The Grotto: Crypto, NFTs & An Online Hellscape (Part 1)

[00:00:00] This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical or mental health advice. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion, group,

[00:00:12] club, organization, business, individual, anyone or anything. I'm Sarah Edmondson. And I'm Anthony, air quotes Nippy Ames. And this is A Little Bit Culty. A podcast about what happens when things that seem like a great thing at first

[00:00:35] go bad. Every week we chat with survivors, experts and whistleblowers for real cult stories told directly by the people who live through them. Because we want you to learn a few things we've had to learn the hard way. Like if you think you're too smart to get sucked

[00:00:48] into something culty, you're already prime recruitment material. You might even already be in a cult. Oops. You better keep listening to find out. Welcome to season six of A Little Bit Culty. Welcome back everybody to this week's epic three-parter on A Little Bit Culty.

[00:01:22] Yes, this week's episode is dare I say a wild one. We're delving into a community that's invisible to most of us. It's on Discord. We have a Discord account. It's a little bit culty. You guys may be on it, maybe not. But not all Discord is culty.

[00:01:35] Not all Discords are alike. So it's mostly a messaging app like Signal or WhatsApp, but it also allows people to create invite only communities, red flag, called servers. And on these Discord servers, people can log in and share info with like-minded people, others

[00:01:51] who share similar things about similar content. Like what? Like knitting and- Baseball cards, Pokemon cards. There's probably a Discord for everything, including A Little Bit Culty if you join us over on Patreon, but that's not why we are here. I'm pretty sure I covered that.

[00:02:06] Discord does sound harmless enough, but that's where at least in a Discord community called The Grotto, things got a little bit culty. When I think of Grotto, I think of the playbook. Grotto, it's gross. Anyway. I know.

[00:02:18] Yeah. So things got culty. So stick with us here. There's a Brooklyn-based artist named Jaime Dubardin. Online, he goes by the handle probably is what we're figuring out, pronounced threesomes. What do you mean probably?

[00:02:31] Well, there are threes where the E's should be in threesomes. So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this guy has some sort of fetish around threesomes. Maybe he likes number three. Jaime. You dirty, dirty dog.

[00:02:43] So anyway, threesomes spelled Jaime, pronounced Jaime is an NFT artist. NFT stands for non-fungible token. You may have seen this during lockdown and COVID where NFTs were ever there, bored apes, et cetera, which is just a name for a data file that gives something a unique permanent

[00:03:00] identifier online. Think about owning a piece of the internet. Is this crypto? Because it sounds like crypto or Bitcoin. Is the blockchain involved here? Well, yeah, we're going blockchain here. The blockchain is involved. And if you want to

[00:03:12] learn about the blockchain, chat GPT, whatever you want to call it, can probably give you a little understanding. But the more I learned about the less I know. So it's a little different than Bitcoin or crypto. So if you own Bitcoins, which are kind of cryptocurrency, they have

[00:03:24] digital identifiers like on a ledger, but they're fungible. That means you can trade your Bitcoins for someone else's Bitcoins, but technically they're all the same. Like a dollar. If I have a dollar and you have a dollar, we can trade them. But a dollar

[00:03:36] is a dollar. That's what fungible means. Now when something is non-fungible, that means it's one of a kind, it's unique. Why make up a whole new word fungible? It's just confusing, but I've heard about it. It's like when people sell their tweets, right?

[00:03:49] Exactly. So if you remember back in 2021, when Twitter was not X, that's when NFTs were kind of hitting the stride with bored apes, et cetera. And they were starting to become a thing that people would invest in. And Twitter's founder, Jack Dorsey, turned

[00:04:00] his first tweet from way back in 2006 into an actual NFT. And then he sold it for $3 million. What? Yes. So he gave the tweet an identifier, then he sold it to someone who now owns the tweet

[00:04:12] they bought for $3 million. So in essence, it's like a piece of the internet. We are totally in the wrong business. What could you do with $3 million? Well, yeah. So it's true. But what I'm saying is there's a unique identifier for Jack Dorsey's

[00:04:25] first tweet that cannot be traded for someone else's copy of Jack Dorsey's first tweet. So you can't trade it for a PDF because there's only one and it's non-fungible. It's like the Mona Lisa.

[00:04:36] Sort of, but it's more like a certificate of authenticity that might come with a Mona Lisa or a piece of artwork like it. So the NFT verifies the art is real. Okay. I think I got it. Okay. So how does this relate to Mr. Threesome's, Jamie, Jaime,

[00:04:48] whatever the fuck? Well, like many other artists, Dean saw the NFT boom and decided he would start making his own artwork available as NFTs. So that's when the bored ape stuff started. Like in basketball players, a bunch of people fell for it.

[00:04:59] Okay. So I've seen Dean's art. It's weird. It's interesting. He claims that he used to be a minor league baseball player. Total bullshit. Part of his backstory. So he takes old baseball cards, re-imagines them to be say something more subversive than you might imagine a baseball

[00:05:12] card to be. Yeah. So there was one of his projects. He'd take an old baseball card and make them into like an absurd imagery thing. So for example, he took an old card of Kurt Flood and Kurt

[00:05:21] Flood had his own controversy when he was playing as he pushed up against the powers that be in free agency. But he was an outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals in the sixties

[00:05:29] and Dean painted the card to look like Kurt Flood was a Cardinal in the Catholic church, racy guy. The St. Louis Cardinals were the Cardinale in Dean's re-imagined baseball card. And then he made it into an NFT. And then he sold it for $3 million?

[00:05:42] I mean, maybe. Yeah. So he became one of the most well-known NFT artists. Right? So, and these were really appealing ecosystems to artists because it was another modality for which they could potentially make money. So he was an award winner at the NFT.NYC, which

[00:05:59] is one of the biggest NFT events in the world. I mean, I don't know how many there are, but and the value of his art ran into seven figures. So Dean gets fame and notoriety. It sounds like plenty of money. What happened then?

[00:06:10] Well, he went on to Discord. So he went into Discord. And if you remember the Discord servers we talked about, he created one called The Grotto. It was an NFT central. It's where

[00:06:20] people go talk about NFTs, share NFTs they made and figure out ways that NFTs could change, you know, commerce. And then it spilled into the real world. And that's where things got a little bit culty.

[00:06:31] Yes. And in this week's show, we'll talk to four people lured into The Grotto. They want to remain mostly anonymous, but they go by Charm, Katerina, Shana, and FOMO. So if you remember our Bento episode, it's a similar format.

[00:06:46] And also Charm found me, I believe because she saw my TED Talk, which is really cool. And she was like, oh, that was a cult. And then we started talking and she introduced it to Katerina, Shana, and FOMO. The Edward Talk. Yes. Yes.

[00:06:57] These are four people who say that Dean used Discord to create a kind of Ponzi scheme mixed with a cult. They say Dean would coerce people to invest in his NFTs, promising that with each dollar spent they could get closer to him. Sounds familiar-ish. Our guests will say

[00:07:10] that Dean used coercion, financial manipulation, and empty promises to draw them in. And then he took his power too far as they always do. Yep. Textbook. Well, that's right. They say that he lied about his background, that he

[00:07:23] preyed on young women. Shame on you threesomes, if that's your real name anyway. And it's not. Oh, and that he scammed people out of money and they want to bring their story to

[00:07:32] the world so that no one else is tempted to join. And we are more than happy to use the little bit culty platform to shine light, similarly to as we did with the Vento box, so that nobody else jumps into that culty Discord grotto hellscape dumpster fire landscape.

[00:07:47] Did I get it all in? I bet he told them he was a judo champ too. As you all know, we're fascinated by our guests and this one is a doozy, so let's get onto it. It's a long one. On to the show. Do it. Buckle up, buttercup.

[00:08:11] Charm, FOMO, Katarina, Shaina. This is our second ever four person podcast episode, Extravaganza, tackling a very complicated subject. Looks like a Brady Bunch screen here. Before we get into your stories, I know we need to lay a little bit of foundation for

[00:08:30] our audience. Charm, why don't you kick it off? Tell us what you think the audience needs to know about this wild world of crypto and NFTs. Sure. First off, I think we just want to thank you, Sarah and Nipi, for providing a safe space.

[00:08:44] This was a very difficult decision for us to come forward and there's been a lot of mixed feelings, not just amongst us who are on the pod today, but we are part of a much

[00:08:52] larger group of people who are affected and hurt. And, you know, I think we've all felt anger and hurt and shame and embarrassment and a desire for justice. So we're really coming forward, you know, hoping that this will help others not fall prey to something similar.

[00:09:05] Nipi, I just wanted to thank you for the idea that nobody joins a cult on purpose. And Sarah, that cults come in all shapes and sizes because the Grotto, which was our cult, did not look like a cult. There were no self-improvement courses, no enlightenment,

[00:09:20] no like robes or aliens or Valhalla, none of the fun stuff. It was just this online community of like-minded art and crypto enthusiasts. And at the time, NFTs were exploding. Bored ape yacht club was all over the news. Like pictures of monkeys were selling for hundreds

[00:09:36] of thousands of dollars and having star-studded parties and events. And there were a lot of these communities and this was just ours, the Grotto. It seemed like a safe space for us because it

[00:09:46] was online. It was in a Discord, which if anybody's as old as me is like an AOL chat room, if you would, like a message board. And so how dangerous could that be? Within that Discord,

[00:09:59] we all had screen names and we were all challenged to live in character and be our most true selves. We were part of this larger performative art project and it was just a ton

[00:10:09] of fun, honestly. There were inside jokes and we had our own terminology. We even at one point, we had our own money called three penny. Like it was good. It was inventive. It was innovative and

[00:10:21] exciting. But what we also had was a really controlling leader. And I think anytime you have a leader with like narcissistic and sadistic tendencies, it's where you see a fun culture devolve into a cult. Our leader was named Jaime DuBardin. Jaime sort of spelled like Jamie,

[00:10:42] but Jaime. And he referred to this as his dead name. And that's because if you Googled him, he had a checkered past. He had failed business ventures and financial troubles. And some of the stories he was telling about himself and as his artist persona end up being

[00:11:00] untrue or exaggerated. Like he tells everybody, like even a small thing that he had bone spurs and old ball playing injuries. And then we find out later, or he told some of us that he actually

[00:11:11] just had ingrown toenails, like to that level of lies. He claimed to be a professional baseball player in the minor leagues and to run a minor league team. But we can't find any evidence of

[00:11:22] that online other than him playing in college and just anything where there was a kernel of truth, he could spin that into a tall tale. And that's fine for his artist self, I guess,

[00:11:36] which had its own name. This part's embarrassing because he went under the moniker of threesomes, T-H-R-3-3-S-O-M-3-S, threesomes. And threesomes was how we knew him. Most of us didn't know his

[00:11:53] dead name and we didn't till after in many cases. Threesomes had another persona that he would slip into when we were at in real life events with him called threesies, which allowed him to just sort

[00:12:06] of be his worst self around all of us. But to him and around him and about him, most of us just called him three or threes. And the reason I go through it all is I'm sure all of us is going to

[00:12:17] call him something different being Jaime, Jamie, threesomes, threes, threesies, or three, and it's all the same guy. Threesomes wasn't really about like a sex act or just being a quirky name. I'm like, I think it was Jaime, threesomes, whatever deep penchant for triangulation. And he pit people

[00:12:36] against each other. There were loyalty tests. He ranked people. He tiered players and there's just secrets and power dynamics all packaged in this fun game revolving around fictitious baseball cards. But at its core, the Grotto really felt like a Ponzi cult, like a pyramid scheme, a franchise

[00:12:53] scheme, a cult and a Ponzi, like all squished together as one. And many people collected and were in it, the art for the financial upside, but that value seems to be manipulated and inflated.

[00:13:04] If you follow his online blockchain transactions, like the ledger where we can see where his money moves, three appears to be funding fake wallets and creating sock puppets and fake players just

[00:13:16] rigging his own game at every turn. There appears to be wash trading where he sends money to other players who then make big sales or he sends money to people who send money to people to send money

[00:13:27] to people who then make big sales. So while we saw the price going up, up, up, it was manufactured. And in any other classic Ponzi, there were penalties for selling. So we would make these

[00:13:40] big gains and we were expected to roll that over into the next thing and the next thing. And it really became a financial prison. He would promise us all these assets and paintings, but then

[00:13:50] he'd dangle them and not deliver them for large stretches of time. And in those times, there'd be more money to spend and only those in good standing could claim. Upon leaving, there was wrath, there was bullying by threesomes and also his, we like the term that you coined,

[00:14:06] flying monkeys, his inner circle. And with the women, you'll hear the abuse is obvious, but it was a lot harder, especially for the men to leave, to realize those financial losses and admit to their families and themselves that they were tricked. Welcome to the grotto.

[00:14:21] It's quite a sales pitch. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you and what was going on in your life when you met Jaime? I'm a photographer. I live in New York City. I am an artist and an art collector. At the time

[00:14:35] when I got caught up in all of this, you have to remember it was right at the tail end, the pandemic was still happening and crypto was booming. And I think I felt very vulnerable and

[00:14:47] lonely. And I'd been parenting for years nonstop. And I just, I was lonely. I wanted community. I wanted to feel like an adult again. And it was sort of the perfect storm of everything to get me

[00:15:00] involved. I entered in early 2022. At that point, Shana and FOMO were already there. But despite friends telling me to join, I couldn't come any earlier because the grotto was closed. Like there

[00:15:13] was an application and an essay to get in. I couldn't even find the link. And I think there was this exclusive mystique. I would hear stories from people. Like there was a story about how like

[00:15:22] in Miami at a party, there was like a woman in leather, like leading a man around on a leash, just crazy nonsense. And so it was intriguing to me. I'm the type of personality that's like,

[00:15:34] oh, what's that? I'm just inquisitive in those ways. But I put it out of my mind because I couldn't get in. And then in February of 2022, I got this weird painting dropped into my crypto

[00:15:46] wallet. And it was called A Valentine. And it said it was given to me by somebody that loves you in the grotto. And I just thought it was absurd. Like, let me describe this painting just because

[00:16:00] I think, I mean, it's just so bizarre, right? It is a think of a naked cherubs body like paunchy and chubby. And with the head of a blonde balding man up top, and then with a giant,

[00:16:17] like giant uncircumcised penis. Like it was grotesque. But like, it got everybody's attention. And like everybody in our little crypto circles was talking about it. They liked it. They hated

[00:16:32] it. It was like a violation that like came right into your box, but it was sent with love from somebody you knew. And so it was one of those things where like I then saw that and like,

[00:16:41] while I didn't want to look at it, I also could not look at it. And again, I was intrigued. And then I sort of like went back into my, you know, into my own world until friends recruited me.

[00:16:51] What did that look like? What does recruitment into discord channel look like? So I was in a lot of other discord channels and a lot of other communities. And I'd made a lot of

[00:17:00] other friends in the crypto space. And two of the people that I talked to often and who I liked, who were in two other communities basically said, you would be a perfect fit for the grotto. You've

[00:17:12] got the personality for it. And I think they'd eat you up. Basically, it was a whole bunch of guys. And they're like, you can just give it right back to them. Like, come on, it will be fun.

[00:17:21] And I was intrigued. And I thought, why not? Like, it's just clicking on a link and joining another chat room. So it seemed easy enough. And now it was open. And now I had an invitation and I could

[00:17:31] go. So I went in, and I almost immediately bought into the grotto currency, which you needed to do to get drafted onto a team. And so now I felt invested. I've got money in it. I've got friends

[00:17:43] in it. I feel like I don't want to let anybody down. We're going to play a game. It's going to be fun. And in that I started just talking and just being me and I had this like electric banter

[00:17:55] with this guy threesomes like in the discord immediately. Like I'd write something and within seconds, he'd write something back. And it just felt like there was this weird electric chemistry.

[00:18:05] And it took him a day or two before he was in my private messages. And then I remember him writing something along the line of like, Hi, I'm a single doofus living in Brooklyn. Be careful,

[00:18:15] I can flirt with the best of them. And he like sent me photos. And I remember being like, you know, making fun of him first off like, yeah, of course you live in Brooklyn. I bet your apartment

[00:18:26] is filled with like Mason jars and iconic and like an ironic mustaches, you know, like making light of it. Oh, by the way, I'm married. So nice try guy. But he just kept going and going. I always

[00:18:36] be like, I'm married. I'm a mom. I'm married. I'm a mom. I'm here, you know, whatever. And just day after day after day of like love bombing. And it felt so good after feeling lonely in the

[00:18:46] pandemic. And I was getting all this attention and being told how wonderful and funny and smart I was. And you know, the conversation just got longer and longer and longer until we were talking all night.

[00:18:58] And I really thought it was innocent until all of a sudden I realized it wasn't. And yeah, so now I'm financially invested, invested in the community. I don't want to let my friends down. And now I'm invested in this relationship, whatever it is with three.

[00:19:14] And you haven't met him at this point. You're just this is all online. Yeah, it's all online. Yeah. So that's why I thought it was it was fine. And for those people who are listening who are like, don't understand this crypto world,

[00:19:25] you're investing paint that picture a little bit. Maybe knows more about Bitcoin than I do, but I'm just being totally naive here. It's not just Bitcoin. Well, but Bitcoin and NFT is like you're in this discord, but you're also you have

[00:19:37] your wallet and your what does the investing look like? Like, what are you investing in? There's a lot down this rabbit hole, but to keep it easy for everybody. Basically, we were buying digital art. So he made these paintings and I'm sure other people will

[00:19:51] also explain them along the way. But he basically painted on top baseball cards on top of them. And it was almost like, you know, we're all collectors at heart. And so we were trying

[00:20:00] to collect all the teams and all the players and all the cards. And we played a game with them. So that's what it looked like in this community. That's the easiest way probably to put it. Got it.

[00:20:10] How is that related to someone dropping you the love thing into your DMs or your wallets? So one thing that threesomes was really good at was inventing ways that were fun to use his cards.

[00:20:24] And they was all part of like a gameplay strategic mentality. So for one of his drops, the Valentine's people only got them if they sent them to other people. So they had not

[00:20:39] seen the painting. This was sight unseen. So it was like, if you want one, you also have to send one to somebody else. And it was smart because it was like a virus. Like it just sort of got into

[00:20:48] everybody's box all over the place, because people wanted as many of them. So by association, you had friends that were friends with him and they thought of you? Yes, because they were also just trying to get as many of them because they thought they were valuable.

[00:21:01] Okay, I got it. It was a recruitment strategy. It's a recruitment strategy. And by the way, it caused a big uproar because it is a naked baby. And it got sent an airdrop to all these people like in Indonesia and all these countries

[00:21:17] where pornography is illegal. And it actually almost got an artist into a lot of trouble. So he got a lot of bang for his buck on this drop. Free publicity. But that wasn't his art? It was. It was. It was one of his paintings. Oh, it was. Okay.

[00:21:31] Yes. Got it. This podcast wouldn't happen without our amazing, supportive, generous patrons. Are you with us? Come find us over on Patreon at patreon.com slash a little bit culty for bonus episodes, exclusive content and the occasional zoom with our fan favorites from our past episodes.

[00:21:50] It's a lot of fun over there, people. You've heard from our sponsors. Now let's get back to A Little Bit Culty, shall we? Well, thank you, Charm. FOMO, can you tell us your story, who you are and how you got introduced to all of this?

[00:22:14] Hi, Sarah and Nipi. I'm an art dealer and the idea of NFTs, of transferring some of my assets to digital from physical seemed really wonderful, especially after the pandemic. So I discovered his

[00:22:26] work kind of by accident early on in the project. And this is before any marketing or promotion or recruiting on his part. And he'd only made a few pieces at this point. And they appeared just

[00:22:39] at the right time for me because I was new to NFTs and I was looking for something truly original, you know, that had an edge, kind of a mystery to it. And I'd been really disappointed with

[00:22:51] NFTs, what I was seeing out there. You know, the market was flooded with slick, polished, gimmicky derivative artwork and stuff that was easily digestible. So his work really was a breath

[00:23:05] of fresh air. And I would like to describe it to you, actually, what the things actually look like so people can get a better idea. They're hand painted and this is while nearly everything in

[00:23:17] the NFT world is digitally rendered. So it's sort of a throwback and an anachronism. And it was so kind of cool in that regard. And the style was like outsider art. It was clumsy and gawky.

[00:23:29] And the figures were painted in gouache and the technique was really bad. And the paint was sometimes just piled up like wads of chewing gum. And it was so strange. And he clearly didn't know

[00:23:40] how to use medium, you know, but you could tell that he took himself seriously. That was the weird part. And the subjects in the paintings sort of demanded that you take them seriously. And it was

[00:23:51] kind of baffling and infuriating. And I didn't know if the paintings were a joke or if he was being sincere. And that was sort of the fun of it. You know, maybe they were both. So he had my

[00:24:02] attention, you know, that's the important part. He got my attention. And I saw the pieces moving through the secondary market at higher and higher prices. So I figured I should buy, I should

[00:24:12] purchase a few if in case they became unaffordable, because that's something I'm keenly aware of as an art dealer. You need to seize opportunities before things get away from you. And it wasn't really

[00:24:23] speculation at this point for me. You know, I seriously liked the work and I liked the concept of the project, what little I knew about it because it was in its infancy. So that was my

[00:24:34] point of entry. First of all, being an art dealer, I can imagine this must be really exciting. Was there anyone in your space, I'm just curious, that felt like, at least like for me when I heard of

[00:24:46] NFTs, I mean, I still can't wrap my head around Bitcoin. I'm always like, can you explain it again? Crypto, the mechanics of it don't land for me. And I'm curious, did everyone in your world,

[00:24:58] in actual like tangible real world art, accept NFTs, NFT art? Or were some people like, well, that's not real. Does that question make sense? Good question. It's a really good question because

[00:25:11] the answer is very few people, I guess this was about four years ago that we're talking about, very few people in the traditional art world understood or cared or liked NFTs. I don't think

[00:25:21] the needle has moved very far since then, especially in the wake of all the scandals and all the terrible things that have happened at a global scale. So no, I didn't have a lot of peers

[00:25:32] who showed any interest or anything like that. I still actually have faith in NFTs and blockchain because it's a technology that's headed our way, whether you want to embrace it or not. Everything,

[00:25:46] I truly feel that everything in the next few years is going to become tokenized and people will become more comfortable with the idea of digital art and digital assets pretty soon.

[00:25:56] It's just not happening yet. Yeah, there was a threat of it happening five years ago and I think it has to go through a kind of rite of passage as all new technologies do. But back to your story,

[00:26:06] FOMO, that's what got you in. Tell us about Discord and what was your first impressions of Jaime? Well, my first impressions were kind of bad actually. I had been collecting for a while

[00:26:18] and I only knew him through his artwork. I would like to talk about my first red flag because it was when I actually got to know him a little bit better. He had the grotto going at this point

[00:26:30] for a month or two and I got in pretty early. I got in about 60 days after the project started. It was only basically a Discord chat at this point, which is a chat room. But after a few

[00:26:42] weeks of casual collecting, he invented something called Grotto LFG, Live From Grotto. This was actually at the behest of someone within the project, which I found out later, our only female collector at that point. But someone with whom he would have a falling out pretty quickly,

[00:27:00] unfortunately, not surprisingly. But I was there for the first one. I was there for the first LFG and it was truly a dreadful experience. It was my first red flag. And it was him doing a one hour

[00:27:13] monologue speaking where others could comment and post memes in real time if they wanted, which of course turned into a bunch of guys airing grievances and complaining about and putting down women for fun and talking about sex really in the most adolescent ways and posting vulgar memes and

[00:27:31] gifts meant to shock and amuse us, I guess. Because it was only his voice going on and on, it was a single point of view with posted comments that people would make. And it kind of inspired

[00:27:45] him to tap into some very angry, very negative energy, which is a big turnoff for me. And immediately I suspected it was a platform for him to kind of explore the worst version of himself,

[00:27:58] in my opinion. And I had a sinking feeling that I had no place in the culture that he was creating, but I did love the art. And I feel that you can like someone's art without liking the artist.

[00:28:16] That's one of my beliefs. And so I just kept collecting and I stayed pretty much invisible for the first year of the whole project because I was so turned off. And that was

[00:28:24] my first impression of the Grotto. And First Red Flag. Let me back up for one second. Both of you have said the term, the project. What did you think the project was? Was the project the Grotto

[00:28:36] and the art? A gamified art collecting project. I mean, to refer to an ambitious art piece in the art world, a lot of people just use that terminology of project because it's sort of bigger than one

[00:28:50] person or one gallery or one collector, you know. But it was an art project that was disguised as a cult. And we're going to get to that part right now. We're still in the good days. Just a quick

[00:29:03] question, Philmo. Theoretically anything can become an NFT if you digitize it, right? Yes, I agree. Yeah. So like I could digitize my Yeti here, but nobody would be interested. But if I digitized, say, a ticket stub from the 1977 World Series, someone might want that, right? Yeah, maybe

[00:29:23] possibly. Like an event. That's one of the ways I heard him described. A rare ticket stub to a concert or something might be worth something as an NFT. Yeah. If you can convince someone that it

[00:29:33] has value. It's like baseball cards. Pokemon. It's like anything in the world. You can command a high price for anything if you convince someone that it has value and is useful somehow and that other

[00:29:46] people want it. It has to be a market for the thing. All right. So, Katerina. Hi. Hi. Hi, Sarah and Nithi. I'm pleased and a little bit nervous to be here anyway. So should I talk about my first

[00:30:01] impressions? How I got there? Yes. Tell us where you are so our audience knows that you're live via satellite from Vienna. I am in Vienna. I'm in Austria. And yeah, I was in Berlin in July 2022

[00:30:14] where I was studying language. It was my first months outside of my home country, which is Ukraine. And it was the fifth, I believe, month of war of the full-scale invasion. And so that was

[00:30:29] the first point where I basically left the country and I went to study to better my language. And then I was living in Berlin for four months. So what I was doing simultaneously was painting. So I was

[00:30:44] starting to basically explore myself as an artist. And I started exploring the NFT scene because, again, it all can be traced to the war situation. It was very important for me to be able to do

[00:30:58] something with my own skills, with my own abilities to somehow help my situation, my family, my country. So I was two weeks into the NFT scene. I had 30 followers on Twitter because Twitter is where this is situated heavily. And I created an NFT of my first little painting.

[00:31:18] So within two weeks, I stumbled upon a bidding war on sort of a Henrik piece, what we can call it. Henrik was one of more or less famous traditional artists in the space. And Threesomes was the one

[00:31:32] who won the auction. So I clicked on the handle and his profile description said, benevolent god of the NFTs or something along the lines. So it made me curious immediately

[00:31:46] what kind of person wears his ego on the sleeve this blatantly. And I wanted to see if he presents anything of himself. Is there anything to back this choice of words? So a link to the project

[00:31:58] was pinned. So I followed it and I ended up in the Grottam, in the Discord. I haven't really looked through the art at this point. It was more like I need to test the waters to see what the

[00:32:10] projects can be in this scene. So that was it. After maybe 20 minutes, I received a message from Threesomes himself, which was a casual hello. I've been looking through your work,

[00:32:21] a little bit of work you shared on Twitter and how long have you been painting? And so we started talking and it was a well-mannered artist to artist, human to human talk. Basically he talked

[00:32:33] a lot about himself and within the first five minutes he presented a couple of his project assets. The ideas impressed me. It seemed he was doing something alternative to the whole scene. And

[00:32:46] by the scale of his following seemed underdiscovered. And so here comes a point where I think we all sort of love an underdog and he would usually paint himself as an underdog, as a

[00:32:59] misunderstood genius ahead of his time. So a classic fantasy of a male artist. And so in the end he declared himself my first NFT friend. And later that day he placed a bid on my auction

[00:33:14] and bought my NFT, my painting, which well the NFT attached to my painting, which I was over the moon about because I felt genuinely welcomed in the space. The next day I shared

[00:33:25] with him my childhood works. We started talking more and more and we shared our ages. We disclosed them so he knew I was 18 years old and he was 45. I knew he was 45. So yeah, we started talking

[00:33:39] every day for hours on end. Good morning, good night messages, even with eight to six hours difference in time. That week I was invited to join the LFG. So that was one of my first

[00:33:52] profound experiences of the project. And my first impression of it was very nice, actually. So one can kind of notice how they evolved with time, how he started to refine his skills of talking to people

[00:34:09] and exerting influence over them in a well-behaved manner. It was the first time I heard his voice, which is a very important point for me and many other members of the project agree. I was mesmerized

[00:34:21] by it. He has this deep voice with soft timbres, it has very warm notes to it, especially when he wants that voice to work this way. And everyone loved his voice. And so I felt the LFG was funny,

[00:34:35] not because of the jokes, I did not understand anything, but because of the way he laughed and everyone was trying to make him laugh. And he made everything seem funny. So I was yet to

[00:34:47] learn that he can make even the cruelest things seem funny. And now consider listening to his disguised preaching two to four days a week for an hour. These live streams are one of the

[00:35:01] most powerful gears of the cult side of his project, as I now can realize and analyze it, because the strongest manipulation, the addictive part of the routine, it was hypnotic. His voice, it made you feel at home, the intonations weave the webs of kindness and care and fun

[00:35:19] and consideration. And it is impossible to identify the content for what it is. The programming, the coercion, the berating, it all seemed bearable. So I found the people to be very nice too.

[00:35:35] And as I described it to him, it seemed like a place where people come to share some gifts and say some complicated things. And it is very nice that this little corner exists on the

[00:35:46] internet. So the content of the LFGs, the jokes and talks were kind of up there for me, like in a sense of being very adolescent and right, like kind of profane sometimes from my days,

[00:36:01] um, because I was not used to this kind of atmosphere and it was, yeah, an unusually grown up space for me. But it was very fun anyway. Even though in the general channel,

[00:36:11] the bleachers, as he called it, he would say nobody was allowed to go hard on inappropriate stuff. So people behaved there, but behind closed doors, they may have allowed themselves, I don't know what, I never had access, I never ended up having access to that space, whatever.

[00:36:31] I am sure it was just the way he painted everyone. Anyways, that's what he said. As a newcomer, I would only have access to the general channels. So here I want to clarify a

[00:36:42] little bit the structure of the project. So as a newcomer, you come in, you have the bleachers channel, it's your main place of life basically, where you chat with other people and the whole

[00:36:54] project, well then if you are ready to invest more of your time, your money in play on a bigger scale, you can purchase a limited, like in number of pieces existing and limited NFT that grants

[00:37:10] you access to, and you become the Grotto member basically, the main Grotto. And those people were allowed to play, to participate in all mechanics, to acclaim all the winnings, etc. So it was already the main body of the collectors. And that piece, that transitioning piece was priced somewhere

[00:37:32] above my monthly income. So basically I never ended up buying it. I think it fluctuated, but it could be a thousand dollars if I'm... Can someone correct me if I'm wrong? It was higher at some point because the market fluctuated and so did the crypto prices,

[00:37:50] but it was as high as $2,000 at some point. Did you feel like he's selling you the sales pitch with that buy-in? Katarina? The price of entry? Yeah. Yes. Personally to me, he never did this

[00:38:02] because as the relationship progressed, he would draw a line between me and people in the project that I was primarily someone he thought, like I was his love as he called me, but we will get to

[00:38:14] that point. And all those other... He never wanted me to spend any money on the project. And basically that's the point where I can say I never became a part of the community in the way everyone else

[00:38:27] maybe was because I am a student. Sometimes I have $50 on my card to pay for food and that's not a point where you can really spend or play on a higher level. And that's why mostly I stayed

[00:38:41] for him. So that's where the point comes, where I can say I stayed for him. Not I enjoyed the project, I enjoyed looking at it and taking part in it, listening to LFGs, but mostly I lived in our

[00:38:54] direct messages, which we will come to. But basically the project, yes, there was like newcomer levels and the Grotto member level. And then out of those people, he selected the members of Inner Circle, which were called 33s. And they were selected based on favoritism,

[00:39:15] but also based on the amount of money they invested in the project, not how much they bought into it because there are people who spend five figures more, six figures on those things.

[00:39:28] And yes, so that was, he would do every year, he would do a chain of interviews for 33s, for people in the Inner Circle to talk with them about the strategies, about what they're doing for

[00:39:42] the cult, how they are elevating it, how they're contributing. And those people would, yes, so that was the top. And it was even that layer, even that tier was also tiered. So there was a whole different structure of privilege there, but in general, they were granted infinite perks.

[00:40:01] They lived with him on in real life events in the same house. That was the elite of the project. Yeah. It's a very classic cult structure, I would say. You seem to have a pretty good understanding of it now.

[00:40:16] For more background on what brought us here, check out my page turning memoir. It's called Scarred, the true story of how I escaped NXIVM, the cult that bound my life. It's available on

[00:40:25] Amazon, Audible, and at most bookstores. And if you want to see that story in streaming form, you can watch both seasons of The Vow on HBO. You've heard from our sponsors. Now let's get

[00:40:43] back to a little bit culty, shall we? I want to hear what was this world like at the beginning, before shit turned bad, before you knew who Threesome really was. Paint the picture of-

[00:40:54] Of a heyday. What was the heyday? Of the grotto? What were the things that kept you coming back for more? What was exciting? Obviously, we've touched on love bombing and feeling special and- Actual art. Actual art for you, FOMO. Well, all of you. Obviously, there's these different elements

[00:41:10] somewhat, but a similar drive to be part of this amazing project. What was that world like? Sure. I could speak for myself. It was just fun. It was a silly place to just go and to be yourself

[00:41:24] and to let it all hang out. We were all encouraged to be ourselves to 11 and to live in this character world. And again, after the pandemic where it felt so depressing and financially stifling and just

[00:41:38] depressing, I'm just going to keep saying that word, this felt like a bright spot for us. Plus, Threesome had this game and it was fun and we were on teams. And I think that that's

[00:41:49] a big piece of it for us. All of us who have felt isolated and alone in the pandemic, we're now on teams and getting to know people from around the world. And we had jokes and it was just nice. It

[00:42:02] felt like a hug in those respects. And then I think all the women could talk about the fact that our relationships with Threesomes himself, in the good part, just sort of deepen and deepen and

[00:42:15] deepen. So for me, that turns into, and just to keep it short, opening up my marriage for him. He certainly pushed it in that direction. And now we're dating. And so not only is there the project

[00:42:31] and art and the community and the fun, I think going to Kat's point, he had this syrupy, sweet voice and to hear it on the phone just for me or to be able to go out into the world

[00:42:42] and go on a date with him was also just enchanting and exciting. The love bombing just continued. And I don't know, I felt so special. How long was it from when you were chatting with him on Discord to actually meeting him in real life? What was that timeline?

[00:43:00] It wasn't that long, actually. I probably entered the Discord within two or three days. He was in my private messages. We were talking within a few weeks, all night at times and for hours and hours

[00:43:14] on end. And then he basically said he wanted to meet me. And that was now summer. So we're talking a few months. And this is sort of how I know it's not okay. You know what I mean? When you're like,

[00:43:27] this is friendly and this is fun, but now all of a sudden it feels like, oh no, this is just not all right. I'm going to need to talk to my husband. Something feels.

[00:43:36] And so I went to him and I said, I'd like you to be there. Let's all be friends with this guy. This could be our NFT friend. And my husband knew right away, right away that there was something

[00:43:47] more here. But I think he trusted me and he decided to honor me and he said fine. And so we all went out, actually the three of us the first time together. The night was going super well until

[00:43:59] it wasn't. And we basically leave, there's a pretty big divide and a little bit of damage done to my marriage in that like it was going well. And then threesomes offended my husband and my

[00:44:11] husband just didn't like him. And I was defensive of the situation and trying to smooth it over and make it okay. And this is a big pain point, honestly, for me as I just wish I listened

[00:44:23] to my husband. My husband is a wonderful, caring, great, funny, perfect, compatible, wonderful father provider. Like I have no gripes. This wasn't me replacing my husband. It just felt like an adventure on top of it. And I just, I don't know. I wish I listened.

[00:44:41] And then at that point, did you guys decide that you were having an open marriage? Yeah. So my husband and I, and it's not really something I necessarily plan to talk about,

[00:44:50] but we had sort of experimented in these ways before many, many, many years ago. And we just sort of came up with this thing that was like, why don't we just try this out? And essentially my

[00:45:05] husband was like, I understand that you're enjoying this community and this project and this person, but I don't want to be a part of it. So maybe if you want to do it, you can go forth and do it

[00:45:15] alone. And that really is a big place and piece for us where like, well, I'd never done that with my husband before. And sort of, there's this life without him always with respect to him, but it's

[00:45:30] something that threesomes would weaponize. He would often try and just meddle in my marriage. He'd always ask me questions that I felt were pointed in a way to try and get me to be frustrated

[00:45:43] or upset, or he would zoom in on something that I was feeling insecure about and he'd create anxiety there. So this is certainly not the heyday. This is what's coming after, but

[00:45:55] he did his best to try and isolate all of us from other people in the project. And he definitely tried to isolate me at times, even from my own family. I never left my family nor would I ever,

[00:46:07] but he definitely created some hurt and some space there that was still a little bit there today. That's one of the things that we're still working on. And one of the things that I hate myself the

[00:46:19] most for, for allowing it to jeopardize the people that I love and care for the most. And honestly, that's what it's all about for me is being a mom and I love the fuck out of my husband.

[00:46:33] And I just look at it all and it's just like, ugh. Do you think his objective was to attack your marriage or was it like, he enjoys that? Because there are people that just enjoy doing that. Or do you think it was directed at you because he

[00:46:48] wanted just to control you? Like, what do you think his itch was that he had to scratch? Sure. I think that he's sadistic to some extent. And I think that he really derives pleasure from,

[00:47:04] you know, there's a lot of times where I felt like he would say something and then look into me to see and gauge the reaction. And a lot of those times he would say things to me, they were hurtful,

[00:47:17] sometimes veiled and sometimes not. I got conditioned to the point where he could say something fairly terrible to me and I would just wait for him to finish because I knew we couldn't

[00:47:26] go on in the conversation until he had gotten it out. And I just became used to it, which sounds ridiculous because I'm a very strong-willed, proud person. I have a lot of ego too, but it just

[00:47:41] happened so slowly over time. I saw it almost as a fault in him that he had to do this to make himself feel better. But in it, I certainly was taking a tremendous amount of abuse. And yeah,

[00:47:51] I think part of it was power to feel like he could have anybody whenever they wanted, however he wanted and that was to have control over me. And like I said, money was not a place where he could

[00:48:01] control me. I had enough, I didn't need his. So instead of money, he really had to lean hard into the love bombing and the promises of a relationship. It was just another tool. Right. You found your pressure point.

[00:48:16] Yeah. And he really figured out how to ignite my anxious attachment style to a million, where he'd be so present and then he'd be so missing and then I'd be so freaked out. And

[00:48:28] we just did this dance over and over again. And I hate myself looking at it. I just wasn't my best me in it. And I don't even know that I enjoyed it. There were times I would ask myself, am I even

[00:48:40] enjoying this? But I just kept going with it, I think based on the anxiety. And I was just so invested now financially and in him and in the group and my marriage has taken hits because of

[00:48:52] it. And I'm like, this must work because I was too far in. It's called sunk cost fallacy, trying to get literally your investment back financially and emotionally. But I have to recommend an episode that we did with Dr. Alexandra Stein. And she specifically looks at

[00:49:10] attachment styles and how these leaders use them and how that dance, what you just said is specific to how the abuser keeps the victim on that hamster wheel. Great episode, great book. It's called Terror, Love and Brainwashing. Shaina, you've been quiet so far and hearing everyone's

[00:49:31] stories here has clearly really affected you. Can you tell us a little about that? I'm surprised because I really thought I was over it until I heard Katerina's like such apt

[00:49:43] description of the tiered cult structure that we were in. And it is so funny because it was all such a joke. It was in a sense like a halfway self-aware joke the entire time that we were in

[00:49:58] this structure, like that we were instructed to LARP and increase the cult-like quality of this thing or that it was a joke that he was a leader, that it was a joke that he was a god. And then

[00:50:11] there would be certain things that he would say at key moments where it got so creepy, it suddenly was not a joke. That was the weird reality check of it all. I've been a video

[00:50:26] artist for a really long time before it was even very, before it made sense to the traditional art world of how to make the work archivable or how to distribute something that's intangible in the way

[00:50:41] that video art is. So when NFT started blowing up in early 2021, just everybody and my mother, you know, who doesn't even understand what I do, like they were blowing up my phone to say like

[00:50:55] this is it. This is the thing to consolidate your medium, you know, for you, like get in there. And so I started exploring the crypto atmosphere and I felt very isolated from the communities

[00:51:08] there. And this is a thing that artists need to become a part of in one way or another. They need to form their own community or become a part of other communities. That is how you start the

[00:51:19] relationships, the networking. That's how you learn the tech. It's how you absorb the culture and, you know, the comraderies form and then eventually like you get your own collector base or you collect other work. And it's just like a very amazing like swap kind of circumstance of goods

[00:51:37] and information and, you know, memetics, mnemology, you know, which has a lot to do with my concept behind what I make. And so like the first maybe like seven or eight months of my NFT

[00:51:55] existence, it was really lonely. And I was like maybe only connected to like one or two other NFT artists, barely, mostly just one other stray artist. And it was like maybe slightly after FOMO,

[00:52:10] it was like around when he joined or just a little bit after that time, I got a call from an arts professor who saw that I had been like showing off my NFT work online. And I had also like applied

[00:52:24] to be a speaker at the first NFT NYC conference in New York, which happened like November 1st, 2021. And so that was I was kind of prepping knowing I was going to go to that and knowing I

[00:52:36] was going to be a speaker. It was kind of the first conference of that kind. No one really knew what precedent was going to be set in the scene. But I was excited to, you know, do an eccentric

[00:52:47] type like talk on stage. So I was preparing to go to New York. My career had really suffered from the pandemic. And so I had scraped together like the very last amount of my resources to get this

[00:52:59] ticket to go to New York. And like this professor called me up and said that he also like had a very large LED that he was exhibiting different artists on in Times Square. And he wanted me to be a part

[00:53:14] of that. And then he also had a suggestion of these two communities that I should join their discords. One of them was called Basefish Mafia, which I think is largely disintegrated at this point. I

[00:53:26] haven't I don't remember what's happened to them. And then the other one was this thing called the Grotto. And I I don't think I joined either one of them at first or I did and like didn't even

[00:53:38] pay attention. I clicked the link and went into the discord, but like barely looked around. And then I was distracted with my own stuff and I just kind of gravitated away from it.

[00:53:47] Didn't take it very seriously. And then on Twitter, this guy Jaime, but I didn't know his name at the time, Threesomes emerged in my DMs and he was very charming. He wanted to introduce his strange art

[00:54:01] practice to me in a more personal way. And he was like, yeah, he was like legit, really funny. And he was he coaxed me to participate in the Grotto. And then like two more weeks went by

[00:54:13] and I fell off again. And then he got into my DMs again to get me to come back. It was clear that, you know, at the time it occurred to me that they probably just really needed more ladies in the

[00:54:25] server. It is a very male heavy scene in general. So I kept kind of getting lured back in to participate. I honestly like to be completely honest, like I did not love the art at first. The art had to grow

[00:54:40] on me. It was not really my thing. I thought the mechanics were really clever. Like I thought a lot of the things being done behind it were really clever. It became evident after knowing him like

[00:54:51] six months that he could tell that I didn't deeply like the art. And he started like kind of demanding more and more validation from me on a deeper level that I actually liked it. And then I sort of got

[00:55:03] coerced into deeply more appreciating it, if that actually makes sense. So I digress. The like NFT NYC, the conference was coming up and he sent a few people an invite to what he was going to have

[00:55:18] as his own rented party house. I can't remember what part of New York it was in at the time. But yeah, he had his own rented party house. I remember talking to the art professor who had

[00:55:28] originally like invited me in and we both thought about it and thought this sounds like frat boy central. Fuck it, we're not going to do this. But he really wanted me to go. And at this point, I think

[00:55:39] he had had my phone number maybe at this point in time. So we were texting on and off and whatever. But I had not met him in person soon after I did because I went to New York. I'm staying in this

[00:55:51] shitty hotel in Times Square, but that's where the conference is. You know, I'm doing the whole scene. I met up with some other people that I've been put in touch with because of said conference. They

[00:56:02] were all going to talk on stage with me. So we had to meet and like kind of group on what we were going to talk about. And I go talk on stage and Three has come to listen to my talk. And so he's

[00:56:17] in the audience. I can't remember if we might have, we briefly met before that too, like a different day in public around other people. But we didn't really talk much. And then he was back to texting

[00:56:29] with me. And then he came to my talk. And then this other guy on stage that also knew who he was, like said, Three Sims, you're in the audience, come up on stage. And he got pulled up on stage

[00:56:41] too and just started riffing about his own project and everything. And that's when we started hanging out. And it was kind of like I ended up moving my, I was so charmed by him that I ended up taking my

[00:56:53] stuff and like moving it to the Grotto, staying with him, bonding with everybody there. We were like latched together for like two years after that, even though it was across the country and

[00:57:05] I still lived in LA. So it's like a long distance relationship on Discord and text, but you did see each other in person sometimes? Yeah, we did see each other in person sometimes. And I would like,

[00:57:16] you know, he would take me to the events or the party houses that he would rent out. Then there would be, you know, like a long gap where he would be constantly pursuing me on the phone

[00:57:28] and would be like about to see me about to do another trip about to do. And then it just kept getting kicked into the future. And so there was a lot of like odd carrot dangling. And it's just

[00:57:39] it's fucking amazing when you go back and you look at the coercion and like how small this person can slowly coax you into being. And then you only see it after you've emerged from that circumstance

[00:57:54] later. And you're just like, oh my God, like I got my power back. I cannot even believe I was there. Like what you hear? Do you give us a rating, a review and subscribe on iTunes? Every little

[00:58:06] bit helps us get this cult awareness content out there. Smash that subscribe button. You know, you want to. Well, that was part one of our three-part interview on the Grotto. And what did

[00:58:20] I tell you? Doozy. No, you were not lying. I don't lie. It's not what I do. You know, online forums like this one, despite all the blockchain jargon and discord have been around

[00:58:29] for 50 years because internet was designed to be an open space for people to connect all over the world. And it's regulated that way too. There's a law actually in the United States. Hold on. Checking my notes. There's a section of law, section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of

[00:58:46] 1996 that makes sure that companies provide a space for online conversations aren't seriously punished for the actions of their users. The internet that Keith Ranieri invented. Right. So that often puts an onus on people like Charm, Katerina, Shana and FOMO to monitor those

[00:59:04] communities, to police them, which is not easy. And it's very brave of them. It is. It is for them to step up and, because it's not really actually fair. They shouldn't be

[00:59:13] doing that. They should be able to just communicate and be with each other and not feel like they have to police each other. But you know, these sociopaths, alleged sociopaths can slide their

[00:59:23] way into any group, DM, whatnot. Well, and that's why it's brave of what they're doing to fight this. I mean, it takes people to go out and sound the alarm. So appreciate that.

[00:59:33] And that's what they are doing. We are going to hear more from our brave four guests this coming Thursday. That's part two. And then part three will be on Monday. So three parts to this epic

[00:59:45] extravaganza. I hope that you're enjoying it. Stay tuned for part two and let us know what you think. Until next time. Until next time. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening, everyone. We're heading over to patreon.com slash a littlebitcultynow

[01:00:16] to discuss this episode. In the meantime, dear listener, please remember this podcast is solely for general informational, educational and entertainment purposes. It's not intended as a substitute for real medical, legal or therapeutic advice. For cult recovery resources and to learn

[01:00:32] more about seeking safely in this culty world, check out a littlebitculty.com slash culty resources and don't miss Sarah's Ted talk called how cult literate are you? Great stuff. A Little Bit Culty is a Trace 120 production executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and

[01:00:47] Anthony Nippy Ames in collaboration with producer Will Rutherford at Citizens of Sound and our co creator and show chaplain slash bodyguard Jess Temple-Tardy. And our theme song cultivated is by John Bryant.