The Cult Issue: Spring 2020

Student Read and Led Since 1940

Spring 2020

y t i n u m m

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Who Plays Sports at Pratt: The Cult of the Athlete Artists Words — Nicholas Busigo Illustration — Cameron Schroeder If we examine the art and design schools in the northeastern United States, options for participating in sports are sparse and sometimes nonexistent.

However, Pratt Institute has various teams that compete at a Division III level, a strong feat for any art school. Considering the norm at Pratt is to not care about sports at all—since most students who attend this school are trying to escape the sports crazed traditions of their American high schools—it is amazing that we have an athletics department that continues to grow. However, what are the sports traditions being practiced here at Pratt?

Going to the basketball and volleyball games, the first thing you notice is the stands.

While they are not empty, they consist usually of family and friends. Meanwhile the opposing team will bring in a bigger crowd at our home games. Team spirit is still running on all cylinders, the players still practice the usual sport traditions, like their pre-game rituals and chants. My favorite tradition practiced by the men’s basketball team is when they get together for a pre-game dunk and charge the basket with a testosterone fueled camaraderie.

After doing some poking around, I was able to interview Ace Bibbs who was recruited for our men’s basketball team in May 2019. Ace is a 6-foot-tall guard who is nothing but smiles. When searching for schools, he became frustrated at the lack of intersection between athletics and the arts. “Some schools had great basketball teams but zero art.

Some schools had all art but no sports at all, and I just can’t live … without sports or art.”

He made the choice to study illustration at Pratt, where he could pursue his, “two dreams in one place,” calling it, “the perfect spot.”

While it may be disappointing that Pratt’s athletics do not have the same zealous following as more typical American universities, it is refreshing to enjoy the sport in its purest form without the cult-like toxicity that can exist within those institutions. Without the huge, rowdy crowds that larger universities bring in, the experience of attending a Pratt game is more intimate, which allows a connection to be built between the athletes and the spectators. “On the outside,” Ace remarks, “you would get the feeling that no one really cares, but when you like playing a sport and you look over in the stands, you see that you always have support.” Although the cheers from the bleachers aren’t always the loudest, “The athletes here definitely feel the love.”

COMMUNITY

Art School Confidential Words — Parker Sublette Illustration — Sude Kurban Everyone likes to think that they’re perfectly unique, but according to the cult classic 2006 film “Art School Confidential,” and its 1991 comic predecessor of the same name, we all fall into some stereotypical category. Ironically enough, a Pratt diploma hangs on a wall in one of the comic’s frames, and Daniel Clowes, the author and illustrator, is a proud Pratt alumnus. So did he get it right?

According to Clowes, there are a number of art school archetypes: The Neurotic Art Girls, Has-Been Professors, The Macho-Art Sadists, Talentless Rich Guys, The ‘Mom’ and so on.

The real question is: Has it changed at all? It has been almost 30 years since the comic was penned, and by either miracle or curse, Pratt has not burned down (completely) in that time.

” But there is one category that we all fall into: We all go to this fucking school. The art school cult of personality sits within us all.”

I think Clowes was pretty spot on with the “ego driven rich kids,” and “men who use art as an excuse to put women in uncomfortable/submissive circumstances,” but beyond that, his archetypes need a bit of an update. It’s 2020, and not only has Pratt added to its curriculum, but the cultural conscience has changed quite a bit.

So I submit to the annals of Art School History a new set of The People You Meet At Art School: The Tarantin-bro—a film major who cites exclusively male-directors as their inspiration. The Communist Writer—“I’m not published because the publishing industry is a capitalist nightmare.” The 2D Furry—Do I really have to explain this one? Doomed To Disney—every 3D animator whose soul is bound to Disney/Pixar and they know it. The Disappeared—the architecture student who you meet once and then never see again as they fade into the halls of Higgins.

These are just a few for now. But there is one category that we all fall into: We all go to this fucking school. The art school cult of personality sits within us all. We don’t belong anywhere but here because the only real Art School Archetype is a person who is passionate about their work and made the hard decision to pursue a life in the arts rather than live in the comfortable drudgery of the ‘real world.’ So, Daniel Clowes and his inability to get laid in college can fuck off, we’ll only make it out of here if we act like the community that we know we are.

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Culture

The One-Size Cult of Brandy Melville Words — Alexandra Doyle Photographs — Aliza Pelto The Brandy Melville girl is very easy to find in a crowd. There’s a beautiful simplicity to her aesthetic and style; she’s the everyday girl-next-door. Oh, and most importantly, the Brandy Girl wears one size. Each Brandy Melville store has a full team of girls who look exactly like this. They are all the same height, weight and of course, they all have a large Instagram following. It’s platform Doc Martens, oversized hoodies and plaid mini skirts galore.

Even the Instagram feeds of “Brandy Girls” are carbon copies of each other, with trendy pics of them in their bedrooms, eating out at chic restaurants with friends, walking through the streets of NYC, at the beach or sipping iced coffee at the mall. The most ideal image of Brandy Melville is shown through their choice of models. As you scroll through their Instagram and website, you will notice two striking factors that categorize every single one of their models: They are all skinny and white. This strategy seems to work because it embodies an image that is consistent with the message that the brand is trying to project, which is an attainable (or semi-attainable) aspiration. The message is this: Those hot, “real” eighteen or twenty-something-year-olds that appear in

the images could be you. You can join the crew of young, skinny, trendy Brandy Girls. These seemingly normal pictures evoke a lifestyle that thirteen to eighteen-year-old girls tend to fantasize about, easily creating a cult mentality of teenage girls wanting to be like Brandy Meliville models.

This powers the Instagram take over that is Brandy Melville.

Admirers of the brand who follow Brandy Girls or the official account produce Earned Media—a modern form of publicity gained through advertising—by tagging and hashtagging the brand in their posts. They wear the clothes and location-tag aesthetically pleasing retail stores. Doing this will potentially boost the user’s likes, followers and chance of being featured on the account. The official Brandy Melville account on Instagram launched in 2011 and has been tagging, sharing and enrolling followers (or cult members) ever since. Many of its stars are professional models; others are just fangirls who have been picked up as brand ambassadors, picking up hundreds of thousands of their own acolytes in the process.

CULTURE

The Anti-Cult of Music Fandom Words & Photographs — Carly Tagen-Dye Whether it’s the hordes of people thrashing at a My Chemical Romance reunion show, the ‘armies’ attached to KPOP groups, or the diehards still buying tickets for the Rolling Stones, it’s hard to find an artist today without a loyal following. As many have said before, music is the universal language. It is what births the Directioners and Beatlemaniacs of the world, the fans that will camp out days ahead of a show and the people who know every song by heart. It is something that everybody has surely witnessed—or been a part of—at some point in their life. And yet, music fandom’s bad reputation still persists.

Comparing fandom to cults is nothing new. In the 70’s, fans followed the Grateful Dead like wandering disciples and clamored unrelentlessly for Led Zeppelin. Cult leader Charles Manson is often associated with the Beatles; lyrics from “Helter Skelter” were found painted in blood at the site of the TateLaBianca murders, and Manson claimed that Magical Mystery Tour “expressed the essence of his own philosophy.” That’s not to mention the fans who played their records backward to find subliminal messages.

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Today, music fandom is still viewed with caution. There are extreme cases, like the Beliebers who started self-harming as protest, the infamous Bjork stalker and the murderous Selena fan.

Artists like Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest have faced lawsuits for allegedly promoting suicide through their music. After a young fan’s suicide, My Chemical Romance was deemed the leader of the “cult of emo,” by the Daily Mail, who described fans as dangerous, overly-obsessive and creepy—instead of addressing mental health. Music fans are shamed and ostracized for their expression, no matter who they like.

Most times, though, this blame is wrongly distributed. There is validity to music fandom that is overlooked. The meaning—what draws people to these artists—is ignored. It is a way of feeling less alone. Music serves as comfort when all else fails; what pushes us to better ourselves and keep moving forward. Expressing that love is a cathartic, rewarding experience. When you find that song, album or artist that speaks to your soul, it sticks. No matter how you choose to express it, the feeling is still the same. It stems from an appreciation that transcends words; the kind that only music can fuel. We are all fans of something; sometimes, it means being there for artists as much as they are there for us.

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Illustrations: Left: Cole Johnson Right: Huiyu Chen

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Confessions of a Semi-Famous Wattpad Writer Words — Lindsay Lopp Illustration — Danielle Wilson Back in the 2010’s, all tweens lived for was a website called Wattpad. On Wattpad, the freaks ran wild, creating and reading stories for every single fandom under the sun.

I just happen to be one of those freaks. It started out as any obsession does, with a hot male lead in a novel. So as not to expose myself, I will not be naming the novel in question. But let’s just say I was unhealthily obsessed. After the book series ended, I was heartbroken to say the least. Luckily, I found my saving grace. Upon finding Wattpad, a new sense of passion consumed me, and I began to write my own fanfiction. It started out as something just for myself but slowly, my following grew to a whopping 80,000 readers. While what I wrote was cringy and full of grammatical errors and typos, people ate it up. I found my 14-year-old self wondering why? Why were thousands of people consuming my cheesy, biased and horribly written story? The answer was simple: They were just as obsessed, horny and crazy as I was.

My first encounter with fanfiction was not ideal. A friend of mine had come to me with a recommendation of an online story she was loving. It was called “After;” it was on Wattpad and it had millions and millions of hits. And of course, like any fully successful fanfiction of the time, it was about One Direction. I have never been a One Directionstan, the type of fandoms I am more drawn to are ones about fantasy and magic, so when she brought me this, I was hesitant, but agreed to give it a few chapters before I made my judgments. Three chapters in and the main characters, one of which was an abusive portrayal of Harry Styles, were already getting hot and heavy. I stopped reading then, blush faced and severely uncomfortable.

For some people, fanfiction isn’t just an extra epilogue for a band that broke up or a movie franchise that reached its conclusion, it’s full-on porn. Most people refer to this type of steamy writing as smut. For me, smut wasn’t supposed to be a part of the equation, but quickly I discovered that if I was to be a fanfiction writer, I was going to need to go the extra mile. While my stories always brought a crowd, the hard part was keeping readers around. I couldn’t just copy and paste source material, bending it to my free will, I needed to be creative and write as if I was the author of the novel I was writing about. A majority of popular fanfiction is centered around sex and love, so therefore to appease the comments sections of my stories, I too began to indulge in the dirty side of Wattpad. I can’t lie and say it wasn’t fun, but if any of that writing ever got out, I would have to drop out of college and move to Alaska.

CULT FEATURE

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Through writing smut, I found my numbers rising solely based on the fact that readers were hungry, not for words but for this idea they imagined of their favorite characters or celebrities being bare and vulnerable before them in a way that real life never offered.

These people were demanding, they were passionate, and they were all part of a group.

Their fandoms, with no real leaders, created cults in communities such as Wattpad based on high sex drives and fixation on fiction. These cults were opinionated, flooding my direct messages with demands and ideas for where I should take my own story. Like any good leader, I listened. I fed the crowd what they desired if only to keep my numbers high and ride out this power trip. That’s all cult leaders want anyway, to feel powerful. I felt like the proud Queen of the Dweebs each time I posted a new chapter and got flooded with compliments. I quite liked my new-found throne, but it was somewhat off-putting to see how much these readers craved a non-cannon sexual experience through my writing. The more demands I got, as well as when the numbers stopped their steady incline and became stagnant, the less I became interested in writing the story. I wanted to create something that wasn’t ripped off of something I loved. I wanted to write something that was formulated in my own imagination. I didn’t want to write for overenthusiastic, horny, strangers anymore. So I jumped ship.

” Their fandoms, with no real leaders, created cults in communities such as Wattpad based on high sex drives and fixation on fiction.”

When I got to Pratt for my freshman year, I deleted the app but not my stories. They sit somewhere on Wattpad collecting dust mites and cobwebs. Since my time as a semifamous Wattpad author, fanfiction has evolved into an even bigger pyramid scheme.

Fanfiction is being published as full blown novels, all they needed was a lot of editing and name changes. “50 Shades of Gray” began as Twilight fanfiction and is now a movie series starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan. Dornan plays the mysterious Christian Gray, a CEO by day, BDSM dom by night. The previously mentioned Wattpad series, “After,” has also been turned into a book and movie series, though I don’t know if it’s as raunchy as its source material.

Sometimes, I log back onto the website just to see what’s been going on. Occasionally, I have messages from old fans or new ones who stumbled across my story, each with similar comments begging for a new chapter. Though I never plan on continuing my fanfiction or writing the next Fifty Shades, I can say that as a semi-famous Wattpad writer, I learned a lot about the inner workings of humans. Wattpad is a place of anxious people who have a hard time letting go. It’s a place for people who are overly horny and romantic. It’s a space to share your thoughts, opinions, and imagination. It’s a community, and hey, maybe it’s even a cult, but I enjoyed my time being a part of it.

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Thoughts A Reflection on “Midsommar” Words — Veronica Ashworth Illustration — Amber Duan “Midsommar,” directed by Ari Aster and starring Florence Pugh, depicts a rural town in Sweden celebrating a midsummer festival.

The trip would seem ideal to most young Americans, especially for the main character Dani, who just lost her family in a murder/ suicide. But what begins as a beautiful trip of reconnecting with nature in gorgeous Sweden quickly turns into a violent and bizarre game for the matriarchal pagan cult.

The cult in “Midsommar” made me consider community and its importance to the human psyche in a world that continues to become more isolated, despite our connectivity through technology. This cult feels pain as a group, they cry when one of their own cries. They eat together and sleep together: They are a unit of emotional and physical support not often seen nowadays in America.

”Excruciating emotional pain and disconnect can lead to desperation and an urge to escape, not necessarily to places of isolation but to places where reconnection blossoms.”

Cults bring in people with an abundance of welcoming, Dani ultimately suspects that something strange is going on despite the beauty of the commune. However, the community accepts her and even feels with her. In one scene toward the end of the film, Dani moans in pain after seeing her boyfriend cheat on her, and a group of women moan with her to show their solidarity. For Dani, who has mostly been abandoned by those who are supposed to be supporting her, this feels important. At the end of the movie, when Dani is adorned in floral and crowned the Midsommar queen, she remains the only surviving member of the original group that showed up with the two native brothers.

After the final ritual, in which the visitors and two natives are burned, Dani smirks.

friendship and praise. How can I blame Dani for taking in this acceptance when it is a feature slowly dimming from modern society? It seems Dani’s experience is a cautionary tale of the times. Excruciating emotional pain and disconnect can lead to desperation and an urge to escape, not necessarily to places of isolation but to places where reconnection blossoms. The native brother, Pelle, asks Dani, “Does he make you feel held?” Despite all the violence Dani has seen at the hands of the community, they make her feel held. The desperate need to find community again in the face of deep loss can lead the self into places they never thought they could possibly go. Matched with the prospect of acceptance and praise, Dani leans into the cult.

THOUGHTS

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The Granddaughter of a Freemason Words — Avery Toomes Illustration — Amy Jia I was sitting in my grandfather’s Ford truck on the outskirts

sinister motive, that I had suffered being abused by him at a

of Brenham, Texas when I first asked him about his ring. My

young age. As the memories flooded back, I exiled myself from

grandfather was, at this time in my life, a close friend of mine.

my family to hide the truth. At first, it was easy to lose myself in

We loved exchanging tall tales, the only difference is he swore his

New York, but after a while I found myself searching for anything

were completely true. When he answered my question, it was the

that reminded me of who I once was.

first time he ever paused before he spoke.

Looking into the Freemason’s secret organization, I found that “It’s a symbol of a group I’m involved in, we’re called the Freemasons.”

they pride themselves on the character of the men involved. They aren’t allowed to speak about politics or religion during their meetings. One member stated, “Freemasons were raised well in

“What do Freemasons do?” I asked.

that way.” They are considered to be philanthropic, their website boasting they’re, “the leading fraternal organization of the world.”

“Well sweetheart,” he paused, scratching the stubble on his chin with dirt-crusted nails, “I’ll tell ya as much as I can, but there’s a

Although their existence is globally known, what happens once they shut their doors is still unknown.

lotta secrets I’m not allowed to say.”

I found this information difficult to cope with. How could I pair He explained that the organization protected important secrets.

the man my grandfather was to the men this organization states

It was the first time he wouldn’t confide his secrets with me, the

to initiate? I wondered if men like my grandfather existed in this

first time he hadn’t made me feel special. I remember feeling left

space together, and why he felt compelled to join a group that’s

out, more curious than ever, wondering when he would finally tell

only public message is to help. I eventually accepted not knowing

me the secrets of the Freemasons.

the answers to the secrets I wasn’t told that day. It’s fair to say that we’re all living with secrets, and the truth is hard to come by.

Years later, I conducted my own research to fill the void that developed as my grandfather and I grew apart. It took me ten years to accept that my grandfather’s attention to me had a

Letters From Us

Table of Contents

Prattlers,

Community • Pg 2

In layman’s terms, a cult is a relatively small group of people having beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister. A cult can also be defined as “a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.” Usually when we hear the word “cult,” we think of groups like the Manson Family.

Or perhaps, things like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” or “Clockwork Orange” come to mind. But when you actually think about it, cults are all around us.

For this issue, we asked our class and club members to dive into their most campy and culty obsessions. We asked them to think of bands or TV shows or people they were consumed by. To research real life cults that piqued their interest and never quite left their subconscious. We asked them to consider if there were any cults present right here at Pratt Institute. Or, additionally, if they could think of any modern cults running rampant out in the world today. What made its way into this issue and onto our website varies between explorations of the most disquieting cults out there to articles likening cult-like mentalities to communities individuals can find solace in.

We have come to the conclusion that perhaps, cults can take form in literally anything people are willing to rally behind. Any movement people are ready to support and take part in. Hey, maybe even The Prattler is a sort of cult, if you really think about it.

Who Plays Sports at Pratt: The Cult of Athlete Artists Nicholas Busigo analyzes the sports culture here at Pratt and how it differs from that of larger universities where sports teams often feel more like cults than places of camaraderie.

Art School Confidential: A Retrospective Parker Sublette reflects on the cult-classic film and comic, “Art School Confidential,” and how the Pratt-alumni creator’s vision of art school archetypes has changed over time.

Culture • Pg 4 The One-Size Cult of Brandy Melville Alexandra Doyle examines popular fashion brand Brandy Melville and the toxic, one-size cult of teenage girls they are cultivating via Instagram.

The Anti-Cult of Music Fandom Carly Tagen-Dye gives her thoughts on the ever-thriving music fandom and how, despite it being a source of comfort and community for so many, is commonly misperceived as cult-like.

Art Spread • Pg 6 Cult Illustrations

The Cult Feature • Pg 8

With excessive admiration, Aliza Pelto Editor-in-Chief

Confessions of a Semi-Famous Wattpad Writer Lindsay Lopp dives back in time to her short-lived career as a semi-famous Wattpad author, citing the cult-like following she accumulated on the platform.

Prattler Staff

Thoughts • Pg 10 Creative Directors Danielle Wilson Josh Weinstein

Advisors Christopher Calderhead Eric Rosenblum

Editor-in-Chief Aliza Pelto

Archivist Aaron Cohen

The Granddaughter of a Freemason Avery Toomes reflects on the moment her grandfather revealed that he was a member of the notorious cult, the Freemasons, exploring cycles of trauma and the secrets we all keep.

A Reflection on “Midsommar” Veronica Ashworth weighs in on the cult-aspect of the horror film “Midsommer,” ruminating on the reasons why, in a world of deep isolation, main character Dani was drawn to the cult.

Managing Editor Lexi Anderson

Cover by Lauren Walker prattleronline.com Instagram: @prattler theprattler@gmail.com