'Anchor' new online sects (umbrella, 2025+)

Online-native sects share several diagnostic features that distinguish them from earlier internet-era cults (which were typically online recruitment funnels for offline groups). They are: (1) Born online: the leader, doctrine, and community formed via internet platforms with no preceding physical congregation. (2) Platform-fragile: the entire community can collapse when a Discord server is banned or a Substack is delisted, producing rapid migration cycles to new platforms. (3) High-frequency disclosure: members are expected to share extremely personal content multiple times a day, creating a leverage archive comparable to the historical 'sin lists' of offline groups. (4) AI-mediated parasocial substrate: increasingly the central object is an AI companion (Replika, Character.AI persona) or a leader who claims privileged access to AI / simulation theory revelation. Documented examples reaching journalistic threshold in 2023–2025 include Twin Flames Universe spinoffs, the 'Zizian' rationalist-adjacent communities (linked to multiple deaths in 2022–2024), the Quantum Stranding online communities, and several Substack-based 'ego-death' wellness sects. The space remains poorly catalogued because most communities are small, doxxing-averse, and rely on members' own willingness to surface for journalists. The 2024 Wired and MIT Technology Review investigations are the canonical entry points; ICSA's 2025 conference proceedings include the first academic survey.