15 Badass Institutions and Mysterious Orders That Really Fell Off a Cliff

The past involves a lot of secretive organizations doing badass shit. There’s something inherently cool about secrecy, and people banding together to make changes under the radar just feels exciting and anarchic. 

But now, there’s something about the idea of secret societies that feels a bit passé. The exclusivity involved in a lot of them feels a bit shitty, and scratching the surface of a lot of interesting-seeming historical fraternal organizations leads pretty quickly to more “Rule 6: No Jews” type regulations than anyone can really deal with. 

Or, they just turn out to be pretty dull. A lot of secret societies and brotherhoods were pretty much ways of organizing group insurance while wearing funny hats and drinking beer. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s a lot less exciting than it could be.

Plenty still exist, of course. But, in this modern world, is a bunch of dudes wearing silly robes and talking in code even slightly intriguingly mysterious any more? Once upon a time it might have seemed like the way to enact change was to gather a bunch of brainy guys together for hushed conversations in darkened rooms — that shit can be done on WhatsApp now. Women are even allowed.

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