Ride or Die: Jess Rothschild Spills on SoulCycle's Inner Circle

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00] Ich bin Charissa und meine Empfehlung an alle Entrepreneure startet mit Shopify erfolgreich durch. Ich verwende Shopify schon seit dem ersten Tag und die Plattform macht mir nie Probleme. Ich habe viele Probleme, aber die Plattform ist nie eins davon. Ich habe das Gefühl, dass Shopify ihre Plattform kontinuierlich optimiert. Alles ist super einfach integrier- und verlinkbar. Und die Zeit und das Geld, das ich dadurch spare, kann ich anderweitig investieren. Vor allem in Wachstum. Jetzt kostenlos testen auf shopify.de

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_04] Das Podcast ist für informational purposes only und nicht beachtetet legal, medical, oder mental health advice. Die views und opinions expressed do nicht necessarily reflect die official policy or position of the Podcast und sind nicht intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, oder anything. Ich bin Sarah Edmondson.

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_01] Und ich bin Anthony Nippy Ames. Und das ist A Little Bit Culty. Cults are commonplace now. From fandoms to fads, we're examining them all. Wir schauen uns also an, wenn Dinge wie ein Wachst, zu sehen, als ein Wachst, zu sehen.

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[00:01:18] [SPEAKER_01] Sie haben, wenn wir sie glauben, die Dinge nicht zu lernen, die wir waren. Zum Beispiel, wenn du denkst, die Zeit in etwas zu lernen, die Dinge zu lernen, die Dinge zu lernen. Die Dinge zu lernen, wenn du siehst, oder die Dinge in die Zeit vermittelt. Und wer weiß, du jetzt schon wieder in einem Cult. Wenn du nicht über die Programmeierst, dann immer noch nicht über die Programme, So keep listening to find out.

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[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_04] Welcome to season seven of A Little Bit Culty.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_01] Hey everyone, welcome back to A Little Bit Culty. Is that good enough for you? That's good. Okay.

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_04] Culty friends, clip in to your imaginary spin bikes because we today, much anticipated, are finally diving into the sweaty, candlelit world of SoulCycle on A Little Bit Culty.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_01] This is an episode we've been flirting with, but not really seriously because people have been sliding into our DMs, yet here we are about three or four years later after people have suggested the cultiness of SoulCycle.

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_04] Don't deny it.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_01] So we're going to, quote, unpack this. We're going to unpack it, but listen- Is it a fitness fad or a culty trap, Sarah?

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_04] I don't know, but don't deny that you're a SoulCycle veteran. Didn't you and your ex clip in for those classes back in the day?

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_01] Pump the brakes.

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_04] I was missing all the fun.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_01] I did a couple classes. I ended up changing in the street on 83rd and wherever it was, and I was like, this place is not my cult. I'm already in one.

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_04] Looks like you may have dodged a bullet, although it might've been safer for you to do SoulCycle instead of NXIVM.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_01] But it was a shitty locker room. Everyone was like, you know, rubbing elbows, had stank all over it.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. The close vicinity, that would have been a turnoff.

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_01] SoulCycle got that stank.

[00:03:15] Yeah.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_04] Let's not get sued here with defaming marks about SoulCycle. There's lots of great things about it. We're going to talk about it, but here's the thing. When you love synchronized pedaling-

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_01] Which, yeah, I don't.

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_04] I don't. But I do like a good fitness class. I'm jealous. I never got to spin with the cool kids. But let's be real. SoulCycle's a beast. It's 100 million plus in revenue. A cult following. But, you know, there's a darker spin. Instructors are worshipped with a headset up on a pedestal. $30 plus a class. And, you know, it's a community that's a little bit like a clique on steroids.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_01] That's about what I got. $30 a class. Teaching a class.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_04] That's a lot of money for an hour.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_04] So to spill all the tea on SoulCycle, we've got Jess Rothschild, executive producer of Cult of Body and Soul, a new podcast which has already dropped and we highly recommend it. If you don't know Jess's work, she's a New York pop culture expert slaying its creator and host of Hot Takes and Deep Dives. Jess went from SoulCycle writer to front of class star and she has made an incredible podcast.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_01] If you're in a New York pop culture, give her podcast a listen. She covers a lot. Welcome Jess to our show.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_04] Jess, welcome to A Little Bit Culty. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. Great to have you here. This has been a long time coming as SoulCycle has been sort of an ongoing kind of side reference. Like everything's a little bit culty, like SoulCycle.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_01] It's been in our DMs quite a few times. Yes.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_04] But I didn't really realize how culty until your podcast came out. So I'm very excited to talk to you. We're very excited to talk to you.

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_01] What started as a joke is now a reality.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_06] Well, because I think a lot of people, they talk about it. You're right. It is like, it can be like a punchline, but not everybody. I think a lot of the people who call it a cult are the people who weren't necessarily in the inside and actually don't really know what went on. Because it's a lot of excitement and thrilling and there's a lot of euphoria involved. And so I think it's very easy to just use SoulCycle as a punchline.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_06] But if you were there and you felt it, you know the power of it.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_01] Mm-hmm.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_06] Exactly. Well, that's...

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_01] We've heard this story before. Yes. Oh my God.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_04] We want to know all the specifics. And I do think it's important and something that Nippy and I have been talking recently on the podcast on our journey. And by the way, we're eight years free from NXIVM. Wow. Eight years free. Like today.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_01] Day after tomorrow.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_04] Well, around now, eight years ago is when we were waking up. But what we've learned is that throwing around the word cult isn't actually that helpful in some ways because you don't get to say what specific behaviors were going on that aren't good or that are problematic or toxic.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_04] Right? So we're going to get into all that.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_06] And again, the word cult also, that's another word that is used as a punchline.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah.

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_01] But nobody says when you're in a cult, oh, thanks for pointing that out. I'm going to quit.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_06] I had a 100% positive experience with SoulCycle, which is why I think I'm the perfect person to tell the story because I never worked there. I don't have an ax to grind. I'm just a journalist telling the truth and telling my story. Amazing. Let's start there.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_01] Which is a great segue. Yeah. What was the initial lure? What did you sign up for? How did we get here and how did it end up in a podcast?

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_06] Wow. Okay. So I was always into fitness. From when I was 20 years old, that was when I started working out. And I would work out- Look at your arms, by the way. Oh my God. Stop. It's amazing.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_01] It's a gun show on our podcast here.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_06] So I would always just go to my New York sports club two blocks from my apartment. I was a member there. Were you?

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Wait, wait.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_06] Let's quickly paint the picture. Did you ever live in New York?

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I lived there 15 years.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_06] Perfect. Okay. So I want to talk about that. So I belonged to New York sports club down the block from my apartment and I would spin there and I hated it. So I don't know why I kept going. And that was spin when you would literally write your name to sign up. You would get there an hour before. You would sign up and wait and get in the class. Meanwhile, most of those classes, it was me and five other people. So I don't know why we were even signing up, why we couldn't just roll on in there.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_06] And cut to, I'm living in Manhattan. At that time, I was living in a borough. I was living in Queens. And SoulCycle had taken off, but I wasn't really that aware of it. But a friend of mine lived next door to the Upper East Side Studio on 83rd Street. And I worked on the Upper East Side. And so it was just a fun thing like, oh, come over, come upstairs to her apartment. We would hang out. We would catch up. And then she had gotten into it. She's like, I love this instructor.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_06] The music gets really dancey. And because I was a fitness junkie, I would go to yoga. I would go to classes, but mostly yoga and maybe some like bootcamp classes. And so that was how I took my first class. And I wasn't like blown away by it. I thought it was fun. And I kept going with her for a few months. And then she, I guess, like fell off of it. But I kept going. I tried another instructor.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_06] I remember standing outside the studio listening to the music of somebody else, not the girl who we were taking. And I could hear a Christina Aguilera song from the Stripped album. It was a deep cut from Stripped, which is an incredible Christina album, as everybody knows. And I was like, oh my God, this guy knows if he's that in tune with music on that level.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_06] And the song was Walk Away for anybody who knows that song by Christina Aguilera. And I thought, wow, you can ride to a song that's so slow. And so it intrigued me because he was incorporating this element of spirituality. And I wasn't even in the class. I was standing outside the room and it was just hearing that song. That drew me to his class.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_06] And so I much more connected with his music. And then a few months later, that was when I really started looking at the website. There, of course, was no app. But this is like 2011. That was when I started obsessing over the website, looking at the different instructors. And one day, a new instructor photo popped up. And it was this woman named Stevie. And there was something that pulled me through my screen, through the computer.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_06] And I knew I had a connection with this woman.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I looked her up.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_06] Do you see what I saw?

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_01] She has a rock star vibe.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. And also, I love a reformed party girl. I can sort of sense... I also have very strong intuition. Like, I am a little bit psychic. I have very strong intuition. And I could just sense somebody who's troubled. I'm drawn to you. I was just so drawn to her. And I went. And it was a five o'clock class, a Saturday. And I'm living in Queens. So it's not like I can just walk to the studio. I'm at home with my girlfriend.

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_06] And I'm like, I'm going to go into the city to take this class. Let's meet for dinner. And that class was transformative. That was the class. And Stevie was... That was what hooked me. And that changed the trajectory of my life.

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_04] So paint us the picture. And what was so transformative about it? Was it the music? Was it the way that she was talking to you? The whole thing? Who she was? It was...

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_06] The music was dark and heavy. And you could stomp on it. Like in SoulCycle, you're clipped into the bike. And you're riding to the rhythm. Unlike the classes that I was taking, unlike the spin classes at big box gyms, they're not choreographed to the music. You're not riding to the rhythm. You're just like, go fast here. Go slow here. Turn on the resistance. And the music is sort of irrelevant. The music's kind of in the background.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_06] Whereas with SoulCycle, it's all meticulously designed to the music. That's how they're taught to do it. And that is part of the seduction of it, is the music. And it's very deliberate. The order of the songs is all deliberate to seduce the rider, to lull them into a place.

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_01] So it's kind of a rave, but the bike is the drug.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_06] Wow. Well, you know, the instructor and the music are the drug. The instructor and the music are the drug. But ultimately, it's the instructor. It's cult of personality. Right. And because they're trained to do this. This is not something that just happened. Oh, my friend makes fun of me because he's like, why are you so obsessed with the instructor training program? He's like, why is this your main talking point? I'm like, well, it's because it's the truth. I was obsessed with what they were. I knew the lore of the training program.

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_06] I knew through talking to people that it was like eight to 12 weeks and they would sit there with the director of instructor training, who is the star. She is the gateway into our series. This woman, Janet Fitzgerald, she still works there. She was the director of instructor training for a decade. She still is a master instructor. And she was one of the co-founders. She was her guru back in LA. So it all traces back to this woman, Janet.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_06] And she is the one who trained all of the instructors.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_04] And you got access. Even though you weren't an instructor yourself, you got access to these manuals.

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_06] No, I didn't get access to the manuals. In fact, they made a manual and then immediately threw them away. She told me in an interview. Interesting. But I used to joke, no, it wasn't until I did this documentary that I knew anything really about the training program other than it was six to eight weeks. What I was told was so generic before I did this. Just in my life, I knew it was six to eight weeks. I knew they had to write a lot. I knew that there were a lot of drills they had to do.

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_06] They had to learn how to perform the class, how to curate the playlists, where to play certain songs. It's all done to the beats per minute. That's why, like how it starts slow, that instructor who was doing that slower Christina Aguilera song, that is deliberate. It's because they lull you in through a song based on the beats per minute, the BPM, which Apple Music gives you when you, I mean, you can look that up online, but Apple Music was very easy at that time to sort of organize it.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_01] It sounds like it's almost like a system or an algorithm type thing where there's a science to it and Janet cracked the science or hacked the science and produced it like a show, like a record almost, like formulaic.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_06] Dead on. And it was a mix of, so the beats per minute, that was one piece. The beats per minute-

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_01] Is the script.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. So how fast-

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_01] And then those instructors are the actors.

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_06] Exactly.

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_06] You just nailed it. Because the other piece of it was teaching them and giving them tools for how to connect with people on a spiritual level. Smart. And a lot of that has to do with getting off the bike and getting on the level with them. And an instructor told me that they were told, because also it's candlelit. Keep in mind this environment, the ambience, the lights are off.

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_06] There's a spotlight on the instructor. They're on a podium risen above you. So it is like any hero worship. They are the preacher. And they get off the bike during certain moments, because how can you do the whole thing on the bike? And so when they get off the bike, that gives them an opportunity to really focus on what they're saying to you. So it's different bits of spirituality, motivational coaching based on the instructor.

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_06] Not every single instructor does this, but the ones who are successful, they do it. The ones who can't do it, they are successful because they're hot and young and all these young girls want to fuck them. That's one path to being a successful SoulCycle instructor is you're developing that. And they're not spiritual at all because they're 25 years old and they haven't lived a life. But the older instructors, and those were the ones who I connected with, were the ones

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_06] who spoke from their life experience and bringing that experience to the room, being willing to talk about that experience. And like I said, when they get on the level with you and they look you in the eye and there are candles around the podium and during certain parts of the class, they'll move the candles around. And specifically at one moment, the sort of the 11 o'clock number before the last song is a moment where they don't really say anything. It's sort of meditation time.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_06] You ride without them speaking to a song that is again, a little bit slower. And sometimes they'll come over, they'll touch you, they'll touch your hand. Sometimes I've seen them whisper things in people's ears. They'll look you in the eyes. And a former instructor, actually he taught at SoulCycle for five years and now he's been at Barry's Bootcamp ever since. So I love that. I love getting the perspective of both because I go to Barry's as well and it's totally different. So I love the dichotomy between the two.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_06] And he told me that they were told, be careful with eye contact in that moment because the sweat and the candlelight, that is the moment where riders can hook onto you and for lack of a better phrase, potentially fall in love with you. That makes sense. And he took that as, all right, I'm going to look people in the eye and have a moment. And this is how they make their money.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_06] It's based on filling up that room and seducing people in some way, sometimes actually literally seducing them, but seducing, you know what I mean? Yeah. There are very types of seduction.

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_01] Well, you have a power and you can abuse it if you want at that point. Yeah.

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_06] Oh, well we get into that.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_04] The abuse. Yeah. Yes. In terms of them being like rock stars.

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_04] Do you think that this was actually not something just like that organically happened? They were actually coached to seduce riders and to keep them coming back. Yes. It wasn't just sort of an organic by-product.

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_06] They were absolutely coached through this eight to 12 week training program. And on top of that, they're not just, but they were very deliberate with the reason why SoulCycle was so successful. Unlike just any other random spin studio, the secret sauce to SoulCycle was their casting. One of the co-founders was a talent agent in LA and she worked for Benny Medina who managed

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_06] J-Lo, Tyra Banks, P. Diddy. So she understood how to turn celebrities into brands, into businesses. And she said, that's going to be our approach here. And so they weren't even looking for fitness professionals. They were looking for who is the charismatic performer. So every successful or many, many SoulCycle instructors are former dancers, actors, Broadway

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_06] performers, singers, because they know how to perform. You can take any performer or anybody who's charismatic and you can just teach them how to ride the bike. You can teach anybody how to ride a fucking bike. You can't teach somebody how to command a room and have charisma. The X factor. You can't teach X factor.

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_04] So that's what they looked for.

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_01] It's well marketed.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_04] But that was a huge red flag listening to your podcast. I was like, oh my goodness, they're not fit. Many of them, not all of them, were not fitness instructors. Well, they're not even certified. Yeah.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_01] But what's the certification? Like it's the bike.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_04] But to be like to teach a class normally of any other kind, don't you have to be certified for like basic kinesiology understanding?

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_06] And so I don't know. So this is an amazing point. So to work at a gym, to take on personal training clients and to work at any other boutique fitness, like Barry's Bootcamp, Orange Theory, yoga. Yoga, you have to take like a 200 hour teacher training. You go through a 200 hour or plus teacher training program and that certifies you. NASM, the National Academy of Sports Medicine, that is the leader in certification for fitness.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_06] And that is a whole textbook. And you can do it online, but it's very, it's difficult. You have to learn all about human and that. It's hard. Yeah, I did it. Oh, you did it. Oh, so tell me about that.

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, it's hard. You have to study a lot for it. You have to take a test.

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_04] Is this from when you were learning how to train under Keith Rennery in Exxion?

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_01] No, it wasn't. Oh, separate time? It was separate, yeah.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_04] Nippy taught.

[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_01] It was basic. It's a basic certification. So you can go in and get, you know how it works. Yeah. I was getting a certification. I got it and never really used it because I was traveling so much.

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_06] I'm learning about this for the first time. Yes. So NASM is the gold standard. If you have NASM, you can take on personal training clients. You can get a job at Equinox as a trainer. And that's what you need. And yeah, you learn all about human anatomy, exercise science, et cetera. And that's the same certification you need to teach at Barry's Bootcamp, to teach at Rumble Boxing, like you name it. Yoga is its own thing. SoulCycle. SoulCycle.

[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_06] So before SoulCycle, if you were teaching spin at a big box gym, at like Crunch or New York Sports Club, you would get what's called Mad Dog. It used to be, I don't know if this still exists. It probably does. But to teach spin or AKA like group fitness spin at a gym, you would have to just be Mad Dog certified. And what I learned through interviewing instructors, I'm like, so what was the certification like in the very beginning, before there was the training program?

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_06] Because for the first three years, there was literally no training program. They were just plucking people and figuring it out. And they just made them go to Mad Dog training program. And I'm like, so what was it? And she was like, literally, you sat in a classroom. And it was nothing. I'm like, so it was bullshit? She's like, yeah. You literally sat in a classroom and you walk out the door and you're certified. And it's kind of like taking your pre-driver's light. What's that? You know, before you get your light.

[00:21:37] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, your permit.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_06] Your permit. Yeah, you take a test. That doesn't mean you can actually drive a car. And so that was the industry standard in fitness for spin. But SoulCycle, and there's questions about how are they legally able to do this? But they kind of did away with that. They no longer required them to do that. And they were like, we're going to create our own training. And it had nothing to do with human anatomy, exercise science. These people know nothing about the muscles in the body.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_06] In fact, a lot of SoulCycle can be quite dangerous. And we get into that.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, the episode you got into that was really informative.

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_06] What did you think? First of all, I love that you listened to it. Of course. Tell me what you, what did you find really interesting? Like what was really surprising? What were you most compelled by?

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_04] Well, for me, as somebody who missed it, like I miss SoulCycle. I've spun before, but I'd never got to do SoulCycle. Nippy did, and we'll get into that. I was just listening to it going, if I had found this when it was at its heyday, I totally would have been hooked. Just knowing me and my desire for community. And just a quick sidebar, when we moved here to Atlanta, I was not in a good place. It was a very stressful move. And the first thing I did was find a yoga. I'm more into yoga now. And I found a yoga studio that was very loud and dark.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_04] And it was great for me. And I was like really stressed. It helped me like release all my stress hormones and everything. And it was like I found my place. And then after about a year, I was like, this is not good for me. And I found a more quiet, zen, like a better – but like it was what I needed at the time. And as I was listening to your podcast, I was thinking there were so many times in my life where that would have been such a great fit for me. And I would have maybe even become an instructor because I also am a performer by trade.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_04] But I also was struck by how many red flags I can see now with my cult education experience that I wouldn't have seen had I been in my 20s. I got obviously caught up in NXIVM. I could have very easily been caught up in this.

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[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_06] What were the red flags that you- That we saw? No, no, no. In listening, in listening. In listening? In listening. Yeah, because the question is, to me, it's cult of personality. Yeah. And yeah, the question is, is it a cult? I mean, that's difficult to answer. Yeah. It's very, it's great. It's nuanced.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_01] Well, I can put language to it later, but go ahead. Yeah.

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_04] I was just going to say, to me, I wouldn't say it's a full-on destructive cult. Right. Like NXIVM or Waco or Jonestown or Scientology. I would say that there's elements of it that are unhealthy where if you're becoming obsessed, like I was hearing like some people taking three to five classes a day. That's just not healthy.

[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_04] Mm-hmm. That's where I can't do it.

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I would add too. I mean, it always comes down to a question of who's responsible for what. And so you have someone who's consciously marketing an entity, right? That could be Twiddlywinks or Monopoly as far as we can. And they've done it and they've created a platform where personalities can come in that help market spin, right? And those personalities have a platform that they can now abuse and the people that have marketed them don't really have checks and balances for the people that they hire.

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_01] So if someone comes in and uses the platform that's been created for them and it caters to the asset of their charisma, they use their charisma to abuse people consciously or unconsciously, right? This is the nebulous area, right? So, oh, is it my fault that all these women are throwing themselves at me because I have such a charming personality while I'm training them? And now I have access to all these people? The same way a pro athlete walks into a bar and gets mauled by a bunch of women, right? So what's the responsibility in that?

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_01] And NBA has created a platform for him to go showcase his skill sets and this comes with the territory. So are they going? And they were rewarded for it. Yeah, oh yeah. Our society rewards it.

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_06] When Janet is saying like they gave us cash, the bad behavior was rewarded because it filled up the room and it was making the company more money.

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_01] Making money. Right. And so here we are with the age old question of capitalism and when does capitalism become bad? And Edward Bernays has made many appearances on our podcast. I don't know if you're familiar with him.

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_04] Century of the Self. Isn't that documentary? Oh, yes. Yeah. I've seen that.

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_01] So it basically caters to people's needs and then if you're catering to people's desires, you have a product spin that's catering to people's desires. Desires are subjective, but not my responsibility because I'm just creating a platform for spin and it's helping people. And when does it become culty? I mean, it becomes culty, I guess it's a case by case thing. I went into spin looking for a place to dump calories. And when I see all that rah-rah stuff and the lights go down, I roll my eyes and I'm like, I'm out of here. This isn't... And I'm a snob with my workouts too.

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, I've been working out since I played college football. So I roll my eyes at people that think they're working out and that's a workout.

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_06] This drifts away from the cult aspect. But yeah, we do raise the question of, is this a good workout?

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_01] Is spinning a good workout? That was my favorite episode. Yeah.

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_06] Oh, that was your favorite episode?

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_01] Because I thought it was. Yeah. And you were talking about, what was it? I'll let you take over for this, but it was like closed link or unlinked. Oh, open chain. What it does to your head? Open chain. That was right. Open chain and closed chain. Yeah. I was like, oh my God. That explains my hip problems.

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_06] She was amazing. She was amazing.

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Share with our audience. Yeah. Tell us about that. Because our audience won't know what we're talking about.

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_06] Yes. So as part of it, I interviewed some experts. You know, I had to interview a therapist because otherwise it's just opinion. It's just me saying, yeah, I think it's cult of personality. I need somebody who's educated in this area. So I bring her in and she talks about, actually in a bonus episode, she talks about transference. That's something. That was one of my questions. Yes. Transference is huge, which is a psychological term that we get into in the sixth episode,

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_06] which is a bonus episode, which basically means it's any relationship between student and teacher, therapist, client. So student, teacher, that's SoulCycle. Okay. We're students. We're teaching. And it basically means how you project, and it can go both ways. You project everything onto the instructor. And also the therapist explained that the therapist or the instructor or the teacher can also be

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_06] projecting things onto the client. And that's called transference. Another term that I learned through this is limerence. And limerence is that really best describes the feeling of falling in love. Obviously, you're not falling in love. No, you're falling in limerence. Limerence means you're falling into an obsession with a person, and it can be sexual. And you're thinking about this person 24-7.

[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_06] This happens when people meet and are—maybe you meet somebody, and you're now fantasizing that you're dating. Or maybe you've been on one date, and you're just completely consumed by a person. Or, yes, just somebody who you want to be with, and you're just 100% consumed, and you think you're in love with them, but it's limerence. Like, limerence is the word.

[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, the fantasy never involves a downside. Right.

[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_06] Exactly. What do you mean?

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_01] Well, when you fantasize about somebody, you're not taking in the holistic person and the downside.

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_06] You're not bringing in any reality.

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_01] Yes. No. Yeah.

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_06] Because you're projecting everything onto them. You're turning them into a completely different human being.

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_01] So I don't know if you experienced this, Sarah, but I can remember being in trainings and intensives—intensives is what we call our trainings—and working with someone and then feeling after I helped them with someone, they were laid to me in a way that I felt, uh-oh. This feels off. Like, I have a power now that— Transference. Yeah. But I would shut it down.

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_04] That's why Nippy didn't have a harem, and Keith Reneri did. Wow.

[00:33:05] [SPEAKER_01] I was open to it.

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_04] How did you shut it down? No, you were not.

[00:33:08] No.

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_04] Nippy and I actually met in that context and flirted in that context, but then we got together versus, like, Keith, who started his harem. But Transference—

[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_01] But that's what Keith predicated. Yeah.

[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_04] I mean, that's what his whole way of coaching women into having a spiritual wife relationship started with Transference. And tell me if this is your understanding as well. It's projecting that person is the person that's creating the good feeling. So when you go into a soul cycle and you have the endorphin release and it's dark and it's romantic with the candlelight and you feel all the—it also, again, like I said earlier, releasing all your stress hormones and your cortisol and all those things, and you feel

[00:33:45] [SPEAKER_04] amazing, there is a high to that, but then you're attributing it to the person on the pedestal. Yes. Right? So that's the hook.

[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_06] What happens psychologically with Transference is you then associate soul cycle slash the instructor, the entire experience in your brain. It is then associated with pure pleasure. Right.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_01] And people will pay money for that. Of course. I think that's the hook. I think that's what—how conscious the marketing was and all that, we'll never know, probably.

[00:34:17] [SPEAKER_06] What's interesting—and then I want to get back to your question about the open and closed chain exercise because then I will get back to that. I know we got off track, but—

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_01] That was knowledge.

[00:34:27] [SPEAKER_06] But what's interesting is—so you know how I was taking classes and I was like, whatever? They say—I've listened to interviews with the founders and they say that to get to the point where you then—well, they're not associating with pure pleasure and Transference, but they're saying in plain language, it takes three classes. After you've taken your third class, that is when you begin—if it's with somebody who

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_06] is hooking you, it takes three times.

[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_01] That makes sense.

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_04] Do you remember this, Nippy, when we taught NXIVM modules? Every module is built on another module, so you do it in order, and they would say that you'd have to take a class, any module, three times to fully integrate the material.

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_03] Wow.

[00:35:14] [SPEAKER_04] That's so interesting. We find more parallels than we knew. We do, yeah.

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_01] No, the more we dig into this, the more diabolical Keith and his process is revealed to us, seemingly.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. And I don't know if the people who created SoulCycle are diabolical. It doesn't seem like that based on your podcast. No, they're just—

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_01] Marketing itself has somewhat of a diabolical aspect to it.

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_04] Well, the goal is to hook you forever.

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_01] And also, what's marketing about? It's about money, right?

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_06] They were just great businesswomen.

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_06] They were just sharks in business, and they knew how to brand. There you go. They understood sex sells, and they understood this is Hollywood, baby.

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_03] Mm-hmm.

[00:35:50] [SPEAKER_06] And they were successful, and good for them. That part I'm okay with. Well, so here's a question for you.

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_01] What we just said gets a total hall pass of any sort of moral critique. Because it's Hollywood, baby. And I think, for me, I mean, if you look at capitalism gone wrong or marketing gone wrong, we don't criticize the people who are like—we say, good for you, and we put too much emphasis on the people who are good at marketing and making money in our country, I think. Well, what's the ROI on it? Yeah, what's the effect of that?

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_01] What is the overall objective if you don't inject that with a little bit more humanity and consciousness, I guess, is my kind of question.

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_06] Well, I think the interesting—so to me, here's where it turns. It's not a secret that SoulCycle then sold to Equinox. That is when the culture changed, and there was a culture war between those two companies, and that is where there was a lot of alleged abuse and racism, allegedly, between the new corporate regime that came in, and these people were no longer treated and paid and

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_06] valued the way they had been under the founders, Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler. So there is something when you really got to look at Equinox and listen to what those people are saying. And there's a lot more that I didn't include because I'm not looking to get sued. Right.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, yeah.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_06] But there are a lot of allegations of very abusive things, but some of it can't be proven, alleged racism, et cetera. But that's something that we can't prove. And also, I'm not in the business of doing that. I'm here to make an entertainment product, not take down SoulCycle. That's not my—you know, I'm making a piece of entertainment. But if you're interested, I do encourage you to look at those articles and exposés.

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_04] Mm-hmm. Since you did have a good experience overall with SoulCycle, what compelled this podcast?

[00:37:54] [SPEAKER_06] So I have a weekly show, a weekly podcast that I've been doing for six years now called Hot Takes and Deep Dives, where, you know, it's centered on gay pop iconography and New York City culture. You know, I've interviewed Rosie O'Donnell, Sandra Bernhardt, Isaac Mizrahi, you know, a lot of notable New Yorkers, television writers, people who I just—it's very indulging 20-year-old Jess. And so that's been an incredible experience. And it started out as a writer.

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_06] Eventually, it evolved into a podcast. And this is my second documentary. My first documentary was on the history of Fire Island, which are the oldest gay communities in the United States, which is you take a ferry off the coast of Long Island, and it's like this magical land, not so dissimilar from SoulCycle, where it's this magical land where suddenly you're meeting people who you probably may not meet in everyday life.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_06] These people you might not necessarily be working with, or they're certainly not in your family. And so these are both magical lands where music is a huge part of the experience, and it's all about community. So I had done that series called Finding Fire Island, but years ago, I always would say, I want to make a documentary about SoulCycle. I have been saying this for a decade because I find this to be the most interesting story

[00:39:19] [SPEAKER_06] and subject matter ever told. And I couldn't believe, how is there not a documentary on SoulCycle? Why do you think? Do you think people are afraid of getting sued? I think that's part of it. I think also the founding of it. So in the first episode where I really go through the founding of it, they can't talk because there is a third founder and she has a confidentiality agreement and an NDA. She can't speak.

[00:39:47] [SPEAKER_06] So we're believing also this narrative that's been written about the founding of SoulCycle. The line is blurry. So if people can't speak, how are we even telling the origin story with those people? So there's that. There's also the aspect of a lot of people won't go on the record. I was able to anonymize. The beauty of a podcast is I'm not throwing a camera in people's faces.

[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_06] I offered anonymity because this was their career and they wanted to share their stories and talk, but they don't want necessarily their name attached to it, which is a whole lot because, you know, these are private citizens and this was their job. And so there's that. Some instructors even didn't want to be named. Some instructors I spoke to off the record.

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_06] So I think it's a mix of all of that is a lot of people aren't willing to sit down in front of the red light and talk.

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_01] That's a red flag to a certain degree.

[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_04] And also fair to say there hasn't been a heat. Well, you tell me. There's some sex scandals with instructors sleeping with married riders and things like that. But like there hasn't been a direct link. It's not like the branding in NXIVM. There's no. Right. Right. There's not a physical abuse scandal that people can point to. It's just sort of all these culty things we've been talking about that aren't necessarily major problems in themselves, but you put it all together and it's like.

[00:41:10] [SPEAKER_06] And also I think to do a film documentary, you would have needed to film inside the rooms. And I do not believe they would ever allow that to capture the footage. And by the way, I have my video editor put. You can watch all of the episodes on YouTube as well. And they're all using found footage. So you can see all these people that we're talking about. And I've got chyrons and lower thirds. So you can really get to know the interviewees.

[00:41:39] [SPEAKER_06] And I do have footage of the classes because it's all found footage. Okay. Some was shot by SoulCycle marketing team 15 years ago and it's just sitting on their YouTube channel. And it's fair use because it's criticism and commentary. And yeah, so I do want to say that we did our best to make this feel. I mean, it's an audio first experience. Right. I mean, it was. And the music's great, by the way. Love the music. Can I say something about the music? Yeah, of course. So thank you for that. So good.

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_06] So nearly all of the music in it is pretty much custom. And so the composer of the theme song and a lot of the transitional music is done by one of my best friends, Elizabeth Diff. She was the composer and an executive producer on The L Word, the Showtime series.

[00:42:28] [SPEAKER_04] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_06] And her band did the theme song for The L Word. And every episode, you know how every episode of my series ends with a song? That's their band. And I work very close. These are like some of my closest friends. I work very closely with them. And so they gave me full access to their catalog.

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_04] That's amazing. The songs are so good. And I especially love that little 80s track. You know, like the little clappy kind of like. Oh, the theme song. That's Elizabeth. Yeah. It's so good because it kind of like brings me back. I'm a big fan of 80s movies, but it's like that's the kind of music that would just have totally hooked me.

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_06] So you did a great job. I mean, she did a great job with the original music. And just the fact that I was able to, you know, the song when I get hooked, when I do my monologue about finding Stevie, how that song One of Us. And you would think it's written for this because it's so specific about being sucked into a cult. When I first discovered that song of hers, I'm like, what is this about? She's like, it's about when she got her first tattoo. Oh, wow.

[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_06] And I'm like, well, it's now about me getting hooked into SoulCycle. And I think it makes more sense for me getting hooked into SoulCycle than your personal.

[00:43:39] [SPEAKER_04] I love when a song really just captures a feeling for you and it just fits. Like actually, when we found our theme song for A Little Bit Culty, it was written by, this is a bit off topic, but since you just said it, written by one of our Fnexium students who took a little bit of training and then wrote this song called Cultivated. And when he heard about The Downfall, he wrote the song. And when I heard it, I was like, oh my God, we need... Before we had a podcast, I thought we were going to make a series. I was like, we need this. This is the theme song. It was like the song from Big Little Lies, like just gave me chills.

[00:44:08] [SPEAKER_04] Anyway, we didn't do a series, but we did the podcast and then we licensed it from him. And it's just, you know, it just fits. Anyway, back on track.

[00:44:16] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. So... No, but thank you for shouting out the music because it's such an important piece to make this series.

[00:44:23] [SPEAKER_04] Well, it's key and it's obviously a big component of it as it was in SoulCycle. Yeah. And I know that you asked us this at the beginning. Let me throw it back to you. What were some of the red flags that you found when you started interviewing other people? And like, were there any major surprises that you didn't know?

[00:44:38] [SPEAKER_06] I did not know the full extent of the Ruth Zuckerman, the third co-founder being iced out. I did not know the full extent of that. And I talked to her off the record on the phone. We spoke on the phone. I emailed her. I said, hey, I'm setting out to do this. I would love to talk to you. And I really pitched it as, I want to tell your story because I believe they fucked you.

[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_06] And I want to tell this from your perspective. And we got on the phone and she's like, I'm really glad you're doing this. She's like, I have a confidentiality agreement. But we talked on the phone and I was able to use some of her quotes in my narration. And also when I was talking to, in the first episode, I'm talking to people about it. I'm telling them some of what Ruth said and then getting their reaction.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_01] Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the two other people got $90 million each? Yeah.

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_06] When they sold it to Equinox? When they sold to Equinox.

[00:45:39] [SPEAKER_01] And Ruth got none of that.

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_06] Correct.

[00:45:41] Wow.

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_06] How is she not suing them? How did that happen? It happened because for some reason, they never signed a contract. I mean, this I'll never understand. They never signed a contract in the beginning.

[00:45:55] [SPEAKER_01] Happens all the time.

[00:45:57] [SPEAKER_06] Can you explain that to me?

[00:45:58] [SPEAKER_01] I think people get in.

[00:46:00] [SPEAKER_06] Doors are open. You've opened the business. Doors are open. You're now opening a second location in the Hamptons. The thing is becoming a cultural phenomenon. Celebrities are coming. How have you not had paperwork done?

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_01] People underestimate what will happen to them when money gets involved. And 0% of 0 is 0, right? So if there's no money yet, you don't, you know. Right. If people who haven't had something happen, I had something happen two years ago, I'll never go into something without a contract. Right. Explicitly about what value I'm providing, what you're providing, and then let's haggle that out right now.

[00:46:30] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. But sometimes it's like it's too soon and it's too awkward and it's like, well, let's just keep making it and then we'll figure it out and then once you get busy.

[00:46:37] [SPEAKER_06] That is something she said is she thought that they were really friends and that they would be able to work out any problems that arose.

[00:46:45] [SPEAKER_01] That's how it happens.

[00:46:46] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. Trust. I think she was very conflict averse. That was part of it. And she was also not a business woman. She was a spin instructor. Mm-hmm. Ruth was out back in 2009.

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_03] Oh.

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_06] Well, she, it's a little bit more. Yes. She, she stayed on as an instructor, which is, I don't want to get into that. It's too far off the road, but she was iced out as an owner. Her hands were tied because she couldn't go back to a big box gym and make what? $30 a class. All of her riders are now at SoulCycle. So they said, please stay on and teach. So sure. She was kind of handcuffed. It's a SoulCycle. And eventually what happened is a rider of hers in class came up to her after class and

[00:47:38] [SPEAKER_06] said, hey, I'm in finance. I'm in business. I have an idea. And that idea became Flywheel. And Flywheel became the second biggest spinning studio in New York. And they just introduced technology to it where you could have like metrics.

[00:47:56] [SPEAKER_01] You could race someone in class or something like that. Is that how it worked? Like you could-

[00:48:00] [SPEAKER_06] Or what was different? Well, there was a leaderboard. So you're competing with people. You can see everybody's output. And I don't think they were riding to the rhythm. It was different. It was all about competition. But they got Ruth involved?

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_01] I did Flywheel.

[00:48:12] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. A couple times. Did Ruth join that?

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_01] That was Ruth's business.

[00:48:16] [SPEAKER_06] So the rider of hers, he's the one who had the idea to introduce the technology and the metrics and to have the screen and the leaderboard up top in the class. And he said, let's go do this. And so she became a co-founder of Flywheel.

[00:48:29] [SPEAKER_04] Okay. So she's fine.

[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_06] Financially. Well, yeah. She, yes. She's fine. She's fine. They eventually, the story with Flywheel is just very quickly, they eventually sold it. So she made her money there. But they eventually went bankrupt. Flywheel's out of business. I actually believe they were sued by Peloton. Because I think there's some story there. But yes, she got her money. But not 90 million from Equinox. Not Equinox money, but she got money. She's fine. Let's not cry over her.

[00:48:59] [SPEAKER_06] She co-founded the two most successful spinning businesses.

[00:49:03] [SPEAKER_01] Wow. Period. Yeah.

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_06] We don't need to cry for her.

[00:49:06] [SPEAKER_04] I hope she's doing okay. For more context on what brought us here, check out my memoir. It's called Scarred, The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, The Cult That Bound My Life. I narrate the audio version, and it's also available on Amazon, Audible, and at most bookstores. And now, a brief message from our Little Bit Culty sponsors. And remember, when you support our sponsors, you're supporting this podcast. Well, summer's here. Oh, fish in Atlanta.

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[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_01] Break time's over, people. Let's get back to this episode of A Little Bit CULTY. It's a good one.

[00:52:09] [SPEAKER_04] Quick sidebar, Peloton. Yes. People have been like, oh, Peloton's CULTY. Same kind of thing. Same reasons. Like, it's all about the instructors and cult of personality. Any thoughts on that? I'm not going to do a whole episode on it.

[00:52:22] [SPEAKER_01] No.

[00:52:22] [SPEAKER_06] The thing with Peloton is you're not interacting with people in real life. You're just doing it through a screen. So that's like saying I'm watching The White Lotus and I love it so it's a cult. No, I'm a fan. You're not going out to dinner with the instructors. Stevie, my instructor, was at my apartment for Thanksgiving. Okay? They can't do that through the screen. They're not going to the Hamptons and traveling and staying in the same Airbnb with the guy they see on the screen. No. So no. It's not the same.

[00:52:51] [SPEAKER_04] Okay. Yeah. There was a possibility of them becoming a sponsor and I was like, oh, I feel like we're going to get in shit for that because they're a little culty. But I think they just got a little – people got obsessive about it during COVID but not as problematic. No. They were fans. I would not say it's culty. People are fans. By the way, you just said something that reminded me of another red flag and totally brought –

[00:53:12] [SPEAKER_01] Well, NDA is a red flag for me.

[00:53:14] [SPEAKER_04] NDA – well, I mean, NDAs aren't necessarily always a problem but they can prevent the ability to speak about something abusive which is a problem. But the other thing you just reminded me about the dinners and stuff is just sort of the feeling of being – like eventually I got to be in the inner circle in NXIVM or I thought I was in the inner circle. But just sort of like the thought of someone putting their hand on your hand and be like, do you want to join me for lunch? If I was a newer student –

[00:53:38] [SPEAKER_06] What did you – so she's one of my best friends, the woman who tells the story of like I remember the first time she tapped me and then they wound up having a falling – that's a whole thing, a falling out that they had. But what did you think of that? Her describing her really falling into – what she's describing is limerence slash transference slash cult of personality. What did you think about everything – Sumi, that's my friend who gave her true story. I was there. Like we were there together.

[00:54:08] [SPEAKER_06] What did you think about that?

[00:54:10] [SPEAKER_04] It's classic. A classic inner circle like trying to get – like for us it was going – you know, going up the stripe path or like getting the gold star to the next thing. Made her special. Yeah, made her feel special. If the leaders are idolized in the way that you've been talking about – and also the other thing that you mentioned in one of the podcasts we haven't talked about yet – is also just how sexual it is just to be like grinding up and down on a bike in the dark.

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_04] So like – and then even if they touch you – and you didn't actually say this in the podcast, I don't think – but when you have physical contact with someone, sex pheromones, specifically oxytocin for women can be released. And you can feel all sorts of things that aren't necessarily like in reality. Like this has happened to myself and other people that I know who like have been close to someone that they're not necessarily attracted to or shouldn't be with and then they have physical contact and then they're like, we should marry and have children.

[00:55:02] [SPEAKER_03] Right.

[00:55:03] [SPEAKER_04] You know, like it's –

[00:55:04] [SPEAKER_06] There's hormones. Sumi says, I remember the first time she touched me. Right. That's a big deal.

[00:55:10] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. And people don't think it's a big deal.

[00:55:11] [SPEAKER_01] I don't think that's an unconscious thing, but I don't think she was air quotes tapped unconsciously. I think Stevie can tell when she has a warm audience and knows when the answer is going to be yes.

[00:55:24] [SPEAKER_03] Mm-hmm.

[00:55:25] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. But to be invited to go do something after class is the first step of, yeah, making somebody feel special so that they're now part of the inner thing, which is a whole other red flag of like the sort of the elitism. I didn't know that people could pay double and reserve bikes or have extra access. Yes. Like I didn't realize it was so – Exclusive. Exclusive. Yes. Which also made me realize – You had to have money. Yeah.

[00:55:48] [SPEAKER_06] You had to have money or you had to have access to money. So people who are either successful in their own right or these housewives are married to hedge fund guys and they're like, great, just go do that, you know, just spending the money, you know. I do say that. Like people who spin – like the characteristics of people who spin, they tend to be perfectionists, very demanding, type A personalities. I mean I am kind of describing myself. And me.

[00:56:19] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. Because it's a dancer – because the same traits of dancers.

[00:56:24] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah.

[00:56:24] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah.

[00:56:25] [SPEAKER_04] And then you throw in some money. Like I didn't know that you could earn your way to – I didn't realize it was so exclusive and sought after and that certain people would want certain bikes. Oh my god. Yes.

[00:56:34] [SPEAKER_01] Well, a group of type A people is going to grow the brand pretty quickly too.

[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah.

[00:56:39] [SPEAKER_01] It's going to get out there pretty quickly. So word of mouth, all the things that you have with that kind of inertia.

[00:56:43] [SPEAKER_06] And they – how you're saying people would want certain bikes. A lot of the abuse was from the clients toward these – just the employees. I thought some of those stories were quite funny. And a lot of the anonymous people like we were just treated like garbage by the 1% of New York, like throwing things around the studio. And like you moved my bike. And they're like we didn't move your fucking bike.

[00:57:07] [SPEAKER_06] And also something like – I mean if we go into like God complex of the instructors, how this one instructor who's notorious in New York for being very controlling, she would block her whole front row and choose who would – they wouldn't allow it to be open for booking. And she would select who was going to be in the front row. And she would fat chain people.

[00:57:32] [SPEAKER_06] That stuff that I didn't include that in the series because I thought it was like gross and just like low-hanging fruit and I don't feel like talking about that.

[00:57:39] [SPEAKER_01] Right. Smart.

[00:57:39] [SPEAKER_06] But Google it. It's there. And she would say things to some employees like you're not our brand based on the way they looked or certain things. And so there was this God complex. Why? Because she was Kelly Ripa's favorite instructor. And Kelly Ripa would have her on the show riding the bike. Okay. What is Monday at noon? Noon on Monday, a.k.a. Monday at noon.

[00:58:05] [SPEAKER_06] That is when the website or the app unlocks where you can book for the week. And people would – first of all, my friend was an executive assistant to a very high-up CEO. And a lot of very high-up CEOs were going to SoulCycle. And they were in meetings. They didn't have time to be on their computers doing this. So their assistants were tasked with, you need to get me into these classes.

[00:58:30] [SPEAKER_06] And so my friend, one of my best friends, when I told him I'm doing this, he's like, do you know that I had to do that for years? And so there was mass chaos, especially in the beginning because the website couldn't handle the volume of traffic. And you would watch the map of the – because you can select the bike you're on. So you can watch the class fill up. It's a white circle that turns yellow. And so you can watch it fill up. And then people would call the studios.

[00:59:00] [SPEAKER_06] People would walk into the studios. They were told, do not answer the phones one hour before class. Because there would be people just trying to keep them on the phone until noon and be like, oh, hey, can you just book me in? So they were told, do not answer the phone from an hour before because people would just like chit-chat to cut the line.

[00:59:21] [SPEAKER_04] So that became, I think, part of the loaded language.

[00:59:24] [SPEAKER_01] Also creating scarcity.

[00:59:25] [SPEAKER_04] And scarcity. Yes. What were the other terms or like if you weren't in SoulCycle, you wouldn't know what the words meant? Oh, more like moves on the bike.

[00:59:33] [SPEAKER_06] Like they would call it sexy corners, which means – What are sexy corners? I mean this is so embarrassing to say. So like it's just choreography. Like you're moving your body in an X form. Moving your body like diagonally front and back. I'm trying it out. Oh, they'd be like body roll and like tapping it back. It's like where you're literally like kind of like doing like almost like a little mini squat. But it's all to the beat of the music. So like a lot of the choreography would just have like turns.

[01:00:02] [SPEAKER_06] Tap it back is probably – tapping it back and Monday at noon are probably – those are the ones that people know. Okay. So stupid to talk about. It sounds very silly. Monday at noon is not silly to talk about. That is serious. But Super Soul meant what? Super Soul was the concierge service where if you paid $20,000 or would, you know, rank it up – rack it up. And they still have that by the way. That gave you – you could book your bike up to six weeks in advance.

[01:00:31] [SPEAKER_06] So you could cut the line. Wow. And they still have that. It's a system. They still have it. Yeah. And like wait lists form, I was always emailing. Hey, I'm on bikes. You know, I'm on whatever. Suppose I missed the window, right? I'm in a meeting because I have a job. And they didn't have an app yet. That was like a big thing. They didn't have the app until 2015. And I started in 2011. And so when I started to really care where I was, I didn't want to be in the back corner. I wanted to be able to see the instructor. Like I wanted to be close.

[01:01:01] [SPEAKER_06] So I would always email. If I got like a shitty bike, I'd be like, hey, I'm on bike, whatever, 25. If anything – I'd be so specific. If anything on the sidebar is open or if any – I would be so – I mean, I'm a psychotic person. Like it was me. And they knew me. They'd be like, of course, they liked me. But – Of course. You know.

[01:01:21] [SPEAKER_04] Look at you. I was back around.

[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_01] I would have been back around for sure.

[01:01:25] [SPEAKER_04] One of the things I liked about the podcast also is that you kept saying things like, remember, this is 2009. Before there was Apple Music, right? Like people going to a record store and making a mixtape like essentially or –

[01:01:40] [SPEAKER_06] Buying – buying music. Yeah, because I really had to – Buy buying music. Time stamp it. Like because SoulCycle opened before the iPhone was released. That's crazy. So we were like on a BlackBerry. If that, people were still on sidekicks. I love the guy in the beginning talking about how he knew the whole field of the keys. I totally remember that. I could also type without looking at my keys. I loved my BlackBerry. I was dying when he was – I'm like, this is too good. I have to leave it in. It's such a slice of life. It's such a slice of life.

[01:02:08] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. Or saying like this is before Instagram or this is before like online apps that could go into your phone.

[01:02:13] [SPEAKER_03] It should happen quickly, huh?

[01:02:14] [SPEAKER_04] It happens so quickly. Yeah. It's all kind of a blur. But do you remember where you were or how did you feel when you saw the – or did you even see the Schitt's Creek reference to SoulCycle? No, tell me. Do you remember that?

[01:02:24] [SPEAKER_06] I've seen all the SoulCycle – I've seen the Saturday Night Live sketches. What – no, what's the Schitt's Creek reference? We have to send it to you.

[01:02:29] [SPEAKER_04] It's basically – have you seen Schitt's Creek? I've seen a lot of it. But basically one of them brings them to a SoulCycle thing and it's – they highlight the cult stuff there and they're wearing these matching sort of tunics and the leader's name is Citrus. And he's yelling affirmations like a guru. And they bring in some other elements like sort of MLM elements and there's also going to be like at the end of the class there's going to be an ascension through a portal. Oh, my God. Yeah. That's funny. I'll send it to you but I definitely – if you ever do a bonus to this series.

[01:02:58] [SPEAKER_06] Oh, no, I'm – I have bonus episodes coming out. Oh, and another – one thing we didn't talk about as far as like the group mentality, it's in the series, the merch. That was a huge thing. Oh, the merch. Yeah. Everyone was in – when I was going, every single person, including me, you would be in some – like I would wear the leggings. They would have co-branded. So like they would have Nike and Lululemon like leggings but then they would put the SoulCycle – the skull and crossbones was the SoulCycle logo.

[01:03:27] [SPEAKER_06] So they would put that in different colors or whatever the hell.

[01:03:32] [SPEAKER_01] That was their logo?

[01:03:33] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. Yeah, look it up. So yeah, they don't really – I don't really see it anymore but like –

[01:03:38] [SPEAKER_01] With a lot of spiritual gangster shirts and all that?

[01:03:40] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah.

[01:03:41] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[01:03:41] [SPEAKER_06] They would co-brand with Spiritual Gangster but every butt in the heyday, every single person – I wouldn't see a person who was not wearing something. A lot of the guys would wear bandanas and of course they would have the skull and crossbones to sweat. And a tank top, a bra. People of course would always forget to bring socks. So of course they're just selling socks with the SoulCycle shit on it.

[01:04:03] [SPEAKER_06] And so yeah, the look of it also was very – when you walk down the street, even in like the tote, like if you bought something, there was a silver shiny SoulCycle bag. It was a signifier of something that you had money. It was a signifier of –

[01:04:22] [SPEAKER_01] You have two houses.

[01:04:24] [SPEAKER_04] That's funny. Here's a question. Yeah. If you're still in New York City, would you feel comfortable wearing this merch? Oh my God.

[01:04:33] Maybe.

[01:04:35] [SPEAKER_04] Are you a little bit culty? So we joke about how now our podcast is like –

[01:04:40] [SPEAKER_06] You become a cult in your own.

[01:04:42] [SPEAKER_04] Well, a little bit.

[01:04:44] [SPEAKER_01] We're not big enough.

[01:04:45] [SPEAKER_04] And there's no bait and switch. It is what it is.

[01:04:48] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[01:04:48] [SPEAKER_04] And I guess that's how we sort of define a destructive cult versus something that's a little bit culty is, is there a bait and switch? Which is what you're signing up for, what it's going to be. Yes. And I feel like for the most part it is, it's sort of like it only really becomes problematic if you become really extreme with it. And I guess that's part of the whole sort of –

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_01] Well, are you abusing people?

[01:05:07] [SPEAKER_06] And I think also if you worked for the company, we're talking about a – and that's why like a lot of this – I interviewed all employees. So for writers, it was much more of like a pure experience unless you flew too close to the sun like my friend Sumi did and then her world exploded with Stevie. It was like a very dramatic situation falling out.

[01:05:30] [SPEAKER_06] But for the most part, it was really the employees who experienced negative stuff. And it was because of the Equinox acquisition. It was not because of the original – the beautiful time with the original founders and like how everybody like talks so glowingly about it.

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_04] So what do you hope people get from the podcast? Like what's your goal?

[01:05:52] [SPEAKER_06] My goal is when people listen to it, when people really go through the whole thing, I want people to feel like I wish I was there in the heyday. I want to capture the magic. That was my goal to look back on this time that was such a great time in my life. And it was this moment in New York City in the culture and how it captured the zeitgeist.

[01:06:20] [SPEAKER_06] It was just an era and it was a vibe and it brought so many people together. And I want people to remember – people who were part of it. And that's – so many of the messages I'm getting are from former employees and thanking me. This is like healing me. People have been burned by it and it's healing for them. And a lot of the interviewees as well, people who were very – people who I had to really convince and offer anonymity,

[01:06:49] [SPEAKER_06] people who were very hesitant to talk in the end when they were like walking out the door or later they would text me and be like, I'm so happy that I haven't talked about this in so many years and it's giving me closure. Because a lot of the employees felt abandoned. So I hope it brings – I hope it brings a lot – you know, like nostalgia. And also like it's like juicy, fun stuff. I hope you're entertained. Oh, yeah.

[01:07:16] [SPEAKER_01] It's definitely entertaining. It was also informative.

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_04] I think it achieves that goal and also for us and our goal in educating about what red flags look like, especially in this space. I mean we make flippant jokes all the time that any group can – well, this is not a joke. Any group can become culty but, you know, flippant jokes about orange theory and soul cycle and so on.

[01:07:35] [SPEAKER_01] Every group has an extreme version of themselves.

[01:07:46] [SPEAKER_04] And also a goal for us would be is how to navigate those beautiful things and know what red flags to look for to not cross over into a dangerous or abusive aspect of it. Yeah. Which is like kind of same thing for us with NXIVM. There's a lot of people who were there in the heyday of NXIVM and did not get burned or branded literally and – Yeah. Metaphorically. And would stick to that saying it was a great experience. They were not part of the inner circle. They didn't have to have sex with Keith Raniere. You know what I mean? Yeah.

[01:08:16] [SPEAKER_04] So it's just an ongoing thing for us is how do you take the tools, put them in your life and not make the tools your life and get totally caught up. And protect yourself. So yeah. Awesome. I'm so glad that we got to meet and do this. What a treat. It was so fun. I love you guys.

[01:08:29] [SPEAKER_01] Who want to come to New York next? Yes.

[01:08:31] [SPEAKER_04] I love you. This is awesome. And we will be in New York this fall. And I think that we should go to a SoulCycle class together. Oh, we should – I'll take you to Janet. You got to go. Okay.

[01:08:40] [SPEAKER_06] I mean, first of all, she's the only one still teaching. Let's do it. No, we're going to –

[01:08:44] [SPEAKER_04] We'll have to go. We'll do a little like behind the scenes and we'll film it and we'll like reference this episode and your podcast. That would be so fun. That'd be really fun.

[01:08:52] [SPEAKER_01] We want to be love bomb first and foremost.

[01:08:58] [SPEAKER_04] I mean –

[01:08:59] [SPEAKER_01] Just want to experience that one more time, right?

[01:09:00] [SPEAKER_04] Just a little taste. Just a little taste. Just tell me I'm special. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for making this podcast. Thank you. And for coming on the show. Yeah. Tell us, everyone, where they can hear it. Yeah.

[01:09:12] [SPEAKER_06] Where can they hear it? How can they find you? Yeah. So Cult of Body and Soul, you can find it – First of all, full video episodes are on YouTube. If you want to watch it and see people, I think my instructions would be like listen to it first because you can really get immersed in the music. And then if you're curious to see what people look like, all the episodes are on YouTube. And then, of course, all podcast platforms, Cult of Body and Soul. And on Instagram, if you want to connect with me, JessXNYC.

[01:09:41] [SPEAKER_06] And there you can see my interviews with people from my regular show and, you know, posting fun stuff. Thank you so much, Jess.

[01:09:49] [SPEAKER_04] We'll see you in person in the fall.

[01:09:53] [SPEAKER_01] If you like the show, please consider supporting us by giving us a rating, a review, and subscribe on iTunes. Cults are commonplace now, and we're looking at them all, and every little bit helps. Hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode. That was a great episode. It's such a good example how things can be a little bit culty, can't quite put your finger on it, can't quite tell what it is that's going on until you put language to it.

[01:10:20] [SPEAKER_01] But it's not something you're going to, like, ruin your life with, but it is something that can kind of get underneath your skin. You don't know what it was, and you walk away from going, you know, what the hell was that? It's fortunate that Jess had a great experience, and I love that she's able to show that. And also look at the dark side. Yeah, look at the dark side. And there's certainly a dark side. So everyone, please give her podcast a listen, maybe after you listen to ours, so you can kind of know what you're looking at. I mean, that's the only way I'll self-promote our podcast. I'm not big on that.

[01:10:50] [SPEAKER_04] I also think that we have to do a section. I think we mentioned SoulCycle in our upcoming book, but don't get into the nitty-gritty of why it was culty. So this draft is about to go into copy editing. So let's take a look and see where we can plug in a little bit more about SoulCycle so people can make the connections.

[01:11:07] [SPEAKER_01] Or just workout classes and things that generate a vibe, not necessarily based on spinning, but the atmosphere they create around things to lure people.

[01:11:17] [SPEAKER_04] It's the obsessive part that's problematic. It's not a problem.

[01:11:19] [SPEAKER_01] You're marketed to. You're proactively marketed to.

[01:11:22] [SPEAKER_04] Because the community aspect in and of itself is not a problem. If you're going to go work out in a community and show up like you would to a Sunday church, except you're working out and you're not religious, I think that's fine. But not if you're obsessive and you feel like you can't miss it or you're shamed if you don't show up or it's like too exclusive to even get a seat. Like that part really chaps my ass.

[01:11:42] [SPEAKER_01] It's a great example of how people don't think they can fall for something, but then fall for something kind of and in hindsight go, oh, yeah, that was marketed towards or unwittingly marketed towards my vulnerabilities. So very informative. Very informative.

[01:11:57] [SPEAKER_04] And I hope this episode also helps people look at the things that they do and decide if it's healthy for them. Like remember that yoga studio I was telling you about that it was really dark and loud?

[01:12:06] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah.

[01:12:07] [SPEAKER_04] That same yoga studio was always sold out. It was always packed and there was a point where that was kind of exciting and it was fun. It had a good vibe, but it was stressful to know whether or not I would make it. The studio I'm at now doesn't sell out and that's just what I need for my well-being right now. And that's a personal choice. So we hope that this episode has given you some tools for navigating fitness programs all around the world.

[01:12:31] [SPEAKER_01] Thank you for listening.

[01:12:32] [SPEAKER_04] Namaste.

[01:12:32] [SPEAKER_01] Bye for now.

[01:12:51] [SPEAKER_04] A Little Bit Culty is a Trace 120 production. Executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippy Ames in collaboration with Amphibian Media. Our co-creator is Jess Temple-Tardy. Audio engineering by Red Cayman Studios. And our writing and research is done by Emma Diehl and Kristen Reeder. Our theme song, Cultivated, is by the artists John Bryant and Nigel Aslan.