Trainwreck: The Cult of American Apparel

It's quite clear from this short documentary that the workplace of American apparel was an unusual one and at times and abusive one. Unfortunately these workplaces are still common across the country and it's a good thing to get it all out in the open. It is a good thing to expose abusers in this format.

With that said, the titular claim of this being a cult was only sparsely substantiated by the content of the documentary. It seemed that a great deal of the "cult" claim hinged on the fact that the CEO was domineering, plus that he handed all of his new hires a copy of a book in a care package.

No, this was just an abusive workplace. These people were not brainwashed, they just knew they could not readily find a better job anywhere else, people that lacked traditional education etc & were thus locked into the job for longer than they ought to have been.

We overuse words like "cult" in our society.

What a strange experience watching this project. It touts itself as a "documentary" that involves toxic corporate management with a healthy dose of cultish inclinations.

But...it's really just a recap of Reuters and AP footage as well as their content. It really has nothing to say or add to the conversation about what went wrong at American Apparel. In fact, it (very literally) does NOT explain why the company actually declined (business activities). The narrative is so generalized that, at the end of the day, it doesn't seem to say much of anything at all. It uses the word "sex" as if it were a currency and would add more value to the docu-product.

You have around a half dozen sour ex-employees who dance around accusations in order to keep themselves out of court. There are NO "cult" topics or evidence. I will say that again. There is NO cult aspect to this at all. Unless you consider being able to pay people to do dumb things a "cult."

And therein lies the problem. I suspect that the makers of this project got to the end of their work and realized that they didn't actually have anything new to add to this narrative. So, some marketing folks added something more 'spicy' like the words 'cult' and 'trainwreck.'

This is just a long 60 Minutes segment (the producers of which would have exercised a lot more brevity and clarity) with nothing more to say than, "rich people are slimy." There is a kernel of something interesting here, but there simply isn't enough meat on that bone. Using interviews from a collection of employment oddities does little to add to the legitimacy of the insight.

In the end, I don't recommend this, and can't understand why anyone would.

Ever wondered what the world might look like if it were populated mostly by people with ADHD? The rise and fall of American Apparel may offer some clues. "I was born overcharged," said the brand's notorious founder, Dov Charney - a man who exuded the energy of someone perpetually overstimulated, like he'd just done a line and sprinted into a business meeting.

American Apparel began with a refreshingly noble vision: locally made basics, radical transparency, and a willingness to give wildly inexperienced young people a shot. It was a kind of DIY utopia: idealistic, frenetic, and exhilarating. In many ways, it mirrored the moral impulses often seen in people with ADHD: a reflexive sense of justice, inclusivity, and anti-establishment zeal.

But utopias built on dopamine rarely endure. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, the cracks became chasms. Charney's manic ambition, once mistaken for brilliance, revealed its darker underside: grandiosity, volatility, and a spectacular lack of impulse control. The company's house of mirrors collapsed under the weight of lawsuits, scandals, and financial mismanagement. Charney was ousted, but the damage had already been done.

What we saw in American Apparel wasn't simply ADHD left unchecked - it was ADHD laced with a potent dose of narcissism. Charney, born to Jewish parents and likely misunderstood or overcorrected for his childhood hyperactivity, seems to have developed narcissistic defences that grew more brittle and maladaptive with age.

This is a tragically familiar arc for many neurodivergent children: shamed for their differences, they often internalise confusion, guilt, or fragmented identities that manifest in adulthood as superficial charm and overreaching confidence, domination disguised as vision, and a one-way ticket towards inevitable self-destruction.

While several former employees speak candidly about their time at the company, the documentary skims the surface of their experiences. We're left with snapshots of pain, but little space to understand how they saw themselves within the cultural hurricane Charney whipped up. There is emotional residue, but little insight. The growth in ADHD understanding and awareness came too late for Charney and those of his employees who saw themselves reflected in him.

Back in the early aughts, I was all-in on American Apparel, stocking up on solid-color basics and made-in-USA undies while buying into the brand's earnest mission of immigrant rights and ethical manufacturing. Like many idealistic thirtysomethings, I desperately wanted to believe. But as "Trainwreck: The Cult of American Apparel" lays out in a tight 60 minutes, behind the sweatshop-free façade was a dizzying cocktail of sleaze, ego, and chaos. This latest entry in Netflix's "Trainwreck" series doesn't go too deep, but it doesn't really need to; it's enough to remind you how easily people fall for charismatic creeps promising virtue, coolness, and free-market salvation. Dov Charney, the brand's infamous founder, plays like a tragicomic antihero from a Bret Easton Ellis novel (or maybe a Reddit thread). Watch this doc and ponder how we got here; late-stage capitalism never looked so well-lit and overexposed.

Interesting documentary. I'd heard of the brand but not the background story. The 4 ex staff were quite irritating the overuse of the word 'like' became quite unbearable (when you hear it you can't unhear it) We we're trying to count how many were actually said, we eventually lost track of the actual documentary. The gay dude (can't remember his name) said the word 4 times in one sentence?! One of the women (again can't remember the name) every second word from her mouth was 'like' ?! It was bizarre, I've heard of people complaining about it, but never understood why it would bother people so much. Now I know lol.