(the "it's not that deep, bro" unintentionally turned into a layered interpretive reading that separates canon inference, structural fanon assumptions, and symbolic reconstruction where necessary, oh well)

What Vincent built is better understood as, not fitting the traditional definition of a cult, even if it was perceived as one from the outside given what the show showed us so far, and even if parts of it psychologically functioned like one.Structurally, it does not clearly read as a completely isolated belief system detached from society in the way people usually imagine cults. The people around him likely still would have lived in the outside world, still worked jobs, still existed inside a functioning media industry and broader society (my fanon re: structural assumptions about full network integration: actually is that the attendees were most likely his employees once he owned and conceptualized the network). What made Vincent dangerous was not physical isolation or total enclosure, but the fact that he was gradually turning a workplace, a media network, and eventually an entire public image ecosystem into something that behaved like an ideological identity system centered entirely around himself. The cult of personality formed around him to me seemed most likely like an addition to this internal perception.

That distinction matters to me because Vincent himself most likely did not think in terms of "I'm creating a cult". He probably thought in terms of building something larger, more legitimate, more historical than that - something that fit his, at this time, deteriorating mental state. This is exactly why, years later, in Hell (S2E1), when Valentino calls it a cult, Vox neither fully denies nor fully accepts the label ("You could call it a cult. But I'd say it was more of a movement"). That line only really makes sense to me when I'm looking at Vincent's psychology as a whole. He (especially later as Vox) seemed to understand why people would perceive it as a cult because by the end of his life, people genuinely revolved around him emotionally, professionally, and ideologically. But I think in his own mind, "cult" was too small, too irrational, too unserious a word for what he believed he had achieved. A cult is, by what I know/researched (always open for correction though!), centered around blind devotion; a movement implies inevitability, historical significance, transformation, momentum. Vincent probably did not see himself as manipulating a small isolated group of followers. He probably saw himself as reshaping entertainment itself, reshaping mass communication, reshaping how people emotionally experienced reality through media. To him, it seemed, the emotional devotion surrounding him was proof that he was right, not proof that he was dangerous.

(Interpretation note: This relies on fan-inferred time depth, used as a structural rather than literal reading) The important thing to me personally is that his worldview evolved gradually. Early in his rise, his murders can be read as having been framed (in-universe or in fanon) as pragmatic. They seemed to be about advancement, elimination of obstacles, and insertion into positions of greater visibility and influence. He killed people above him because he, how I read it, wanted their roles, their authority, their access to the public. (I'm aware of other/additional interpretations, though given the topic of this insight, I don't see the need to elaborate on them further.) But as his public image grew and the murders went unsolved or misclassified over and over again (I also have many thoughts about how that was possible, but I digress), something psychologically changed: The public adored him (especially regarding the cult of personality formed around him). The network increasingly depended on him because of his status at work. Ratings probably rose around him (which eventually led to him being called the "God of Entertainment"). Internally, probably even people who distrusted him still treated him as indispensable because every crisis somehow ended with him rising higher. The unresolved deaths, the "curse" (I personally think there'd be a "curse" reputation since it seemed very plausible for 1940's media environments) surrounding productions connected to him, and his apparent uncanny ability to survive every scandal all may have contributed to what could be interpreted as a growing mythos around him instead of destroying it. By the late 1940’s, Vincent may have reached a point where he was no longer merely succeeding professionally (in interpretive terms). He could be interpreted as becoming symbolically untouchable.

That is the point where the network seemed to stop being just a company to him. He maybe began psychologically converting it into something closer to an extension of himself. The rhetoric in the final speech (S2E7, "Brighter") demonstrates this perfectly: "I will be your voice. [...] We will redefine what it means to rule the airwaves. [...] Trust me, and your future will be brighter.” None of this reads to me as ordinary executive language anymore. He is no longer speaking as a network owner or even as a celebrity. He is speaking as someone attempting to merge institutional identity, public identity, and personal identity into one thing. The employees are no longer just employees in his mind. They are participants in a future he alone understands: to him, loyalty to the network becomes loyalty to his vision, and loyalty to his vision increasingly becomes loyalty to him personally. (my fanon re: distinction between “movement” and cult of personality is treated here as partially separate systems that later converge. What I've said in this paragraph is why I strongly believe that this movement and the cult of personality formed around him were two distinct things. I like to imagine that, later on, at the event, we got to see in canon both probably have somewhat merged together regarding the attendees.)

This is why I think the word "movement" is so important. Vincent seemingly was trying to transform a workplace hierarchy into an ontological identity system - not just a place people worked, but a framework through which they understood progress, entertainment, modernity, and even themselves (which is exactly what VoxTek turned out to become). His medium was television, which made this especially dangerous because, unlike traditional cult leaders who isolate followers physically, Vincent worked through saturation. He did not remove people from reality; he attempted to overwrite reality by controlling the narratives people consumed every day. In his mind, if he controlled the medium through which people interpreted the world, then he effectively controlled the world itself. That is why to me the line about feeling "closest to being a god" (S2E1) matters so much. He does not say he felt like a god in a metaphorical sense - and he is a character who seemingly not only takes things at face value but also very carefully chooses words, so yes, semantics. I read it as him saying he felt closest to being one because, from his perspective, he had achieved something approximating omnipresence: he was seen everywhere, trusted everywhere, admired everywhere, and emotionally internalized by both audiences and employees alike (and given how it ended for him if it had gone on longer - my fanon is it was like 2 years, but that doesn't really matter - he probably could have actually gotten to perceive himself as a god). 

The meeting at the abandoned aquarium, to me, is essentially the culmination of that psychological evolution. It probably was not a normal company meeting, nor a conventional cult gathering, nor a public rally. It was something in between all three. The abandoned aquarium setting seems deeply important because it removes the event from ordinary institutional space. If it had happened in a studio boardroom or soundstage, it would still feel grounded in ordinary corporate reality. By staging it in a surreal repurposed environment filled with hanging televisions, water imagery, neon slogans, and industrial infrastructure, Vincent transformed the event into a symbolic spectacle (and we all know how much this character loves spectacle). The space itself became liminal - no longer entirely workplace, no longer entirely performance, no longer entirely ritual. That ambiguity is exactly what, to me, made it psychologically powerful (besides the clear annotations to his interest as well as his overall character design having influences on marine life/sharks).

How I view it, the attendees were most likely primarily employees and internal network personnel rather than isolated cult devotees (in general nor of the cult of personality) in the traditional sense, but again, I do believe that there could have been a mix at this event especially. However, by that point, I could see many of them psychologically behaving with cult-like devotion because Vincent had spent some time collapsing the distinction between career success, emotional belonging, and ideological alignment. I can imagine that some people in that room genuinely believed in him. Some were opportunists who recognized his power and attached themselves to it. Some were skeptics who privately thought the rhetoric was excessive but had learned to reinterpret his increasingly grandiose behavior as theatricality or visionary eccentricity. Others were simply caught in the emotional momentum of the environment. The important thing is that, at this point, probably nobody in that room experienced the event in entirely neutral terms anymore. Vincent had successfully saturated the institution with himself.

(Interpretation note: This section relies on fan-inferred timeline extension and is a heavily interpretive reconstruction combining symbolic reading, inferred institutional mechanics, and speculative engineering failure. It is not intended as a literal canon claim but as a layered analytical model.) There are a few possibilities of how this can be read, with the meeting itself most plausibly not being the first of its kind, but also not an ordinary recurring event. It was likely a culmination event - either celebrating the completion of the network’s ideological restructuring under his control or inaugurating a new phase of expansion and identity consolidation. I do, however, believe the one we as an audience got to see (S2E7, "Brighter) was a first in terms of it being as celebratory, groundbreaking and theatrical (just by judging the set-up and Vincent's speech rhetoric). The language of "baptism" strongly suggests transition rather than routine. Baptism symbolizes rebirth, entry into a new state of being, and symbolic purification (come again with the aquarium). Vincent was seemingly effectively announcing with framed rhetoric that the old entertainment world was dead and that his version of it - bigger, brighter, newer - would replace it. The event was therefore less a business presentation and more an identity fusion ceremony. He was not simply asking (given they were the attendees) employees to work for him. He was asking them to emotionally and symbolically join his vision of the future.

Therefore, I personally think - out of all the possibilities that this moment gives us as an audience to speculate on - the deaths may have been accidental, plausibly resulting from the collapse. The visible cable strain before the television falls supports this interpretation strongly. Vincent does not clearly read as orchestrating a murder-suicide or a predating Jonestown-style massacre (thematic interpretation note: This reading is primarily driven by narrative symmetry (hubris to excess to collapse) rather than explicit confirmation in-text). In my eyes, that could be seen as potentially contradicting the psychological tone of the speech itself: His rhetoric is future-oriented, expansionary, triumphant. He fully intends to continue forward. He believes he is on the verge of something transcendent. The irony is that the very spectacular architecture he built to reinforce his godhood becomes the mechanism of his destruction. The suspended televisions, the overloaded symbolic environment, the unstable infrastructure - all of it reflects his psychological state perfectly: increasingly grandiose, increasingly excessive, increasingly convinced he could indefinitely sustain total control over an ever-growing system.