This, Again

In the second episode of this two-part series on cults, we look at what happens when cult psychology collides with the digital world.

The online relationship movement known as Twin Flames Universe promised followers that a single destined partner existed for each person and that spiritual coaching could reunite them with that soulmate. Behind the scenes, former members describe a system that pressured followers to pursue relationships that had already ended and invest thousands of dollars in coaching programs.

We also examine the strange and disturbing story of Love Has Won, a livestreamed spiritual movement built around a woman who claimed she was guiding humanity through a cosmic transformation. For years, followers broadcast their lives online while building a belief system around the figure they called Mother God.

These modern movements raise an unsettling question.

Are we witnessing the emergence of a new age of cults driven by digital platforms and online communities?

Or are the same psychological patterns that fueled earlier cults simply finding new ways to organize and spread?

Drawing on research from psychologists and sociologists who study high control groups and digital culture, this episode explores how belief, belonging, and identity operate in the networked world.

Because while the technology surrounding these movements may look new, the forces shaping them may be far older.

Attribution Notes:

Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow

This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. 

Sources and Further Reading

Hines, Alice. “Inside the Twin Flames Universe and Its Always Online, All-Consuming World.” Vanity Fair, December 3, 2020.

Associated Press. “Michigan Attorney General Says She Is Investigating a Company Promoting ‘Twin Flame’ Romance.” Associated Press, March 5, 2025.

Netflix. Escaping Twin Flames. Accessed March 12, 2026.

Borden, Jane. “Mother God, Robin Williams, and Alcohol as Medicine: Inside Love Has Won.” Vanity Fair, November 14, 2023.

Buchanan, Kyle. “The True Story Behind HBO’s Love Has Won.” Time, November 14, 2023.

Lifton, Robert Jay. Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of ‘Brainwashing’ in China. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

Hassan, Steven. Combating Cult Mind Control. Freedom of Mind Press.

Tufekci, Zeynep. Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. Yale University Press, 2017.

Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000.

Cialdini, Robert. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Harper Business, 2006.

Lalich, Janja, and Madeleine Tobias. Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships. Bay Tree Publishing, 2006.

In this episode of This, Again, we trace the evolution of cults from the obvious monsters of the 1960s and 70s, the Manson Family, Jonestown, and Heaven’s Gate, to the respectable reinventions of the 1980s and 90s like NXIVM, Scientology, and multi-level marketing empires.

What do these groups share beneath the costumes, the jargon, and the business cards? The same psychological mechanics: obedience, conformity, charisma, sunk cost fallacy, and the intoxicating promise of belonging. Drawing on scholars like Robert Lifton, Margaret Singer, Janja Lalich, Steven Hassan, and Philip Zimbardo, I explore how cult leaders weaponize trust and how ordinary people, people like us, become devoted enough to give up their freedom, their money, even their lives.

And by the end, we land on a harder question. If the robes and UFOs were easy to spot, what happens when cult dynamics put on a suit and walk into the boardroom?

This is Part 1 of a two-part series. In Part 2, we move into the modern era, where cult dynamics no longer stand out at all, but blend into our feeds, our fandoms, and our politics.

Attribution Notes:

Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow

This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. 

Books and Major Works Cited

Historical and Case Sources

Academic Studies and Classic Social Psychology

Authoritative Summaries and Reporting on Cults

Psychology Theory Summaries

In the early 20th century, hundreds of women were employed to paint luminous watch dials using radium-based paint. Despite early warnings from medical experts, companies continued to insist the work was safe. This episode examines the history of the Radium Girls, focusing on what corporate leaders knew, how they delayed accountability, and the lasting legal and public health consequences. It also draws a direct line to modern chemical exposure cases, including PFAS contamination. Supported by court records, contemporaneous news reports, and government data, this episode explores how institutional denial functions, and why the same patterns persist today.

Attribution Notes:

Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow

This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. 

While this episode has some narrative interpretations, it draws heavily from primary source materials, historical journalism, and expert reporting.

Moore, Kate. The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2017.

Clark, Claudia. Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform, 1910–1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.

Martland, Harrison S., Philip Conlon, and Joseph P. Knef. “Some Unrecognized Dangers in the Use and Handling of Radioactive Substances.” Journal of the American Medical Association 85, no. 23 (1925): 1769–76.

Rich, Nathaniel. “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare.” The New York Times Magazine, January 6, 2016.

Library of Congress. “Radium Girls: Living Dead Women.” Headlines and Heroes (blog), March 11, 2019.

Fryer v. U.S. Radium Corporation, Superior Court of New Jersey, Essex County, 1927–1928. Records Related to Radium Dial Painters, 1917–1949

Leach v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Circuit Court of West Virginia, Wood County, No. 01-C-698, filed 2001. Class action settlement available via DuPont C8 Health Project.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. PFAS Strategic Roadmap: EPA’s Commitments to Action 2021–2024. Washington, DC: EPA, October 2021.

How do you justify rebellion when you are fighting for freedom, and then justify suppressing it once freedom is yours?

In this episode of This, Again, we rewind to the years immediately after American independence, when the Founding Fathers were forced to confront a problem they had not fully planned for. Americans were rebelling again, this time against them.

We begin with the Boston Tea Party before it became a founding myth, when it was still risky, debated, and unresolved. Then we follow that same logic of resistance as it reappears during the Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s, when farmers in western Pennsylvania challenged a federal law passed by a government that claimed to represent them.

Along the way, we sit with the anxiety, fear, and reasoning that shaped how early American leaders explained the difference between rebellion they celebrated and rebellion they suppressed. This is not an episode about whether the Founders were right or wrong. It is about how people reason under pressure, how legitimacy hardens after survival, and how the logic that creates a revolution does not disappear once power changes hands.

Primary sources from Alexander Hamilton and George Washington anchor the episode, alongside historians who explore the psychological and political aftermath of the American Revolution.

Attribution Notes:

Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow

This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. 

Hamilton, Alexander. Federalist No. 15. 1787.

Hamilton, Alexander. Federalist No. 6. 1787.

Hamilton, Alexander. Federalist No. 9. 1787.

Hamilton, Alexander. Letter to George Washington, August 18, 1794.

Hamilton, Alexander. “Tully No. IV.” 1794.

Washington, George. Proclamation Calling Out the Militia. September 25, 1794.

Petition of the Inhabitants of Washington County, Pennsylvania. 1792.

Secondary Sources

Slaughter, Thomas P. The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution.

Bouton, Terry. Taming Democracy: “The People,” the Founders, and the Troubled Ending of the American Revolution.

Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution.

Wood, Gordon S. Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789 to 1815.

Maier, Pauline. From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765 to 1776.

Archival Collections

Avalon Project, Yale Law School.

National Archives.

Petition of the Inhabitants of Washington County, Pennsylvania, 1792, quoted in

Hamilton, Alexander. Letter to George Washington, August 18, 1794.

Hamilton, Alexander. “Tully No. IV,” 1794.

In this episode of This, Again, we look at three familiar figures from late medieval and early modern Europe and ask a different kind of historical question.

Not whether they were heroes or villains.

We start with Christopher Columbus, whose brutality was documented while he was alive and whose authority collapsed long before he became a national symbol. His later transformation into a heroic origin story tells us less about new discoveries and more about what later generations needed him to represent.

From there, we step back to Spain in the late 1400s, where Ferdinand and Isabella unified the crown through religious purity, expulsion, and surveillance. By tracing royal decrees alongside firsthand accounts, we can hear the story being shaped in real time, with moral justification first and consequences handled quietly afterward.

Finally, we look at Henry V of England, a king whose short reign and timely death helped solidify one of England’s most enduring legends. Victories like Agincourt were interpreted as divine approval, while moments that complicated the image were absorbed and sidelined. Over time, Henry became less a man and more a standard against which later instability was measured.

Taken together, these stories show how historical narratives harden not because evidence disappears, but because meaning gets organized around what feels necessary, stabilizing, or reassuring in a given moment.

Attribution Notes:

Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow

This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. 

Primary and Contemporary Sources

Columbus, Christopher. The Diario of Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage to America, 1492–1493. Edited by Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley Jr. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.

Columbus, Christopher. Select Letters of Christopher Columbus, with Other Original Documents Relating to His Four Voyages to the New World. Translated and edited by R. H. Major. London: Hakluyt Society, 1847.

Las Casas, Bartolomé de. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Translated by Nigel Griffin. London: Penguin Classics, 1992.

Henry V and the Hundred Years’ War

Allmand, Christopher. Henry V. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

Curry, Anne. Agincourt: A New History. Stroud: Tempus Publishing, 2005.

Curry, Anne. Henry V: From Playboy Prince to Warrior King. London: Yale University Press, 2015.

Prestwich, Michael. Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.

Spain, the Reconquista, and the Inquisition

Kamen, Henry. The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.

Kamen, Henry. Spain 1469–1714: A Society of Conflict. London: Routledge, 2005.

Netanyahu, Benzion. The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain. New York: Random House, 1995.

The Black Legend and Historical Memory

Gibson, Charles. The Black Legend: Anti-Spanish Attitudes in the Old World and the New. New York: Knopf, 1971.

Pagden, Anthony. Lords of All the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France c.1500–c.1800. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Columbus, Mythmaking, and National Memory

Irving, Washington. A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. New York: G. and C. Carvill, 1828.

Prescott, William H. History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic. London: Richard Bentley, 1838.

Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: The New Press, 2018.

Coups are often remembered as sudden explosions of force. Tanks in the streets. Jets overhead. Governments collapsing overnight. But history tells a quieter, more unsettling story.

In this episode of This, Again, we trace the hidden psychological pattern that links coups across centuries and continents, from Napoleon’s rise in revolutionary France to Cold War interventions in Latin America and beyond. Using the 1973 Chilean coup as our central case study, we examine how democratic systems unravel long before soldiers ever move, through exhaustion, institutional paralysis, rumor, and the slow withdrawal of public belief.

Chile did not collapse because the military was powerful. It collapsed because trust eroded. Because Congress froze. Because courts lost credibility. Because everyday life became unpredictable. And because enough people, across enough institutions, quietly stopped believing the system could recover.

Along the way, we connect Chile’s experience to earlier and later coups in France, Poland, Spain, Greece, Guatemala, and Argentina, revealing a shared emotional architecture that repeats even when politics, ideologies, and eras change.

This is not a story about left versus right. It is a story about legitimacy, exhaustion, and the dangerous silence that settles in just before power changes hands.

History does not repeat in identical events. It repeats in human behavior.

Attribution Notes:

Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow

This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. 

Allende's Final Address: https://youtu.be/IZVWOWA2Hpk?si=xNHlO33Ve9rc0jzU

PRIMARY SOURCES 

Chile 1973 — Direct Primary Sources

1. Salvador Allende: Speeches & Broadcasts

2. Declassified U.S. Government Documents

(All hosted by the National Security Archive at George Washington University)

3. Chilean Newspapers (Digitized)

4. Eyewitness/Oral History Archives

5. Allende Family & Personal Reflections

B. Global Coup Parallels - Primary Sources with Links

1. Iran 1953

2. Myanmar 2021

3. Turkey 2016

4. Thailand (2006, 2014 coups)

5. Spain 1936

Clogg, Richard. A Concise History of Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

U.S. Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XVI: Cyprus; Greece; Turkey.

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v16

ADDITIONAL SOURCES:

Foundational Works on Chile 1973

1. Peter Kornbluh - “The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability”

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB110/

2. Patricia Politzer - “Fear in Chile: Lives Under Pinochet”

https://www.usip.org/publications/1990/06/fear-chile-lives-under-pinochet

3. Brian Loveman - “Chile: The Legacy of Hispanic Capitalism”

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/chile-9780195112799

4. Jonathan Haslam - “The Nixon Administration and the Death of Allende’s Chile”

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691130255/the-nixon-administration-and-the-death-of-allendes-chile

5. Heraldo Muñoz - “The Dictator’s Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet”

https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/heraldo-munoz/the-dictators-shadow/9780786726554/

Academic Journals & Articles 

Journal of Latin American Studies

Cambridge University Press:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-latin-american-studies

Hispanic American Historical Review (Duke University Press)

https://read.dukeupress.edu/hahr

International Security (MIT Press)

https://direct.mit.edu/isec

Foreign Affairs - Classic Articles on Chile (1971-1974)

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/search?search_api_views_fulltext=Chile

Documentaries

“The Battle of Chile” (Patricio Guzmán)

Streaming on YouTube (Part I):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SVBm50nApc

Streaming on Vimeo (restored versions):

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thebattleofchile

PBS Frontline: “Chile: The Other 9/11”

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/chile/

“Santiago, Italia” (2018)

Streaming overview:

https://www.ifcfilms.com/films/santiago-italia

Sources for Coup Parallels

1. Naunihal Singh “Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups”

Publisher:

https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/4012/seizing-power

2. Edward Luttwak “Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook”

Publisher (Harvard):

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674175474

3. Stephen Kinzer “All the Shah’s Men” (Iran 1953)

https://www.wiley.com/en-us/All+the+Shah%27s+Men%3A+An+American+Plot+to+Get+Rid+of+a+Prime+Minister+and+What+It+Can+Teach+Us+Today%2C+Updated+Edition-p-9780470185497

4. Duncan McCargo - Works on Thai politics

https://www.duncanmccargo.net/publications/

5. International Crisis Group – Myanmar, Turkey, Thailand reports

https://www.crisisgroup.org/

The lights got brighter. The cameras got closer. But the system never changed.

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off and trace the next wave of child stardom, from the 1980s to today. We revisit the sitcom era that gave us tragic headlines, the pop machine that chewed up teen girls for profit, and the digital boom that turned toddlers into monetized brands.

Behind the fame was something more dangerous: a psychological cost that built quietly over time. We look at how parasocial fame warps identity, how trauma bonding creates loyalty to abusers, and how growing up in public reshapes the brain in ways science is just beginning to understand.

From Britney Spears to Ruby Franke, from reality shows to family vlogs, this episode investigates how childhood continues to be scripted, sold, and sacrificed for entertainment.

This is not the end of the story. It’s the part where the machine learns to disguise itself.

Content Warning: This episode includes mentions of child abuse, sexual harassment, addiction, and suicide.

Attribution Notes:

Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow

This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. 

Sources and further reading: 

Drew Barrymore’s Early Addiction and Emancipation

Lynsey Eidell, “All About Drew Barrymore’s Relationship with Her Mom Jaid Barrymore,” People, March 25, 2024. https://people.com/all-about-drew-barrymore-jaid-barrymore-mother-daughter-relationship-8406047

Britney Spears and the Conservatorship

Sam Levin, “Britney Spears’s conservatorship terminated after nearly 14 years,” The Guardian, November 12, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/nov/12/britney-spears-conservatorship-terminated

Ruby Franke / Shari Franke and Family Vlogging Controversies

Katie Kindelan, “Ruby Franke’s daughter speaks out to lawmakers on family vlogging dangers,” ABC News (Good Morning America), October 17, 2024. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Family/ruby-frankes-daughter-speaks-lawmakers-family-vlogging-dangers/story?id=114904176

Illinois and California Influencer Labor Laws

Illinois (SB 1782): Eric Stock, “Pritzker signs child influencer protections into law,” NPR Illinois, August 14, 2023. https://www.nprillinois.org/illinois/2023-08-14/pritzker-signs-child-influencer-protections-into-law

California (AB 1880 & SB 764): Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, “Governor Newsom joins Demi Lovato to sign legislation to protect the financial security of child influencers,” press release, September 26, 2024. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/09/26/governor-newsom-joins-demi-lovato-to-sign-legislation-to-protect-the-financial-security-of-child-influencers/

Advocacy by A Minor Consideration and SAG-AFTRA

Roger Armbrust, “Jackie’s Legacy: Proponents of Coogan Law revisions aim at extending protection of child performers to all cases and all states,” Backstage, November 4, 2019. https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/jackies-legacy-proponents-coogan-law-revisions-aim-extending-20198/

Margaritoff, Marco. “9 Shocking Stories of Hollywood Stage Parents Who Exploited Their Own Kids.” All That’s Interesting, September 8, 2021. https://allthatsinteresting.com/celebrity-parents-stage-mothers

Chung, Gabrielle, and Tomás Mier. “Britney Spears Says She Wants to Charge Dad Jamie with ‘Conservatorship Abuse’ in New Testimony.” People, July 14, 2021. https://people.com/music/britney-spears-says-she-wants-to-charge-dad-jamie-with-conservatorship-abuse/

“In Wake of Ruby Franke Abuse Case, Utah Adds Protections for Children of Social Media Influencers.” CBS News, March 26, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/utah-children-influencer-protections-ruby-franke-child-abuse/

Brodsky, Rachel. “The True Story Behind An Update on Our Family and the YouTubers Who Gave Up an Adopted Child.” Time, January 15, 2025. https://time.com/7206477/an-update-on-our-family-true-story-stauffer-family/

Krobot, Anezka. “When Play Becomes Work: How Child Influencers on TikTok Are Being Exploited and How We Can Protect Them.” American Bar Association – Journal of Labor & Employment Law, September 2, 2025. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/labor_law/resources/journal/38-3/how-child-influencers-tiktok-being-exploited-how-we-can-protect-them/

“France Passes New Law to Protect Child Influencers.” BBC News, October 7, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54447491

Kindelan, Katie. “Illinois Becomes 1st State to Regulate Kid Influencers: What to Know About the Law.” ABC News, August 14, 2023. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Family/illinois-1st-state-regulate-kid-influencers-law/story?id=102259218

Duygu Balan. “Smile for the Camera: The Psychological Toll of Child Fame.” Psychology Today, June 2, 2025:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-the-light-and-in-the-dark/202306/smile-for-the-camera-the-psychological-toll-of-child-fame

Ankita Guchait, MBPsS. “When Your Childhood Is Monetized: Exploring the Psychology Behind Kidfluencing.” Psychology Today, April 14, 2025: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-realities-of-refugee-screening/202504/when-your-childhood-is-monetized

Ariane Resnick, CNC. “Understanding Trauma Bonding.” Verywell Mind, updated November 6, 2025: https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-trauma-bonding-5185114

Hollywood has been cashing in on cute kids for over a century, and the kids usually pay the price. In Part 1 of The Child Star Problem, we trace the origins of child exploitation in the entertainment industry, starting even before Hollywood with vaudeville stages, traveling acts, and silent films. This episode unpacks the system that raised children for applause and profit, from Jackie Coogan, whose stolen fortune led to the first child labor law in entertainment, to Judy Garland, whose teen years were fueled by pills, starvation, and studio control.

We explore how the industry industrialized innocence, how parents and executives profited from it, and why this early playbook shaped every cautionary tale that followed. Before #FreeBritney and TikTok families, there were contract girls, fixers, and children sold as miracles during the Great Depression. And the cycle? It was built in from the start.

Content Warning: This episode includes mentions of child abuse, sexual harassment, addiction, and suicide.

Attribution Notes:

Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow

This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. 

Sources & Further Reading

University of Oxford. "Exploitation of Elizabethan Child Actors Revealed."University of Oxford News, June 19, 2013. https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2013-06-19-exploitation-elizabethan-child-actors-revealed.

Soth, Amelia. "Her Majesty’s Kidnappers."JSTOR Daily, December 17, 2020. https://daily.jstor.org/kidnapping-for-the-queens-choir/.

Hatzinger, Martin, et al. "Castrati - everything to achieve fame." Urologe A 48, no. 6 (June 2009): 649–652. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19333571/.

Pound, Jeremy. "Secrets of the castrati: the eye-watering surgery that created opera’s greatest stars." Classical Music, July 18, 2025. https://www.classical-music.com/articles/secrets-of-castrati

Blakemore, Erin. "The Last Silent Film Star." JSTOR Daily, June 1, 2018. https://daily.jstor.org/the-last-silent-film-star/

Sid Luft, Judy and I: My Life with Judy Garland

Suyin Haynes, “The True Story Behind the Movie Judy,” TIME

Erin Blakemore, “Golden Age Hollywood Had a Dirty Little Secret: Drugs,” History.com

Shirley Temple Black, Child Star: An Autobiography

John F. Kasson, The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression

Hillel Italie, “Shirley Temple, Child Star of the Depression, Dies at 85,” Associated Press / Salt Lake Tribune

Judith Levine, “Baby, Take a Bow,” Boston Review

Duygu Balan, “Smile for the Camera: The Psychological Toll of Child Fame,” Psychology Today

Edward Helmore, “Trauma memoir puts spotlight on mums turning daughters into child stars,” The Guardian

Ariane Resnick, “Understanding Trauma Bonding,” Verywell Mind https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-trauma-bonding-5185114

Jackie Coogan and the Coogan Law. Ailbhe Rogers, “More Than Pocket Money: A History of Child Actor Laws,” In Custodia Legis (Law Library of Congress blog), June 2022. https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2022/06/more-than-pocket-money-a-history-of-child-actor-laws/

Baby Peggy / Diana Serra Cary. Pamela Hutchinson, “Diana Serra Cary – aka ‘Baby Peggy’ Montgomery – obituary: the early child star who became an activist for Hollywood’s children,” Sight & Sound (BFI), February 25, 2020. https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/news/diana-serra-cary-aka-baby-peggy-montgomery-obituary-early-child-star-who-became-activist-hollywoods-children

Dana Plato, Gary Coleman, and Diff’rent Strokes Actors. Kellie Gormly, “The Tragic ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ Curse: Remembering Dana Plato & Gary Coleman,” Remind Magazine, May 8, 2024. https://www.remindmagazine.com/article/14088/the-tragic-diffrent-strokes-curse-remembering-dana-plato-gary-coleman-todd-bridges/

What do 19th century weavers and 21st century tech workers have in common? More than you might think. In this episode, we unpack the real story behind the Luddites, skilled artisans who weren’t afraid of machines but deeply aware of how those machines were being used to undercut their labor and erase their way of life. Their protests were met not just with force, but with a powerful narrative campaign that branded them as backwards and irrational.

Two hundred years later, the same pattern shows up in conversations about AI. When writers, designers, and even tech insiders raise concerns about automation, safety, or fairness, they’re often dismissed with the same tired insult: “Don’t be a Luddite.” But what if that label is more about shutting down the conversation than engaging with it?

We explore how narrative framing has been used historically, and still is today, to marginalize dissent and smooth the path for so-called progress. From Hollywood strikes to tech whistleblowers to protestors stacking rocks in front of food delivery robots, this is a story about what happens when you challenge the dominant script.

Attribution Notes:

Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow

This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. 

Sources & Further Reading:

In 1949, the royal vaults of Baroda were supposed to be sealed, transferred to the new Indian state as part of a complex and delicate independence process. But when an audit revealed that hundreds of crown jewels had vanished, suspicion fell on one woman: the Maharani of Baroda, Sita Devi.

A woman as notorious as she was glamorous, Sita Devi didn’t just smuggle the jewels out of India. She wore them on magazine covers, flaunted them in Monte Carlo casinos, and lived a life of velvet defiance while the Indian government scrambled to respond.

In this episode, we unravel the scandal behind the Star of the South and the English Dresden, trace how cultural patrimony can be quietly erased in auction houses, and ask the hard question: Who gets to own history?

From Baroda’s treasure rooms to Sotheby’s glass cases, from the Mona Lisa stolen in 1911 to a daylight jewel heist at the Louvre in 2025, this is a story about ego, erasure, and the price we pay for letting power write the museum labels.

We’ll also explore how today’s restitution debates are evolving, and whether justice for stolen history is finally within reach.

Topics Covered:

Attribution Notes:

Every effort was made to cross-check primary sources and modern research. Where paraphrasing is used, it’s drawn from the cited texts with narrative license for clarity and flow.

If you spot an error or have a source to suggest, DM @thisagainshow

*** Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow ***

This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. 

Mona Lisa Theft / Cultural Theft Themes

Restitution Debates / Cultural Patrimony