The Cult of Gooning
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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It is both a very communal and a very individual cult.
I want to be clear, there's a lot of sweetness in this space. A lot of these people are looking out for each other. But basically, they're all sort of masturbating in a Zoom call effect, essentially, where they're all watching the same porn and they're live streaming themselves getting off.
And someone's DJing the porn. No, that's nice. Ew. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day. cults we all follow. I'm Amanda Montell, author of books including Cultish, the Language of Fanaticism.
I'm Reese Oliver, Sounds Like a Cult's resident rhetoric scholar. And I'm Iman Hariri-Kia, author of Female Fantasy and Once in a Timeline, which will hit bookshelves on October 13th.
Every week on the show, we discuss a different fanatical fringe group or guru, something that puts the cult in culture from celebrity wellness brands to the Sims to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really?
And if so, which of our cult categories does it fall into? a live your life, a watch your back, or a get the fuck out.
After all, in 2026, the year of our Lord, cult-ish thinking and affiliation falls along a continuum. And not all cults are equally bad. For a lot of people, being in a cult of sorts could look as harmless as tuning into Love Island every single night, or being a little bit too involved in a Trader Joe's Facebook group. But for others, cultish behaviors take a turn for the more destructive and brain rot inducing, like lurking on incel forums and living to look smacks.
Or possibly like members of today's cult who have taken a dive into an expansive digital vortex urging you to shut out the world in favor of giving in to your most carnal pleasures at all times. Today, we are getting hot and heavy as we drop into the Gooniverse, aka the Cult of Gooning.
Guys, what are your thoughts? I'm so happy we're doing this episode, honestly, because I have talked so much about gooning with people in my everyday life over the course of the last six months. first heard about gooning from a Cosmopolitan article that talked about just like the general definition of gooning before the article that we're gonna discuss later today went mega viral.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–28:51
2
What is 'gooning' and how did it enter internet culture?
28:51–32:10
3
How do goon caves, goon caps, and porn music videos define gooner aesthetics?
32:10–50:06
4
Where did gooning originate and how did Discord and the pandemic accelerate it?
50:06–55:40
5
What language, rituals, and ‘goon babble’ unite gooners as a subculture?
55:40–57:46