it’s possible to engage with certain cultish groups, knowing that at the end of the day, when you come home or close the app, strip off the group’s linguistic uniform, and start speaking like yourself again, you’re not all in.

most modern-day movements leave enough space for us to decide what to believe, what to engage with, and what language to use to express ourselves.

Some say people who join cults are “lost.” But all human beings are lost to some degree. Life is disorderly and confusing for absolutely everyone. A more thoughtful way to think about how people find themselves in precariously cultish scenarios is that these folks are actively searching to be found, and—because of variations in genes and life

To MLMers, the word “entrepreneur” represents not just a career but a “morally superior way of being in the economy,”

The way a person communicates can tell us a lot about who they’ve been associating with, who they’ve been influenced by. How far their allegiance goes.

Starting in the 2010s, America’s fastest-growing companies in general became the ones that offered not only desirable products and services, but also personal transformation, belonging, and answers to big life questions like: Who am I in this increasingly isolated world? How do I connect with people around me? How do I find my most authentic self

white feminist #girlboss messaging that can be found in MLMs.

thought-terminating clichés squash independent thinking.

Impulsivity, says Bosley, is a common diagnostic indicator of people’s vulnerability to fraud.