The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations.
The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact.
This podcast is for entertainment purposes only.
They are training these quote unquote dancers out of their compound in upstate New York.
If you want to say Sounds like a cult, there's nothing more culty than the words compound in upstate New York.
The group very much manipulates recruits into doing free labor.
You have that many billboards for a show that not a lot of people are going to see.
There's going to be some questions.
Questions.
They were really early boosters of Trump.
They were in with the QAnon people.
They were like really tied into this like extreme right ecosystem and seemingly had limitless money.
This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow.
I'm your host, Amanda Montel, author of the books Cultish and the Age of Magical Overthinking.
Every week on the show you're gonna hear an analysis and some little jokes about a different culty seeming group from the modern day Zeitgeist.
From Mormon mom talkers to people who might just be a little bit too obsessed with Costco.
This week we're finally discussing the cult of Shen Yun to try and answer the big question.
This group sounds like a cult, but is it really?
And if so, how bad is it?
Which of our three cult categories does it fall into?