiding GIF by Soul TrainGiphy"I always go to someone who don’t know me, and I wouldn’t say that I’m a doctor as well. On the other hand, my SO is a doctor too, and whenever we feel something we do discuss it like a group project in which he always refuse any treatment until his symptoms got to the very worst."
eatfart420
It can be quite the enlightening experience when the tables are flipping.
Any other medical professionals what to chime in? Let us know in the comments.
Redditor lauvnoodles wanted to hear about the ways certain types of people get the job done, regardless of effort.
"Bill Gates said, 'I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.' What's a real-life example of this?"
Work smarter, not harder. That's what personal trainers say. Let's see...
Be Lazy
Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphy"I had a math teacher that actively encouraged his students to be as lazy as possible, defining lazy as actively searching for ways to do as minimal work as possible. His logic was that the way math is now, it could always be simplified and still work the same, someone just needs to be lazy enough to find that."
Dovahnime
My Way
"I was working as a stockboy in a supermarket and when we had to fill the milk cooler people would bust open a 12 pack of milk cartons and put them in one by one. On my first day I just placed the 12 pack in the cooler and cut the plastic off on one side with my box cutter and yanked it from under it and the look of the store manager and the other employee who was training me was pure bewilderment. From that day everyone did it my way."
necropants
Alexa
"Start of lockdown, my 9 year old son was having worksheets emailed to complete at home. One day, left him at the laptop doing his maths while I made some dinner with my 3 year old daughter. Walked into the living room with his dinner to find him asking the Alexa all of his maths questions."
SparkieMark1977
Daily Tasks
"Worked as a laborer at a nursery one summer. Daily tasks included manually watering 15,000 plants each day. Put together a back of the napkin plan to build an irrigation system and spent the next few weeks building it with some money from the boss. That system is still running 15 years later and does all the work now."
"I did automate myself out of the job and had to find another eventually. Couple years later got my engineering degree. I’m convinced Engineers are inherently lazy people that will spend a disproportionate effort to make things easier."
InquiringKata
Parchments
Take This Job And Shove It Vintage GIF by US National ArchivesGiphy"The clerk was asked to bring 145 white papers into the office. He doesn't want to count the papers manually so he printed 145 blank sheets and took them in."
Rino_samuel
Is this lazy or GENIUS?! What a fine line.
Midnights
Alarm Clock Float GIF by jjjjjohnGiphy"I plug clocks in at midnight so they're already set."
january21st
Massive
"My brother in law spent a whole summer trying to figure out how to fix his sagging deck at the lake which he could in theory crawl under and jack it up. It would have been a tunneling project. It's a 60x60 area all long 2x6 boards. Massive."
"I sat there long enough with enough beers in me to come up with the idea of just cutting a square out of the sagging area about 3ft x 3ft, jacking it up then re-screwing down the boards."
"He paints the thing every spring with a roller anyhow so it's not like the square cut shows up. He thought I was a genius. I was just lazy."
bbbbbbbbbb99
chemistry class
"We had to hold a thermometer in water in chemistry class. It probably was only 20 minute experiment but your arms get tired after a couple minutes and you can’t let the thermometer touch the bottom of the pan or it won’t get an accurate reading. So instead of sucking it up and just holding the thermometer, my lab partner built a contraption out of lab books and paperclips to somehow hold the thermometer in the water without it touching bottom."
"It was the stupidest looking thing you would ever see in a lab class and our professor even walked over and said 'if it looks stupid, sounds stupid, but it works, then it isn’t stupid.' My lab partner and I joke that he wasn’t talking about the contraption but the intellect of my lab partner."
cojallison99
'Rock Me Gently'
"One of my favorite examples is Andy Kim. And I'd like to preface this by saying that I don't think Kim is lazy so much as a genius. Andrew Youakim was a singer/songwriter who became famous under the stage name Andy Kim. He achieved success writing songs for bands like the Archies, possibly most notably 'Sugar, Sugar.'"
"After his success he coasted for awhile until his record label dropped him for lack of output. At that point he created his own label and cranked out hits like 'Rock Me Gently.' When they saw this, the big record labels then bought his label under the assumption that they would then profit off of the songs he wrote and performed."
"He then very shortly stopped writing songs and largely lived off the sale of his label. Work smarter not harder."
Microwave_Warrior
Me Too
Saturday Night Live Eating GIFGiphy"Eating dinner out of the pot so there’s fewer dishes to wash."
jackrussellenergy
"Not gonna lie, since this stay-at-home thing, I've been eating standing at my kitchen counter or stovetop. Single life is great sometimes."
ehmmes
I've learned so much today. I feel seen. Sometimes the minimum effort can have maximal results.
Do you have similar experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below.
Redditor rabengeieradlerstein wanted everyone to fess up about what scandalous things have always seemed too enticing.
"What forbidden thing do you want to do?"
If I know it's "forbidden"... count me in! Let's talk fun.
Touched
San Diego Lol GIF by San Diego Zoo Wildlife AllianceGiphy"Pet all the animals at the zoo."
uninvitedfriend
"The capybara and I are gonna kick it and have a good time."
Broken_castor
No Knock
"Go to a school or any communal building at midnight and wander around. Open every door and explore everything."
Ellenono
"I always love wandering around and simply being in the university building after a late event when nobody else (except the security guy) is there."
Amina_1999
"I legit worked at a school just so I could know what was behind those forbidden doors."
LeatherDiamond2766
'employees only'
"Go into all the doors marked 'employees only' and 'authorized personnel only.' I'm sure most of them are boring on the other side, but I want to know."
kingspooky93
"Most of them are boring. But in the back of the goodwill stores is where they have the stuff they won't put out - heaps of silver tea sets, mummies, gold bars, vintage jeans, all the vintage vinyl records, 1960's vintage rock t-shirts, the holy grail, the ark of the covenant, pieces of the true cross, and rare coins."
inkseep1
People are Crazy
"Climb up the Pyramid in Egypt."
Likestopound
"We used to (obviously) be allowed, but we can't now cause someone had sex on it. And I think filmed it. At least that's what the guides told me when I went last year!"
telegetoutmyway
"That's not true. Well it may be true that someone had sex on it. But the real reason is because it is extremely dangerous to climb the pyramids. Going up is fairly easy, however, going down is another story."
"There are no steps and the blocks are anywhere from 3 to 4 feet higher than the next. Descending means jumping that three foot drop 150 times. It's impossible to know if the stone you are jumping to is stable or has loose rocks on it. If you mess up, you will tumble all the way down. Many people have died from this."
klmccall42
Secrets
mission impossible GIFGiphy"Break in to the Vatican Vault."
Quebaina
"Now we’re talking! Let’s see all the goodies they got hidden up in there!"
Gigachaz
ET?
"Tour area 51."
gato_brd
"You won't see anything mind blowing; it will all be sorta cool because military but kinda boring otherwise. But because you know that missing piece of the puzzle, that little detail of great value to someone who knows what it means with more context, suddenly you're extremely dangerous."
NTGuardian
Enough
"Steal enough so that I never have to worry about money again."
Fiery_Bunghole
"That's not forbidden it's called running for political office."
Reddot
"This is it. No small time criminal behavior. Just one job that if pulled off, I’m set for life."
Keyboardists
Go Down
"There's this bridge near me that has like a walkway thing that runs underneath it for when it needs repairs and there are big signs everywhere saying authorized personnel only, but I know people go down there all the time. I just wanna go down and take some pictures cause I think the views would be really good, but I'm kind of a goody two shoes."
stephers85
Smack
Ready To Fight Drag Queen GIF by PatrickStarrrGiphy"I've always wanted to hit someone around the face with a fresh salmon."
KbitKfox
"Done this, and had it happen to me. My older bro and I grew up on our dad's salmon fishing boat in Alaska."
fezwang
I'm onboard for all of this. Some rules are just to enticing to break.
Do you have similar law-bending desires? Let us know in the comments below.
Redditor PurpleFlower99 wanted everyone to share who from entertainment we would call if we ended up a corpse, because we know they'd find our killer. Or killers.
"Which fictional detective would you trust to solve your murder?"
Oh... I forgot the cast of Criminal Minds. I love you Reed!
Kindness
No Way What GIF by RegalGiphy"Benoit Blanc."
liberty_knight1776
"Blanc took the time to talk kindly and respectfully to the victim's elderly mother. I would want someone that considerate in the room when my family got questioned."
Aduro95
Hey D!
"Dirk Gently, so the murder can be solved holistically."
anaccountofrain
"So true he’d figure it out in the weirdest way possible which is what I would want."
aroaceautisti
"Read the book. Yeah, the show didn’t do much for me either."
anaccountofrain
Perfect
nbc brooklyn 99 GIF by Brooklyn Nine-NineGiphy"Give my case to the Nine-Nine."
Billbapoker
"You’ve made a rookie mistake, it’s alright. But its actually… NINE-NINE !!"
RefrigeratorOk7249
"BING-POT!"
SatoshiUSA
Him
"Hieronymus 'Harry' Bosch."
Sea_Assistance_3211
"There’s really no other answer. I’m convinced that anyone posting anything else simply hasn’t seen the show or read the books."
Paddock9652
"Yeah, I am too unimportant for all those other detectives. Bosch would get it done regardless."
happy-gof**ckyourself
"Scrolled too far to see this. Harry Bosch without a doubt."
account-name-here-72
The Only
George Hamilton Watch GIFGiphy"Hercule Poirot."
Soggy_Future_1461
"The only correct answer."
lightninseed
Peirot Forever! Never a dull moment.
The Classic Gang
"Scooby and those meddling kids."
IBlameItOnTheTetons
"Velma is the only one even attempting to do what they were hired for and even then, she can only ever piece things together after the fact. She’s either a dunce or intentionally holding back her findings from the group (maybe moral reasons)."
"Fred is freaking around with stupid crap like 'traps,' Shaggy is blazing it up off screen with his dog and Daphne is basically scamming daddy out of money with her friends on their sham business."
"They’re basically a scam service that gets brought in to validate 'paranormal' insurance claims. But somehow, while they coast on free room and board comp’d by the insurer, gets those friendly locals insurance claim denied and charged with fraud."
Orzine
Brilliant
You Got It Ok GIFGiphy"Columbo, 100%."
Toepipe_Jackson
"I'd trust Columbo with my life, my death, and my mother's chili recipe."
BeneejSpoor
"'Oh jeez, I shoulda thought of that.'"
Dothwile
The Knight
"Batman."
RedBoi_45
"He'd solve it, and the murderer would get a severe beating, that's a win as far as I'm concerned."
Ramiren
"Hands down, the detective aspect of Batman is excellent when explored properly, like the time they gave us this majestic story: Batman Black & White: Perpetual MourningSpiderman."
anzinho
And so swoonworthy...
criminal minds smile GIFGiphy"Spencer Reid!"
sharkyandro
"Not just Spencer but the entire BAU."
Street-Patience-3814
"Thought I'm the only one who'd thought of this."
nonhuman000
The OG!
"Sherlock Holmes."
theendfckworld
"You know how far I had to scroll to find this? He's the GOAT detective. Superhumanly smart."
Domino_Masks
Now that is quite a list of people I'd trust in my death. Avenge me.