The “cult" that trashed a DTLA apartment for Instagram fame

Good morning. It’s Friday, March 20th. Expect the last day of our ten-day ninety degree nightmare, with the National Weather Service’s Heat Advisory expected to finally end at 8pm.

The invisible floating circus tent that hosts the world’s social media users landed in Downtown L.A. last weekend, when a group known as Sigil Kult — who alternately call themselves a musical collective, a family, and an actual cult — earned tens of millions of Instagram views for posting videos of themselves doing severe damage to a room they’d been occupying in the historic Hotel Alexandria.

Banned from the premises since Monday after being removed by LAPD officers and building security, Sigil Kult has been wandering around the city — and trying to get back into the Alexandria.

We found Sigil Kult in a Joe’s Parking Lot two blocks down Spring Street from their former residence on Tuesday afternoon, blasting “Awful Things” by Lil Peep from a car that they were temporarily living out of and passing around voluminous canisters of flavored nitrous oxide.

For about a month before their forcible removal, Kult members said, about five to fifteen of them at any given time had been living at the Alexandria, a downtown icon built in 1906 as a luxury hotel before falling into disrepair and being converted to apartments in 2005.

Sigil Kult was there at the invitation of a member known as Egggod — pronounced “egg god” — who they said was an official resident of the building via the federal Section 8 program, which subsidizes rent for people of limited means.

Kult members piled mattresses on the floor of the single-room occupancy unit and posted hundreds of videos to Instagram that documented the room’s destruction. In one post, Sigil Kult performs a mysterious ritual on a mostly-nude member laying on the floor of the apartment. In another, Egggod successfully tears out the bathroom mirror with a hammer.

Reactions online ranged from delight to confusion to political indignation. A far-right X account shared a Sigil Kult video with Gavin Newsom’s face superimposed on it. Ysabel Jurado, the City Councilmember representing downtown, posted that her office was “aware of the video” and monitoring the situation. Fans sent alcohol, money, and fish to the room.

In the parking lot on Tuesday, Sigil Kult members told L.A. Material that Egggod was still being allowed by building management to reside in the building — but was no longer permitted to have guests.

A Kult member going by Mvddy Watxrz, who was born in Watts and gave his age as “three hundred,” said he’d landed in Egggod’s apartment after being evicted from a different artist squat in Koreatown due to noise complaints. “This is my new home,” he said. “This is my new family I’ve built.”

Ruben Cloud, 26, who met Egggod online before moving to L.A. from North Dakota, added: “We’re a cult for real. We’re a music group. We’re a family, a scene coming back together again… it’s L.A.’s life coming back.”

Restoring L.A. to a former glory is a priority for Sigil Kult, said Cloud, even though he’s only lived here for 18 months. “You always hear people talking about ten years ago… a lot of people from L.A. or who lived here will be like, ‘L.A.’s not the same.’ Now they’re saying L.A.’s coming back. So that’s what we want to push for.”

Kat, 24, also described the group’s mission as a return to ten years ago: “We’re going back to 2016.”

Nostalgia for the year 2016 — an emotion that inspired a social media trend back in January, sometimes in posts hearkening back to a more vibrant era in L.A. — lives at the core of Sigil Kult’s identity. Their music, face tattoos, and hair all reflect an “emo rap” aesthetic that reached its cultural peak around that year.

Several of the emo rappers the Kult references, like Lil Peep, XXXTentacion, and Juice WRLD, didn’t live past the 2010s. But the Sigil Kult members did — and now they want to go back.

What’s next for the group is unclear. When we spoke, Kat’s mom was on her way downtown from Rancho Cucamonga. How does she feel about her daughter’s situation? “She doesn’t know how to feel about it,” Kat said.

“But I’m telling her to come watch, because now I made it. Manifestation.”

STRIKE ONE (DAY): After L.A. Unified's teachers union announced Tuesday that they were scheduling a strike for April 14, leaders of the school district defended their latest contract offer and urged a deal. “Strikes are not good for students. They are not good for our schools. They are not good for our families," said Acting Superintendent Andres Chait.

STRIKE TWO (GOODBYES): The Hollywood Reporter has a deep dive into Bob Iger’s second farewell as CEO of Disney, and the in-progress transition to new boss Josh D’Amaro. “Thank you, Bob!” buttons were worn.

STRIKE THREE (LANES): The 405 will be reduced to three lanes in both directions again this weekend, as part of an $143.7 million Pavement Rehabilitation Project that will narrow the highway approximately every other weekend for the next year.

YOU’RE OUT: California leaders moved Thursday to rename the state's March 31 "Cesar Chavez Day" holiday as “Farmworkers Day” amid the radiating fallout from the New York Times' bombshell report accusing the late labor icon of rape. The allegations against Chavez could also have sweeping legal and financial implications for the United Farm Workers.

NEXT UP: As part of yesterday’s L.A. Material launch, Creative Producer Pablo Goldstein cracked our first seemingly-unsolvable L.A. Mystery: why is there a billboard promoting the 2010 Census still up in Virgil Village? His answer takes an image that to some symbolized neighborhood neglect and recasts it as… well, something else.

MARCH MADNESS: Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams at UCLA are in the  NCAA tournament starting this weekend, with the women’s team a contender to actually win it all for the first time. Untamed Spirits, a Silver Lake bar specializing in women’s sports, told us they’re opening at 9am Saturday to show all the women’s games — including UCLA’s at 7pm, where the team will probably embarrass the 16th-seeded Cal Baptist Lancers.

MARCH RADNESS: Highland Park’s Bob Baker Marionette Theater is hosting two events with the absurdist, found object, large-format puppetry duo Happy Accidents – a performance of their touring show on Saturday at 8pm and a “workshop in sound, light, and movement” on Sunday at 6pm. “Ultimately you will ask yourself, ‘What kind of culture would produce something like this?’ says the act’s website.

MARCH CHADNESS: NFL stars like Tom Brady and Saquon Barkley were scheduled to play a game of flag football, where players rip brightly colored strips of fabric from each other’s belts instead of tackling, in Riyadh this month — until it was moved due to war in Iran. Well, Saudi Arabia’s loss is L.A.’s gain: the game has been relocated to BMO Stadium and will take place this Saturday afternoon.

MARCH PLAIDNESS: Scottish stalwart Tam O’Shanter, as part of a 100th anniversary celebration that is now in its fifth year, is putting smoked prime rib back on the menu for a limited ten-day engagement starting this weekend. “I really enjoyed this smoked version more than their regular prime rib,” says a user on the FoodLosAngeles subreddit.

MARCH VOLGOGRADNESS: The Wende Museum, a Culver City cultural center that focuses on the history of dissident movements, is throwing an open house for its Soviet Hippie Archives, featuring drawings, photographs, movies, and more from the CCCP counterculture. Throw on some black market denim and participate in crafts “inspired by Soviet Hippie art and fashion.”

For today’s peek inside our subscriber-only Discord server, @aherman2006 gets a taste of home from afar while @Xander W delivers a shocking (and true) revelation in the #foodchat channel.

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