Almost each and every web character developing content material on social media has the similar purpose: turn into a TikTok superstar through making posts that expectantly pass viral and make cash. The most important problem dealing with they all is determining the way to maintain that reputation and translate it right into a wealthy profession. That’s the place control corporations are available—they play an element through serving to creators devise posting plans and discovering exposure alternatives. No less than, that’s what they’re intended to do.
The documentary sequence Dancing for the Satan: The 7M TikTok Cult, now streaming on Netflix, lines the formation of the control corporate 7M Motion pictures through founder, Robert Shinn, who could also be a Shekinah church pastor. Over 3 episodes, Dancing for the Satan unearths claims from more than one former 7M contributors about how Shinn abused and manipulated them and created a cult-like atmosphere.
The sequence in large part specializes in the tales of 2 other pairs of sisters who labored with Shinn—the influencers Melanie Wilking and Miranda Derrick (previously Wilking) and Melanie and Priscylla Lee. The Lee sisters got here to grasp Shinn after becoming a member of his Shekinah church in 1999 as younger Korean immigrants. They built-in themselves into the church neighborhood and started dwelling in a space with different church contributors. Melanie Lee in the end escaped the house and left the church, seeking to convey her sister together with her, however Priscylla refused to go away—inflicting them to be separated for a decade.
Shinn based 7M in 2021 and the strains between his church and the skill control corporate have all the time been blurry. Melanie Wilking and her folks first introduced consideration to the darker aspect of 7M in a 40-minute Instagram Are living in 2022, during which they attempted to succeed in out to Miranda, pronouncing they’d no longer being involved together with her for years. The circle of relatives stocks tearfully in Dancing for the Satan that Mirandajoined a “spiritual group” in overdue 2019 and was once informed to chop them out of her existence.
Dancing for the Satan explores how Shinn used his affect as a pastor to shape a TikTok dance control corporate. The sequence additionally displays how Wilking’s Instagram Are living turned into the catalyst for more than one publications to research 7M, giving former contributors and their households a possibility to percentage their tales.
Right here’s the entirety you want to learn about Dancing for the Satan: The 7M TikTok Cult.
How Robert Shinn went from Shekinah Church to 7M Motion pictures
Robert Shinn’s LA-based Shekinah church began out small, Melanie Lee explains within the sequence. “There have been possibly 15 other people, and that integrated his circle of relatives and his sister Catherine’s circle of relatives,” she says. She provides that Robert and Catherine “promised” her and Priscylla all the love the 2 of them “by no means in point of fact skilled.” Over time, Shinn opened a number of companies, together with a café, two loan corporations, two actual property corporations, and two flower retail outlets. Lee says within the documentary that staff of those companies had been made up of contributors of the Shekinah church. She says the workers had been paid little or no (she was once paid $100 per week) and labored 12-hour shifts.
Shinn’s pursuits shifted following a failed strive as a Hollywood government manufacturer—and he started the control corporate 7M Motion pictures and located the dancers, together with Miranda, on social media. He noticed them as a brand new income circulation.
Thru 7M, Shinn was once ready to get the dancers in his control corporate alternatives like ads, bookings on The Ellen Display, and dancing on the Los Angeles Clippers video games. He nonetheless led the Shekinah congregation, which integrated lots of his shoppers, whom he bragged about all over his sermons. Dancing for the Satan main points how the influencers on his roster sought out Shinn’s approval through proving they’d do no matter it took to get his consideration.
The sequence additionally main points Shinn’s arguable practices as a pace-setter. Former contributors have accused him of sexual, emotional, and monetary abuse. Shinn, 7M, and Shekinah Church didn’t take part within the documentary sequence. He has denied sexually abusing contributors of the corporate or the church.
Why 7M contributors needed to bring to a halt their households
Considered one of Shinn’s maximum arguable practices was once telling his fans that they had to “die to” themselves and their households. One former 7M dancer explains the concept that within the first episode: “Demise to your self signifies that no matter you wish to have or no matter you want, you need to ‘die to it,’ as a result of on every occasion you die to one thing, it’ll come again to existence and resurrect.”
Every other former 7M dancer provides that they had been taught to “die on your circle of relatives as a way to save them,” relating to the risk of them “coming into heaven in the future.”
We see this “demise on your circle of relatives” play out with the Wilking sisters. Within the sequence, Melanie Wilking explains that she and her sister had been inseparable till Miranda joined 7M, even going as far as to get married with out telling her circle of relatives.
Miranda is now involved together with her circle of relatives after Shinn modified his song in July 2022, following the departure of more than one 7M dancers from the corporate. He prompt that it could be higher for 7M congregants to keep in touch with their households.
The place Robert Shinn and 7M stand now
Shinn, who has in the past denied the allegations made towards him, has no longer confronted any formal legal fees in reference to 7M. The corporate continues to supply content material with Miranda and her husband.
Consistent with CNN, Shinn filed a defamation and industry libel go well with towards former church contributors who claimed he’s working a “cult.” 3 of the previous 7M dancers joined the “a cross-complaint with the previous church contributors towards Shinn, his spouse, their entities and different affiliated people.” Within the go well with they accuse the defendants of “fraud, compelled exertions and human trafficking, in addition to Robert of sexual battery.” This go well with is ongoing and is anticipated to visit trial in July 2025.
