“I’m starting a cult and want you all to be part of it.”
This is what hundreds of thousands of tik tok users saw on July 11th this year on @notgigijarvis’s page. The video appeared to be satirical and lighthearted regardless of the dark “cult” branding. The “cult” leader, Gigi Jarvis, later explained that the “cult” was supposed to be nothing more than a “fun, creative community”. Unfortunately, this “community” spiraled into something much more sinister.
Gigi Jarvis coined this first video, “Starting a cult day one”. It was truly the catalyst of what was to come. The next day, her TikTok video was titled “Starting a cult day two”. The language Gigi Jarvis used in these videos often came off as unserious and even benevolent. She hid behind the reasoning of wanting to provide a “safe space”, a “community”, and even said she wanted the whole thing to be a “choose-your-own-adventure game”. She allowed her “followers” to choose their cult name (the cult was named “Children of the Waning Star”), choose emojis as a way to recognize emojis, and even prompted them to think about holidays they could possibly create.
Unfortunately, things didn’t stay innocent for very long. Eventually, Gigi suggested that her followers post pictures of their animals as “sacrifice”. She tried to push this idea of “victim of the week” where she would choose the person with the funniest profile picture and make the rest of her followers put that as their profile picture. Soon, rumours of people harming themselves and sacrificing their pets to The Children of the Waning Star cult surfaced. This forced Gigi to make an apology in which she stated that this was never her intention and promised to use her “platform to raise awareness by sharing resources for cult survivors and mental health”. Her excuse of naiveness towards the potential impact of this “cult” did not fail to raise some eyebrows as Gigi has a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology while making the Dean’s list twice.
Although the Children of the Waning Star cult may have been short lived with minimal impact, another TikTok cult called 7M Films shows a darker side of the internet. 7M Films is a talent management company based in LA that was founded by Robert Shinn in 2021, who was also the pastor of the Shekinah Church. The company works with social media creators, more specifically TikTok dancers, to help with marketing, content production, and securing deals.
While this seems to be a normal business at face value, reports emerged accusing the company of being a religious cult instead. You see, the Shekinah Church and 7M Films are closely intertwined since they were both founded by Shinn. The church teaches 7 mandates: entertainment, education, family, religion, media, business, and government, which are also enforced at 7M Films.
The story that brings attention to this cultic company is the Wilking family. During an Instagram Live, the family claimed that Miranda Wilking, their daughter, was being controlled by 7M and believed that 7M and the Shekinah Church forced Miranda to cut off contact with her family. While the company, church, and even Miranda herself denied these allegations, other families came forward about their similar experiences with their loved ones involved within the company. Many of these families described their loved ones as “completely different people” after joining 7M. The Wilking family did make an effort to contact authorities, but since there wasn’t any solid proof of the allegations there wasn’t much they could do, however, the public still remains suspicious.
What connects both of these TikTok cults is the way they were spread. They both use the app’s algorithm that thrives on videos that shock or fascinate viewers to reach more people. The platform’s “For You Page” learns users’ interests and pushes them deeper into whatever content captures their attention, even if it’s harmful. Once users interact with a certain type of video, the algorithm floods their For You Page with similar videos, making it the perfect way for cults to recruit.
Oftentimes, we tend to think of cult members and leaders as these spine-chilling caricatures that obviously don’t have good intentions and are easy to avoid. But, most of the time, that’s not the case. In fact, most cults start out with an inviting and charismatic leader that promises a positive objective. A lot of times, cults are hiding in plain sight.
