The Rise of the Micro-Cult – How Niche Internet Communities Are Replacing Religion.

You’ll notice it before you place an order if you walk into any Brooklyn coffee shop on a Saturday morning. After a five-mile run, a group of people in matching shirts are hugging as if they’ve survived something together. No one is discussing God. But there’s no denying the energy. You may have previously seen this in a 1972 documentary about the Jesus People or in an old picture of your grandmother leaving Mass. The environment has shifted. The appetite hasn’t.

In America, religion didn’t exactly vanish; rather, it quietly vanished, much like sugar in tea. People continued to desire what it provided. They simply lost interest in the structure it was housed in. And something smaller, weirder, more customized moved into that odd, uneven silence. The microculture. Mostly not the hazardous kind. The type that posts about their morning routine and owns a Stanley cup.

You want to roll your eyes. It is not a religion to join a run club. A sermon is not what a Substack is. However, it is difficult to ignore the similarities after spending an hour scrolling through any devoted online community. Doctrines exist. Heretics exist. Outsiders struggle with a certain vocabulary. There’s a feeling that something bigger is being touched, and it’s almost embarrassing to describe. A two-hour podcast about cold plunging will be considered transformative by people who would never sit through a homily.

The young age of the converts is remarkable. These tribes are being built with the greatest enthusiasm by the children who were raised without CCD, without confirmation, and without the boring Sunday hours that older generations hated and then secretly missed. Their parents only partially believed in the emptiness they inherited. Additionally, they are filling it with whatever is close by, which frequently means whatever the algorithm gives them. apps for astrology. Sober-curious Discords. The cult of the morning ritual, complete with 5 a.m. alarms, lemon water, and a silent assurance of salvation.

Some of this is harmless, even delicious. Stretching together in a park at seven in the morning is a reasonable response to the actual epidemic of loneliness. This has long been noted by researchers. Decades ago, sociologist Colin Campbell wrote about a “cultic milieu,” a sort of cultural soup in which nonconformist beliefs swim around in search of the appropriate host. That soup wasn’t created on the internet. The burner was simply turned up.

However, as we watch it develop, there’s a sense that something has changed in a way that we still don’t fully comprehend. Religions from earlier times were slow. They had centuries of conflict, councils, and schisms. Micro-cults evolve overnight and splinter by Tuesday, moving at the speed of TikTok. After a wellness influencer shares a theory regarding seed oils, a faction, a counter-faction, and an apostate create a lengthy apology video within a week.

It’s really difficult to say whether this is better or worse than what came before. Bigotry, hospitals, inquisitions, and Bach were all products of traditional religion. The new versions may result in nothing more sinister than aggressive Pilates marketing, or they may result in something that we won’t realize is a problem until we experience it. From one perspective, the political tribalism that has consumed so much of public life appears to be just another cult that has grown.

People will have faith in something. They have consistently done so. It is no longer a question of whether faith will return. It’s who is stealthily operating it and where it has already vanished.