Dancing for the Devil: Andrea Marks on the 7M TikTok Cult

A Little Bit Culty

Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames

True Crime, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2024

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you haven’t seen the Netflix series “Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult,” it’s worth a watch. It follows Robert Shinn and his Los Angeles-based church, Shekinah, which has engaged some heavy-hitting social media stars to make a ton of money for his church. The families of those social media stars — who have been cut off from their loved ones by Shinn — think that Shekinah is a cult. And, well, we agree that it sure does seem a little culty. This week, we talked with Andrea Marks — a journalist who has covered both Robert Shinn and his church for Rolling Stone, and who spoke on camera in “Dancing for the Devil.”

Andrea Marks is a freelance journalist who has written for Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and many other outlets, where she covers crime and subculture. In this episode, we get into the lawsuits surrounding Shinn, the allegations of abuse, and how a social media-focused cult can thrive in the age of constant connection. Plus, Andrea touches on her time reporting on NXIVM.

Also… let it be known that:

The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

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CREDITS:

Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames

Production Partner: Amphibian.Media

Writer & Co-Creator: Jess Tardy

Associate producers: Emma Diehl and Matt Stroud of Amphibian.Media

Audio production: Red Caiman Studios

Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, or mental health advice.
0:05.4	The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion group club organization business individual anyone or anything I'm Sarah Edmondson and I'm Anthony air quotes nippy aims and this is a little bit
0:30.8	guilty a podcast about what happens when things that seem like a great thing at first go bad.
0:36.0	Every week we chat with survivors, experts, and whistleblowers for real cold stories told directly
0:41.0	by the people who live through them.
0:43.0	Because we want you to learn a few things
0:44.6	we've had to learn the hard way.
0:46.5	Like if you think you're too smart to get sucked into something culty,
0:50.1	you're already prime recruitment material. You might even already be in a cold.
0:54.0	Oops, you better keep listening to find out.
0:57.0	Welcome to season six, a little bit colty.
1:00.0	Seeking down to the down to the ocean
1:05.0	hanging on to win my love.
1:09.0	I let go of it all I could leave. Welcome back to ALBC everybody. We have a very special person to
1:19.2	thank for this episode. As you know we are constantly telling you about all the fun things happening on
1:25.3	Patreon which is really how we keep this podcast going and someone reached out to
1:29.8	us and said you know I'm not really a Patreon person, which is fair, I get that, but they wanted to
1:34.2	support the podcast and they ended up donating through our website and basically donated enough
1:39.2	money, 500 bucks, to produce an episode.
1:42.4	So this episode is dedicated to our new friend
1:45.2	Joe Metz. Joe Metz this is your episode your thumbprints are on it and we also
1:50.0	sent you a little care package with a book and a hat and all the fun things you would have gotten had you been in the Patreon in a circle but we feel like you earned it and we would give you a sash if we could but we burnt those.
	...

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