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The Sneaky Language Tricks Cults Use to Influence You | Amanda Montell | TED

05:55Added Aug 30, 2026

In the age of social media and wellness trends, the comments section is as good as a cult compound, says linguist and cultural commentator Amanda Montell. Us...

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. 00:03Greetings followers.
  2. 00:06And settle in.
  3. 00:08Because I'm about to share with you a true story
  4. 00:12about one of the most zealous cults in the world.
  5. 00:17The story takes place on the group's holiest day.
  6. 00:20Acolytes arrived at dawn,
  7. 00:22some having crossed oceans
  8. 00:24and sacrificed life savings in order to get there.
  9. 00:27They came bearing hand-beaded offerings
  10. 00:29inscribed with sacred numbers: 22, 13, 89.
  11. 00:35But this, my friends,
  12. 00:36is not the story of an apocalyptic sect on a faraway compound.
  13. 00:40No, this was a Taylor Swift concert.
  14. 00:43(Laughter)
  15. 00:45I said it.
  16. 00:46The talismans are friendship bracelets,
  17. 00:48the biblical books are known as eras,
  18. 00:50and the charismatic leader is a billionaire pop priestess
  19. 00:53who, let's be honest, could probably rule the free world
  20. 00:55if she really wanted to.
  21. 00:58Now, don't get me wrong.
  22. 00:59I'm a deep-dyed "Red" album girlie.
  23. 01:01I'm not here to call out Swifties as cult followers.
  24. 01:04No, I wouldn't dare.
  25. 01:07But I'm an author and a cultural commentator
  26. 01:10with a background in linguistics.
  27. 01:12And I’m here to share how we’re all susceptible to cult-ish thinking,
  28. 01:17for better and for worse.
  29. 01:19And our everyday vocabularies are evidence of our devotion.
  30. 01:23I'm here to share what to pay attention to,
  31. 01:26what to listen for,
  32. 01:27so that, as we move through these inevitably culty times,
  33. 01:30we can stay both enchanted and empowered.
  34. 01:35Now, my fascination with cults is personal.
  35. 01:37That's because of my dad.
  36. 01:39As a teenager, he was forced to join Synanon,
  37. 01:42a '70s California compound with matching overalls
  38. 01:45and a traumatizing truth-telling ritual called The Game.
  39. 01:49But my dad escaped,
  40. 01:51became a neuroscientist,
  41. 01:52and brought up a nosy kid
  42. 01:54who became obsessed with understanding
  43. 01:56how to identify cultish influence in everyday life.
  44. 02:01As I got older, I couldn't help but notice
  45. 02:04that the same language tactics that my dad described in Synanon
  46. 02:08could be found kind of everywhere.
  47. 02:10Like, in my high school theater program
  48. 02:13and in the wellness industry
  49. 02:15and on my social media feed.
  50. 02:18That's how I came to study the cultish spectrum,
  51. 02:20degrees of influence,
  52. 02:22none of which start out with LSD and robes,
  53. 02:25but instead, sneakily, with words.
  54. 02:29I want to point out three cultish language tactics
  55. 02:32to listen for in everyday life.
  56. 02:33The first is called the thought-terminating cliche.
  57. 02:36Coined in 1961 by the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton,
  58. 02:39thought-terminating cliches are zingy stack expressions
  59. 02:42that are easy to memorize, easy to repeat
  60. 02:45and aimed at shutting down independent thinking and questioning.
  61. 02:48So let's say you're a member of a group,
  62. 02:50and there's a rule that you want to push back against.
  63. 02:53You might get hit with a phrase like, "trust the process,"
  64. 02:56or "it's all in God's plan" to shut you down.
  65. 03:00In Synanon, the phrase "act as if"
  66. 03:02effectively meant pretend that you believe until you do.
  67. 03:06Today, in conspiracy theory-type groups,
  68. 03:09the phrase “do your research” basically means “stop asking me about mine.”
  69. 03:13(Laughter)
  70. 03:14Next, I want to talk about "us" versus "them" labels.
  71. 03:17In Synanon, defectors were called "splitees."
  72. 03:21Today, you’ve got your “sheeple,” your “NPCs,” your “industry plants.”
  73. 03:25When a label makes all of those people seem unilaterally evil and us superior,
  74. 03:31that's a red flag.
  75. 03:32And thirdly, I want to mention loaded language.
  76. 03:35Corporate synergistic visionaries.
  77. 03:37Wellness 5D consciousness.
  78. 03:39At first, emotionally charged buzzwords like this feel like enlightenment.
  79. 03:43Then one day you wake up
  80. 03:45and you realize you've completely surrendered your ability to talk and think
  81. 03:48for yourself.
  82. 03:50This language works because it plugs straight into our cognitive biases.
  83. 03:55These deeply ingrained decision-making shortcuts
  84. 03:58that developed in earlier human brains
  85. 04:00to help us process information from the world around us
  86. 04:02enough to survive it.
  87. 04:03But today, mental magic tricks like confirmation bias, the sunk cost fallacy,
  88. 04:09and the halo effect
  89. 04:10cause us to believe only the information we already agree with,
  90. 04:13double down on sketchy choices
  91. 04:15and worship mortal human beings we've never even met
  92. 04:18as all-knowing deities.
  93. 04:20This clash between our once useful cognitive biases
  94. 04:24and the information age
  95. 04:25is this phenomenon that I've been calling
  96. 04:27magical overthinking.
  97. 04:30And it's a problem
  98. 04:31because studies show that social media
  99. 04:33has damaged our mental health and our attention spans,
  100. 04:36all the while making cultish leaders mega accessible.
  101. 04:39Who needs compounds when you have comment sections?
  102. 04:44Now, I don't say this to freak anyone out.
  103. 04:47I'm just here to point out the difference between awe and indoctrination.
  104. 04:52And I want to leave us with a few tips to help us do that.
  105. 04:55First of all,
  106. 04:56when you find yourself in a space, even a digital one,
  107. 04:59where you feel really emotionally activated
  108. 05:01and you're using a lot of buzzwords
  109. 05:03that make you feel like you're part of a tribe,
  110. 05:05but you can't really define
  111. 05:06exactly what you're saying in plain English, or why,
  112. 05:09that's a sign to take a step back and consult other sources.
  113. 05:12Next, pay attention to exit costs.
  114. 05:15Healthy groups might make leaving feel awkward,
  115. 05:18but never apocalyptic or earth-shattering.
  116. 05:21And finally, we can use cult language for good.
  117. 05:24Rousing chants, rhyming mantras,
  118. 05:26they can be used to make true information catchy, too.
  119. 05:31I'm not here to take away anyone's friendship bracelets.
  120. 05:34We need community more now than ever.
  121. 05:37So I think living in this cultiest era of all time,
  122. 05:42the goal is not so much to be cult-proof,
  123. 05:45it's to be cult-literate.
  124. 05:49You follow?
  125. 05:50(Laughter)
  126. 05:51Thank you.
  127. 05:53(Applause)