Dancing for the devil: the 7M TikTok cult is a three-part docuseries, directed by Derek Doneen, about how people who became TikTok influencers through dancing struck a deal with 7M Films, a production company run by Robert Shinn, the founder of the Shekinah Church that ended feeling, in their In other words, rather like a cult. Who knew becoming a dance star on social media was so dangerous?
DANCING FOR THE DEVIL: THE TIKTOK CULT 7M: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Initial shot: A house near Detroit. We see a video of Miranda and Melanie Wilking talking about children’s diaries on their YouTube channel.
The essence: most of dancing for the devil focuses on the Wilking sisters, who became very popular on both YouTube and TikTok; in the latter, they became known for the dance routines they published there. After receiving a direct message from James Derrick, known on Instagram as @bdash_2, they collaborated with him. Soon, Miranda and Derrick entered into a relationship and she moved to Los Angeles.
The deeper their relationship became, the more involved Miranda became in the Shekinah Church, led by Shinn. About a dozen other dancers, all of them religiously inclined, were members of the church, and Shinn decided to create 7M Films to help them all with social media video production and help them solve all the opportunities that came up as they that their feeds became popular.
It was then that Miranda began to distance herself from her family, who she used to be close with. Even Melanie stopped hearing from her sister and discovered that she and Derrick got engaged through a dance video on her feed.
Doneen interviews Melanie Wilking and her parents, Dean and Kelly, and also speaks with former members of the church who discuss the concept of “Dying to Yourself,” a principle Shinn taught that may have been the reason why Miranda Wilking and others decided to cut off communication with family members.
What shows will it remind you of? There have been a lot of docuseries based on cults lately, but dancing for the devil feels somewhat closer in spirit to Hillsong secrets.
Our opinion: Most cult-oriented docuseries talk about people who were absorbed into the cult, and they rely especially on one or two families who are the most vocal about losing contact with their loved ones who are within that cult. sect. But they also spend a good amount of time as The leaders of these cults manage to attract people with promises to change their lives and are charming and persuasive enough to get them to stay, despite increasingly strange and restrictive conditions. dancing for the devil It has a lot of the first and almost none of the second.
The Wilking sisters are the main focus of the first episode, and are the most dominant example of a family fighting tooth and nail to bring back into the fold a loved one they feel they lost with 7M. There’s a scene, for example, in which Dean Wikling videotapes an attempt to contact Miranda over the door intercom of the mansion where many of the 7M dancers lived and created content. There is also a detailed account of how Miranda refused to attend her grandfather’s funeral. It’s all moving things; You can’t help but feel sorry for the Wilkings given how close the sisters were.
But there isn’t much information about Shinn and what he was able to do to keep Miranda and others locked up in the organization, let alone persuade them to separate from their families. There are some audio recordings of Shinn giving sermons and discussing what outsiders say about the church. But no particular evidence is presented to tell us why people became so loyal to him.
Could it be the fact that the members of 7M were all religious and identified with their message? Or was it the fact that he promised more exposure to his social media through his production and marketing, with the increased money that comes with it? It is not clear. And there’s no real evidence that Shinn had the charm to get people to follow him, or was able to create a system of followers who could persuade him.
There are fleeting moments where we see evidence of what the 7M members think of their families, particularly a post by Derrick calling the Wilkings who didn’t accept him into their family because he was black racists. But we never got more than a glimpse; in fact, the Wilkings don’t even talk about the incendiary post and why Derrick might have said what he said.
It’s obvious that the former members interviewed feel like they’ve been brainwashed, and the second episode will discuss the inevitable escalation of abuse. But the first part of the series didn’t really give us insight into the whys and hows of 7M, which is always what we look for in shows like this.
Sex and skin: None.
Parting Shot: Melanie Lee, a former member of the church, talks about seeing the videos Melanie and her parents made talking about Shinn, and says, “No way…he’s still around.”
Sleeping star: Kevin “Konkrete” Davis is one of the more persuasive former 7M members interviewed, especially when talking about Shinn trying to persuade him to “die for” his young son, something Davis couldn’t stand.
Most pilot line: There is a segment where the former 7M members talk about how Shinn made them dance to classic songs instead of the latest dance hits. Yes, it worked, which may be proof of why people became loyal to Shinn. But that connection is not very strong and makes us wonder why that information is there.
Our call: SKIP IT. Dancing for the devil: the 7M TikTok cult It’s not necessarily one-sided, but it’s certainly unbalanced, in the sense that we hear a lot about what the 7M victims were told, but not much about what attracted them to Shinn and caused them to remain under his control.
Joel Keller@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and technology, but make no mistake: he’s a couch potato. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.comFast Company and other places.
