S1E20 - The Culties (CoJW season 1 recap)

0:21 Kayla: Now we're recording, so you can do your testes. Testes. One, two, three. Chris: Usually I sing. Kayla: Yeah, you do. Well, we're recording, so let's do the episode that I didn't have to prep for now. Chris: You prepped for it. We both prepped for it. This took some prep. And actually, the, like, the whole season is prep for this episode. Kayla: So you're saying words that should go into the episode now? Chris: I feel like. So. Okay, so as many times as I've had listened to the way that you. And actually also I edit the episodes, we always start with something like, are we recording now? Is it now?

1:05 Kayla: Well, that's just, like, what, radiolab? Chris: I know. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying, like. So my assumption is basically at this point that, like, as soon as we're recording that it's fair game. Kayla: Right? Chris: Okay, hold on. Let's reset. Welcome to cult. Or just weird. Kayla: I'm Chris. Chris: And I'm also Chris. Kayla: Oh, that was supposedly funny. Chris: I thought that was funnier, that one. Kayla: You like twisted the twist. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: I'm Kayla, by the way. Chris: Oh, yeah. Really? Kayla: Huh. Chris: Oh, man. I'm sure everybody was super confused. Kayla: We were all very confused about it. Chris: Yeah, well, it's cleared up. Kayla: I want to be the first one to say I'm gonna beat you in saying, welcome to our 20th episode of Culture.

1:45 Chris: Just weird number. Bente. Kayla: Good job. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Chris is bilingual. Chris: Thanks. Kayla: He's not. Don't let him fool you, Bente. Chris: Supreme. Del taco. Kayla: Get out. And this is not just our 20th episode. This is also our season one finale. Our season final, which we didn't even close. Chris: We didn't even plan that it was the 20th episode. It just happened that way. And I can't even tell you, like, how much that gives my, like, oddly satisfying brain satisfaction. Kayla: It's just like, it. You know what it's like? It's like when the dvd logo hits the corner. Exactly. That's what this is. This episode. Chris: Or that TikTok where that guy has that vacuum cleaner and it just fits right under his bookshelf just perfectly. Mmm. So good.

2:27 Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Yeah, like that. Kayla: So this episode is about perfection, really? Chris: Yeah. Kayla: That perfect feeling. Chris: We are perfect. Kayla: Do you wanna kinda explain what we're doing with this episode? We're doing something a little different this week. Chris: Yeah. So we're doing a clips show where we pretend like there's. We have some sort of pretense for, like, you know, remembering stuff, and then we just play clips. Right? Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Isn't that. Kayla: Do you remember the Seinfeld clip shows? They wouldn't even do that. It was literally just. It would be like, jerry. And he was, like, putting on a jacket, and he'd go, oh, hi. Welcome to the Seinfeld hundredth episode. Chris: No. Kayla: Yes. It's horrible. It's literally him talking to the audience and being like. And we like to talk about family. And they'll go to, like, a whole bunch of clips of, like, not even his mom yelling at him.

3:17 Chris: That sounds like something that, like, people are like, what are we gonna do for the clip show? And Larry David was probably just like, let's just have Jerry introduce it and play some clips. Yeah, no, we need it to be, like, a frame of some kind. Eh. Kayla: People are there for the clips. They're not there for this frame story. Chris: Holy shit. Kayla: Yeah, that's what it is. So we're doing slightly more work than that. Chris: Oh, so it's not clips. So, yes, I'll introduce what this is. For our 20th and season finale episode, we're doing the culties. Is that. Is that what they play at the oscars? Right. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Why don't we. Oh, can we get some Oscar music and play it, like, right now? That's what we should do. Let's. I mean, like, splice it in, though, not. Okay. You're just gonna play it. So welcome to the culties, the first annual gala extravaganza. Walking down the red carpet, we have. Oh, look at that. Is that.

4:23 Kayla: We're probably not allowed to. Is that Charles Manson? Chris: Is that Jay Z Knight there? Oh, I love. What is she wearing? Is she wearing Gucci teal? Kayla: Swan is draped in purple, and her aura is a wonderful azure color. We can't play this music. Chris: Why not? Who gives a shit? Kayla: This is the. This is, like, fair use, Kayla. This is original Oscars Academy of Horror. Chris: Music fair motherfucking news. Come at me, bro. Kayla: All right. Welcome to the culties. Chris: Oh, is it. Is that John from stepping out of that limo? Oh, he looks gorgeous. Kayla: John from would not be cut dead in a limo. Are you kidding me? Chris: John from no longer alive. Kayla: Jon from would drive himself with powered solely, actually.

5:06 Chris: That's a good point. Right? Oh, boy. Kayla: He would definitely drive a dodge. Chris: So anyway, welcome to the culties, in which we basically just talk about the season, right? But with a framework of. We have a bunch of categories, and per the usual cult or just weird format, Kayla and I have kept our individual categories that we want to rank the cults from the season and kept them secret from each other. Kayla: We're giving our episodes awards from us? Chris: Yes. No, no. Hold up, hold up. Kayla: Yes. Chris: No, we're not giving the episodes awards, okay? We're giving awards to the topics, to the people. Like, we'll send teal a little, you know, a little trophy thing.

5:53 Kayla: I'm not sending nothing to teal. Chris: What would our trophy be like? It wouldn't be. Obviously it wouldn't be, you know, a gold mister Oscar. Kayla: I think it would be the w from our logo. Like a gold version. Chris: Like a gold w with the I? Kayla: Yeah. Chris: So it would just be. Wouldn't that be the weirdies, then? Should these be the weirdies? Kayla: I guess it could be the c. Then it just looks like Coco Chanel. Chris: Maybe it should be just the whole thing. I don't know. We'll work on it. We'll work on it because we have to get a bunch of these cranking. We're about to give them out. Why is it. No, no, that's not true. Kayla: You brought her up. Chris: All right, who goes first?

6:34 Kayla: Before we jump into our culties, I think we should just do. I'm gonna just do a quick reminder, a quick recap of all of the incredible topics were able to cover this year. In order. Chris: Yes. Kayla: So we started the year off with best friends. Chris: Yes, as best friends, we started the year. What was the topic? Kayla: I'm not doing this. Chris: Well, I'm sorry, but at the oscars, they start. Kayla: I'm not bantering. Chris: They start with stand up. Kayla: Yeah. And it's dumb and bad. Chris: Yeah, it's Billy Crystal, isn't it? Still, when's the last time he hosted? Like twelve years ago? Kayla: Well, last year. I don't know. I don't watch the oscars. So we started the year covering best friends animal sanctuary. And then the next episode you talked about Romtha and her school of Enlightenment. Then we talked about the city of Irvine. Then we talked about the game Star Citizen, which I'm giving you that for Christmas. Five. Fifth.

7:34 Chris: No, you're not. Cause I don't. Kayla: Oh, he doesn't exist. Yeah, I'm getting you nothing for Christmas. Then our fifth topic was the aforementioned teal swan. Chris: Solid, solid episode. Kayla: Then the one after that was the aforementioned Jon from cargo cults. Then we had our massive. Was it a two part episode or was it just a huge episode of 3301 Cicada? Chris: I think it was just one, like, nine hour hardcore history length episode. Kayla: Then we talked about Mary Kay. Then we talked about the rest of the. Chris: Oh, yes, mlms. There will be more mlms to come in the future. And that was the episode where we had our very first interview on the show. And we two of them.

8:17 Kayla: Oh, yeah, we did. Chris: We had miss Nancy Carlson and Tracy Conan. Kayla: Then we talked about the restaurant loving hut run by supreme master Ching Hai. Then we talked about. Chris: I get to eat for that one. Kayla: So that was the best. Then we talked about your favorite topic. You know what it is? Chris: Why is this my favorite topic? Kayla: World Church of the creator. Chris: Oh, because it was horrible. Kayla: Horrible. Worst topic. I'm sad. We did. Chris: But then we talked about nice stuff. Kayla: Remember we did talk about nice stuff in that episode. It was nice. Chris: That was nice. Kayla: Then we did a definite two parter where we talked about tulpas. Chris: Yep. Yep. Kayla: That was long after that was insurance. Chris: Fascinating. Kayla: When you talked about Woodman.

8:57 Chris: Wow, our frickin podcast is boring. Kayla: Then the next one was spirit Halloween. So it was just about the retail apocalypse. Chris: So we talked about racists, insurance, business. Kayla: Practices, best business practices. And then DNA sequencing epigenetics with MTA. Jafar. Mt. Jafar. Chris: Mt Jafar. Okay. Is how you pronounce it according to Ben lynch. Kayla: We had fun. Chris: And that was when we had our second interview on the show. Kayla: Yep. Chris: Doctor David Gorski, who was an excellent and great interview person. What do you call him? Interviewee. Kayla: Interviewee. Expert. Expert witness. Chris: Expert witness. Kayla: So we had. We covered 14 topics this year, which is pretty good.

9:38 Chris: That's a lot. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Just jamming those ideas down your ear holes. You're welcome. Kayla: Let's start giving these awards. Chris: I mean, since you just did the whole list of episode topics. Yeah, I guess I could kick us off if you would like. Okay. Kayla: Actually, can I go? Because I want to make sure. Chris: Oh, my God. I literally just asked. Kayla: I want to do this on, and I worry that you will have it. I don't want you to take it from me. Chris: That's why we did a whole bunch is because we assume. I'm guarantee that's gonna happen with some of them. Right? That's very selfish of you. Go ahead. Kayla: Yeah. Okay. So for our first cultie of the evening, I would like to know which cult would you most like to join?

10:23 Chris: Oh my God. That is definite. Not only oh my God. Not only is that on my list, that was my number one in my stack ranks. That literally would have been the first thing I said. Kayla: Well, I'm glad that I first. Chris: Oh, God, we're gonna have all the same shit. Kayla: That's fine. So the culture for this category, I'm presenting it not as which cult or just weird would you want to join? It's. Which thing have we deemed a cult? Would you most want to join? Chris: Oh, really? Kayla: Yes. Chris: No, it can't be any topic. Kayla: No. Chris: What? Kayla: That can be a different one. This is cult because which cult or just weird do you want to join? Like you're gonna say, like, I just want to be friends with the tulpas. Like, that's boring.

11:09 Chris: Okay. So it's probably creativity. By the way, I'm gonna write down our answers just so we. We have them recorded throughout all time. Kayla: Thank you. Chris: Yeah. Okay, so if you had to join. Kayla: A cult, which one would it be? Chris: I'm actually gonna one up you here and I'm gonna say, most like to join. And least like to join. Kayla: Okay. Chris: Although actually, maybe that's super easy because. Kayla: The one that's creativity. Creativity is absolutely the least we want to join. Chris: Oh, shit. So here's the thing I don't remember is what our. Kayla: What we call things. Chris: What we call things. Kayla: Well, it's fine. Maybe it should just be which topic. Which topic do you most want to join? Chris: We should record what we do.

11:50 Kayla: Yeah, we should. Chris: But, like, we already record, so I. Kayla: Guess write it down. Chris: Write it down. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: I feel like Star Citizen is a strong candidate, which is why I asked that, because I don't remember whether we call them a cult or I think we didn't call them a cult. Kayla: Right. Chris: So that would have been strong. I think tulpas would have been strong if it was a cult. I think we determined that cargo cults weren't actually cults. Kayla: Right. We were split on 3301. Chris: Oh, were split on that one. I mean, that seems like a good one because that's like a fun puzzle. Kayla: Right. I mean, I think that for me it's 3301. And then the second is either best friends or loving hut. But I think 3301 is. Chris: But it's like your joint. Like, for those, it feels like you, like, I want to eat at loving hut and I want to go volunteer again at best friends, but I'm not sure I want to, like, join the cult.

12:41 Kayla: I want to worship Satan and the devil. Chris: Oh, right. I guess they are pretty rad relationship, but they're done with that stuff now. So I guess. Kayla: So they say. So they front facingly, say allegedly. I don't believe it. And then with loving hut, like, oh, so you own a restaurant and do yoga and be a vegan. Like, that's. I want that anyway. Chris: That's actually if I joined their cult, I don't think I'd be able to eat meat anymore. So I guess I'm gonna go with best friends. Kayla: All right. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Congratulations. Best friends in 3301, you each win a culty. Chris: Yeah. Cause. I don't know. Cause best friends, like, yeah, they have some weird shit going on, but then you just get to like pet dogs and cats and like live in the beautiful Utah wilderness. Kayla: Right? Right. Chris: Ain't nothing wrong with that. Okay, so what if we did least like to join but we discounted creativity?

13:27 Kayla: Well, then it's like, mmm, shit, then it's interesting, right? Chris: Is it teal? Are you sure? Kayla: No. Chris: Are you sure it's not Romtha shit? Actually it's probably teal. Kayla: No, I think it's. I think it's MTG far for me. Chris: Really? Kayla: I think I would. I think. I almost think that's more immoral just. Chris: Because of how widespread or what? Cause like, I don't know, man. Teal is like possibly good at getting. Kayla: People to kill themselves, but she's also. We've been presented with evidence that she also provides a service for people who are in crisis and then can utilize her techniques to not.

14:09 Chris: Whereas like we've also had. There's. I read accounts of people that defend Ben lynch and say, like, helped me with my medical issue, blah, blah. Kayla: Yeah, but they're wrong. Chris: I mean, maybe so are the people that say that about teal for sure. Kayla: Maybe they were some reason. If you're presenting yourself. Because she doesn't present. She says, like, I'm a medical whatever. She's like a fucking kook. She's not presenting herself as Doctor fake ass doctor Ben lynch. Like, she's not calling herself Doctor Swan. Chris: So she's like, she's being super forthcoming and not saying anything that's not true. Like, I have access to all human knowledge. Kayla: No, that's not all. I. But like, it's. Chris: I'm just saying she's giving the.

14:50 Kayla: She's not, she's not. Yes, yes. Here's why. We've talked so many times about how the most dangerous woo is the woo that is like the most on the knife's edge and Mt. Jafar is way more than they said. Chris: That's fair. But what I'm. I think what I'm contesting though is that I think she is still putting on a false mantle of authority. Sure, for sure. But she says she has magic. She says she has access to. It doesn't matter if she says she's a doctor or not. She says she's better than a doctor. She says she's. Kayla: And that's fine. Chris: Access to all of the knowledge of all human experience of all time. And if you go to a doctor, you're probably just gonna get. Kayla: And that still feels less immoral to me than somebody being like, then. Then somebody being a fool fucking leech in an established scientific field. Like, if you are calling yourself Doctor and you're not a doctor and you're like, trying to prop yourself up as, like, as utilizing the same language as the people, you're saying you're better than that to me, feels different than what Teal's doing. If you're saying I'm a doctor, I'm Doctor Ben lynch and you're not a.

15:57 Chris: Doctor, you have to have different answers on this one too. So yours is. Kayla: I think I would rather at least teal is like, magic exists. Doctor Ben lynch is just like, butting up against epigenetics or not. Sorry. Butting up against eugenics. Chris: I mean, there is something that's shitty about, like, bastardizing science. That's something that both he and Jay Z Knight are guilty of. And that's pretty shitty. Kayla: Maybe she's the. Maybe she's more immoral because she's, like, killed her husband. Chris: Yeah, but actually, wait, what about. I was gonna say MLM, but the only, like, real MLM we did other than just the, you know, the primer was Mary Kay. Mary Kay doesn't seem that bad compared to Mt. Jafar and teal. But if it was like, amway, though, maybe. I don't know if. What if it was NXivm?

16:48 Kayla: Okay, well, that's its own thing. I think that. I think that it's a very close three way tie between Romthatiel and Ben lynch. But I think for me, I think Romtha does beat them both. Chris: You think so? Kayla: I think Romtha does beat them both. No, but partly because of, like, I've had the most direct experience with that. Chris: Oh, sure. Kayla: Like, I experienced Ramtha, like, literally coming into my life and fucking shit up and like. And it was the most minor thing. Just like, oh, being in a college. Chris: Class and like, okay, but you don't think that. That Rhonda Wimmer was like, would totally be down with all this MTV shit? I'm sure she totally be dead. Kayla: She's probably. Chris: She would have. That's the whole thing is that it's like, now she can say like, oh, it's science. It's epigenetics. You can totally control mind over matter and make your water crystals happy or whatever.

17:40 Kayla: But if I'm trying to pick the one I would least like to join, I think it's gonna end up being Ramtha with Mt. Jafar and teal swan. A close second. Chris: Yeah, I think I'm gonna stick with teal, but it is pretty close amongst those three. You're right. Okay, so first cult he goes to most like to join for Kayla, 3301. Least is Mt. Jafar for Chris is best friends. And teal swans. Cult. Kayla: Those were not the. Those are two completely different culties. What are you saying? Chris: Okay, fine. The first two culties then. But it's the two sides of the same culty. Kayla: Oh, gotcha. Chris: Two sides of the same, least and most. Right. Whatever.

18:23 Kayla: Right. Chris: Okay. For our next culty, the question is who is the charismatic leader that you would most and also least. So we're gonna do another. Kayla: All of mine are most and least. Chris: Too, that you would most and least like to have dinner with. Kayla: Okay, so for. And it can be any. Anyone. Chris: Anyone that we've talked to. Talked about. Kayla: Talked about. Chris: We haven't talked to any of them, sadly. That would be freaking awesome if we could get any of them on the show. Kayla: I think it's Donald Bren for most. Chris: Or least. Kayla: I think most for most. Yeah. Cause he's such a secret. He's such, like a Heidi secret. And because since we're watching succession right now, I'm just assuming that every billionaire is, like, really shakespearean cool ass.

19:08 Chris: Yeah, I'm sure everything is that dramatic in real life. Yeah. Kayla: It's Donald Bren. Chris: Donald Bren. Why? And you're not even Donald Bren. Kayla: If, as a refresher, Donald Bren is the gentleman who owns the Irvine company, which owns the city of Irvine. And he's a very secretive billionaire. He's, like, the most. He's the wealthiest real estate developer in the country, right? Chris: Yes. Kayla: He's definitely up there. Chris: Oh, I think he is for sure. He's clearly. Kayla: And he's just very out of the public eye, out of the public spotlight. And so that, to me, is like, I want to have dinner with you. I don't know what's going on. Chris: This one is really tough for me because there's a lot of, like, really fascinating characters. Like Chris Roberts would be a really interesting person. Kayla: I think I would just be so annoyed by him. I think he.

19:52 Chris: I think you'd be annoyed by a lot of these folks. Kayla: Teal, I can't do because I'd be too worried about getting sucked in. I'm not see, I think. Chris: But Teal's on my, like, it's. I really. It's gonna be hard for me to pick teal. Teal's up there because I think she would be an interesting person to talk to and I'm less worried about. Kayla: Right. You're less worried about getting sucked in. Chris: You almost did get sucked in already. Kayla: So Jay Z Knight. Chris: Jay z knight would love to have dinner with Jay z Knight. Even though she's awful. Kayla: I don't think I could stomach it. I don't think I could stomach it. Chris: She killed her husband and she's like, hyper racist now. Kayla: Yeah, I couldn't stomach it, actually. Chris: She would probably be, like, super intolerable. She'd probably be, like, talking to the manager about her burger being not cooked right and stuff.

20:34 Kayla: That's why, like, I wouldn't want to have dinner with the remaster Shanghai because I think this should be really, I think Supreme High would be really boring. Chris: Yeah. Jay Z would also be super, like, full of herself too. Like, she wouldn't even want to talk. Kayla: You wouldn't know if you're talking to Jay Z Knight, if you're talking to Romtha, if you're talking to Joan or whatever her name is. Very upsetting. And Doctor Ben Lynch. I definitely don't want to have dinner with him. Cause I don't care. Chris: What about Joseph Cullen? I guess he's dead. Kayla: No. Well, I guess he's least. He's least. Chris: No. Why is he least? Dude, his life was insane. Kayla: He like, oh, okay. I thought Joseph Cullen was the creativity guy. Chris: No, that's the sore thumb here. Like, everything we say from now on in this episode is not counting creativity.

21:15 Kayla: White supremacist. Chris: No. Geez. No. Joe Cullen. Joseph Cullen Root, the founder of both Woodman of America and Woodman life. Kayla: No, I don't. He probably is extremely sexist and probably a racist. Chris: He'd have, like. No, well, he's okay. Yeah. I mean, you know, he's a product of his times. Kayla: Yeah. So I don't want to hang out with him. Chris: He probably had, like, a nice transatlantic accent going. Kayla: No one actually had that. It's a fake thing. Chris: That was never that. People didn't talk like that in real life ever. Kayla: No, it was a movie thing. Chris: Yeah, but didn't. I thought that, like, then bled into. Kayla: I think that anybody who had a transatlantic accent, like, was putting it on.

21:57 Chris: I think that's. I think you're exhibiting some trans denialism here. Kayla: It's not a funny joke. Chris: I think that it is. Anyway, okay, so maybe not Joe. Colin Ru. I don't know. I think he'd be super interesting. I don't know. Kayla: I'm saying he's not on my list. He can be on your list. That's fine. Chris: They're basically all on my list because they're all fascinating. But maybe Jon Frum is my answer because he's like, mythical. And then if I'm, you know, utilizing the magic genie power of you can have dinner with anyone. I want to see who the genie plucks out of history for me to talk to. Kayla: Like, that's a really good answer. Chris: Who is that? Yeah, so I'm gonna go with Jon frumental. Kayla: I'm sticking with Don Brand, even though that's definitely the wrong answer now that you.

22:40 Chris: Well, maybe not because it might just be like, oh, here it is. It's this american gi. And he'll just be like, hey, I was in the Pacific war. Kayla: It's still fascinating. Chris: I know, but I already know a bunch about that. I'm just saying, like, you know, I listen to hardcore history. They're talking about the Pacific. Kayla: You wouldn't want to talk to a person who actually was there. Chris: Okay, no fair. Plus, if he's the progenitor drawn from, then he's definitely got something interesting to say. Kayla: Right? So who's your so drawn from? For you, Donald Brennan. For me, who's your least? Chris: My least again, discounting. Discounting the races, discounting creativity again. I mean, for me, least has to be like, most boring because, like, for me it's not like, oh, I really don't like teal.

23:24 Kayla: Well, then it's probably Ben lynch. He's probably the most boring. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Do you remember his fucking about me? Chris: It was like, pretty dull. Kayla: Ten years after I was born, I turned ten. Finally reached my height of six five. Like, if that's what you have to say about yourself, I don't want to. Chris: Have k for most. Kayla: Could be her. Chris: No, it's not as good as John from. Okay. Kayla: I think my least is Jay Z. Chris: Your least is Jay Z. Kayla: Really? It's between Jay Z and the Star Citizen guy. Chris: I hate just because you just like, she's despicable. Kayla: She's despicable. I just. I don't. I. The thought of sharing air with her makes me. It, like, makes my cells quench. It makes just a thought. Exactly.

24:08 Chris: A single thought and I become nauseated. Kayla: I don't think I could do it. I think I. I think I'd want to fucking hit her. Like, sorry. Chris: For those of you who haven't seen. What the bleep? There's a. You might have mentioned this on episode two, but is it how it ends. Kayla: Or how it starts? Chris: No, it's just. It's in the middle of it, I'm sure. I think so. But anyway, they interview her several times. I believe she's presented as Romtha. Kayla: She's presenting as Romtha when she says that. Chris: And she says with just a thought, a man gets an erection. Kayla: Single thought. Chris: A single thought. And it's, I guess the illustration that. Kayla: Like, the way your thoughts changes reality. Cause, you know, physiology isn't a thing.

24:48 Chris: Right? And also, like, what? Why. Why boners, man? Why is that the thing? Like, not like just a thought. You can control how you breathe instead of like being automatic. Breath. No, single thought. Single thought. Boner time. Kayla: Yep. Chris: Yeah, we know where your mind is. Kayla: Shocking. God, no. I could not have dinner with her. No. Least. Chris: Yeah, she's intolerable. Okay, so my least, I think, you know, I think honestly, it's spirit Halloween. Oh, wait, we didn't say have a. Kayla: Charismatic leader for them. Chris: And they're not a co. No, it was their founder. It was the business founder. Kayla: What was his name? I forget. Joseph Marver. Joseph Marver is the guy who founded Spirit Halloween. Chris: Got it. Yeah. So Joseph Marvor. Nothing against Joseph Marver, but like, you know, we already have like an interesting billionaire to have dinner with on the list. And you're not as interesting as Donald Bren. Sorry. So I don't know. Like I. It's. I think it's like close between him and Ben lynch because they're both kind of. They seem both very. Just. Milk toast.

25:48 Kayla: Don't call them milk toast. They might listen. Joseph Marvin also. Okay. Joseph Marver. No, Joseph Marwar didn't do anything wrong. Chris: Worst thing we've said on the show. Kayla: He's a nice man. There's nothing wrong he did. He's fine. Chris: Yeah. I'm not saying he's bad. He built a business that people love. Kayla: He invented an entire style of business that is great. Chris: I'm just not sure he'd be super interesting to have dinner with. I don't know. Kayla: I think that Mt. Jafar would be way less interesting. He would sit down and he'd be like, hello. In 1988, I turned ten. In 1998, I turned 20 and reached my final height of six'five. Chris: Also, make sure you're eating enough spinach. Thank you. Okay, fine, fine. You've convinced me. It's Ben lynch.

26:29 Kayla: There we go. Chris: Fine. Kayla: Hell yeah. All right, next topic. Chris: Next category. Kayla: Here's one for you. Doesn't have a, doesn't have. Chris: Do we have envelopes we can hand to people on the stage when they. Kayla: Come, when best friends comes to accept their culti. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: When the city of Irvine, I'm assuming. Chris: Jay Z and Ben lynch are on their way right now to get their least want to have dinner with us award. Kayla: Don't think it would. Chris: Maybe we can have dinner with them to present them the award. Kayla: I don't think it would be good for us if either of them were on their way here. Well, so for this one, there's no duality here. It's pretty straightforward. What for you was the hardest episode?

27:10 Chris: I'm assuming again, we are discounting creativity. Kayla: No, if that's it. Was creativity harder than mTHFr because you got. Chris: Well, I guess it kind of depends. Right. I need to think about what you mean by hardest. Some topics. Yeah. So, like, creativity would be hardest in terms of like, ooh, it was hard to see all that gigantic list of Holocaust denialism and, you know, kids word searches with like, racist words. Yeah. So, so that was tough. And then some of the topics were just like a lot of work. Kayla: Right. Chris: Like, mlms was a lot of work. But I think the product was really good. The, the show, same thing with MTHFr. Like, it was a ton of work and took a while to get all the interview and everything lined up and it was a little disorienting to kind of like, navigate through that. But at the end of the day, I, I really liked that episode and I personally feel a little, maybe better than I did to begin with because now, like, it's sort of like, you know, I've been in the muck and, like, people have helped me figure out how to sort of like, navigate that better. And I think I have, like, a clearer understanding of.

28:23 Chris: Yeah, hey, people that are creative are not necessarily the same types of people that are able to be skeptical or able to stay in those rails of, you know, rational thinking. Kayla: Right. Chris: And maybe we don't even want it to be that way, honestly. Kayla: Right, right. Chris: Maybe this is tangent, but one of my favorite books on creativity, they talk, one of the things he talks about is how the creative process, like, you're kind of like wearing different hats and sometimes it's different. People wear different hats. Like, if you're a company. Kayla: Right. Chris: Or maybe it's just different phases of the project. You need to wear different hats. Hats. But he has like four that he talks about. Kayla: You should name the book. Chris: Oh, it's called whack on the side of the head. Kayla: Yeah, it's a good book. Chris: And, and just for more reference, I got that from my reading of Mark Rosewater's articles on, and he's the magic the gathering guy. So got to talk about magic the gathering again on the show.

29:16 Kayla: Well, topic for season two. Chris: Yeah, don't worry. We'll eventually mention Disney and Jurassic park here. But anyway, it's called whack on the side of the head. It's really good. The roles he talks about are explorer, artist, judge, and soldier. And so the basic idea is that the explorer, when you're in the explorer role, it's all about like, just like, it's like you're brainstorming time. It's like just any, you know, just looking up ideas. It's. It's like you're brainstorming thing from the. Kayla: Seeing what sparks your. Chris: Yeah, just trying to get the spark going. You're just going through magazines and reading things. You're just trying to generate ideas. Kayla: Right.

29:57 Chris: And then the artist phase is, like, where you start, like, articulating a vision. It's, like, very designy. It's very, like, okay, now I'm actually, like, making the thing. I'm actually writing. I'm actually painting. I'm actually coding the game. Whatever. And then the judge phase is sort of like, now I'm looking at what was made and saying, like, you know, this should go, this should stay quality on. This isn't up to par. We need to redo that again. And the thing is, by, like, by separating all these things out, you make it easier to do each thing without having another thing interfere. Kayla: Right, right. Chris: So if you're in the artist phase, it can be, it's like, basically interference. If you're, like, trying to judge too much what you're doing or, you know, whatever. Or in the case of a larger organization, that's part of why QA is separated from design. It's not just to save time. It's also because you want your developer to be more about, okay, I'm going to make stuff and be creative and whatever, and then somebody else's job is to be the quality assurance to check that stuff. And then obviously you have to send it back and whatever for bugs. But the point is you separate those out. And then soldier is sort of like, I've done my brainstorming. I built a thing, I checked it for quality, and now I'm gonna go, like, fight for it in the market, basically.

31:20 Chris: And that's like, marketing and whatnot, publishing for a company. Anyway, the reason I bring all that up is tying it all the way back. I think that there's even just people that are better at one of those things than another of those things. So somebody that's winning a Nobel prize, they may be a really good artist, or maybe they're good explorers and artists, right. They can synthesize a lot of different ideas together and articulate a vision and then, you know, discover something or create something, but they might not be the best judges. Kayla: Right, right. Chris: And so then somebody else that's a better judge. So that's. So by thinking about it in those sort of, like, separate terms, it. It sort of helps me think about, like, okay, it's less distressing to think of somebody winning a Nobel Prize as later being a quack, because that's not what their brain is necessarily geared to do.

32:15 Kayla: Right. Chris: In any case, your question for me was what was the hardest episode? Kayla: Yes. Chris: If I'm including editing, it's probably the MLM episodes, because that was really tough editing. But I don't think I should. I think that I'm gonna say empty Jafar, just because even though it ended, even though now I feel better about everything and I'm, like, more stable about whatever, it was still a lot of work, and it was a lot of work to get the interview secured, and it was a lot of work to do all that research. And I talked to so many different people. It was definitely the most, like, extensive. I've looked into one of our topics. Kayla: Right, right. Chris: So that's. That's my long winded answer to your very short question.

32:57 Kayla: Yeah, that was a long answer. Mine's 3301. Chris: Why 3301? Kayla: Because you remember, that was the one where I was, like, flipping out. Because I was like, this is too hard. It's too big. Chris: Oh. Because there's too much. Kayla: I. Compared to measuring the coastline. Chris: Oh, right. Kayla: The problem with 3301 is that it's very difficult to explain in a meaningful way without, like, going down a series of rabbit holes. Because you can say, like, oh, 3301. It's like a group, a mysterious group that kind of runs these online, you know, digital scavenger hunts. Chris: Right. Kayla: And that does not accurately paint the picture of what 301 is. But then if you paint, you have to keep. It's like a fractal. You keep zooming in and zooming in, and you feel like you're not getting any closer to the end. You're not getting any closer to, like, the starting point because it's just like, okay, well, I can explain why do you think through the two, but then I have to explain, like, what steganography is, and then to explain steganography, I have to, like, you have to keep explaining things.

34:02 Chris: Why do you think 3301 was more that way than other topics that you've done? Kayla: Because other topics that I've done haven't been so, like, Internet. Like, I think it's really bad at being, like, Internet. And, like, computational is probably not the. Chris: Right word, but, like, I mean, teal's on the Internet. Kayla: Teal is on the Internet, but it's really easy to go. I mean, okay, I can explain who teal is and what she does in a more accurate way without really digging into the details of, like, what the Akashic records are. Like, you don't need to understand what the Akashic records are in order to, like, fully understand, to have a more full understanding of what teal is. But I think with 3301, it's a difficult to explain how. It's difficult to communicate how fucking cool the topic is without giving necessary context. Like, I think so a lot of domain knowledge context. Yeah. And, like, part of why it's difficult is because it's specifically, like, they're specifically trying to weed people out and these other groups are the opposite of that.

35:08 Kayla: Like, yeah, Teal wants to weed out people that aren't gonna be her followers, but she wants to cast a wide enough. Chris: Oh, she was casting a wide net. Yeah. Kayla: That they're not. Chris: She was working. Kayla: The algos are trying to, because, like, these people are trying to make money and they're trying to grow a following. Chris: Right. Kayla: They are trying to be accessible, whereas 3301 is trying to be inaccessible. Chris: Right. Kayla: Trying very hard to be inaccessible. Chris: And then you come along with your podcast and try to make it more accessible for all these rubes tried, and. Kayla: It was very hard. Chris: But, I mean, I do remember that about that episode. Is that to really appreciate a lot of the step by step narrative of 3301? I remember each time we had to stop and go like, okay, here's what PGP is, right? Okay, here's what. What was that image? I don't even remember what the image hiding outguess.

35:58 Kayla: Yeah. Steganography. Chris: Yeah, steganography. Yeah. So, yeah, like, I had to appreciate what that is to understand. So, yeah, there's a lot of just, like. Kayla: And it was still, like, very surface y. We could have spent, like, we could have spent an entire hour on, like, each step of every single one of their puzzles we really could have. And so I think that, for me, that was the most difficult. The only one that, like, really compared was the Tulpas episode, and that was simply because of, like, trying to synthesize so many individual experiences. Like, I was so lucky with that episode that so many people from the Tulpas read it, wanted to talk and wanted to share their experiences with me. And again, like, I'm so thankful for that. Chris: And, like, I hope some of them are still listening.

36:38 Kayla: Me too. But that was. There was difficulty in synthesizing that and trying to, like, distill it because I wanted. I wanted to share everyone's story, and I couldn't without it being, you know, like, a 15 hours episode. Chris: Right. Bonus content. Kayla: God, seriously? Oh, no. We did. Yeah. If you want to. If you want to check out everyone, every single person that spoke to me, I put everything that was said into a document that's available on our Patreon. So if you're interested in learning more about individual topple experiences, then you have. Chris: To give us money. Kayla: Give us money. Chris: You have to give us money to read things that other people said. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Because that's how content aggregation works. Kayla: Is a cult. I will die.

37:19 Chris: It's 2019. I know. I know. Full disclosure, that was almost the. The season finale. Kayla: Why wasn't it? Chris: Well, because we liked this idea better, number one. And number two, we also have, like, some stuff coming up in season two. Kayla: That'S, like, I think the overall theme of season two might be is capitalism. Chris: Occult, maybe? I have a pretty wide variety of things planned. Kayla: Okay. I'll figure out how to tie them all back together. Chris: Several of them. One of them is, like, pretty clearly a. It's not capitalism is a cult. It's the cult of capitalism. Right, right. We'll get to that. Kayla: Anyway, season two, we almost had our finale. Instead of being the culties, it was going to be a discussion of whether or not capitalism is a cult. But then we realized we have far more topics to cover in season two before we can answer that question thoroughly. So stay tuned.

38:11 Chris: Yay. More business stuff. Okay, I think it's on to next topic. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Our next. Next category. Next culty. So far, we have said, which cult would I most and least like to join? Kayla: Right. Chris: Which charismatic leader I would most and least like to have dinner with? What was the hardest topic to. To research or to do? So my next category is which cult story is the most screenplay adaptable? Kayla: Oh, geez. It's probably Mary Kay, because I don't know how there isn't a Mary Kay movie already.

38:56 Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Jennifer Lawrence stars as Mary Kay trying to start her business. How is that not a Christmas release blockbuster film with maybe it is a pretty young blonde actress ingenue being Mary Kay. Chris: Or, like, why didn't Dolly Parton play this role already? Kayla: Cause Dolly Parton doesn't need to. Dolly Parton's better than Mary Kay. Sorry. Chris: Okay. But she would be perfect for the role. Yeah, well, a lot of actors are better than the people they play. Like, I'm just saying. Kayla: Don't. Don't. You cannot drag down Dolly Parton. Even in iota. She's a stellar queen. She's a goddess. Chris: How am I dragging her down by saying she would be good to play a, like, top ten american business person?

39:43 Kayla: Too good for it. Chris: She'd be great for this role. You shut up. Oh, all right. Nevermind. What about 2002 drama comedy hell on the battle of Mary Kay? Kayla: No. Chris: And also, why haven't we seen this one woman's courage to dream, making millions like her successful starling, Parker Posey and Shirley Maclaine. Kayla: Okay. Actually, that sounds great. Chris: And Shannon Doherty. Kayla: What? Those are real people. Chris: So I guess there is a movie. So literally, that is the most screenplay adaptable since it's already been done. Kayla: Oh, I want Kristen Dunst to do it. I want Kristen Dunst to be Mary Kay. Chris: Well, you just want that because of becoming a God in central Florida.

40:26 Kayla: So I think that in terms of what I could see Hollywood actually making a movie about. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Mary Kaye. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: What I would want to see a movie be made about, it might be teal. Chris: Interesting. Kayla: Could also be Irvine. Chris: I don't know. I don't want teal to be. Kayla: I'm saying in terms of, like, movie made about her. No, I don't want teal to have a movie made about her, but a movie inspired by her fucked up, insane stories. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. What? All right, so pick one then, because you got to pick one. Kayla: It's Mary Kay. Mary Kay for me. Chris: Okay. You know, I'm gonna go. For me. I'm gonna go back to Jon Fromm on this one. Kayla: That's a good one. Chris: And I think it would make, like, a cool, sort of, like, magical realism thing where there was, like a world War two soldier that actually had some magic powers, but then also utilized, like, real historical situations and really did the things that the cult of Jon Frum says that he did. Like Horace Gamp helping sort of, but almost more magical, even magic.

41:29 Kayla: Forrest gum. Chris: We're sort of. It's like the age of magical realism now anyway. Right? Isn't that like. It's, like, pretty freaking popular right now. Kayla: Is it? Chris: I don't know. It seems like it. Okay, I believe you. Cool. Anyway, I think that would be a cool story. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: If anybody wants to talk to me about optioning a script, I am available, so just let me know. Kayla: I'm sure they'll go to you. And not like, somebody who's, like, written a book about Jon. Chris: Right. Or anything. Kayla: Lives in a place where there have. Chris: Done a podcast about Jon from belief. Whatever, man. Kayla: I'm sure they'll go straight to you. Chris: I'm just saying, I am the expert here. Kayla: All right, so. Chris: Yeah. So that's my answer for most screenplay. Adaptable. I would like to see a movie about that.

42:13 Kayla: Okay. Are you ready for your next topic? Chris: I am ready. Ready as I'll ever be. Kayla: Topic you've changed your opinion most about. Are there any. Here are the ones that I've changed my opinion on a bit. Star Citizen. Chris: Okay, wait, so was your initial opinion about Star Citizen that it was, like, fricking terrible or. Kayla: No, like, I was super blown away by it. Chris: Oh, yeah. Kayla: And just since then, I've realized that, like, what they're trying to do, they're not the only people trying to do it and. Or achieving it. Chris: Right. Kayla: There's a lot of really cool things happening in video games, and maybe it just. Maybe I was a little too enthusiastic about.

42:53 Chris: Oh, so you've changed your. Because. Kayla: Oh, wait, I'm less impressed by it now. Chris: Oh, I thought you were saying you changed the other way. Kayla: No, I'm. Chris: Well, because I feel like then it's a bit of a rollercoaster. Because I think we started out by being a little like, whoa, that's crazy. That's so much money. Although all those people have been false promises. Kayla: I know, but my opinion on the gameplay was like, holy shit. Chris: Right. But then we saw the gameplay and were like, oh, that's incredible. Yeah. And now you're saying you're less impressed? Yes. Is that because you've played some games that have made you go, like me. Kayla: Less that and more? Just being able to go online and read a little bit more about Star Citizen myself and being on the Star Citizen Reddit and just hearing people be like, okay, yeah, it's cool. But also these games are doing that, too. And I can't give any specifics right now, but just kind of learning that what Star Citizen is trying to do while the scope is singular, I think they're the only ones trying to be a game. That's literally everything. The things that I was very much impressed by, like the non loading screens and the Fidelity, that's not as unique to them as I think I thought.

43:56 Chris: So yours is Star Citizens. Kayla: I'm saying that's one of my. Chris: That's one of them. Kayla: So the ones that I have definitely changed my opinion about is that one loving hut. I think I have a little bit of a different opinion on now, maybe. Chris: And tulpas again, now is this after having done it? Cause you said it was a cult, seemed bad. And you're saying now you're. Kayla: This is the topic you've changed your opinion most about since the episode was published. Chris: Since the episode. Got it, got it. Got it. Kayla: Since the episode was published. Chris: Because I was gonna say tulpas. Because before you did tulpas, I was like, yeah. Oh, you know, that's people just giving themselves the, you know, the crazies. Kayla: Right. Chris: Whatever. But after having done the episode, obviously now it seems a lot more. A lot healthier.

44:39 Kayla: Right. Chris: It seems a lot. Like, for at least. I mean, obviously, you know, there were some cases where it seemed like the, you know, the tulpum answers weren't as pleased with it, but for the most part, it seemed like it was something either neutral to beneficial. Kayla: Right. Chris: And certainly like having an imaginary friend like, you made a strong case for that. But since this is since the episode. The episode, not during the episode, that may change my answer. So you're saying. So, star citizen, what changed your. What have you learned since we did our episode about Supreme Master Qinghaide? Kayla: I think I've just had more time to think about the ethics of going and eating at a leving hut. And I think that when we ended the episode, I was still like, I don't know. And I think the reason.

45:23 Chris: We don't think. We were saying we shouldn't go, were we? Kayla: I thought it was kind of on the edge. Chris: No, were like, maybe it's not a good idea. Kayla: Oh. Cause then I guess my opinion didn't change. I think my opinion now is actually it's unethical. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: And also, that doesn't mean I'm never gonna eat there again. Chris: Yeah. They had really good food. Kayla: I do lots of unethical stuff. I try to limit the amount of unethical things I do. And then also, I think the reality of being a human being in the world is you are going to do unethical things. Chris: You're on the ver. Just say it. Just say capitalism. Just say it. Kayla: Well, I mean, yeah, there's no ethical consumerism under capitalism. Chris: Okay. Thank you. I'm just. I knew you had it under the surface there. Just barely. What is it about loving Hutt since then that's made you veer slightly more towards. It's not ethical. Anything specific or.

46:08 Kayla: No, I think. Just being honest with myself. Chris: Right. Kayla: I think just. Plus there's some good experience, honestly, having some distance from how good the restaurant experience was and being like, okay, but there's lots of great restaurant experiences and maybe. Chris: And great vegetarian restaurant experiences, especially in LA. Kayla: Right. I don't need to go to lovinghut. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: So. Chris: Okay. And then the third one was, I think, for tulpas. Kayla: I think something that I may be a little bit guilty of in that episode is not incorporating. I think that the episode, while I. I definitely stand by it and I still believe everything that I said in the episode, I think that the episode's a little biased in that I didn't do enough work on presenting the possible negative aspects of it and how. I do think that there are people in the community that are dealing. That are dealing with severe mental illness or just even mental illness at all, and are not receiving the help that they deserve and partly because of their involvement with the tulpas community. So I think that it's less that my opinion has changed because I still believe everything that we. I still. I truly do stand by the episode and I.

47:19 Kayla: Not denying any experience of anyone that talked to me. And also just since then, I do wonder if I could have done more work to present a more balanced version of it. Chris: Yeah, I think it's just. It's hard too, with, like, with. With something like that. Wherever it can be such a fine gray line between something that is just natural variation and something that is potentially pathological, something that is harm causing to the individual. It sometimes can actually be really hard to draw that line. I mean, even with something like alcoholism, which seems like really easy to draw that line, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's like, is that person just drinking or is it actually affecting their work? Is it affecting their relationships? Even that is sometimes difficult to draw. So certainly with something like tulpas, where it's imaginary friends. Do you have, of those three, do you have one that you've changed your opinion on?

48:09 Kayla: I think I'd give the culture, the cult. He goes to Star Citizen. Chris: Okay. Kayla: I think I was a little too. Chris: Blown away by, come on, man. Like, you walked in the station and you got on the ship and you could have, like, four people manning, like, manning the guns, and you could have a, like a navigator and a copilot. Kayla: But there was no game. Like, it was just. Chris: Okay. Kayla: Pretty art there. Chris: You. There's no game in Pokemon go, and. Kayla: That'S a game that's very different than Star Citizen. Chris: I don't know. I've had this argument with a lot of people. I think they're wrong and dumb. Kayla: Literally. Star Citizen is not a game. Chris: It's okay. Here we go now, because I've had this argument with people that say Pokemon go is not a game.

48:53 Kayla: Okay, that's fine. Chris: I believe that games can be experiential. Star Citizen right now is a very singular experience. Playing the game. Kayla: Not a game, though, because they haven't public. They'll say that there's no game. The people who make Star Citizen will say. Chris: They say it's incomplete and it's coming out in phases. Kayla: Yes. So there's no game. Chris: No. I've seen. I've seen it be played. Kayla: Okay. Chris: I sat there and watched fine. It's still my interviewee. Kayla: I've changed my opinion about it. Chris: Play. Okay. I appreciate that you give that the culty disagree that it's not a game. Kayla: Got it. Chris: Boy. So this is. Okay. So if I had to change my opinion, let me think. Okay. So it's probably creativity, because since I've done that, I've realized that the other. What was it that the mud race.

49:43 Kayla: You know, this isn't going anywhere. Chris: Come on. Kayla: So you're wasting our time. Chris: Please. No patreon. At least maybe, actually, I'm editing this one. I can put whatever the fuck I want in here. Okay. Now let me think about it. Kayla: I also think best friends is actually definitely a contender here because I think that we started off being like, oh, it's a cult. And kind of taking a very cult brush at it. And now it's such child's play compared to some of the things that we've talked about. Chris: Yeah, I was thinking about best friends for that reason. Kayla: And, like, because what they are now is they're doing, like, they're doing unequivocal good.

50:24 Chris: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Best friends is on the list for me. I keep going back and forth on Mary Kay. Some days I'm like, oh, it's fine. But then some days I'm like, I don't even know if we should have presented it as possibly okay in some circumstances. We gave a pretty, like, balanced opinion in that episode or not. Like I said, some days I'm like, that was good that we did that. And then some days I'm like, I don't know. Kayla: Right. When you, like, listen to the dream and you hear about, like. Chris: I know. Kayla: Or you listen to something about Nexium and you just hear about the way mlms are today, it's just like. Chris: And, like, maybe Mary Kay isn't as bad as the worst of them, but, like, you know, it's part of the industry. Kayla: Right.

51:04 Chris: And they're not necessarily like. Kayla: But again, no ethical consumerism. Chris: Right. All right. Yeah. My opinion hasn't really changed on people like Ramtha or teal. Kayla: Right. Chris: I think it has to be. I think it has to best friends. Like, honestly, my opinion hasn't changed a lot on a lot of these things appreciably. But maybe it's best friends just from the contrast. Kayla: Right. Chris: But by the same token, at the very end of that episode, we said, would you go volunteer again? And were like, oh, yeah, right, of course. So, I mean, that's, you know, that's still the case. I would still totally go back and volunteer. Kayla: Right. Chris: And actually, now I'd probably, like, pry a little bit more instead of being. Kayla: Like, oh, my God.

51:45 Chris: Yeah. Like. Cause the founders like to talk to you at lunch. I actually just spoke with somebody that volunteered at best friends a couple days last month, and she said this. I asked her, I was like, did you have lunch there? Kayla: Oh, my God. Chris: And we're the founders there. And she was like, oh, my God. Yeah, but she, like, she knew. I forget whether she, like, listened to the episode. No, yeah, I know. We're pretty big. No. I forget whether she had researched ahead of time or whether it was afterwards. But she knew the deal. She knew where they came from. Kayla: Gotcha. Chris: But they're still there at lunch saying, hi, I'm one of the founders. But I think. Yeah, I was gonna say if. But I think it's more of a when because I definitely want to go back. When we go back, I'm definitely gonna go to lunch, find one of them, ask them if I can sit with them.

52:34 Kayla: Right. Chris: And be like, hey, what can you tell me about this place? Also, I'm recording you. Kayla: Well, you may have to do a little bit more work to be able to record somebody than that, but I get what you say. Chris: I think all you have to do is say, also, I'm recording here. Kayla: So is it best friends that you give the cult? Chris: Yeah, it's best friends. I give the call. Ta best friends. But. But it's pretty close because I most of these folks, most of these topics. I feel like I haven't changed my opinion on a whole lot. Kayla: All right, back to you. Chris: I'm gonna say this one, and we don't have to do it because I don't know if we'll have a good answer for it. Kayla: Oh, God. Chris: Best Jurassic park reference.

53:14 Kayla: Shit. I don't know. All of them. All of them. Chris: The problem is we don't. Kayla: Oh, I know. Chris: We don't actually have a clips list. Kayla: I know which one it is. It was from Mt. Jafar. Chris: Okay. Kayla: And when I went dinosaurs, it was probably honestly, that I don't know all of our Jurassic park references. All of my Jurassic park references, there's so many. But the Mt. Jafar Jurassic park reference is probably the most actually relevant because there is so much. It's about genetics. Chris: That's true. Actually, the whole episode is the answer to that one. Kayla: Yeah. So I think it's probably that one. Yeah. Chris: Yeah. I mean, I gotta be honest. Like, I had a. I had this.

53:56 Kayla: That was your joke one. Chris: My category is it was a joke one. And I was like, am I going to go back and listen through all, like, 50 hours of our content and try to find all the Jurassic park references for this? Kayla: No. Chris: No, I don't think so. Kayla: It's fine. Chris: You know what? This one is an audience question. Hey, audience, what do you think? What's your favorite jurassic park reference we've done in the show? I guess I can move on to an actual one. Let me think of these two, which would be my. This one's a good follow up to, like, changed opinion and also, like, hardest. So what was your favorite topic to research? Like, what was. What was the one that you had your most, like, oohs and ahs and was most. Or was most interesting or whatever?

54:41 Kayla: I have loved all of my topics. Chris: Mm. Kayla: All of the topics. Chris: I think I know what you're gonna say on this one. Kayla: Just literally all of my topics, though, have been. I've been so lucky that I picked such cool topics. Everything was like a really interesting can of worms. Everything was an interesting ball of yarn. Like, from best friends all the way to spirit Halloween in, like, completely different ways. I think it's gonna between 3301 and tulpas. Like. Chris: Mm. I was gonna say. You would say 3301. Kayla: 331 is fantastic to research. I'd also already done all of that research already. Chris: Right. Kayla: So it was less. Like. It was less about discovering something. Like, I didn't have a process of discovery for that one. It was more taking stuff that I already knew about and, like, figuring out how to communicate it. Whereas with tulpas, I was on such a journey of discovery and getting to connect directly with individuals in that community was very special. So I think that while I, I think my favorite topic is 3301. Like, I could literally talk about cicada 3301 for 150,000 years.

55:51 Chris: Literally. Kayla: Literally. Chris: Wow. Kayla: I think in terms of like, what was my favorite to research, even though it was really difficult, I think it was tulpas. I think it was the tulpas. Chris: I think that. Yeah, that makes sense. I would have thought you would have said 3301 or tulpas. So that makes sense. Especially like the journey of discovery and connecting with actual folks. Kayla: Right. Chris: You know, for me it's tough because I actually had a really interesting time with a few of them. It's between Jon Frum and Mary Kay. I think for me that's interesting that. Kayla: John from would even be in the same like, level as Mary Kay. Chris: Well, just because it was like, I didn't. In terms of, like the level of discovery. Right. In terms of the, like, I knew what cargo cults were. I had no idea that this thing called John from existed. I had no idea that cargo cults, as we sort of have them in popular cultural knowledge, is not really what they are.

56:51 Kayla: Right, right. Chris: So like learning that was a good little brain tickle. You know, it was like, whoa, neat. I had no idea. In the case of MLMS, there was some of that discovery element. Like, I knew they were weird, but I didn't know like how crazy it got. Kayla: Right, right. Chris: And certainly like listening to the dream was like a great experience. Discovering just how crazy the world of mlms is during that research. And then also speaking with Misses Carlson and Miss Conan was a really cool experience to getting their, like, you know, firsthand take on a topic that we're doing on our show was. That was really cool. I think in terms of pure volume of interestingness, it's got to go to MLMs and Mary Kay.

57:37 Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Because the john from thing was like a couple fun little tickles, but it was like a smaller topic. Kayla: Sure. Chris: In terms of the amount of research, Emily Elms and Mary Kay was a long involved process. So I think I gotta give the culty to favorite research. Mary Kaye. Kayla: Solid. Chris: What is our next category? Kayla: Okay. Chris: Okay. Kayla: So my next topic then is, of the topics we have covered this year, which topic would you say is the most? Woo. And before we get into this, should we go ahead and define woo for our audience. Because we've used that word.

58:18 Chris: Oh. Kayla: A lot. Chris: Oh, yeah. And not everybody knows what that means. Sorry, I. Kayla: So let's go. Chris: Sorry, audience that doesn't know. Whoa, are you reading urban dictionary right now? Kayla: Means seek the favor, support, or custom of, or try to gain the love of someone, especially with a view to marriage. Chris: Right. It's like Romeo and Juliet. That's exactly what we're talking about. Kayla: Woo. Woo comes from the word. Chris: That was a joke, everyone. Kayla: Well, that's probably it. Woo comes from woo. Woo. Like, that's where I first heard the term. Woo was like, woo. Woo. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: And according to rational wiki, which is part of my trust network, woo is a term for pseudoscientific explanations that share certain common characteristics, often being too good to be true. Aside from being unscientific, the term is common among skeptical writers. Woo is understood specifically as dressing itself in the trappings of science, but not the substance, while involving unscientific concepts such as anecdotal evidence and sciency sounding words. So woo is like, the wooey topics we've done are Romtha.

59:20 Chris: It's new age, it's heal. To me, it's almost synonymous with loving hut. Kayla: Yeah, it's new age bullshit. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Like woo is homeopathy. Woo is naturopathy. Woo is claiming that chiropractics can fix your teeth situations. Chris: Yeah, this is a tough one. I guess they've all been tough, but it's between Jay Z and Teal. Ben lynch was, you know, he was a naturopath and peddling pseudoscience for money. Kayla: Right. Chris: So that was woo. But like Teal and Jay Z are like maximum woo. I mean, they are just through. They take woo to eleven. I mean, they are way off the scale.

1:00:03 Kayla: What about best friends? Chris: No, best friends. No, no, they weren't. They weren't. Woo best friends was like religious. Kayla: What about mlms and the airplane game and that and new thought? Chris: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it creeps in everywhere, but not, I think, to me, not to the degree that it does with those two women. Kayla: I love that we haven't even talked about tulpas because like, we're both so of the belief that tulpas are not woo. And I mean, tulpas aren't. They're not. Yes and no, though they're not woo in the same way that, like Teal and Jay Zhdemenhe. Chris: I think that for some tulpamancers, though, they probably are. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: For some tulpamancers, it's probably a sense of, you know, there's a real magical being living in the physical space in my room.

1:00:46 Kayla: But that seemed to be so, like, not the forefront of the. Chris: Yeah, you're right. That did seem to be less common, which was, I think, part of what. Part of what drew me to the topic and made me kind of go like, oh, that's. That's not as. That's not as weird and crazy as. Kayla: Not as blue as I thought. Chris: Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, adult interviewing the kid, and the kid going, like, you know, the imaginary friend isn't real. Right, right. Like, it's that. Right. It's like, I felt that, like, most tulpamancers understand that the tulpas are real, just not physical. Kayla: Right. Well, it's. Yeah, it's like, literally, when we looked at the. All the data that they have, like, all the census, I think it was like, the vast majority of people believed that there was, like, a neurological reason for this, that it's not magic, that it's something else going on.

1:01:31 Chris: Right. So I'm gonna give this to teal. Kayla: More so than Ramtha, I think. More so than the 30,000 year old lemurian night or whatever. Chris: They're both way up there. Both of their belief systems are extremely prototypical, epitome of new age type thought. Kayla: Right. Chris: I like. Honestly, it's. It's basically a tie. Like, they're like, there's. Kayla: I think you can. Chris: I'm gonna give it to teal, but. Kayla: Like, you give it to teal because I'm giving it to Romtha. Chris: Okay. Kayla: It's perfect. So they both get it. Chris: So let's explain why I. You say romp, then I say teal. I think I say teal. It feels like she dips into slightly more things than Jay Z. Like the Akashic records and. And spirit healing and aura. I know Jaycee.

1:02:19 Kayla: Like, literally, she's a channelized quantum physics. Chris: I know. I know. I'm not saying that. That. Yeah. And that's certainly a woo thing. I'm not saying. That's not like teal. Kayla: Swan's not. Teal Swan's famous, but she's not getting invited on the Tonight show. No. Johnny Carson is not talking to teal. No, she's not. Chris: I mean, she's, like, got a bajillion followers or whatever now, though, right? Kayla: She's not on. Chris: She has a podcast about her. Kayla: She's not. But about how she's not good. Not like, literally. Jayz Knight used to go on the Tonight show and go on these late night talk shows to be like, look how cool this person is. Isn't this interesting? Nothing. The podcast being like Teal Swan's dangerous fair.

1:03:03 Chris: Geez, it's like I said, it really could go either way. Cause they're very similar. I don't know. Yeah, I think the Akashic records and also the recovered memories thing, the fact that she has all these false recovered memories about being sewn inside corpses. I don't know. I don't know. Kayla: Jay Z Knight says that she's a 35,000 year old atlantean warrior. Chris: First of all. Oh, my God. Kayla: Okay, she's wrong. Chris: Lemurian, not atlantean. They were. Kayla: I think he was atlantean. Chris: They were at war with the Atlanteans. Kayla: Kayla, I'm looking this up. Chris: Yeah, look it up. Kayla: I just want to make sure I don't not believe you. I just want to. Chris: How do you not know the geopolitics of fake places? Kayla: Oh, God. Jay z Knight was on Larry King. Yeah, she appeared on us tv shows such as Larry King, MSNBC, the Merv Griffin show, and also in psychology today. Yeah, he did fight the aliens, but it was 35,000. 35,000 years ago, not 30,000.

1:03:59 Chris: Okay, fine. I was only off by a very tiny amount. 5000 years. But yes, they were fighting the Atlanteans because they had to go to war. Probably over some magical disagreement. The aliens maybe made them do it. I don't know. Are we giving the culties to. You're giving it to Jay Z? I'm giving it to teal for this one. Kayla: Yes. Jay Z knight is the wooiest of woo. Chris: It's. Yeah, it's. Teal's the wooiest of woo. But they're both. They're both at the pinnacle of woo. Kayla: Yeah, they're both slightly different flavors. Chris: Yeah, very slightly. One's like mint chocolate chip and one's like chocolate chip mint.

1:04:39 Kayla: Yeah. Okay, your turn. Chris: All right, I got another category here. And then you'll do one more and then we'll get on to the finale. Kayla: Sounds good. Chris: So here is my penultimate topic. Who is the most business savvy out of our cults and charismatic leaders and whoever? Kayla: Alright, so I think here we're talking about some topics. Doesn't make sense. Tulpas Creativity 3301 cargo cults. Those don't fit here. Chris: I don't know. I mean, the cargo cults are getting free stuff, man. Kayla: I don't know if you. Chris: Stuff from the cargo.

1:05:19 Kayla: I think so then if we're looking at best friends rom the Donald Brunt, Irvine star, citizen guy teal, Mary Kay, Supreme Master Qinghai, the Woodman, spirit Halloween and Ben lynch. Yeah, that is tough. That is very tough. Yeah, I think. I'm gonna say, I think it's a really hard call. I think that it's Joe Marver in spirit Halloween, because all of these people didn't invent, like, a new style of business except for Mary Kay. And even then, she didn't really invent it. Chris: Right. But I mean, I think you can say that even for Joseph Marvor, right.

1:06:00 Kayla: Joe Marver invented Halloween pop ups. Joe Marver invented the concept of Halloween pop ups. Chris: And you're saying that she was. She didn't quite invent the multi level marketing style. She, like, the Tupperware, had already done the in home parties and. Kayla: But incredible business savvy. But then the same thing goes for, like, sorry, but okay, well, obviously Donald Bren has actually. Maybe he has better business savvy. Chris: He is the richest. Kayla: It's Donald Brown. Chris: He owns, like, all of the family. Kayla: Most business savvy is Donald Brand. Like. Like, it's Donald. The end. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Ben lynch, obviously is very business savvy. And he's business savvy in the way that, like, Teal and Jay Z Knight are business.

1:06:40 Chris: Right. But teal, like, here's the thing about teal, though, is that teal is like, of all the people that we just listed, she's the one that I think is the most, like, tech business savvy. Kayla: Oh, for sure. Chris: Because she's the one, like I said, she's working the algos, right? Kayla: She's incredibly business. Chris: She knows how to get search engine optimized for getting eyeballs onto her content. She knows what her niche is. Yeah, she plays to that. She's become very. I mean, she's. She's grown her following. I mean, you remember when were talking about her, like, five years ago and it was nothing, right? And now she has this, like, gigantic empire. Kayla: I'm saying Donald Bren. Chris: You're saying Bren? Yeah, just because of the results. Kayla: I think for me, it goes a kajillion dollars. I think it's Bren. Jomarvere. Teal. Wait, no, I think it's Bren. Jo Marver. Nope, I think it's Bren.

1:07:31 Chris: One more try. Kayla: Mary Kay. Joe Marvor. Teal. Romtha, Ben lynch. And then I didn't even. But then I didn't even put number four star citizen, who maybe it's him. Chris: Because he's raised the most money with anyone for nothing. Kayla: And he started like a hundred thousand different companies. Like he. He has had the most illustrious business career without really necessarily having that much output. Chris: Yeah. So for me, I think again, yeah, you can make a strong case for pretty much anyone on the list here. But I got to go, Bren, as well, just for the results. Right. He has just an ungodly amount of money. What was it, like 3 billion or something? How much money is he worth?

1:08:15 Kayla: Donald Bren. Donald Leroy. Bren Leroy. In the year of our Lord 2019, his net worth is $17 billion. Chris: $17 billion. Kayla: That's a lot of. Chris: That's many billions. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: I think even if you had 1 billion, you'd be able to like kind of get by. Yeah, but like 17. Kayla: Yeah, $17 billion. Yeah. Chris: It's like just fuck. Alright. So I think that pretty clearly puts it in first place. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: But I'll also say that some of the things that you said specifically like, because, you know, somebody might become a 17 billionaire because they, you know, got a big old chunk of cash from the daddy.

1:09:00 Kayla: Right. You can be whatever, be gifted billions of dollars. Chris: Right. But it. From him, it sounded like he kind of started from nothing. More or less. Not nothing. But like he didn't start with a million dollars. Kayla: Yeah, billions. Chris: Yeah. He started by just like being good at real estate and then that bit where you said he engineered the takeover of the company and then like sold off a bit and then bought it back later. Or was it. Kayla: Maybe this is. Chris: He bought it and then he sold it. Either way, it was like for some absurd differential of multi millions of dollars, he bought back the exact same thing that he had sold. Kayla: Maybe Donald Brent is the most screenplay adaptable. Like you do like a the founder take up the founder kind of treatment to it. Chris: Yeah, yeah.

1:09:42 Kayla: He's the savviest businessman. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Business person. Chris: Yeah. But it's. It's pretty telling that there are so many very savvy business people topics that we've covered. Kayla: We have 14 topics again. And in this conversation it's best friends, Ramtha Irvine star, Citizen, Teal Swan, Mary Kay loving hut Woodman spirit, Halloween and empty Jafar. Chris: Yeah. Like ten out of 14 extremely business savvy. Not just sort of. Yeah, that's something. I feel like we need to unpack a little bit at some point. Kayla: I wonder if it's because capitalism might be a cult. Chris: Oh, God. Here. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Fair. You win. Kayla: I'm just. The signs continuously point to yes. I don't know what you want from me.

1:10:24 Chris: Maybe there's some motivated reasoning here. Kayla: There's 1000% motivated and I will admit it. Chris: But yeah, that is, that's. Wow, that's nuts. Yeah. Kayla: So Donald Brennan across the board, 16 billion. Yep. Chris: I guess you can have a logo. That's weird. If you have that much money. Kayla: Yep. Chris: All right, one more category from thou. Kayla: Yes, I like mine. Chris: What is your last category before we move on to the finale? Kayla: What's our most wholesome topic? Chris: Oh my God. Kayla: What's the most wholesome thing we've talked about best friends. Chris: Cuz doggos, tulpas. Kayla: Cuz of friends. Because of making friends. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Okay. Literally everybody listening. The reply all episode about Tulpas is called making friends and it's just such a good time.

1:11:08 Chris: Oh, I get it. Yeah. Cuz you're making friends. Kayla: A friend. But also like spirit. Halloween is pretty wholesome with their like spirit of children. Chris: Oh yeah, they do that. They have the charity. Yep. Kayla: So they have a charity arm. That was pretty awesome. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: I mean, cargo cults is pretty wholesome. Chris: Mmm. Yeah. Kayla: 3300 and one's not unwholesome. Chris: One's mostly wholesome. Kayla: Pretty wholesome. It's people helping each other solve puzzles on the Internet and like, yeah, like we have a lot of wholesome creativity. Chris: Had the thing with the kids. Kayla: Don't, don't. Chris: You know what? If I had to do a damn topic on creativity, if I had to go to that website and I had to do that research, then by God I have earned these jokes. I can make as many jokes about creativity as I want to make on this show. Haha. White supremacists. Ha ha.

1:12:00 Kayla: Okay. Woodman, I think is also a pretty wholesome topic. Chris: I was actually gonna say they are surprisingly, they were surprisingly wholesome despite the sort of sexism that comes with whatever in the 18 hundreds. But they had a lot of stuff where they were helping people out, helping people accept help from a community and accept insurance when that was still a little bit or maybe a lot bit taboo because of, you know, rugged individualism and whatnot. Kayla: Right. Chris: That's pretty wholesome. I mean they helped people like carry on when their loved ones passed away. Kayla: Right. Chris: They're still doing that. Kayla: Well then they're like, we do pranks on each other.

1:12:41 Chris: I know. They're like we have, we ride a goat and make farting noises. Do you want some insurance? Yeah, that's fair. What's your final answer? Kayla: What's the culture? It's between best friends and tulpas. Chris: Okay. Kayla: And I think it's best friends. Chris: Best friends. Really? Yeah, because, see, when I said best. Kayla: I guess the topic isn't wholesome because the topic was about the religion, and. Chris: The religion wasn't a thing. Like, if it's just best friends, a, it's not a cult. Kayla: Right. Chris: And b, it's clearly the most wholesome because you're going and rescuing animals. Kayla: It's tulpas. Then. It's tulpas. Chris: Yeah, that. See, that's why I was. Because I said best friends at first, but then same thing for me. I was like, oh, spirit.

1:13:23 Kayla: Halloween's for sure up there. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: It's just I think anything that, like, gets real business related, gets, you know, takes some wholesome points away from it a little bit. Not necess, like, a little bit. Chris: Yeah, I get it. I get it. Kayla: But spirit of children obviously isn't incredibly wholesome. But that's only part of the topic. WHereas tulpas as a whole. I just think that I will always be a sucker for people finding community in nice ways because I love the Internet. The Internet has done some incredible work in, like, bringing people together. And then also, unfortunately, people are able to find community in destructive ways on the Internet. Like, there's a lot of people, you know, finding community like that website, like the. Like that I look for creativity, you know, incels, Subreddit and, you know, alt. Right. Like, there's lots of ways for finding community on the Internet to be such an intense negative that I love when people are able, people who are lonely are able to find community with each other on the Internet in, like, constructive, positive ways.

1:14:24 Kayla: And tulpas feels overwhelmingly positive and constructive. Chris: You make a strong case. Tulpas is close for me, I think I'm gonna go, though, with Jon Frum, which. Yeah, I'm not like, it's not quite wholesome. It's more uplifting. Kayla: Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Chris: Because, like, wholesome is, like, saccharine almost. Right. It's like. It's like. It's pure. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Throwing off the yoke of colonialism is. It's not a pure story. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: So I don't know. I'm kind of. Kind of. It's more like kind of jamming a round peg into a square hole here. But, like, I. Kayla: It's more intense than wholesome. It's more positively intense.

1:15:07 Chris: And it's aspirational, too, for an American. We named the episode the Americans because it was. Not only was it about maybe an american GI, but it was also about these folks that identified with the best aspects of the american experiment and ideal. Kayla: There's been so much negative around that it's nice to have a place where it totally, very positive. Chris: Totally. So. So that part of it, I think, feels wholesome. Like I said, throwing off the yoke of colonialism is not exactly like, wholesome. Kayla: It's more badass and fucking cool inspiring. Chris: There's. There's. Maybe it's just because I'm a boy. Wholesomeness means like, yeah. Righteous violence. Fuck, yeah. But I get, you know, they also weren't like. As I recall, they weren't like, violent in the way they did it. They were just were able to ideologically resist. Utilize. Yeah, ideologically resist and. And utilize this shared community, this shared, like, spiritual, cultural thing to galvanize their community to become independent.

1:16:04 Kayla: Right. Right. Chris: So that's my answer for wholesome. Kayla: There you go. Chris: Culty goes to Jon Frum on the people of Tana and tulpas. And tulpas for you is Jon from a tulpa? Kayla: Shit, yeah, kind of. I mean, he's a tulpa in the same way that, like, he's, like, he's a community tulpa. Chris: Totally. Kayla: Is any sort of mythological and or religious figure. Chris: A tulpa is Donald Bren, who we have never seen in real life and estates. No, because my secretive tulpa. Kayla: No, because one of my best friends went to a party at his friend's house and she's Donald Bren's niece. And Donald Bren was there, or so he's seen him. Chris: Was he just hallucinating a tulpa?

1:16:46 Kayla: He just forced the tulpa. Chris: Yeah. Are all of the NPC's in Star Citizen tulpas? Is the entire season of culture just weird about tulpas? Kayla: Are we tulpas? Chris: Yes. Well, we. Didn't we talk about that? We're like. We're totally like, I am a tulpa of my brains. Like, we construct our identities. We have different identities. We have a different identity this morning than I did yesterday. Kayla: We are all tulpas. Chris: We kind of all are tulpas. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: All right, so that brings us to the final question. Kayla: Final question. Chris: Da da da. So the equivalent of best picture. The cultiest cult and the weirdiest weird. The culty goes to la land. No, wait. Sorry. Moonlight.

1:17:39 Kayla: La land is the cult there and moonlight is the weird or the other way around? I don't know. Cultiest cult and weirdiest weird. Chris: Yes. Kayla: It's hard, man. I think that weirdiest weird. It goes to tulpas. Again. Tulpas I think tulpas is the weirdiest weird tulpas is. Chris: Apologies if any tulpas are listening to this right now. It's hella weird. Yeah, it's hella. Kayla: We've talked many times on the podcast. Weird is good. Chris: Weird weird in our opinion. I mean, I guess weird can. Kayla: Weird can be bad. Chris: Can be bad. Kayla: It doesn't have to be bad, but. Chris: It definitely can be good. And I think in this case, it is good. I think, you know, in a lot of cases, it's good. In a lot of cases, weird is interesting. It's different. It's variety. It's. I don't know, it's. It's something foreign to my experience, which I like.

1:18:29 Kayla: And then for culties. Cult. Chris: Why telpas? Why. Wait, why are they the weirdiest? Weird is there's just another weird teal dude. Kayla: Yeah, teal's weird, but teal's a cult. Chris: Okay. Kayla: Tulpas wasn't a cult. Chris: Mmm. Okay, fair. Kayla: It's a just weird. Chris: That's fair. Kayla: And it's people creating sentient consciousness autonomous. Like, even if it's. Even if it's real. Like, yeah, it's. It's the weirdiest weird. As far as culties. Cult. I want to say Mlms. Am I allowed to say Mlmsen?

1:19:09 Chris: Why wouldn't you be? Kayla: Cause the topic was Mary Kay. Chris: Oh. Oh, I see. Kayla: But we did also do, like, MLM as a topic. Chris: I think you have to say Mary Kay. Kayla: I think mlms are the cultiest cults. But then if it's. Chris: We didn't do a judgment for mlms. We just did a judgment for Mary Kay. Kayla: So then I don't think it's Mary Kay. I think then it goes back to my old pal teal. Teal, not Jay Z. I think teal. I think partly because she's more relevant right now. Chris: Right. Kayla: She's like. She's more relevant. She's more up and coming. She's more able to, like, utilize the Internet. Like, Romtha's fucking using dvd's of a movie. Teal's got YouTube beds.

1:19:57 Chris: Right, right. Teal is like the tech savvy, like millennial to Romtha's. I don't know how to use my phone. Okay, Boomer. Kayla: But, like, we should also be clear that, like, we also. Chris: Sorry, mom and dad. Kayla: We also talked about somebody who has dispersed a chain of restaurants throughout the world that. That showcases her 24/7 television station. So, like, there's a lot of culty cults here, but I think. I think given the fact, now that teal has like, a compound in Costa Rica where people go and just work there for her. And like, I think it's teal. I think Teal gets the cultiest cult for this season. Chris: For me, I'm gonna say something weird here. Strange, whatever. And maybe this is actually kind of tying it back to why we started the podcast in the first place, or how we started it. I'm gonna give cultiest cults to best friends animal sanctuary.

1:20:49 Kayla: I think that's. Chris: And I'm gonna give weirdiest weird to best friends animal sanctuary. Kayla: Damn. Chris: Because that's. I mean, that's why we started this, right? Is because we saw this thing that were like, what is going on here? Kayla: Right? Chris: We looked into it and we said, wow, there were a lot of bugs under that rock, right, when we turned that over. And so, yeah, I kind of have to give it to both, because, like, if you look at the entity that became best friends, if you look at the process church of the millennium. Kayla: Right? Process church of the final judgment. Chris: Final judgment. Excuse me. And then they'll. What was it? Something. Kayla: There was a millennium. Chris: There was something millennium. Whatever. Something very cultural. Kayla: I think there was process search, whatever. Chris: If you ignore best friends, I think that even beats teal. As culty as teal is. And as she has a compound and she's super woo. And she says things that are, like, absurd and false. Akashic records.

1:21:40 Kayla: Teal was also not kicked out of Scientology by L. Ron Hubbard himself. Chris: And like, maybe his friends with. Friends with Charles Manson or whatever. And like, had a compound. They also had a compound and. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Was it Central America or South America? Kayla: I think they were in Mexico. Chris: Mexico. Okay, so they had a compound south of here. They had. That was some crazy shit going on. Kayla: They were a straight up cult. Yeah. Chris: He worshipped like, it was God, Jesus, devil, and Satan. Kayla: Yeah. And they were like. They were. Chris: What the fuck? Kayla: They were mo. Is it millenniasmouse? They were people who were like, the end of the world is happening.

1:22:20 Chris: That's why I was called process. I think we've actually were even, like, mispronouncing it. It's probably like process, right? Because. Kayla: No, that's not the part. That's. Chris: They are processation of reality. Kayla: No, it's the millennial part that's referencing that from what I remember in my research. Chris: Oh, I thought it was process. You said process meant, like, processation. You did? Kayla: Oh, then never mind. Yeah, that was a long time ago. Chris: So, yeah, so I think that best friends is the cultiest cult. And thanks to all the same things I just said. Also the weirdiest weird. They really straddle that line because they. Kayla: Were all of that, and now they became animal sanctuary. Chris: Right. That we have volunteered at. And it's very wholesome, very nice. Kayla: Such a 180. It's like, first were a cult that worshiped God and the devil, and then were animal sanctuary.

1:23:07 Chris: And also, we're cool with Charles Manson. Anyway, now we like dogs. Yeah. So I'm gonna give it to best friends on both counts. Congratulations, best friends. For me, you have stood the test of time, and here at the end of our first season, you're still the winner. Kayla: You're still the winner. Chris: You're still number one in my heart. Best friends. Kayla: You're number one, best friends. And we can't wait to come and visit you again soon. Chris: Absolutely. Recently took a trip to Zion in Utah, and Zion's very close to Knab, and it made me kind of go like, oh, man, I miss Knab. I can just go pet some dogs, and I can just go hang out at the cult restaurant and talk to some founders and pet a cat and feed a hog.

1:23:48 Kayla: That's all true. Chris: That's the things that we did that led to this podcast. Kayla: Thanks, best friends. We're here because of you, right? Truly. Chris: So the first thank you, I guess, goes to best friends animal sanctuary and Robert de Grimston and Marianne McLean. Marianne McLean. And that's actually Michael Mountain, who is their current charismatic leader. Kayla: I'm going to issue a correction from our first episode. I called her Marianne McLean through the whole first episode, and I have been informed by a friend of the podcast that the proper scottish pronunciation of her name is. It's Marianne Maclaine. Chris: Gotcha. Kayla: So there you go. Chris: Oh, I also want to issue, well, it's not a. Not as much of a correction, as much as of a clarification. So last episode, were talking about Nobel prize winners that later turned into freaks, and James Watson was one of those. And we said, oh, discover co discoverer of the DNA double helix, which, while.

1:24:48 Kayla: Sort of true, it was a woman. Chris: It was actually. Well, so I will read the Wikipedia article about this hardcore question, because I. Kayla: Learned this recently, too. Chris: So I was. Kayla: Where did we learn this? Chris: Well, so it was. I believe we both learned it from the person who we are friends with that. The sister. I interviewed the sister? Kayla: No, I learned it on a YouTube video. Chris: Oh, okay. Because I was talking to one Mister Sweeney about this, and I mentioned the James Watson thing, and he was like, oh, yeah, did Alex, like, because that's like, one of the things that Alex loves to rant about is that, like, Watson and Crick didn't actually discover it. Kayla: No, it was a woman. Chris: And I was like, oh, no, I didn't know that. I actually independently put a note about James Watson in the show and I never actually talked to Alex about it. So, anyway, point is, the name of the woman is Rosalind Franklin. Franklin is best known for her work on the x ray diffraction images of DNA. So that's basically, like, you have to do special techniques to take photographs at that scale.

1:25:52 Kayla: Right. Chris: An x ray diffraction is basically a photographic technique for molecules. Kayla: Cool. Chris: Anyway, best known for her work on x ray diffraction images of DNA, particularly photo 51 while at King's College London, which led to the discovery of the DNA double helix for which James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1962. Her name was not on that list, if you heard me say it correctly. Kayla: Yeah. Why isn't her name on the list? Chris: Because she didn't get the Nobel Prize for it. They did. Kayla: What was her name again? Chris: Rosalind Franklin. Kayla: Thank you. Rosalind Franklin. Chris: Yeah. So not only was James Watson later become, like, a raging racist, you didn't even really discover DNA. So, anyway. Okay, thanks, Miss Franklin.

1:26:44 Kayla: Who else was. Chris: Slight adjustment to that. Kayla: Any other corrections we need to make? Any of those things? Probably a million we need to do. Chris: We need. Well, definitely. So corrections. There's. I can't even begin to say because there's probably so many. I don't know, nothing that I have specifically come across that I need to correct, but I absolutely will whenever I do. That's my promise. Kayla: That's a good promise. Chris: But thank yous. Yeah, I mean, so certainly. Thank you to best friends. Kayla: Thank you to best friends. Chris: We really enjoyed volunteering there back in 2016. It was a great time. It was beautiful and it inspired this podcast. Thank you. Obviously. Kayla: And they do incredible work. Chris: They do. They absolutely do.

1:27:24 Kayla: Thank you for saving all of the doggies and kitties and piggies and horsies. Chris: Yeah. Especially the cats that shit all over the place and can't walk straight. Kayla: I love them. Chris: Also, thank you to all of our interviewees that we had on the podcast. Kayla: Thank you and Tracy Conan. And thank you to all of the Tulpas people. And thank you to doctor Gorski. Chris: Thank you to person who I'm, you know, I'm just gonna say his name. Thanks to Gareth. Gareth Marsh, who I interviewed for the Star Citizen episode and he walked me through the game. Kayla: Thank you to all the people who talked to me for 3301. Thank you to Rey. And there was multiple thank you to Nox Populi. There were multiple people who I interviewed for that episode. They were amazing.

1:28:06 Chris: Thank you to my former blizzard co worker who was the researcher at Johns Hopkins. So if you wind up listening to this, thank you. Thank you to Alex, who I also interviewed for MTHFR. Thank you to our listener that suggested the topic for that one. Thank you to Alyssa for helping us organize which topics were going to do on the show for being our producer. Yes, thank you to our Patreon supporters. Kayla: Oh, thank you to all of our Patreon supporters. And I mean, thank you to them in general. And then thank you to everyone who's listening, obviously, last but not least, in. Chris: Fact, saving the best for last, I.

1:28:47 Kayla: Might have had one more. Thank you. No, actually, I have another. Thank you. Chris: Oh, well, then you better. You better do it right now. Kayla: Thank you to our incredible friend Ryan for providing intro outro music. Chris: That's right. Kayla: And it's incredible. Chris: That's right. Our outro, our intro outro music is pretty good, actually. So thank you to Ryan and, yeah, and like I said, last. Last but not least. In fact, I. But most is all of our listeners. Super. Thank you guys for listening to the show. It always gives us the warm fuzzies when somebody says something about like, oh, I love this episode or I love the show. Or, I mean, just even knowing that, like, one person is listening is. I don't know, it's really cool. Kayla: It is really cool.

1:29:27 Chris: It just feels really cool. Kayla: So, so this is the part of the video game when after you've beaten the video game and you've watched all of the credits and the very last one is and you with an explanation for and you listeners and you. Yeah, I mean, obviously we could make. Chris: We're basically. Yeah, right. Kayla: So thank you. Chris: Yes, thank you so much. And thank you because otherwise we would just be speaking into the void, which we do enough of that already. So it's nice to actually speak into the void and have it land on a couple ears. Yeah. Kayla: Thank you for being a wonderful co host. Chris: And thank me, too. Sorry, I mean, and thank you to. Kayla: The band that you're saying. Chris: Thank you to thank you. Thank you to you two. You're my favorite album of you. No, sorry. No, but seriously, you have also been a wonderful coast.

1:30:14 Kayla: Yeah. Chris: I have enjoyed the journeys that you've taken me on. Kayla: Good. Chris: The things that you have taught me and I am very much looking forward to our second season. Kayla: Oh, man. You guys, there's some. Chris: We're gonna step it up. We gonna step it up. Kayla: I don't even know if we're gonna step it up. It's just gonna be good ass topics, but, yeah, we'll probably also step it up. Chris: We're stepping it up. I have some ideas. We'll get to that. Kayla: We'll get to that. Happy holidays to everyone listening. Chris: Yes, happy holidays, everyone. Hope you enjoy the break from the glut of content that we're spewing at you. Hope you can catch up on some other critical content like, yeah, any pot. Kayla: Any other podcast we want to shout. Chris: Out, like, hardcore history.

1:30:55 Kayla: Take this time to listen to hardcore history. To listen to the Nexium podcast uncovering nxivm. Take this time to listen to the dream cereal. Cereal to. Brought to you by from Business Insider. What are. I'm sure there's other podcasts. Chris: My dad wrote a porno. Kayla: Yes, those are great podcasts. But are they not related to the show? Chris: What? I don't know. I said the. I said cereal that's not related to our show. Kayla: Oh, what was that teal swan one called? Chris: Gateway. Kayla: Gateway. Listen to the gateway. There's just so much good stuff out there. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Thank you to all of these podcasts for doing the hard work that we then rip off. Chris: Thank you for allowing us to rip you off or not knowing.

1:31:35 Kayla: Catch up on reply all because I've ripped off many of their topics. Chris: Yes, and thank you for all those podcasters. Anyway, just for, like, inspiring us. Kayla: Yes, thank you. Chris: But, yeah, so we will. That's. That's enough thinking right now. We will see all of you guys in season two. Looking forward to it. Kayla: It'll be fun. Chris: It will. Oh, are we gonna do a judgment for this one? Kayla: Are we a cult or are we just. Chris: We're the culties. A cult or just weird? Kayla: Just weird. Chris: Yeah, they were super weird. Kayla: Neither of us are charismatic. Chris: Right? We're definitely not charismatic. Didn't consume that much of our life. Kayla: Right. Chris: Harmful. Eh, not really. My butt hurts from sitting down for so long. Kayla: Not religious. Chris: Oh, it's definitely a ritual. Are you kidding me? These shows are hyper real. Kayla: Sure. But they're also, like, planned. And ours was just like, eh, I.

1:32:20 Chris: Wrote things on a paper. What more do you want from me. Kayla: Saying, this is not how you produce. Chris: The Oscars, but fair. This is just weird. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Okay. And on that note, this has been season one of cult. Kayla: You're not gonna just say your name. Chris: Or anything or just weird. Kayla: We usually go. I'm Chris. I'm Colton. Chris: Well, I know. Just go with the flow, man. Kayla: No, I don't. This is not improv anyway. There is no yes. And here, apparently. Chris: Yes. And this is Chris, this is Kayla, and this has been season one of cult or just weird? Come on. It's the season finale. We have to do better than that.

1:33:02 Kayla: That wasn't good. Chris: It was weird. All right, fine. Kayla: How do you want to do it? Chris: Fitting. No, no. Let's do it that way. All right. I. That's good. That's how it's going out. Kayla: Bye. Chris: Fuck it. We'll do it live.