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I don’t know a single person that would allow themselves to be stopped by a solicitor on the street. You know those guys — sometimes they’ll have pamphlets in hand wanting to talk to you about Jesus or a political candidate running for city comptroller, other times they’ll just be homeless, asking for a few extra bucks.
Whatever the case may be, no one is stopping anymore. There may be a kind soul, most likely from an older generation, once every couple hundred people, who does actually stop to talk to those guys on the street for a few minutes, but for the most part they are ignored, doomed to a new reality where people just aren’t susceptible to that kind of advertising anymore.
I’ve been absolutely enthralled the past few nights by a documentary called “Wild Wild Country,” a Netflix documentary about a religious cult known as the Rajneeshees, who migrated from India all the way to Oregon in the hopes of building a large commune for tens of thousands of people. And for a few years in the Oregonian backcountry, the Rajneesh movement thrived. They bought up all of the real estate in an adjacent town to their commune and got elected to city council. They joined the police force, built infrastructure, and sustained themselves with donations from their followers.
This story takes place in the early ’80s, and that is never more apparent than when you begin listening to accounts of what it was like to live in this commune. The people who joined this cult came from every corner of the world and all walks of life, praising a man named the Bagwhan because he preached about a lifestyle free of societal obligation or constraint.
Free love, capitalism, and some really strange meditating that involved both screaming and silence were just a few of the pillars of the Rajneeshee way. The Bagwhan spoke (and had his messages relayed through an assistant when he took a vow of silence for a few years) to his followers about how he wasn’t a leader or religious figure, merely a guy who “was asleep but is now awake.” I mean this was Cult 101 stuff and people just bought it hook, line, and sinker.
I won’t spoil any more of the story because it is incredibly fascinating. If you haven’t seen the documentary, I can’t recommend it enough, but when I finished it late last night the only thing I could think about was how this situation could never, under any circumstances happen in the present day.
I’m not insinuating that people living in the ’70s or ’80s were dumber their counterparts in the present day, but I am saying that they were more gullible. More susceptible to some guy with a long beard and flowing robes who claimed to have all of the answers and promised nirvana on a commune in rural Oregon.
I mean look at this guy (pictured below speaking to his followers and every news station in the world at a press conference) and tell me you can take him seriously.
In a way, The Bagwhan was the Michael Jordan of panhandling, spewing nonsense about an idyllic commune and successfully fleecing not just the uneducated and indigent, but incredibly wealthy, successful business professionals. He had people from all walks of life hanging on his every word.
Now, I’m cynical to a fault. But so is everyone else my age. We don’t take strangers at face value because we grew up with our parents telling us not to talk to strangers. People in their 20s or 30s in the 1980s didn’t have that, making them easy targets for Bagwhan’s bullshit. Cults thrived in the ’70s and ’80s because people just didn’t know any better.
Every time they’d show clips of these people in their commune, you could see in their eyes that there was something a little bit off about them. “Crazy eyes” would be the best way to describe it. Oftentimes I found myself just scoffing and throwing my hands in the air in the disgust. How could anyone be this naive?
Apparently The Bagwhan, before becoming a guru, a trained hypnotist, but even if that is true — how could you listen to a word that guy says without being like “Ehhhh, probably not going to move to a fucking commune in the sticks of Oregon with you, my man.” Jonestown had happened a few years before this and people still flocked there. There weren’t even drugs involved. People who lived in the commune got two beers a day and that was it. Two beers? I piss two beers in my sleep, buddy.
I don’t care what this guy was promising. People of the ’80s — you have to be better. No shot in hell anyone from my superior millennial generation is falling for this crap. I guess when the pet rock and Slinky are bestsellers and technology is at its most rudimentary, you can’t expect much more from people, though..
All images via Youtube
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jduda@grandex.co
No, they were definitely dumber in the 80s. Very few knew how to even send an email for Christ sake.
The corporations have gotten smarter and bred a cult like loyalty to their brand on both a consumer level and an employee level. They know that young people want a cool office that resembles a home so people are tricked into staying there past 40 hours so that their salaries decrease every hour worked after that. Plus they most people fall for free coffee and bagels and bright colors. They’ve assimilated the cult mentality seamlessly into everyday life while building a pyramid scheme in the background as they smile and shake your hand and then hypnotize you with their welcoming gaze as they douse you in gasoline and light you on fire…kinda like that Pink Floyd album cover except the music sucks wayyyy more lol
Google, Facebook, LinkedIn etc offices are dope as fuck. They give you a free gym, free food, free booze, free dry cleaning to name a few perks. Why ever leave the office when you got everything you need right there, eh? The 4 horsemen of the apocalypse (Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple) are the new communes of the 21st century that our dumb millennial asses flock to.
If you’re loyal to your employer you’re dumb as fuck. They’ll drop your ass in a second without thinking twice and will be dropping your ass once your position becomes fully automated.
“Suck it boomers!” – tide pod eating millennials
That’s generation Z eating Tide Pods. Millenials are the ones killing all chain restaurants because we *gasp* cook at home or try and support local business.
We are also the ones that eat ass and avocado
“Damn young whippersnapping millennials eating Tide pods and making doing laundry more expensive” – Baby boomers.
One word: Scientology.
idk man there are dumb*** teens out there getting recruited by ISIS and whatnot. Haven’t you seen “SIX”?
You can say ass. We’re all adults here.
You’re extrapolating a generalization of a whole generation based off a Netflix documentary about a small cult in an insignificant part of the country. I’m pretty sure that’s not how sociology works.
It is, however, how Duda works.
RE: cults can’t happen these days. Absolutely false – remember Vemma/Verve?
Pyramid Schemes and Cults are fairly different. You have to be equally dumb to fall for either, but different.
I lost an entire friend group to the Vemma brain washing. They were a cult of gross orange stuff mixed with cheap vodka.
I laugh at my college self after I met with a Vemma guy because I wanted to hear about his “amazing business opportunity.” As soon as he opened his mouth I knew he was “one of them.” (I never spoke to him again btw. So I’m still cool I think.)
You don’t piss two beers buddy. Didn’t you once write about drinking like 5 Mich Ultras was a lot for you?
Also, all anyone needs to do these days is make a Youtube challenge video and they can recruit half the nation. I’d say everyone is still pretty fucking gullible.
Its funny that boomers complain about millennials being lazy considering the only people at work who ive noticed are sleeping/playing games/reading a book/ect are all boomers.
You’re on a roll lately, JD. Keep it up