What's an example of a hobby or social group where if you try to tell others about it to see if they want to join, it always sounds like you're trying to recruit them into a cult?
What's an example of a hobby or social group where if you try to tell others about it to see if they want to join, it always sounds like you're trying to recruit them into a cult?
For me, it's social dancing, specifically West Coast Swing. Because while there is just social dancing, and some who only do it, there's a bit of a culture of competition, and it has its own governing body for determining where you place in competitions, and when it does sound like a cult when described.
Hexbear
I absolutely don't want to try to convince anyone I know to join Hexbear.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. They're not a jam band, they're a band that jams. Very fine distinction.
Oh jeez, I'm the most annoying person in the entire universe about this. Everyone actually likes king gizz, some just haven't listened to the right album yet.
Oh my god, I've been thinking about this on and off since weeks. I need to make playlists for my friends showcasing stuff they would like. But there's so much to choose from!
A friend of mine got obsessed with KGATLW and he would seriously evangelize about it every chance he'd get.
Tbh, fair, because King Gizz rocks hard as shit, and they have something for almost anyone.
Any sort of TTRPG stuff. Most people would enjoy it, but explaining it does sound weird to someone who's never participated
"who wants to study religion and metaphysics?" [everyone running for the door like i'm charles manson] no wait like we just hang out smoke weed and read stuff like the timae- [a sawed off shotgun levelled at my head]
It do be like that sometimes. What a lot of people don't realise is that everyone has a metaphysics, the question is have you interrogated it, thought it through etc.
As always, the alternative to philosophy is not no philosophy, but instead really bad philosophy.
I feel the same way about theology and religion: whether people like it or not, the religious impulse is a cultural universal. Do we utilise it for good, or surrender the territory without a fight to religious conservatives?
See the big brain move is to start an actual cult and then get the cult into that hobby
Tabletop miniature games. >!Except we probably are a cult send help they wont let me do anything except basecoat.!<
This gets double bad if there's two of you (tabletop games) and one of them.
Acro yoga and contact improv, but that probably has more to do with everyone being mega hippies that probably are already in a cult
contact improv
I only play flag improv after my injury
I like to play full contact nude improv if the vibes are right
BJJ is notorious for this
Many martial arts have a heavy lifestyle component to them, so they feel kind of culty to people who compartmentalize those bits of their life and other parts. But if you use your martial art as meditation or spiritual practice, you do you.
Emacs
Table top role playing
barbershop quartet idk
Leftists thought. "You live in the metaphorical Matrix and almost everything you think you know about the world and how it works is wrong" is a tough conversation
"Your entire conception of the world and your place in it is part of an elaborate prank that spans the history of all hitherto existing societies."
Oh I didn't see the word hobby
I just went on a commie wall of text posting spree sort of venting about the current political conditions in the US regarding people cucking up to either the Dems or the Reps and after posting I sort of looked back and realized it does look a bit culty if you are still drinking the proverbial Kool-aid lol
Ballroom Dancing
Me trying to get my friend into a niche modding community of a dead and de-listed music mixing game just because he once DJ'd.
D&D
All of them, but also hobbies don't have the support networks to take care of vulnerable people as a hook, so it's just the negative parts of cultish aesthetics (e.g. 40k players don't provide much housing or affirmations in order to draw people into 40k)