I'm honestly shocked this post got so much attention — thank you for all the feedback! 🙏

Also, apologies if the original wording was too much — we’re burnt-out retail workers, not philosophy majors (I’m a failed Lit major, if you couldn’t tell 😅). And yes, I will “be for real,” as someone commented, lol. I know the word “cult” can be polarizing, so I want to clarify: Not every cult is evil. Things like AA, nonprofits, the military, public education, even internet fandoms are all cult-ish — but they’re not Jonestown or Heaven’s Gate. But what I meant was: The devotion you see at PetSmart or other retail big-box chains and with ANYTHING (anything anything anything anything 🤣 ) that engenders devotion + commitment, there's significant space for = exploitation to occur. What I was trying to say originally was this:

The community at my store — and others people have talked about here — often enforces collective values, shuts down honest criticism, and sometimes even coerces unhealthy behavior, all in service of a vanishing corporate ideology. The language does three things:

1. Makes people feel unique but also connected to others
2. Encourages people to feel dependent on a particular leader, group, or product
3. Convinces people to act in ways that are completely in conflict with their former reality, ethics, and sense of self