Minion Cult / Hector Cult

Submission 28,834

Part of a series on TikTok Cults. [View Related Entries]

About

Minion Cult is a TikTok Cult where members change their profile pictures to a screenshot of a man in a Minion costume holding up a glowing ball, representing the stolen moon from the Despicable Me franchise. Members of the cult are known as "Moonions" and are meant to follow other members with the profile picture, increasing each other's followings. The cult was started by TikToker @hutchbucketz in late June 2022 and gained viral spread over the following days leading up to the release of the Minions The Rise of Gru movie. In August 2022, the Minion Cult disbanded and @hutchbucketz created the similar Hector Cult, based on another Despicable Me character.

Origin

Bitmoji Minion Cult Precursor

Before @hutchbucketz's cult, another Minion cult was founded, denoted by members changing their Bitmoji to a yellow character resembling a humanoid Minion. Several videos were uploaded to TikTok around June 18th, 2022, showing Bitmoji maps full of the characters (examples shown below).

Minion Cult / Moonians

In May 2022, TikToker^[1] @hutchbucketz, who occasionally posts videos in a Minions costume, started posting videos asking viewers to tag the Minions TikTok page and get him invited to the premiere of Minions: The Rise of Gru. However, his efforts went unseen by the production company. On June 18th, 2022, the TikToker^[2] announced in a video that he would steal the moon on June 27th as an act of retaliation for being ignored, gaining over 574,000 views in just under two weeks (shown below, left). The TikToker continued to tease this event over the following days (example shown below, right).

On June 27th, @hutchbucketz went live on TikTok to "steal the moon." During the livestream, he wore his Minions costume and had someone throw a glowing white ball (representing the moon) at him, then proceeds to dance after. On June 30th he posted the clip to TikTok,^[3] gaining over 23,000 views in a day (shown below).

On the same day, @hutchbucketz posted a video to TikTok^[4] captioned, "I'm starting a minion cult. Make this your pfp to join. WE ARE MOONIONS." The video offers a cropped screenshot from the video showing him holding up "the moon" meant to denote members of the cult. The video gained over 425,000 views in a day (shown below).

Spread

The cult founder @hutchbucketz posted two more videos to TikTok^[5]^[6] encouraging viewers to join the cult on June 29th, 2022, gaining over 433,000 and 196,000 views respectively in a day. TikTokers began changing their profile pictures to the image and posting videos encouraging others to join (examples shown below). On June 30th, HITC^[7] and Dexerto^[8] reported on the Minion Cult.

On June 30th, @hutckbucketz posted a video to TikTok^[9] expressing shock over the growth of Minion Cult, gaining over 330,000 views in under a day (shown below). In late July 2022, the Ara Ara Army, another TikTok cult, was created to combat the Minion cult.

Hector Cult

On August 2nd, 2022, TIkToker^[10] @hutchbucketz posted a video claiming he would announce a new cult on the upcoming Friday, gaining over 900,000 views in a week (shown below).

On August 7th, the TikToker^[11] posted a video where he puts on Hector cosplay, a character from Despicable Me garnering over 490,000 views in four days (shown below, left). On August 9th, he posted a video to TikTok^[12] officially announcing the Hector Cult, sharing a profile picture for members to use showing himself looking up into the camera as Hector (see Template), garnering over 400,00 views in two days (shown below, right).