Who is Influencing My Thoughts?

A deeper dive into who I listen to and trust on a semi-regular basis.

I’ve been reading Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, by Amanda Montello, a book about “how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power.” I read a passage that really made me think about the voices I let into my life to influence me, from writers to Youtube influencers.

Cultish language isn’t a magic bullet or lethal poison; it’s more like a placebo pill. And there are a host of reasons why it might be likelier to “work” on certain people and not others. We’ll investigate some of these factors throughout this book, but one of them has to do with a type of conditioning most of us have experienced: the conditioning to automatically trust the voices of middle-aged white men.

Over the centuries, we’ve been primed to believe that the sound of a Jim Jones–type voice communicates an innate power and capability–that it sounds like the voice of God. In fact, during the heyday of television broadcasting, there was a known style of delivery labeled “the voice of God,” which applied to the deep, booming, exaggerated baritones of newscasters like Walter Cronkite and Edward R.Murrow. It doesn’t take much analysis to notice that the voices of history’s most descriptive “cult leaders” largely fit this description. That’s because when a white man speaks confidently in public about big topics like God and government, many listeners are likely to listen by default–to hear the deep pitch and “standard” English dialect and trust it without much questioning. They fail to nitpick either the delivery of the content, even if the message itself is suspect. (Cultish, pg.88)

I am a first gen, Indian American woman who has lived in white dominated spaces for most of her life. I am used to being the only person of color in a room, and sometimes, the only woman in a room. A lot of this is out of my control, but the voices I bring into my life are in my control. This passage made me curious about the authors I read and the influencers I follow. Of the 40 books I’ve read so far in 2021, 22 of those were written by women. A majority of these books however, were written by either white women or men. I also looked at my Youtube subscription list. 99% of the people I follow on Youtube are women, but only 24 out of the 68 voices I tune into are people of color.

This kind of analysis could be done in more depth on things from news articles to radio shows to podcasts to music we listen to. More than anything, I found all of this data interesting because I subconsciously have a bias to trust voices of white men and women more than any other race/demographic. This is obviously not fully my doing, it has been years of subtle conditioning and exposure that has shaped my inner gut.

I’m really glad this book has opened my eyes because I want to be even more intentional about the people I listen to because each decision I make is to some degree subtly influenced by those I trust.

I also invite you to reflect on what you consume. Once I started to notice these trends, I found lots of places where this idea that white male voices are to be trusted was reinforced. Where did I find this happening? Linkedin. Yes, if you keep your eyes peeled, you will at some point come across a post by a male engineer writing about a couple of self help books he’s read. Generally, they are all written by white males. If you find one that has a female author on the list, let me know. Obviously, this is a generalization, and is more of a reflection on society than that particular individual themselves.

I am excited to keep reading this book, and I hope it has made you think a little more deeply about the world around you.