Joining my college a cappella group was the best and worst decision of my life. On the plus side, I found myself surrounded by an amazing group of girls who I created strong and lasting bonds with. On the down side, I kind of fell into a cult.
In this situation, I was basically like the movie “Pitch Perfect,” minus the vomiting and me being a sick nasty DJ. I was never a girls-girl, and suddenly I found myself in an all-female group. We’re even called the Bellas.
The more I look at the signs, the more I realize that a cappella life is like a really fun and not scary cult, in a way. We get really really obsessed with things that normal and sane people wouldn’t care about. We spend hours at night locked in tiny rooms repeating things over and over. And once you’re in, you’re in for life. No one gets out of a cappella alive.
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SIGNS YOU MIGHT BE IN AN A CAPPELLA CULT:
1. You have at one point in your life put aca- in front of an ordinary word.
2. You have literally wasted hours of your life on the endless pit of a cappella covers that YouTube has to provide.
3. There was a moment where you swore you’d never be doing stupid dance moves on stage, and then you find yourself willingly doing dance moves that are actually 10 times more embarrassing than your worst nightmares.
4. You get uncomfortably excited when the touring male a cappella group makes a stop at your college… even if you’re a dude. What? Men’s a cappella groups are great, you guys. 
5. Finding a cappella people from other schools is like finding gold at the end of a rainbow. You feel the need to beatbox and harmonize at all times.
6. It is actually impossible to take a car trip with fellow aca-cult members without attempting to harmonize to whatever is on the radio. But your impromptu “Party in the USA” arrangement will never live up to the one in “Pitch Perfect.”
7. At one point in your life you have tried to beatbox and spit all over yourself. People have probably been there to watch.
8. You and the people in your a cappella group are too close. Somewhere along the line, all boundaries went out the window and it’s just one big TMI love fest.
9. You have at one point done a solo with your best friend, and it’s an awkwardly emotional and beautiful experience that you don’t want to talk about because people will think you’re crazy. But you’re not. They just don’t get it.
10. You have experienced that heroin-like rush when you own that song, and everyone in the crowd knows you owned that song, and everyone in that room knows that you are a beast.
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