"Wait... Did I Join A CULT?!" (Reddit Stories r/AskReddit)

what was your wait is this a Celt moment I used to work for this company that turned out to be very cultish I probably should have known better but I was young in love they're a well known organization and I thought they did a lot of good things at the time and it was my first job after high school so I didn't really know any better the first red flag was on my first day I had to take an oath and repeat after this guy leading it in a room full of strangers but I just chalked it up to being an old but slightly weird tradition it is a pretty old organization after that we had a mandatory orientation and that's when things got really weird first of all it was being held in practically the middle of nowhere like legitimately out in the woods when we got there we were totally isolated and then they took our phones made us all dress the same walk in a certain way only respond in a certain way followed directions and memorize a bunch of company stuff they used to not feed us until we could chant back the company mission statement without messing it up they also shaved all our heads on the first day and constantly made us do physical exercises as punishment after that things got better but it was still a very weird place to work they preferred to have employees living only around other employees and would even offer to help cover the cost of living if we moved into companies sponsor buildings together we still did a lot of weird company retreats where we could go back out into secluded areas and do company training that was really just glorified camping on company time we also still had to know the mission statement and company guidelines and would get reprimanded if we didn't but they were also super strict about everyone dressing appearing the same I saw people getting into trouble over things like haircuts and dirty shoes anyways the army wasn't so bad overall but I'm glad to be in college now top 10 anime plot twists therapeutic boarding school the first night I got there everyone told me how I'd get used to everything and I did I fell into their trap I didn't realize how messed up it was until the school got shut down by the FBI and the owner got charged with child endangerment and molesting a student when I was in Middle School and Jehovah's Witness family showed up and enrolled their kids in public school one of them a fairly attractive boy started flirting with me I'd always been that weird girl in school so I obviously fell for him he told me he wasn't allowed to date a set built he was allowed to invite people to his church and if I went with him we could hang out and it would be just like a date I went with him and that day they were talking about how if you joined the church you cannot speak with apostates or any of your family not in the witnesses I knew enough about cults for that to be a biggest red flag I was still interested in him though when he asked me to go again I politely declined because churchy stuff had never been my speed instead I suggested we sneak out one night and meet he did and I used my allowance to get us tickets to some movie I didn't see him for years after that his family just vanished the next time I saw him it was in a mall I went up and said hi only for his grandmother to yank him away snarling not to speak with that filthy w but not to be a conspiracy theorist but I think he was only allowed to flirt with me because they were trying to convert me and my family in my community we were pretty well known my father was the fire chief and in a small town like this that's a big deal I still wonder what happened to him though we were pretty well known my father was the fire chief and in a small town like this that's a big deal I still wonder what happened to him though he was assassinated for failing to succeed the arranged marriage between two well-known houses college friend invited me to a service at her new church later told me that the church met in a barn and they spent their last service literally vomiting up their demons 50 or so people wholly vomiting all at once my school's National Honor Society induction involved all of the inductees crowding in a dark room and chanting the National Honor Society pledge while holding lit candles holy crap yes and they make you say a Latin quote when you accept your award posted this elsewhere but I went to my 20th reunion five years ago and the woman who organized it I've known since third grade very nice smart charismatic etc and she told me about her self-help life coaching company I said that sounds cool and maybe I could benefit so she said she would hook it up later I live in LA and when I got back I had an email introducing me to her colleague whose email domain was ass plus angels comm which sounded weird it's a quick trip to their web page and a Google search and I find out she asked trying to get me to join n XIV M which is now all over the news I note right out of her and glad I did as a bunch of them are going to jail now dang this comment was a wake-up call that I've been using read it way too much for the past month because I knew where this comment was going in the first sentence I read your response to the high school reunion ask reddit lol got invited to a business meeting for a life insurance company my wife was looking for business connections trying to get referrals to her company so we weren't it was an MLM life insurance company it was such a creepy cult II place everyone with fake serial killer smiles constantly talking about how much money they're making the worst part was the other guests around us nodding their heads in agreement taking of the Bulls hook line and sinker my wife and I just looked at each other left and stopped answering that guy's phone calls we had actually signed up for some insurance through them when we thought it was a normal company we immediately cancelled and signed up with a real big-name insurance company my now xbf said he signed up for a professional and personal development course I realized it was a cult when he came back with no personality and a whole new set of esoteric jargon and any questions I had about it were above with do you think it's a cult or something you know Apple is considered a cult - I find it interesting that most newer cults air and really religious the old doomsday God's gonna jet sure thing is a lot rarer now it's a bunch of self-help crap that dosent even pretend to be about anything other than success I can tell if this is worse or better I went to a small women's college in Virginia I only stayed a semester because of the group mentality they would constant rituals that were not mandatory but you were weird if you didn't go one alone wasn't weird but collectively it was too much example 1 Founders Day everyone wore white we went to the chapel for the ceremony and then walk 2 miles to the graveyard where the founders were buried we all had to lay roses on the graves and sing the school song for girls in my class tried to commit suicide in the first semester my class only had 64 girls if you discuss transferring the dean of students in the school's counselor would threaten to have you put in a mental hospital for 72 hours ty transferred in secret so no one would find out I didn't even tell my friends I would wake up at 4 a.m. and transfer stuff from my dorm room to be shipped home I was looking into franchise businesses awhile back into one place offered me the chance to buy in and become a business coach they had me take aptitude tests went over my work history and said that I'd be perfect with my business background I went to meet them with a group of other potential franchisees at a presentation in a hotel common for almost all franchise businesses and was like wth this is an m/l and the other people there had next to no business experience and all they were telling us was that we had to find our clients to coach and then read them a script off on iPad app what's scary is that they are an actual registered franchise business I'm not going to say that the script they had didn't have useful things that actually could have helped a small business mainly because I would have had to pony up around $100 K just to see it every other franchise I spoke to noon turned down like a food or educational chain was extremely polite and said best of luck to you these guy just cut off all contact with me and I heard later through my franchise broker that there were P but my username I used to work in hotels we would have those MLM schemes rent our conference rooms all the time their attendees were the rudest people I ever encountered in the business have fun getting scammed butthole I think it's because that's the personality MLMs want those who already think they know everything can be won over by nothing but a little ass kissing when my Latin Club sacrificed a stuffed animal before finals to pray to the gods for good grades had a pretty bad sales position selling TV and Internet and retail stores it was impulse sales meaning you're trying to get people to sign up for two years for something they just learned about five minutes ago anyways there was a ton of rejection but it was a full commission gig so you stayed in the field til you closed therefore it required a boatload of effort and seemingly unending optimism confidence anyways every morning you get fired up with cheers and chants and other activities that involve yelling and team-building this also resulted in their being 10,000 sayings recycled on the daily about sticking through it and taking control of your destiny etc anyways you buy into the system and the energy and that's how they get here one night I was driving home a co-worker and you pay for your own gas another sweet perk and he finds an article why our company is like a cult and though he was laughing on the outside this dude 100% brought it up to be like this crap is crazy right needless to say the article was spot on and he didn't last much longer I quit soon after that dude like 20 years ago I got this door-to-door sales position I was like 19 that sounded like this the start and end of every day was a weird cultish psych up chant and meeting I didn't last long it never felt right to me I once went to my friend's Scentsy party it was so uncomfortable I hate scented candles and all that crap I get headaches from a lot of fragrances and have a terrible sense of smell so I'm not really the target market for Scentsy every woman at the party would oh and a lot each scent I was pretty indifferent to all of them and I really didn't want to spend $50 on a candle but there was so much pressure that I just bought a wax warmer and got the heck out never again bonus you can use those wax warmers to keep cheese warm my parents were part of Amway it is a pyramid scheme of course but it's also extremely religious I would even classify it as its own denomination of Christianity they used to have to do meetings in which they tried to rope friends and family in total strangers they met at work inter doing young way - which began and ended with prayer even if the people weren't religious or Christian but they would literally pray for money and wealth and we worked like a private country within America it even had its own movies music and celebrities you don't see all that from the outside it's not until you're deep into it that you realize how hard they pound this crap into people it's a miracle my parents decided to give it up my doctor loved Amway and prescribed a few supplements from them when the probiotic made me nauseous because of the grape flavor she straight-up told me that there isn't any flavoring when it's in the ingredients she's also currently trying to make me give her $500 for my $90 c-collar insurance paid for going to my first high school football game in South Texas joined him on group when I was having my first child it was a crunchy mom group for those who don't know a crunchy mom is kind of like a hipster mom mom groups can get pretty cult-like I joined the group because of shared ideas bed shirring extended breast feeding cloth diapering stuff like that while I gave up on cloth diapering and those moms went nuts they staged an intervention with me and pretty much wouldn't let me leave until I put my kid in a cloth and that's only some of the things that sounds like a Simpsons episode the one where the hipsters move in next door an intentional community I joined when I was 19 it was a bunch of hippies living in tents on a piece of land charming shirtless dude was the leader the group included several young women although there were a few other dudes and an older woman if I recall correctly but after I moved in I discovered that one of the other guys after having a disagreement with the leader had gone missing he packed up his car full of all his belongings then was nowhere to be found his car full of stuff was still there they searched the property for his body contemplated calling the police but decided not to instead they decided to hold hands around the fire and get high went to high school orientation with my son there was a presentation phase where electives and clubs got to talk and tell everyone what they were about a group of really excited kids get up on stage and start talking about all the great places their club goes to and all of the competitions without ever saying anything about what they actually do before they get done talking my son watches me pull my phone out and search his Decorah cult when typing is Decker a Celt was the top recommend additional search I don't think he is going to join it's supposed to be a club where you learn business stuff or something like that but it sounds like the one at my high school that was just an excuse to get away from parents and party I was part of a second life role place in years ago that was really dark and abusive even though people swore it wasn't and people kept going back even though they'd leave even more battered than they already were everyone was convinced it had once been a wonderful place and if they just tried a little they could make it great again no one ever succeeded of course after going back and leaving a few times myself I finally left for good but something always bothered me that I could never explain why did everyone there feel like the city was this like they somehow I owned a stake in the city like somehow the city had become a part of their very soul even though it was just a stupid RP sim years later I was researching abuse psychology and found a list of cult raised I was able to check off just about every single box god damned place was run like a cult turns out most RP Sims are freaked that crap sounds like the Gurian stuff you have been visited by the sniper kit er good aim and also accuracy will come your way if you comment snipe well kit are a few are new to the channel you can subscribe I publish new videos every day until then check another video or don't either way have a great day you magnificent people [Music]

Channel: Updoot Everything

Views: 121,556

Rating: 4.8911242 out of 5

Keywords: #updootst, updoot, reddit, r/askreddit, askreddit, ask reddit, r/, \r, r\, best of reddit, reddit stories, reddit story, top posts, funniest posts, funny, funny posts, funny reddit stories, funny askreddit, reddit funny, askreddit funny, askreddit stories, storytime, reddit stories 2019, people of reddit, sub, reddit cringe, karma, memes, comment awards, dankify, meme awards, toadfilms, updoot everything, updoot reddit, chill, cult, scientology, joined a cult, stuck in a cult, conspiracy

Id: UI7EBwQQC04

Length: 15min 11sec (911 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 11 2019