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pineislandI feel bad for anyone who followed this community for my fanfic. I'll at least try to keep my annotations under a cut.
I picked Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult kind of at random; I don't use TikTok and I've never really been into video at all - I don't follow any YouTubers, etc.
… but I was, you know, in a cult(🔒) so I'm interested in cult documentaries. (Scientology and the Aftermath saved my sanity, if not my life, after I got out, even tho I wasn't a Scientologist.)
Two things have stood out to me so far: 1) I don't know if I would've thought of this myself, but it's weird that Miranda and others still in the cult appear in the documentary maybe without their consent? They never speak directly to the interviewers or anything like that, it's all content lifted from their social media? This thought inspired by the "Maintenance Phase" episode about The Way Down docuseries.
2) At one point, one of the women who left the first Shekinah Church cult (also, ew, that word does not belong to Christians) tells Miranda's parents that they should push back against the cult when they see her because otherwise that gives her the impression that what she's doing is OK - but that's exactly what you shouldn't do. The most important thing is to keep the lines of communication open - even if the cult member cuts you off, let them know that you'll always pick up the phone when they call. So I don't love that the documentary left that statement unchallenged, especially as the speaker had the air of authority as someone who left a cult… but while someone's in deep, they won't hear you and being presented with information that opposes their belief system may actually push them in deeper. Don't do that. You can help them do that later.
I picked Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult kind of at random; I don't use TikTok and I've never really been into video at all - I don't follow any YouTubers, etc.
… but I was, you know, in a cult(🔒) so I'm interested in cult documentaries. (Scientology and the Aftermath saved my sanity, if not my life, after I got out, even tho I wasn't a Scientologist.)
Two things have stood out to me so far: 1) I don't know if I would've thought of this myself, but it's weird that Miranda and others still in the cult appear in the documentary maybe without their consent? They never speak directly to the interviewers or anything like that, it's all content lifted from their social media? This thought inspired by the "Maintenance Phase" episode about The Way Down docuseries.
2) At one point, one of the women who left the first Shekinah Church cult (also, ew, that word does not belong to Christians) tells Miranda's parents that they should push back against the cult when they see her because otherwise that gives her the impression that what she's doing is OK - but that's exactly what you shouldn't do. The most important thing is to keep the lines of communication open - even if the cult member cuts you off, let them know that you'll always pick up the phone when they call. So I don't love that the documentary left that statement unchallenged, especially as the speaker had the air of authority as someone who left a cult… but while someone's in deep, they won't hear you and being presented with information that opposes their belief system may actually push them in deeper. Don't do that. You can help them do that later.
