Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of SoulCycle

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

SoulCycle is without question a “cult-followed” brand, but is this exclusive boutique workout studio actually more insidious than that? This week, resident cult skeptic Amanda and real-life SoulCycle attendee Isa engage in a hilarious, well-informed debate about the intense, inspiring (and potential sinister) cult of SoulCycle to try and figure out what category along the cult spectrum it falls into: Live Your Life, Watch Your Back, or Get the Fuck Out?

Okay, Issa, fuck, marry, kill, soul cycle, crossfit, peloton. Oh, there is a wrong answer. Kill peloton, marry soul cycle, and fuck crossfit. Yeah, I respect that. I mean, the only true wrong answer is to marry crossfit. I would marry peloton because I don't want anyone to watch me exercise. I would fuck soul cycle and I would kill crossfit. What the fuck? This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow.

I'm Issa Medina, a comedian and documentarian. And I'm Amanda Montell, an author and linguist. Every week here on the pod, Issa and I are going to deep dive into one lucky fanatical fringe group from the cultural zeitgeist, from the royal family to spiritual influencers, to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? All right, I am pretty pumped about this week's episode. I feel like it's been a long time coming.

Do you want to tell the listeners about our Cult of the Week? Yes, I mean, it's the one that we essentially like based this whole show off. And the reason also that I was in shape for part of quarantine. Yeah, we're going to talk about soul cycle this week. Fuck yeah, let's get into it. Okay, so for those who are not in the cult of soul cycle, quote unquote, cult of soul cycle or familiar with it, let's maybe like give a little bit of background. So I would essentially describe soul cycle as this massively popular boutique indoor

cycling brand that started in 2006. I know so much about soul cycle because and we'll talk about this later. I've written so much about it, but I've never actually been. Anyways, it was started in 2006 by these two ladies who basically set out to create the Starbucks of spinning. So like a cycling studio on every corner, but also kind of bougie. Make it bougie. Make it bougie.

So it's like $35 a class. They started out in posh circles in big cities like New York and LA before expanding into this like household, but also kind of a roastable brand name that it became. And they got really specific about building up the branding and the instructors to make soul cycle kind of this exclusive addictive almost spiritual more than exercise experience for people. I mean, as a soul cycler yourself, Isa, how would you describe it? I mean, I think my experience is a little bit unique because I got into it kind of late

in the game right after it was a whole trend because I'm a hipster like that. I do things after not before. Is that when you're like profoundly uncool? I don't know. All I know is that I was essentially inducted by my friend who's like a diehard soul cycler. She's a producer kind of by coastal. So it's like how she gets her workout in, you know, in New York and LA. And I was telling her how I really need to start working out and I don't know what I

should do. And she said, you have to come to soul cycle with me. I said, I'd never been. She was like, Oh my God, you have to try it. It's amazing. So she signed me up and you pay in advance like 30 to 35 signed you up. Yeah, like through her app because I didn't have an account yet, I guess. So I just vent mode her.

Oh my God, is she like a fricking missionary for soul cycle? Like, does she get paid for that? She doesn't. But she does have like she is. She is one of those people who's like friends with the instructors though. Yeah. Okay. We'll talk all about that later.

I'm sure. Yeah. The thing that I liked about it off the bat was that once you pay the money, like you can't cancel after 5 p.m. the day before. So you're locked in. You got to go to the workout. I show up, go to the front desk. The people are like very rude, which I'm used to because it's LA and

the class was in Beverly Hills. And then, you know, you have to clip in. No one teaches you how you feel like an outsider. It's a stationary bike. You have to have cycling shoes and you have to like clip the shoes into the bike so that your feet are like attached to it. So that you can't leave. You are literally attached physically to the bike.

Yeah. You're like locked in. Oh my God. And I actually heard an instructor say how like congrats you finished the class. Not like you could even leave if you wanted to because if it's your first one, you probably don't know how to unclip. Oh my Lord. Okay.

So how did it feel while you were taking the class though? I mean, honestly, I kind of, I love a cardio workout. I'm a big cardio gal. I can't relate to you. And well, that's why I like SoulCycle because I love the feeling after a cardio workout, but I hate going to a cardio workout. So, you know, having like the monetary attachment to it, I was like, oh yeah, I have to go.

I already spent the money. At first, like my first couple rides, I was laughing. I was like, is this a joke? Like you're talking like we're at church. This is very preachy, very extra. Everyone was getting emotional. But then I started going back a couple weeks and I got into it. I'm not going to lie.

I let myself indulge. I let myself get emotional because I knew that I wasn't going to go beyond that. I kind of knew going in, for me, this is a workout and that's it. And so if I'm going to like let myself get emotional in this time period, then balls to the wall. Totally. Yellow, you know? No, for sure.

I mean, that's the safe way to do it. But like, why have you never been, if you've, you know, you've written about it, you've done research about it, but you've never been to a SoulCycle class? I mean, the real reason to get like very honest about it, the main reason why I've never been to SoulCycle is I just don't fucking want to. I mean, I don't, okay, okay. Let me, let me defend why I've never been to SoulCycle. Basically, over the years in like my former career as a beauty slash wellness editor,

and then in my current career as someone who reports on Colts, I've literally interviewed so many SoulCycle followers, diehards, X followers, instructors, higher ups at SoulCycle HQ, like people in the C-suite. I remember in like 2016, I interviewed their SVP of brand strategy, whatever that means. I talked to her about how she helped cultivate this cult followed brand. And then at the end of it, I guess I mentioned that I had never been to SoulCycle before. And her eyes like lit up in this devilish way. And she was like, Amanda, oh my God, you have to go kind of like your friend.

She was like, I'll sign you up. I'll create an account for you. I'll drop five classes into your account and then I swear to God verbatim. She was like, it's going to change your life. And knowing me, like I have authority issues. I don't like people telling me what to do. And even more so, I don't like people telling me who I am or who I should be. And just the fact that she was exactly and just the fact that she was so confident

that this magic spell that SoulCycle creates with like the dark lighting and the flashing lights that make you feel like you're in a nightclub or on an ayahuasca trip or in a spaceship combined with like the candle that smells really good and all the fosperational, motivational, like change your body, change your mind, change your life. But you've never been still. No, I know what it's like because I've interviewed all these people and I get it. She was just so confident that this magic spell and the fosperational lingo was going to work on me that I was like, no way you're going to convert me, lady.

I'm not selling you my fucking soul. But you know, it's like you can do research, but you'll never know. Some people never know what they are capable of. Be inspired by your passion. Kick some ass. You're stronger than you think. You're more powerful than you know. I know you are.

Find your best self. A higher expression of yourself. Your badass self. What are you waiting for? Figure it out. I don't want to hear any excuses. Let it change you. Push it.

Show up. Right now. Get it. It's yours. Find it. Breakthrough. Oh, shit. Oh my god.

It's ridiculous. It's so ridiculous. Doesn't it get you hyped, though? Well, I mean, I am only human. So like, do I have full body chills? Yes. Let's go right now. No, I'm not going to Sausage.

We can sign up for an afternoon class. I'm not going to Sausage with you. It's insane. I do feel it in my bones, but it is insane. Here's the thing. Maybe I would just rather exercise by going outside and walking around the neighborhood for free. I mean, I'm the same way when it comes to authority.

I'm not going to lie, like, oh, well, my mom's not a huge authority in my life anymore. But she'll be like, Isabella, you need to go grocery shopping and save money. And I'm like, OK, now that you said that, I'm going to eat out five times this week. OK, don't tell me what to do. I just don't want to spin.

Yeah. I just don't want to spin. We got down to it. You just don't want to spin. I just don't want to spin. Ultimately, I just don't want to spin. But I do take issue with how they, but I do take issue with how strategically

they create this experience. Like as an outsider from the jump, it was impossible not to notice how it is clicky. They do create this us them dichotomy. There's this implied requirement of everybody has to don head to toe in like a $500 fucking Lululemon get up. Yeah.

And the unimplied requirement of like having to own your own shoes and like always buying a water bottle at the front desk, which are like $7. It's just so there's so many hidden costs. I feel associated with it. Not to mention like the lingo, like the specialized lingo with the tap backs and the noon on Mondays.

Oh yeah. So for me, the noon on Mondays thing, I didn't even know about it until like a month in noon on Mondays is basically the time every week when class bookings open up and the diehards rush to get a spot with their favorite instructor. I would just go to like any instructor that was available. I was like cardio is cardio.

I'm doing this to work out. Oh no, no, no. But yeah, then I started realizing like my friend and a couple other people I knew who go to SoulCycle, they would only sign up for certain instructors. Yeah. And if that instructor was fully booked that week, they just wouldn't work out, which in my opinion,

doesn't have to feed the whole purpose because you are should be working out, but it's more than a workout. Like that's what science. Oh my god. I literally almost call it psychology. That's what science taught me. No, but that's what they do on purpose.

They create these mini charismatic, like SoulCycle recruits not from fitness trainers, but from like Broadway performers, influencers, people who have the charisma and they host these tryouts and they put them through the super intense training where they learned how to, you know, cultivate their own specialized fosperational mantras. They, you know, they learn how to basically manufacture

this sense of transcendence in the studio. And, you know, I don't actually judge the followers because I get that it's nice to step out of your everyday life and surrender to this endorphin saturated group experience, especially during a time when we are sorely lacking in the flesh community. I will also say that I have a very, very unique experience because I started going to SoulCycle during the pandemic.

And so I was doing it outside on a rooftop. No candles, no dark room. They didn't have their usual tricks. They didn't have the usual tricks up their sleeve. I was in and out and I was like, peace out. Totally. But, you know, I did go to rumble, which is like the SoulCycle of boxing.

And that shit was like a dark room. And I like felt myself, I followed one of the instructors. Yeah, see that on Instagram. I mean, it's the combination of all these things. Followed him home. For the longest time, the cultiest part about SoulCycle, Timmy, was not necessarily, you know, they're not isolating people on a commune in the woods somewhere.

Like, obviously you can quit at any time, unless you can't figure out how to unclip. But, you know, obviously not everyone who goes to SoulCycle gets sucked in. Like you, you know, the biggest red flag to me was always that SoulCycle makes these lofty, grandiose promises that they ultimately can't deliver on, right? Like, it's kind of suggested that by attending class three times a week and saying the mantras and wearing the leggings,

that your life will dramatically improve overall, that you'll cure your depression, or empower yourself to get a raise, or empower yourself to divorce your abusive husband, empower yourself to overcome cancer. They're essentially promising you things that aren't actually physically related to exercise. They're like selling you Soul characteristics

instead of just like a six pack and a hot ass. 100%, they're selling you all of the above. And I only want a six pack and a hot ass. It's like, I don't need to be a wholesome person. That's why they don't get me. This is why they won't get you. But yeah, people told me in interviews that SoulCycle is their religion,

and the brand leans into that so far. Ass is my religion. Ass is your religion. Just kidding, that sounds like I hate that. Oh my God, the nice ass is my religion. This has taken a turn. But the brand leans into those religious implications, like the website says SoulCycle is a sanctuary.

And I think it's great to have a site of in-person community when so many of us are just scrolling through our fucking phones all day. But you know, when you put so much spiritual stake into a profit driven, profit driven, profit driven, image driven brand, it gets sketchy and it is really disturbing to see. Even my friends who are like smart, discerning,

skeptical, capable adults act so entrenched in the religion of SoulCycle. Like I know people who would straight up lay down in the street and die for their favorite instructors. My first class, I didn't even clip in correctly. My first class was really challenging. I couldn't ride to the B. I was in from the first ride.

I truly like got into the room, clipped my shoes into the bike and just had this visceral experience. That was probably the moment. It was when I realized that like it stopped being a workout and I just wanted to go. Find your soul. Find it.

Find it. I found mine. I found mine. So I think we've covered all of those things, right? It can get toxic, it's sketchy because like when you walk into the room they're pulling all these tricks, they have charismatic leaders

and they have, you know, the us versus them mentality going on but has anything sketchy or ever happened? Like, you know, any scandals or anything that like was alarming to you? Oh fuck yeah. We would be remiss not to mention that in 2020 this damning expose from Vox came out.

It's funny that you joined SoulCycle during the pandemic or like really started going during the pandemic because the brand was already going downhill due to studio closures left and right when this report came out that there had been cults of personality forming around these master instructors who would choose favorite and least favorite students.

They would give private off-the-clock rides. They were reportedly having sex with some of the riders like there was one instructor who literally called her riders her little sluts and your rider should want to be you or fuck you. Ride off the clock. Ride on, ride off. Ride on, ride off.

Yeah, one of the mantras they were taught to internalize is your rider should want to be you or want to fuck you. And it's kind of like, oh, like Trader Joe's. Yeah, like how they flirt with people on purpose. But then, you know, there were reports of sexual harassment. There were reports of verbal bullying by master instructors not only to riders but to like lower staff.

You know, there are these hierarchies. And then SoulCycle HQ cared more about the master instructors than the riders themselves. Like they are nothing without their charismatic leaders. Even in like the few months that I was going to SoulCycle, I noticed that some instructors would be like, oh, they forgot my water and towel. They would never do this for so and so.

Totally. And SoulCycle HQ knows who their most prized instructors are. And there were these reports that, you know, complaints had been filed against some of these top, top all stars that SoulCycle HQ threw in the trash while bankrolling one implicated instructor's expensive Soho House membership and rental Mercedes Benz and not doing a single thing about it.

So allegedly. Sorry, allegedly anyway. And I'm saying that so we don't get sued. Because it's profitable for them to keep those people around. That's a scandal. For sure. And I interviewed this fitness historian named Natalia Petruzzella for the book who like instantly tweeted about the scandal

the second it broke. And she said something that just hit the nail on the head. She was like, when you elevate instructors to a position of godlike power, power abuses will follow. You see that happening in multiple industries. Oh my god, yes. I mean, in the entertainment industry, when you elevate like actors or actresses

to be godlike creatures, it's like no one is godlike. There are talented and untalented people and they're hardworking and lazy people. But at the end of the day, no one is beyond human. Yeah. And it's funny because when you look at it, all they're doing is teaching indoor stationary cycling, which is like the easiest thing.

Literally, dude, all they do is the workouts are just to the beat of the song. So they just cycle faster when the song speeds up. It's like, OK, maybe if you were producing the music that goes along with the cycling, I'd be like, wow, you're so talented. But you're literally just speeding up when the music speeds up.

I mean, they're so good at it, though, at like passing this off is a really unique transcended experience because you can probably speak to this. When the workout gets really, really hard, that's when they start spewing the like, you're so strong. You're so beautiful. Climb the mountain of your dreams, you know, like during those really hard hills at the end.

Oh yeah. I mean, personally, like the one class that really got to me was on election day 2020. Oh god. You know, we're like eight, nine months into the pandemic. We're really not trying to elect Trump for a second term. Think of fucking God. We are on the other side of that.

That's the truest cult in America at the moment. But you know, I went there at 7 AM class election day and I had already voted early and pat myself on the back. But you know, we are 30 minutes into the workout. My heartbeat is higher than it's ever been before. And this lady is like preaching to us on a rooftop in Beverly Hills. Like, I know you've been through hard times,

but like, if we can push through this, we can push through anything. And I'm like, what the fuck hard times has anyone on this rooftop been in? In Beverly Hills. We're literally on a rooftop in Beverly Hills. Yeah. I mean, do you want to talk about like the demo of SoulCycle?

Because we can't ignore that. Like, who are the people who go to SoulCycle? Yeah. The demographic of SoulCycle is like, majority upper middle class white women. And obviously I'm like generalizing here, but what you see is like people who lack community or who are rejecting mainstream religion.

Right. And so they're turning to SoulCycle as their like sense of community. To fill the void. To fill the void. And I think like you said, the most dangerous part of that is is because it's associated with something that like, you're paying for and is profiting off of you.

So these women are paying for community and then all of a sudden they feel a really personal attachment with people that are making money off of them. It makes perfect sense because as Americans, like our ultimate religion is self-improvement. Like we fetishize self-improvement. And the idea that those who achieve perfect fitness deserve to live a long and happy life, you know.

And those who are poor and not super fit and not like the SoulCycle brand deserve to be miserable and die young. Like these are the American meritocracy values that were taught. And so it makes sense that fitness is the perfect new religion for us. Line in line with our values as capitalists.

Above everything is profit, profit, profit. Yeah. And you know, formally SoulCycle will tell you, oh, we accept people of all sizes, all races, all socioeconomic statuses. But you can't be exclusive and inclusive at the same time, you know. And I think that push-pull is ultimately

why SoulCycle may not be so powerful for much longer. I mean, at the end of the day, like there's a reason it's called SoulCycle. They're trying to sell you your fucking soul back to you. I just want you to scream. Everybody scream. Woo! Yes!

That's enthusiasm. Divine inspiration. Divine inspiration. I want you to be enthusiastic and excited about this day, about your life, about the opportunities that are in front of you. Do you think these people ever wake up and think like? They just are like, I think I want to be quiet today.

Yeah. So what category along our cult spectrum do you think SoulCycle falls into? Live your life, watch your back, or get the fuck out. As we've discussed throughout this whole episode, it has a telltale sign over and over again of a watch your back category. If you approach it kind of like me where you're like,

all right, I want to get a workout. I want to get a nice ass. I don't even know how cycling gives you a nice ass. Maybe that's why I don't have a nice ass. Cycling makes your ass fat. Maybe it's not for you. But if you go in with this mentality of I just want to work out, it's not bad.

It's good. It's healthy. It's a good habit to exercise. Maybe a little overpriced. Maybe a little overpriced. Yeah, but maybe just to get the juices flowing. Like me. But then if you approach it from the other side,

which is like people who lack community and are going into these classes already pretty vulnerable, already looking for that false promise of finding their soul, then it's kind of like a dangerous situation to put yourself into because you could be one of these women who, you know, develops a borderline abusive relationship with their workout instructor. And that's where you start falling into, you know,

sketchy territory. Right. Because HQ is not going to protect you. They're going to protect the person making money for them. HQ never protects you. No way. Yeah. Bottom line, go into SoulCycle already watching your back like you did.

But if you allow the soul speak and these other tools of manipulation to win you over and make you feel like your literal soul is in the hands of this huge company that just cares about money, then I think she gets too culty for comfort. That's our show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with a new cult next week.

But in the meantime, stay culty, but not too culty. Thank you.