Perfect Spaces, Perfect Places

The difference between cult and culty

In today’s post:

• Cult Adjacent Coach Stormy & The Low Vibrational BBQ

• The Big Post Perfect Spaces, Perfect Places

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Coach Stormy & The Low Vibrational BBQ

Last week the internet was buzzing with critiques of Coach Stormy and her mean comments towards a women’s empowerment participant, Tammy. In the video Stormy tells Tammy her “overfilled” plate is low-vibrational, unroyal, and essentially unbecoming. In the background several other women nod in agreement with Stormy’s comments, including Tammy. Since the video has gone viral viewers have called out Stormy’s condescending and nonsensical language. Viewers have also begun to label the retreat participants cult followers. Based on what is shown in that video and Tammy’s response plate (eye roll) I would not label the group a cult. Have these women traveled to a private location and freely given their money to a rude leader? Yes. Does that mean they are part of a cult? No. While I understand where the impulse to label a group doing strange things as “culty,” isn’t always accurate or useful. In fact, if this Stormy is conducting some shady or predatory business practices it is probably more productive to identify those behaviors as such.

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Perfect Spaces, Perfect Places: Are Ultra-Planned Communities Culty?

“The ambulances turn their sirens off and the funeral cars are unmarked because no one wants to be reminded of the inevitability of death.” - Benedict Brook

A couple of weeks ago I recommended Some Kind of Heaven about The Villages, a hyper-planned senior living community in Central Florida. Some have argued that residents are part of a “Trump cult” because of how well he polled among residents. Others have written about how creepy it is that the community demands constant cheerfulness and high energy. The commitment to this utopian façade requires extreme measures such as unmarked funeral cars,  newspapers and television shows that only feature positive reporting, and endless margarita happy hours. 

While these characteristics of the Villages are certainly odd, the accusations that they are culty need to be analyzed. What is it about planned and intentional communities that set off alarm bells in the popular imagination? These communities certainly ignite curiosity in audiences as Some Kind of Heaven is only one of three documentaries about The Villages to have been produced in recent years. The basis for labeling this and similar communities cults may be linked to the fear of a singular sinister and controlling force. 

Some Kind of Heaven addresses these concerns by featuring the Villages owner, Gary Morse. Morse talks directly to audiences, lounges in a pool, and talks about furthering his father’s vision for the community. Although his presence in the film is brief, situating him alongside the film’s primary subjects strips viewers of any cabal-like presumptions they might have about him. Seeing and hearing from him reveals an aged Morse as a capitalist who enjoys the social and political currency wealth affords him.

Where might the idea that ultra-tidy sheltered communities are culty originate?