Andy Sohoza
I didn’t make this with cults in mind. I made it with me in mind. And while I could spin that as a cult of one, or try to bullshit my way into making it a pandering red-state sociopolitical commentary, that would be misleading. Fortunately, at the bottom of this stack of solipsistic free association lies the cognitive dissonance all cult behavior is ultimately built on. That psychological contortion required to see distant celebrities as friends, brands as culture, dependence as love, hate as pride, or weakness as strength, is a reflexive solution for a disquieting world, and that reflex lies within all of us. This piece was an attempt to de-romanticize a place and people (myself included) once deified that way in my work, and force myself to confront the totality of what it was all along.