When something or someone looks too good to be true... they usually are.
Or when people are just too ride or die for something, you smell a problem.
Cults. They're everywhere. We've all probably been in one at one time or another without knowing.
I guess we're all just looking to belong, but at what cost?
That's a literal and figurative question.
Redditor Satoshi_4 wanted to warn people about what to look for when following a group.
"What group doesn't look like a cult but is actually a cult?"
Columbia House. That was a Ponzi scheme and a cult. I got swept up a few times.
Nutrition Lies
"People selling herbal life."
chellie21
"From what I’ve seen people are opening up 'nutrition shops' and selling teas and smoothies with Herbalife in them, but don’t actually advertise that it’s Herbalife so someone who isn’t familiar with it is easily fooled into buying an over priced, syrupy sweet, powder based drink."
SaltBox531
No Chants
"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."
mehowdi
"I remember when I was 11 or 12, my mom was pretty broke and trying to go back to school for office admin to escape retail. She was a produce manager at a grocery store, and she had part-time co-op office work through the college. She got a third job at Walmart for evenings she wasn't doing co-op. She refused to participate in the weird chant thing and quit lol."
serafel
Juiced Up
"WorldVentures, Plexus, Amway. Those are ones people have tried to recruit me for. I think there was one a long time ago that promoted all sorts of health benefits of Xango juice. I distinctly remember some extended family members getting CASES of that juice for my family and I because they heard some BS about it potentially shrinking/eliminating brain tumors."
"Had to drink that nasty crap juice and all it did was give me heartburn, definitely did not shrink the (benign) brain tumors I have."
Garbage_Solid
NOPE
"We're not a cult. We're an organization that promotes love, and-"
BuffaloStranger97
not today no GIFGiphySave your love babble.
I'm good.
“The Great Way”
"For those who aren’t already aware, Shen-Yun. They advertise this whole 'The Great Way' thing during their shows and some weird stuff about the creation of the universe. Thinly veiled as 'this is a story that is as old as Chinese culture' and it gave me the ick."
SylvrSpydr
shen hua GIFGiphyCamper Crazy
"Summer camp. Not in a bad way, but we have idiosyncrasies to the songs we sing, the stories we tell, the traditions we follow. The small things that are basically rites of initiation, the mysterious doors that only the staff can go into, the separation from the real world."
"You've got the campers who grow up idolizing the counselors, then become those counselors when they grow up and do the same things in the same way, then come back as adults to run programs or drop off their kids or have staff reunions. Everyone has the same shirts and the same closets filled with years upon years of camp shirts."
"And it's really really hard to describe to someone who doesn't go to camp why XYZ is funny or why you always turn the tab on your soda can to the right before you drink it or why you *know someone is telling the truth because no one from camp would ever lie when they swear by a booga booga."
"And you meet someone who went to another camp... and it all sounds familiar, but off. Like they have done things that sound camp-ish, but not quite right. And you can't put your finger on why, but it's just...not. Hey, I loved summer camp. But no one I went there with would disagree that it is a cult."
FidusAchates86
Bad Sport
"Baseball moms."
lemonheadmeg
"Youth sports parents in general are psychos. I played youth sports, and basketball through juco. But I promised myself that I would never push my kids to play sports unless they showed enthusiastic interest. That's how little I want to do with youth sports parents."
urine-monkey
"Corporate training companies. Looking at you agile training. They get one person in a company trained and they take over the whole process and get everything agile and working better (even though no can actually prove it is better). But when it doesn’t work as well as expected due to existing problems more people get training from the same company so they can better."
"Promising if you are more agile it will be better. People spend more time trying to agile than do the actual work. It could be repeated over and with different management philosophies but the result will be the same. There is nothing wrong with agile itself but trying to implement it without fixing other stuff it will always fail."
RobotIcHead
full grown middle aged men...
"Not even Boy Scouts, but those who were in Boy Scouts know the Order of the Arrow is the true cult. Honestly one of the weirder parts about it was that there were scout leaders, like full grown middle aged men, who were also joining it. So you sleep in a field next to some random adult dude and then do a day of a silent service project."
Available_Job1288
Get to the Point
"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."
fodivaay
Season 4 Michael GIF by The OfficeGiphyI was once almost swept up in that kitchen knife selling craze. Thank God the video "training" was too long and I left.
Careful out there.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
Scams are everywhere and the internet has led to increasingly sophisticated frauds that can fool even the most hardened skeptics. Be careful out there - these people have warned you.
BetterFroyo asked the good people of Reddit: What scam did you fall for?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
Chrissy Teigen Totally Trolled The College Admissions Scam With Some Hilariously Bad Photoshopping
Earlier this week, we all heard the news about the college admissions scam perpetrated by dozens of prominent actors and CEOs to get their kids into prestigious schools by bribing test proctors, cheating on school work and falsifying photos of the kids as athletes.
That last one seems so far out there, it's one of the most talked about aspects of the scam (outside of the involvement of Aunt Becky from Full House).
To that end, Chrissy Teigen has taken to Twitter to mock the situation.
does this look real? we are trying to get into harvard @jenatkinhair @mrmikerosenthal @johnlegend https://t.co/jpcNGq2mVi— christine teigen (@christine teigen) 1552513466.0
While her kids are a few years away from needing to worry about college, Teigen attempts to get herself, her husband, and their friends into Harvard. She shows the athletic prowess of the four in a series of totally unaltered photos.
The photos show the faces of Teigen, John Legend, Jena Atkin and Mike Rosenthal pasted onto the bodies of famous football (soccer) players.
They are varying levels of successful.
Honestly? I'd totally believe they're on the team.
I feel like mine could pass— christine teigen (@christine teigen) 1552513509.0
@chrissyteigen @jenatkinhair @mrmikerosenthal @johnlegend chrissy teigen. harvard class of 2023— Emma Stone is gonna be on SNL (@Emma Stone is gonna be on SNL) 1552513715.0
@chrissyteigen @MJohnsonFTW @jenatkinhair @mrmikerosenthal @johnlegend Seems legit https://t.co/GKXL5jk6Jx— Amanda Navarro 🕷 (@Amanda Navarro 🕷) 1552539977.0
@chrissyteigen @jenatkinhair @mrmikerosenthal @johnlegend https://t.co/AUpZ01ypEc— Krystina Arielle 🦖 (@Krystina Arielle 🦖) 1552551182.0
The indictments in the college admissions scam allege that for the past several years, Rick Singer had an entire network of test proctors, coaches, athletic administrators and, of course, parents whose bribery and fraud allowed them to secure admissions for students to high ranking schools such as Yale, Georgetown and Stanford.
While actors Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, the latter of whom played Aunt Becky in Full House, are the most famous of the parents charged, the list includes Gordon Caplan, chairman of a law firm; Robert Flaxman, the CEO of Crown Realty; and Mossimo Giannulli, Loughlin's husband and the founder of Mossimo Fashion company.
While there's always been hushed talk and jokes about the country's elite using their wealth and status to secure their kids entrance to these schools, no one expected law enforcement to actually do something about it, let alone find such a blatant scam as posed photos for athletic admissions.
It's great that Teigen can help lighten the mood.
@chrissyteigen @jenatkinhair @mrmikerosenthal @johnlegend You are a national treasure 👑— Robin Currie (@Robin Currie) 1552514676.0
@RockThisMolly @chrissyteigen @jenatkinhair @mrmikerosenthal @johnlegend Be strong. You’ll recover. 😆— Roll the Dice (@Roll the Dice) 1552626701.0
@chrissyteigen @jenatkinhair @mrmikerosenthal @johnlegend This. This is why I follow you.— Jen Reece (@Jen Reece) 1552609610.0
@raychel____ @chrissyteigen @jenatkinhair @mrmikerosenthal @johnlegend Art.— Art Or Not Art (@Art Or Not Art) 1552522527.0
Still, the FBI has stated that while some of the kids knew about the scam and willingly participated, others were sheltered and had no idea. They had to find out they didn't get into these schools on their own merit when this story broke.
The crimes of these parents have also proven that the admissions process for colleges is fundamentally broken, in a day and age when college has become a near necessity to get ahead, while also becoming the most expensive purchase a child has to decide on.
While it's great to be able to have a laugh, we have to remember the sadness at the heart of the humor.
@chrissyteigen @jenatkinhair @mrmikerosenthal @johnlegend The sad thing is #terrible #influencer role models like t… https://t.co/AbM2VTvQnY— Aaron Daniel Chavez (@Aaron Daniel Chavez) 1552609529.0
@chrissyteigen @jenatkinhair @mrmikerosenthal @johnlegend Sad my daughter spend endless nights working her ASS off… https://t.co/FZQ801PfyD— sarah (@sarah) 1552610211.0
@chrissyteigen @jenatkinhair @mrmikerosenthal @johnlegend Let’s remember this involves children that are going to s… https://t.co/4iMTcgThTH— candace (@candace) 1552602473.0
As the investigation continues and more fallout from the scam plays out, there's going to be a lot of blame going around and a lot of tense emotions over these actions.
At the very least some great jokes can keep us from getting too grim.
People Share The Best Ways To Mess With A Telemarketer
Nobody likes dealing with telemarketers, even the ones calling from legitimate businesses. The last thing most of us want is to be interrupted during our favorite TV show just to hear about a great new insurance policy. Even worse are the scammers who are calling from "Microsoft" because "Your computer has a virus!"
In search of ways to deal with these callers, Reddit user u/conno85 asked:
"What is a clever way to tell telemarketers to f*ck off?"
Being cheated on sucks. What a lot of people don't realize, though, is that it can suck for longer than just that moment, that incident, or even that relationship. Cheating can leave a lasting wound and sow the kinds of trust issues that follow us around for ages. One Reddit user was battling that insecurity from a past relationship when her current fiance started acting more distant. She said she was feeling "really insecure with his change in behavior" even though he gave a valid reason for it. She couldn't let the nagging feeling go, so she created fake profiles on popular dating sites to see if she could find him.
She did. So she turned to Reddit for help.
We'll let her explain:
My fiance and I have been together a year and a half, we moved in with one another a few months ago. Lately he has been a bit distant. I've been cheated on in the past and have been really insecure with his change in behavior. He has assured me he is just stressed about work and because his car broke down a couple weeks ago and he hasn't gotten a replacement yet.
I couldn't let the nagging feeling go, so I did a little investigating. I didn't snoop in his phone or personal accounts, but I made a fake profile on a popular dating site and found him there. He was last online July 1st.
I don't know what to do. How do I confront him? What do I say? Can our relationship be saved? Do I even want to save it?
I feel like I am a wreck right now
Buckle up, guys. You're about to go on a roller coaster of a ride with these responses and updates. Some have been edited for language or clarity.
Got popcorn? Let's do this.
H/T: Reddit