Sounds Cultish: Amanda Montell on Fanatical Language

A Little Bit Culty

Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames

True Crime, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2021

⏱️ 86 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A Little Bit Culty – Sticks and stones break bones, but words build entire cult empires. In this episode, Sarah and Nippy sit down with Amanda Montell to discuss how cultish groups and social media gurus use language to manipulate followers and cultivate power. Amanda is a writer, language scholar, and the author of two critically acclaimed books: Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism and Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language (HarperWave). Her books have earned praise from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and others, and Amanda is currently developing Wordslut for television with FX Studios. Amanda's writing has been featured in Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Teen Vogue, Refinery29, and Who What Wear, where she formerly served as the Features & Beauty Editor. She is also the creator and co-host of the comedy-cult podcast, Sounds Like A Cult. Find her on Instagram @amanda_montell. The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. And also they want you to know that any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. A Little Bit Culty is proud to support the # IGOTOUT project, which empowers survivors of cultic abuse to share their stories online as a catalyst for education, prevention, and healing. Learn more at igotout.org For more information on A Little Bit Culty and co-hosts Sarah Edmondson and Nippy “Anthony” Ames, visit our official website at alittlebitculty.com. Follow us on Instagram & Twitter @alittlebitculty ~ CREDITS: Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames Production Partner: Citizens of Sound Producer: Will Retherford Associate Producer: Jess Tardy Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin Additional Music Score by Will Retherford Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The views and opinions expressed by a little bit culty are those of the hosts
0:04.1	and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast.
0:08.1	Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors
0:12.1	are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion,
0:15.8	group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything.
0:19.8	Hey everyone, I'm Sarah Edminson.
0:31.5	Hi, I'm Anthony Aimee, Sarah's husband, aka Nippy.
0:34.4	And we're here to talk about things that are just a little bit culty.
0:38.6	We were in a cult and we woke up and it was all captured in a
0:42.4	docu-series called the Bow on HBO, also in my memoir, Scarred.
0:46.4	And then we made this podcast. I guess you'd say we're technically a cult show now.
0:50.8	But not your typical cult show. We're not so much about the grizzly details.
0:54.4	We are about kicking the doors down on the shame and the secrets that make these
0:58.8	culty things so destructive. We're here to have frank conversations about how cool things can
1:03.6	cross over into the cultiverse. How does spot trouble when you see it?
1:07.1	And what happens when it comes to recovering from something culty if that happens to you?
1:11.1	Each week we'll call on experts, advocates, fellow survivors and whistleblowers to help us
1:16.2	unpack what's going on in the cultiverse. We're here to share what we know
1:19.6	on everything from red flags to resiliency and to have a few laughs along the way.
1:23.8	Because sometimes you gotta laugh. Thank God.
1:26.8	Now we have a lot to cover, so let's get this show rolling, shall we?
1:29.9	A little bit culty season two drops new episodes every Monday on the Acast app,
	...

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