From watching Severance, the closest parallel to me for a company I ever actually worked for is Disney. Disneyland performer was one of my first jobs, and the orientation is a lot like Lumon's. Video history of the company's reach and achievements. Tremendence reverence for the founder. Disneyland has a statue of Walt holding hands with Mickey at the junction between Main Street and Fantasyland and Main Street itself is a reproduction of Walt's hometown as it was when he was a kid.
And there is absolutely a cult of devoted followers. Even I personally had literal groupies from this job. There were women annual pass holders who'd be there every day to watch me and try to become friends with me. The memorabilia auctions were among the most insane things I've ever seen. Comers from everywhere in the world paying tens if not hundreds of thousands for the slightest piece of something authentic the same way someone will drop a cool mil for a baseball signed by Babe Ruth. There were people who collected annually released pins who'd been doing it for 70 years.
For the fans, it starts in childhood, too. The relationship is so deep that Disney fanatics love the company more than they love their own friends and family sometimes. Even for me, my very first favorite film was The Sword in the Stone, the Disney cartoon from the 60s about King Arthur. I don't even remember it, but my mom tells me I was rewatching it like teenage girls of the 90s rewatched Titanic when I was 4 years old. Disney imprinted itself into me before I even formed permanent memories.
They had global reach, too. Disney perfected this kind of thing way before Apple did.
There is another element to Lumon that I don't think Apple has, too. That's the company town. They own almost everything. Virtually everyone works there or is related to someone who does. Disney kind of had this with the City of Anaheim for a long time, but the city has probably outgrown it at this point. But at one point, they owned most of the land, employed most of the people. Disney owned both of Anaheim's pro sports franchises at one point. One of them was even named after a Disney movie! They had deals with the city to restrict airspace visible from within the park and never to build anything that could be seen to preserve the illusion that you're in an entirely self-contained world separate from the real world. Cal State Fullerton was called "Cal State Disney" at one point because so many of the students were employed there.
Having worked on Disney Animation productions, you ought to meet these life long fanatics that actually manage to become Disney animators - their ultimate fantasy is realized, and then after a year or three the glow has dimmed, their figurines decorating their office acquire dust, and they become nonanimated, heads down, and just work, without the glow anymore. Disney corporate is rough.
And few people know how to be healthy, so they are utterly unprotected.
That is how the callously cruel and ungrateful spread their misery around, however unconsciously.
Waking up is not a bogeyman to be feared but a urgent need for survival. No human being can survive their first years without compassion; we need to realize that compassion is essential for the survival of our entire world society.
The only other possibility is to let the brutally selfish and callous control the world.
The real parallel is Walmart, Sam Walton and Bentonville Arkansas.
Walmart corporation owns half the land in Bentonville and anybody who lives in Bentonville or Centerton, which is the bedroom community for Bentonville, either works for Walmart or knows someone who does.
When I worked at the Walmart corporate office in DGTC, they gave us an orientation, covering the company’s history and the founder and his family and all of the CEOs since, and in the most recent episode, I experienced a similar experience with my family when they came for lunch.
And there is absolutely a cult of devoted followers. Even I personally had literal groupies from this job. There were women annual pass holders who'd be there every day to watch me and try to become friends with me. The memorabilia auctions were among the most insane things I've ever seen. Comers from everywhere in the world paying tens if not hundreds of thousands for the slightest piece of something authentic the same way someone will drop a cool mil for a baseball signed by Babe Ruth. There were people who collected annually released pins who'd been doing it for 70 years.
For the fans, it starts in childhood, too. The relationship is so deep that Disney fanatics love the company more than they love their own friends and family sometimes. Even for me, my very first favorite film was The Sword in the Stone, the Disney cartoon from the 60s about King Arthur. I don't even remember it, but my mom tells me I was rewatching it like teenage girls of the 90s rewatched Titanic when I was 4 years old. Disney imprinted itself into me before I even formed permanent memories.
They had global reach, too. Disney perfected this kind of thing way before Apple did.
There is another element to Lumon that I don't think Apple has, too. That's the company town. They own almost everything. Virtually everyone works there or is related to someone who does. Disney kind of had this with the City of Anaheim for a long time, but the city has probably outgrown it at this point. But at one point, they owned most of the land, employed most of the people. Disney owned both of Anaheim's pro sports franchises at one point. One of them was even named after a Disney movie! They had deals with the city to restrict airspace visible from within the park and never to build anything that could be seen to preserve the illusion that you're in an entirely self-contained world separate from the real world. Cal State Fullerton was called "Cal State Disney" at one point because so many of the students were employed there.