Unpopular opinion: most 'cult documentaries' are just trauma porn now

I watched that new 4 part series on the Twin Flames thing and I swear half the episodes were just slow motion shots of people crying with spooky music. Compare that to the old HBO doc on the Branch Davidians where they actually broke down how the recruitment process worked step by step. I feel like these new docs focus more on making you feel gross than showing you the actual techniques these groups use to trap people. Am I wrong here or do you guys also skip straight to the interviews with ex members to get the real info?

3 comments

3 Comments

angela_morgan11d ago

You're missing how those emotional hooks mirror the real manipulation tactics though.

grantw4111d agoMost Upvoted

My buddy ran a small online community for three years before it got overrun by astroturfers, and I watched the whole thing fall apart. From what I saw, the real manipulation usually comes from people who know exactly what they're doing and have a clear agenda, not just someone using emotional language. If you look at it another way, a lot of these "hooks" are just how people naturally talk when they care about something deeply. I've seen genuine passion get labeled as manipulation way too often because someone disagreed with the point being made. Your mileage may vary, but I think we can get too quick to read bad intentions into normal human communication. Take this with a grain of salt, but sometimes a hook is just someone trying hard to be heard.

fisher.thomas11d ago

I was at a cult awareness conference in 2019 and a speaker put up a slide showing that the average new documentary spends about 12 minutes per episode on actual recruitment methods. The rest is just reaction shots and ambient drone music. They figured out that making people feel sick sells way better than teaching them how to spot a love bombing pattern. That Twin Flames series could have been two episodes tops if they cut all the artsy slow pans of empty bedrooms.