Madness Madness!

For reasons fully explained in a brief song, Erin and Amanda were unable to record an episode this week. Please listen to the song, and if you have any questions afterward please email us at [email protected]. We will definitely see you next week.

This week’s matchup hops the pond to England, where we get a look at a couple of longstanding social ensembles: The Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes and the Women’s Institute. One has hats and theater people; one has women who work in the home and get shit DONE. Also the segments are relatively short so there are a lot of pleasant digressions, from soap operas to Jesus’s visit to Glastonbury, which did not necessarily cause the later death of Michael Jackson during the storied music festival in 2009, but also nobody can be 100% sure. After last week’s Hoo-Hoo Explosion we honestly weren’t sure there’d be any serious competitors in the pipeline, but listen, there’s a lot to work with this week. Join us, won’t you? 

So, sometimes you have to take a step back and have a look at what you're doing. Sometimes it turns out that what you're doing isn't actually what you want to be doing, or what you feel you should be doing, or, as the saying goes, "kind of sucks."

It turns out that MLMs? All kind of suck. There's not gonna be a winner there, and we've accepted that and moved on. So today marks an exciting new chapter in Madness Madness's journey: Clubs and Organizations! What kind of clubs, you ask? Today's entries are the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) vs. The Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo, a club that may actually be even better than its name, if that even seems possible. Join us! There will be hats!

Two giants of the field square off this week! One's a semi-beloved fixture of domestic life; the other is Amway. Not to tip our hand too much, but if you're a betting person, think about laying your money on the MLM that isn't a right-wing monstrosity shilling a bunch of goddamn garbage to keep the DeVos family afloat on an obnoxious yacht. 

IT'S SEASON TWO, SUCKERS!!! Now that we're wig-carrying Unarians, we need another income stream to pay for all these costumes and 8mm film. Time to start a small business and be our own bosses and definitely not wind up thousands of dollars in debt with a garage full of unsalable products! That's right, we're joining a Multi-Level Marketing scheme, and definitely not a pyramid scheme!

In our season 2 inaugural matchup, it's a face-off between two cosmetics MLMs! That's why it's a FACE-OFF! Because faces! And makeup! You see. Uh, anyway. Mary Kay and Holiday Magic! One started by a steely Texas lady with seemingly good intentions, the other bought out of some dude's garage by a right-wing grifter who liked flying planes a lot more than learning how to fly them! It's good stuff, people. For real.

Sometimes—OK, who are we kidding, literally all the time—you look down at the stuff you've had to cut from previous episodes due to time constraints, and you say to yourself, "There's no way I'm leaving this behind." And you're right, there's no way we'd let that happen. SO! This week, a fun little grab bag!

• A Special Listener Letter: Friend of the Program Allen asks an interesting question about cults and capitalism, which we do some blue-skyin' and some spitballin' about.
• Exercise Cults: Sometimes when you insist that people are Doing It Wrong if they're not paying a whole lot extra for the specific exercise program you're selling, it gets kinda culty! Especially if you're selling Crossfit or Soul Cycle! You fucking weirdo! CONTENT WARNING: This segment contains discussion about disordered eating and exercising, so you might consider skipping it if that stuff is troubling to you.
• Next Season!!! It's time to learn what kind of madness we'll be getting up to in season 2! OMFG!!!

It's all come down to this, folks: After grueling weeks of intense research, our intrepid hosts take on the final four contestants and determine which cult is the cult for them! IT'S REALLY HAPPENING!!!

... After a reasonable discussion of two more cults, of course. Spoilers: Neither fucked-up Jesus Power Cult "Ivanwald" or the alternating straight-up lies and batshit craziness of the Breatharians will be bursting into The Big Dance.

As you might expect, we here at Madness Madness are constantly bombarded with fun, exciting, and horrific cult news at all hours of the day and night. We're picking it out of our hair; spooning particles of it off the surface of our morning coffee. And today we share some of that goodness with you! Join us for shorter-than usual discussions of Iglesia Maradoniana, Armstrong-ism, the GOP, the Silva Mind Control Method, and much more! Plus listener mail! Exclamation points! My god, the exclamation points.

Sometimes you have to look your former spiritual mentor in the eyes and say, "Hey, buddy. I'm thoroughly plagiarizing your work so I can make some cash off this cult. And that's OK." Other times you have to sing over the Berlin Wall at an old East German woman who's been through both world wars about how you have to work hard for your freedom. It's a complicated life, this crazy ride we call a podcast. Join us, won't you?

Picture it: It's the '70s, you live in New York, you like getting screamed at, and you're really into humpin'. Bang! Welcome to the Sullivan Institute, pal! Or, alternately, picture it: It's the early 2000s, you're at your desk, and your three favorite things are incoherent garbage, constant antisemitism, and MDMA. Whoomp! There's your cult! It's Desteni, a spelling so stupid my keyboard caps keep coming off when I try to type it. Join us, won't you?