Night School Deep Dive: The Garden
The rise of The Garden, red flags and the TikTok community response
*Night School is best viewed on the Substack website*
Welcome to Night School’s first deep dive. My TikTok feed has been particularly dramatic this week and this story felt too big to fit into a normal weekly post. Week 19 will be coming next Monday.
Before getting into it I want to give a CONTENT WARNING for: animal abuse, cults, racism.
I’m going to start from the beginning as I experienced it through my personal feed.
Open Invitations
SO a couple months ago videos from @treeisalive started popping up on my feed promoting a sustainable farm commune in Lafayette, Tennessee. These videos featured tours of the grounds, and their lifestyle:
Go deeper: Julia & Tree on their life at The Garden. and a video from Amill an Britt from when they first left “The Grid.”
Here is a list of the members who have been the primary people to post on TikTok from The Garden during this whole situation: Tree, Julia, Rel, Amill and Britt.
Amill showing off the grounds and inviting people to come join:
Rel inviting viewers and explaining that they accept people based off of “vibes”:
Tree’s videos began gaining lots of followers and views. He also started featuring videos where TikTok viewers had physically come to visit. Some even joined and began living there.
Concerns and Red Flags:
Once the above videos started filtering through the For You Page, many TikTok creators began calling out red flags. Here is a list summary of some of them:
Open door policy. There is no vetting or application process to join apart from a 10 day visitation period followed by a council meeting approval to become an official member & resident. The main requirement to visit and stay is to provide free physical labour for 25+ hours/week after 3 days.
There are children being raised on the commune. This in combination with the above point is worrying.
No COVID-19 safety regulations and anti-mask attitudes.
The Garden is located near multiple Sundown Towns. Quick note: a Sundown Town is town/city with historic connections to racism and documented acts of hate & violence toward people of color. Many of these still exist today and are not just in the South.
Unclear owner presence.
An additional point brought up by many people has been the Rainbow Family connections. Documentaries about it here and here.
Creators I saw doing research and covering The Garden have included: @dirtyhumantwunk @bookofedith, @cultmaker, @thomasedisonhatepage, @weirdreadsemilylouise. Also see the Cult Education Institute for more information about cults in general.
“We’re not a cult”
Enter the emergence of videos like you’ll see below insisting that The Garden is definitely “not a cult” which seemed to propel the suspicions further.
From Rel:
And her critique of Gen Z being too afraid. Remember this one because it will be relevant a little later:
The Cat Thing
Things started to get really wild when Tree began doing live shows on TikTok answering viewer questions and a viewer asked if they allow cats on the commune. The below video was captured on one of the lives by @thomasedisonhatepage:
So they admitted to having killed and eaten a cat because it killed their chickens. TikTok Sleuths also dug up this image from Rel’s Facebook page where she confirmed having skinned the cat:
In my opinion this was the moment that led to the situation blowing up even further on TikTok.
Drinking The Kool Aid & Further Cult Denial
As the pushback against The Garden continued, so did their dismissal of safety concerns and cult denial. Rel even went as far as making jokes about “drinking the Kool Aid” which was unsurprisingly met with concern:
As a side note, this wasn’t the first time she had posted jokes about Jonestown. Here she contradicts herself from the video I posted earlier. The condescending attitude and gaslighting is uncomfortable.
Taking a Step Back + A Potential Vice Doc
After the Kool Aid Videos were posted, members began posting videos from Sunday the 7th onward, telling their audiences that they are taking a break. Each video gives a slightly different reason:
Julia:
Amill:
Rel:
While writing this, Rel posted a new video on her account featuring a dead raccoon she found. She then skinned, ate it and briefly mentioned her personal “Rel-igion”. It has since been removed from the platform, likely for graphic imagery.
What Next?
So this situation is complicated. Since the above videos were posted, content from The Garden has been minimal and some members seem to be distancing themselves. Meanwhile, discord servers are full of people gathering information about The Garden, its land owners, members and experiences people have had there to an extreme degree.
I don’t feel comfortable sharing personal details of any of the members in this newsletter. If you are interested in learning more about the situation, I recommend checking out the creators mentioned in the Red Flag section above.
My opinion on the situation is The Garden itself is not a cult, however the red flags mentioned earlier indicate unsafe conditions, minimal boundaries and accountability. I do support alternative lifestyles involving sustainability, but not in this way.
The unsafe activity aside; this has been an extremely interesting case study for audience reactions to controversial content on TikTok, and the real consequences that can follow. I have heard of viewers wanting to deport Tree as he is not a U.S. Citizen as well as threats of calling CPS and local Police authorities. I do not agree with going this far especially by people who have only seen clips from TikTok rather than having physically been to The Garden.
I am continuing to follow this situation as it unfolds through TikTok and Discord.
What do you think of this situation, potential cult? just a farm with hippie antics?
I am hoping to do this style of deep dive more in the future. See y’all next week.
Oh geez, it's like a cross between Midsommar and Blair Witch.