That Time A Doomsday Cult Somehow Released A Catchy Song

At times it can feel like everything is wrapped up in some kind of messaging. This week at Cracked, we're taking a closer look at propaganda and how it has shaped the world in ways that may not be so obvious.

You can totally have a music career nowadays – as long as you're already rich and/or famous, that is. Any perceived lack of talent is of no consequence; just look at Jared Leto. Creating sweet-ass music, however, is not at everyone's reach. That sucks for most of us, sure, but it's also kind of cool that music's inherent masses-affecting power usually avoids falling in the hands of crappy cults like … again, Jared Leto:

But not all cults are comprised of equally untalented doofuses, which is why we present to you "Cathy Don't Go," a surprisingly catchy pop gem made by, uh, a full-blown doomsday cult.

The cult in question is "The Family International," and, we kid you not, their thing is that the antichrist controls the people of the world through ... barcodes. The video very casually shows a woman getting implanted with a "666" microchip at the supermarket, so it sure as hell looked silly during the '80s, '90s, and even the '00s, but sure as hell did end up predicting most of Facebook's conspiracy theories. On top of all that, and because theories are never enough, we do enjoy the possible anti-Nazi allegory and the use of an alternative to the obvious "The Devil is doing it through rock music." We sadly also have to admit the song kind of slaps.

The only fair criticism you can aim at the song's artistic value itself is how it might be, who knows, a sped-up ripoff of the similarly titled "Jackie Don't Go" by Survivor:

Then again, it might be the cult taking over our minds, but holy microchips, the Family's version just sounds so much better. 

We have no idea why The Family International ended up not conquering the world through their superior ripoffs songs, but we're just going to register in our headcanon that their plans to release an album were destroyed by the law-mandated use of barcodes for commercial purposes. Also, the numerous accusations of sexual and physical child abuse too. That probably didn't help.

Top Image: The Family International