Why You Need To Start a Cult NOW!
Welcome to Wonderland, how will you leverage the chaos?
We are living in a time of great instability—which, historically speaking, is when all the interesting stuff happens. Revolutions, renaissances, surrealist art, cults.
Naturally, we have the culture wars. Two ideological factions so far apart they might as well be speaking in different species of ape—say, gorillas and bonobos. Add in algorithmic echo chambers, clickbait headlines, and a collective attention span trained to chase dopamine pellets, and you’ve got a society that only responds to digital shock therapy.
It’s not really news anymore—it’s narrative cosplay. Cartoon villains now craft real policy. Conspiracy theories are passed around like covered dishes: lukewarm, highly questionable, and somehow comforting because they whisper, “You are special. You understand what others don’t.”
(Also: the Earth is flat again. How delightfully retro.)
Meanwhile, actual experts—you know, the ones who spent ten years earning degrees, sifting through data, defending theses, navigating peer review, and cultivating the unsexy discipline of thinking slowly and precisely—are dismissed like confused wizards.
“Thank you, Doctor, but we found a guy on YouTube with six-pack abs and a supplement line. He seems more qualified.”
Welcome back to the Dark Ages—but now with Ai generated psyops and snake oil branded to your sense of identity
But here’s the twist: instability is fertile ground.
History tells us this is when new orders emerge. The Amish grew out of the Protestant Reformation. The Quakers out of the English Civil War. Bauhaus and Dadaism erupted from postwar wreckage.
Great weirdness always follows great collapse.
We are, in short, living in the part of the story where the mushrooms bloom from the manure.
So—what shall we do?
Option 1: Start a Cultural Era
Modernism is dead. Postmodernism is exhausted. Metamodernism? Just easily offended postmodernism with emo feelings. But nothing’s officially named yet. If you’ve got a mildly viral Substack and a clever phrase, you could brand the era.
Ad Hoc Modernism, anyone?
Option 2: Start a Cult
It’s never been easier. People are famished for ritual, clarity, belonging—and a charismatic leader with iconic hair and a half-remembered Bob Marley quote. You just have to keep the fruit hanging so low it practically drops into their mouths, feed them grapes, the super sweet and seedless kind and make every follower feel like they’ve ascended simply by finding you. Just convince them that they are superior to Taylor Swift by bringing up her dating past.
Just remember: it’s not technically a cult if the outfits are coordinated and the aesthetic slaps. It’s a niche.
Option 3: Launch an Art Movement
Think: a backlash to AI-generated blandness.
Call it Texturism—art that can only be understood through the fingertips. Or Authenticism—where the brushstrokes are chaotic, the poetry unpublishable, but at least it wasn’t written by ChatGPT.
Bonus points if your gallery smells like “ Eau de touched grass”
Option 5: Start an Underground Newspaper
Make it only available offline—but wash your hands well. Nothing says rabble-rouser like ink-stained fingers and the faint aroma of free speech, undisturbed by comment sections or real-time interruptions by emboldened trolls.
Print it on actual paper. Distribute it in coffee shops, bathroom stalls, and under windshield wipers like it’s a manifesto on the brink of revolution. Make it dangerous by telling the truth. Make it irresistible by adding a crossword (old-timer Wordle) free parking coupons. Make it actively offensive by printing it in Papyrus.
If people hate the content, invite them to submit a letter to the editor—then only publish the most thoughtful and original ones, just to assert dominance through discernment. The goal?
Cultivate a sense of romanticism for intellectual honesty and high standards, become a paper cut of truth in a screen-obsessed world, and zap some nuance back into the zeitgeist.
Honestly, the options are endless. Because when the center doesn’t hold, the edges get to play and reshape the whole fucking world.
And if you’ve ever wanted to mold the world into the shape of your madness, this is your moment!
The chaos is here. The Red Queen has lost her head.
The scarlet mushrooms are blooming and getting their spots & the rabbit is always rushing to his very important position at the White House.
What are you planting in this curious Wonderland?