Lessons from growing up cult-adjacent and the greatness of weirdness.
Most people don’t know that I was raised in what was essentially a soft cult. If you’ve ever seen the documentary Shiny Happy People… yeah, I was one of the kids in the choir at the IBLP conference. Growing up in a world of ankle-length khaki skirts, courtship culture, and the belief that rock music was demonic definitely had its drawbacks (insert gratitude for my therapist here). But as I’m discovering with each passing year, it also had its silver linings. With all the talk about cult-like brands and culture these days, I find myself applying my experience to my work quite a lot, and it’s become pretty fun. As it turns out, enduring soft cults and beloved brands have some interesting things in common. Let’s dig in.
The Hive Mind
Every good cult, pseudo or not, is really good at something: creating hive-like unity that is galvanized by a shared system of belief and subsequent meaning. Some really smart people have covered this in great detail, but at the end of the day it’s essentially: signal belief, attach meaning, and create belonging. But there’s a flip side to this tactic: how this system informs who you’re not.
In my upbringing, conformity to post-modern cultural norms was framed as the opposing belief because it was attached to big things like religious compromise and even spiritual doom. For today’s maximalists (some of whom are definitely Baggu enthusiasts), the enemy is choosing sterile rooms and the color beige because it means a loss of personal expression and individuality. This vehicle of applied belief is powerful because it creates a perception of distinction and separation. It creates other-ness. These people are like me, those people over there (points with expert judgy-ness), are not.
In an odd juxtaposition, “us vs. them” also becomes a vehicle for stickiness — holders of The BeliefTM proactively cling to each other and signal who they are not just as much as who they are, while developing lexicons to signal and govern adherence to who they are (but that’s a blog for another time).
Brand application: Have you considered who your customers don’t see themselves as? What do they not believe in? Let it sharpen your belief.
The Other
Back to me, briefly. The other funny thing about growing up in a soft cult is that one day, you decide to leave and become your own person, and then you find yourself on the other side of other-ness (!). Being The Other is not a very comfortable experience. But in time, I’ve learned to embrace it as a sort of superpower.
You see, being on the outside of any kind of norm teaches you curiosity and resilience. It helps you approach situations with a kind of levity that comes from unimposed assumptions. Every interaction becomes an opportunity to learn more about the world around you and the incredible variety of people living in it — to allow yourself and others to take up more room, and to be themselves. All it takes is a little bit of intrigue and the willingness to try. (As my incredible fellow Moxies Charles and Matt have recently pointed out, friction is also a powerful creative tool. More on that in a second.) By leaving your dogma behind, you might actually discover the world is bigger, brighter, and more delightfully complex than you thought it was: opportunity abounds.
Brand application: Are there different ways of seeing customers, opportunities, or context when you loosen assumptions? Approach with openness and curiosity, and be invigorated by what you find.
Embrace the Power of Being Not Cool
The great thing about having never belonged to anything remotely perceived as cool or normal growing up is that it frees you to be anything you actually want to be. I get to practice choosing who I am while releasing fear of judgement, and as it turns out, that’s a pretty liberating experience.
Today, people and brands alike are being constantly pushed into homogeneity, likely at rates humanity has not experienced since the beginning of our existence. One could say it’s pretty unnatural. But being the Other isn’t really favored by the powers of Private Equity or algorithms or mass social currency. It doesn’t look nice and tidy on an annual budget plan or in your feed. It feels… risky.
It can feel that way for good reason: we all want to be ourselves, and simultaneously we all want to belong. After all, our mammal brains haven’t caught up to spreadsheets and our nervous systems still think we’re being hunted by giant panthers or something. Sticking out like a sore thumb is evolutionarily a pretty shit survival strategy.
The thing is, cult-like conformity and cult-like belonging are separated by a powerful distinguisher: the power of choice.
That’s where the tension of the Other lives. And that’s where it becomes something really transformative: the willingness to be potentially perceived as different, uncool, uncommon, weird, not-trending, and not belonging. Because while all of those things might be true, they’re often not, at least not in the so-scary-this-will-eat-me kind of way. Why? Being yourself is surprisingly uncommon these days, and it’s something we all not-so-secretly crave. By choosing to actually exist outside the norm, you invite others to do the same, creating a belonging that is powerful because it’s chosen, not forced.
Brand application: What’s a choice that feels too “out there” for your brand? Does it have the potential to signal a distinct belief or identity that creates an invitation to consciously belong?
Where the Magic Happens
To sum it all up, being raised in a religious pseudo-cult centered around conformity taught me a few things about identity and belonging along the way. In a world where belonging has been shaped to mean being the same, choosing to be not-the-same opens up a whole world of possibility. Being weird means embracing your idiosyncrasies, unique views and experiences, and sharing them with others who are willing to do the same. (It’s the difference between brands creating weird trends and copying other people’s weird trends but, cough, I digress.) Because, for better or worse, our weirdness is what makes us human. It’s that tension where the magic happens.
So go there. Start your own weird little brand cult. You might find that you make some enemies — not everyone will belong with you, and that’s okay. But you might also find that you’re contributing meaning, not just function or profit, to the vehicle of your brand. You could even find yourself feeling more alive in your life and your work.
It's the rodeo
Yes, fight, shame, drives you insane
Hold on now, 'cause we still got time, honey
It's 4 AM, and we're laughing in the gas station
You're calling my name, it's the sweetest thing
Holding up a t-shirt says, "God Loves Weirdos"
And damn, I'm still in love with you”
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