How Neopets Was Sold to Scientologists
Вставка
- Опубліковано 15 січ 2025
- Hey, who remembers Neopets? If you used the site back in the early 2000s, you might be surprised to learn that it was once owned by a group of devout Scientologists.
Join Chris as he investigates the link between virtual pets and Scientology.
Support us on Patreon: / peoplemakegames
Check out our t-shirts: store.dftba.co...
Written and presented by Chris Bratt:
/ bratterz
Design and anni-mation by Anni Sayers:
/ anni_sayers
#Neopets #Scientology
Appreciate the actual journalism that went into this piece, well done
Tamashii Hiroka?
*Interesting.*
Some of us still have some questions like, "Who were they exchanging death threats with?" "What happened to the third person who 'just disappeared'?" "Why did the price of the servers skyrocket to be more than you'd pay for a fucking apartment and electricity for your own servers?" "What are the odds Scientology hired a receptionist in the U.K. that is a legal citizen of the U.K.?" "What is the difference between earning an award and buying an award?" "What's the connection between Scientology and Disney and McDonald's?" "What kind of religion owns copyrights?" "Does Nancy Cartwright ever proselytize to her co-stars on The Simpsons?" "Does Nancy Cartwright know what really happened to Isaac Hayes?" "If Scientology is so hyped on its copyrights, why does it plagiarize the Catholic crucifix so blatantly?"
@@terryechoes3192 ok
Actual journalism has become more & more rare every year.
@@terryechoes3192 Most of these questions would be going pretty off topic. And most likely isn't feasible to research based on their funding. But these are interesting questions.
You're on a Scientology list now. That's worse than a government list.
@@JaMaMaa1 wow really
I wish there was a way to find out in what list you got yourself on and when it happened.
@@JaMaMaa1 Where did you hear that from?
@@kingchickenwing4887 no clue so im not sure how true it is.
@@kingchickenwing4887 Trackers
Neopets could have been huge on the mobile market. They completely missed the boat on that.
Yeah, by like a decade too early.
I'm disappointed that there's no Neopets app. As a nostalgic thirty year old, I'd totally have Neopets on my phone. I'd probably even pay money for it.
@@Bunny-ch2ul I think There is now, but it sucks
theyre working on it now
@@meliaa3437 Yeah but it kind of sucks unfortunately. Some of the mobile games have been good though.
The Scientology center in LA gives me the willies. Once on vacation I was waiting in line for the Upright Citizens Brigade (their theater is right across the street from the Scientology building) and had to ask my friend what that creepy building was because we kept spotting someone trying to peek over the fence at the people waiting in line for the show. Happened a few times. Strange too, as their fences are tall and the person inside the property must have been standing on something or in a tree. Was he trying to escape??
nah,that's just how they scout out new members: the guy you saw was standing on the shoulders of another guy.>;3
_"He gave....uh...he supported the organization"_
I lost it when she said he bought his "award".
i actually had to take a stress test for an art job last year and i just found out that the owner of the company is a Scientologist. thanks to this video lol
Did you have an auditing session?
@@squirrelsjustwannahavefun3540 after watching this video... seems so.
@John Doe your mother isn't real either
@John Doe
it could literally just be character designs for a game, it is a job
What do you do in stress test?
Wow really amazing editing and graphics. I was wondering how Neopets got caught up with Scientology
WOW LOOK WHO'S HERE YOOO
So be straight with us, do you actually shitpost on 4chans /co/ board?
Whoa, weird seeing you here.
I'm going to regret posting here later because I know my notifications are going to be flooded by a tonne of other comments, but screw it! I'ma do it anyways.
Hey, RebelTaxi.
@LEARN 2 DRAW MUHAMMAD his new videos got 400,000
The Scientology book/bible is public in the police library for anyone to read because in sweden theres a law that states that any documents and info about a case are going to be public for everyone after its finished. Meaning the book that ONLY scientologists are allowed to read is in a public library. The reason for this is because a scientologist once took the book home and The Enforcement Authority came home to home and took things from his home as payback. Thing is they somehow took the book with them and he tried to file a lawsuit or whatever to get it back. What he didnt remember is as i said before, It would then be public for everyone.
@@polocatfan Cult of Scientology: We must make sure no outsider reads our crazy book.
Swedish justice: Congratulations, you played yourself
so now i gotta go to sweden to read that fuckin book
its probably just a bunch of crazy bollocks though
@@MrChukinorris It is. Their beliefs going public spawned quite the wave of ridicule.
@@MrChukinorris Oh it is. Keep in mind that L. Ron Hubbard was a science fiction writer...
The jist of it is that long long ago the evil warlord Xenu (Zeenu? Xeenu? Idk, dont care) exterminated entire species by throwing them into a giant volcano. The tortured souls of these poor aliens became trapped in our universe. Countless aeons later some plucky chaps called the human race came to exist on a little planet called earth. Those tortured souls would then come to inhabit the bodies and souls of the humans and are called pheatons (again, spelling, idk). Many pheatons can reside in a single person and the more pheatons inhabit you the more unhappy you will become. Depression, anxiety, financial problems, bad luck, all of it is caused by pheatons! Of course, the church of scientology has a nifty machine that can detect the pheaton levels in your soul! (Thats the weird testing that the two creators of Neopets were talking about). And for a modest enormous fee the church will even help you get rid of those pheatons! Hooray! Of course, if you want to get rid of ALL the pheatons in your soul then youre going to really have to fork over some serious cash, as the more "advanced" practices are only shared with the higher "leveled" members of the church. Lucky for you, all you need to do is hand over tons of money in order to get to a higher "level" and really get the help you "need" (which im certain is perfectly reasonable or something). But with enough money and dedication, you too can have the poor souls of those aliens exercised from your body and all your problems will be gone. Hooray!
I shit you not. This is what is actually in that book. This is how the church operates. Im still not sure if the whole church is hilarious or horrifying.
This makes me love the creators of Neopets even more. They're such personable and genuine seeming individuals!
fuck that: i'm impressed how much they stood their ground in the fact of SCIENTOLOGY. that took a lot of guts (more so since the cult owed a big chunk of the company) and doing so saved a entire GENERATION of kids from being brainwashed and trapped into scientology.
@@JT5555 Stood their ground with professional-seeming assertiveness (but going quote unquote "ape shit" when necessary LMAO), watched their passion project grow and evolve, and waited patiently to sell their shares AFTER the buyout. Not to mention the story about including "the three" as characters, which is kinda hysterical. They're honestly rockstars, and I hope Adam and Donna are doing well these days!
@@hanthonyc agreed. they handled all of it like champs and deserve the credit for it.
Neopets was the jam
I am quite proud to proclaim that Neopets taught me coding. That 15-step tutorial was amazing, I used that aaaaaaall the time
Same!!
Me too! My shop looked *super fly* when I was able to put in a background, falling flowers, change the mouse, add music, change the text, ect.
Me too!! I “sold” custom user profiles to people for items and stuff, even tho it was against the site’s rules.
Yessss! I've managed to build that into an actual web design career, so thanks Neopets for sure!
Hot damn, same here. Had to make my Pet's page look good. And thus, I learned how to use and hate HTML.
Really surprised Neopets hasn't been shutdown yet
HUH???
Back in July, the devs said they wanted to enter the mobile scene and they were apparently working on a mobile game and mobile site. Something tells me that the mobile game will be nothing special mechanics-wise given how mobile games go, but yeah.
I'd imagine it's like candy crush. Not relevant anymore but still gripping the niche fanbase with nothing better to do.
server costs are problably really low nowadays
Is Tom Cruze a neopet?
For a gigantic multimillion(billion?) dollar industry, i’m always struck by how little effort the CoS makes to train their staff not to appear really, really shady.
I still call our hamster "our cat's petpet."
my entire family any time we get a new cat we just say its the other cats petpet XD
omg "petpet"....
nostalgia overload...
When World of Warcraft expanded on the companion pets in game, which were different from the pets Hunters could tame, I referred to them as petpets. I still do sometimes when trying to distinguish between the two types of pets.
I FORGOT ABOUT PETPETS!!!!
Where's your petpetpet?
Sounds like they *wanted* to do *something* with the site to help Scientology, but couldn't come up with a plan.
That Head of Education was probably the closest they got but failed.
Pedro Rodriguez I think giving $20 million after the $160 million buyout *might* count as *something*
@@Komodofq8 well yes but I don't think that's what the OP meant, I think he was referring to creating something on the actual Neopets site that would aid in recruiting younger members. Then again they seem to only focus on rich people so maybe making that money is all they really cared about in the end.
Yeah no doubt attempt to brainwash
@Emma Anderson Probably L. Ron Hubbard's study tech, by the sounds of it, aka useless brain-numbing garbage that comes in the way of actual learning. Sauce: was a Scientologist for almost my entire childhood.
@@learnova1761 thats a strange sauce
You’re probably on Scientology’s watch list now 😂
They better turn off their ad blockers!
here comes the hit squad LUL
Hi, Karen!
everyone not in the church is on the list
He’s probably already a part of it and now he’s in the “public relation” department and slowly brainwashing us with these videos 😲
Scientology, a photo of a young Bratterz, Will Smith singing Miami and Bruce Forsyth. What a video!
That's the quality content we all subscribed for!
The motion graphics for this video was beautiful! I really enjoyed the content too, thanks for making this!
that was, a wild ass ride. i remember joining neopets right when viacom bought it, im glad donna and adam were against the scientology education being run on the site, and it also kinda explains the "no religious conversation" rule on the site
I worked for Doug in his current kids video game company---focused on education. A bunch of the leaders are Scientologist and it's extremely toxic. He's a nice guy but it was a nightmare, and I'm so glad to no longer work there because I'm traumatized. Thank you for making this!! I was obsessed with Neopets back in middle school...Kind of wish I didn't see this video bc it was triggering but people need to know.
Oh no my neopet believes in ZENU!
*Xemu
@Minty ZEE KNEW?
Who knew?
Whomstd ever knew?
You remind me Zenu.
What Gnu?
The Gnu with the power!
What Power?
The Power of Xenu!
Who knew?
Sue You!
For What?!
Talking bout Zenu.
Yo I moved to Clearwater Florida last year and these Scientology folks are real! They completely bought out the downtown area, it's really unbelievable how much of an influence they are.
Sociologists and scientologists are completely different things.
One of them is a group of idiots who push pseudoscience about human behaviour and society, and the others are scientologists. Wait...
@@nathangamble125 bro that was most definite auto correct. Look it up they got a headquarters here.
@@Ed-ss1uh I don't doubt it, and I don't care.
Edgar Silva
I was raised in Tampa. You should move out, trust me.
They harass you when on the walk of fame in hollywood.
Neopets was a big part of my life. Over 10+ years on it (7 of them were daily, with NO hiatus). Well over 300 dollars used to buy Neocash and 150 more for premium, over 350M+ Neopoints, a full boost 700 stats 1200 HP pet, over 120 gols trophied... It was the biggest part of my life for a time, and a time I miss dearly. Sometimes I fantasise of making my own Neopets website, but technology is daunting and my ideas alone won't cut it.
Neopets was a product of its time, but it was great for what it was. Also, I'm extremely surprised not many companies use the "immersive adverstisement" strategy. That one was EXTREMELY effective for little child old me... Neopets was such a case study! Wish I could meet Donna and Adam and say "thank you".
Same thing for me. Can't imagine my childhood without neopets, it was so so special to me, still is and always will be. Oh boy I miss those days!
Why did you stop?
@@souperkow i got hacked on a 2012 data breach. Then i made another account and got frozen on 2018 because one of the pets i tradef for was a scam. That was efore people found out EVERY UC that exists was a scam.
My favorite story about Scientology is the fact that it came about as a result of a bet between L. Ron Hubbard and Isaac Asimov. Isaac bet Ron that he couldn't build a religion using bullshit Sci Fi ideas. Unfortunately, Ron won the bet.....
Pretty sure this is only a story
@@TheHighPhilosopher "The incident is stamped indelibly in my mind because of one statement that Ron Hubbard made. What led him to say what he did I can't recall-But in so many words Hubbard said- -'I'd like to start a religion, That's where the money is"
-'Over My Shoulder. Reflections of the Science Fiction Era", Lloyd Arthur Eshbach en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Arthur_Eshbach
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Moskowitz -the man who invited Hubbard to speak at the convention stated throughout the years Hubbard said it, too.
@@TheHighPhilosopher Yeah it is just a story. I'm pretty sure Scientology was found mostly as a tax evasion scheme.
I'm pretty sure that is a urban legend but based on a few different actual facts mixed together.
It was Jack Parsons it happened with. Both Jack Parsons and Hubbard were members of the OTO. A lot of dianectics was plagerized from Aleister Crowleys Magick without tears
Hello from a Neopets fan, 4 years later! I’m a bit bummed to learn there was a clear photo of Adam on the internet *before* he posted a photo flipping off the current Neopets community. It was much funnier to think that was our first clear look at him.
For context, Adam recently had a public tantrum in the (very large) Neopets Discord, after the current Neopets community rejected his crypto project. He posted a photo of himself flipping off the camera and said “I f*cking hate neopets” (his wasn’t censored, but youtube might block my comment).
All else aside, that’s not really the kind of behavior I would expect from someone who is doing okay. I genuinely hope things get better for the Powells.
You gave your number to a Scientologist?! Never ever do that! 😩😂
I seem to remember it would occasionally give you a weird multi-choice quiz like "how does this wobbly line make you feel?". That was probably a Scientology thing.
Adam and Donna! It’s so cool that you were able to track them down. TIL I used the site during the Scientology period and that my young mind was a bargaining chip sweet.
I was 14 & I remember scamming people back then for baby paintbrushes, then selling my accounts on eBay for 100s of dollars. Such simpler and wholesome times.
i hope that is sarcasm
Is this a real thing people did oh my god
@@maysar4159 oh yea you can still find websites on the internet that'll sell you neopets items. Claricks is one that comes to mind. Every 12-14 year old who wanted a little extra cash probably sold their stuff lol.
I mean don't scam but also wow that's impressive capitalist stunt for a kid.
I would have shanked you
"The church of scientology was quite suprised to find out we were doing a story about Neopets"
couldn't think of any other place where a story like this would happe, super interesting! :3
Wow ..Neopets ..That sure takes me back. xD
So well done.
Oh my god I love UA-cam. Love your videos, love that we watch the same stuff it's so funny.
Well that escalated quickly...
…and Chris Bratt was never heard from again.
Who?
SHH
Train your pup as a guard pup Chris. The Scientologists are coming for you.
Adam and Donna sound like extremely nice and fun people, I hope they are doing great, bless their hearts!
Dude my muscles tensed when you called them. Scientology is no joke, those guys can destroy your life!!
Great video! I also would like to point out the Xweetok and another pet was created by Donna as she was leaving Neopets in frustration so she wanted to make the ugliest pets (as she'd stated in their reddit post), but the xweetok was my favorite pet and it kept me playing for years to have the one I wanted :)
Actually the best part about neopets was the auction house, making that chez
Hell yeah
Me at the beginning I like Neopets... oh look another nostalgic video about Neopets
Me 2-3 minutes in: YOU MET THE FOUNDERS?!!! *grabs popcorn* *inner child reaches nirvana* *dies happy*
Looks more like a phone interview :V
I’m by their headquarters in I think Clearwater. They own these huge buildings and right in the side of one there is a pizza place. Glad the little guy is holding onto his business, they also turned a bunch of small motels into “employee parking”.
When I use my neopets as characters in online roleplays, I portray this whole debacle as being the in-universe reason that there aren’t any humans on Neopia anymore like there were in the early years.
Specifically, that Scientologist missionaries/representatives came in and tried to do their stuff, but the locals saw through it, decided they had enough, and eventually drove them out back to Earth.
...the subject came up because someone else’s character once made a joke that my Zafara was a Scientologist herself, which she took offense to.
ew furries
@@DirtyDoctorDan Ew, thinly veiled homophobia
I knew nothing about Noepets going in, but I did own a tamagotchi, which was the Dark Souls of simulated pets.
I loved how well humoured Donna and Adam were about the whole thing & I liked the fact that this story based largely in the states had a coincidentally local connection to Bratt. Good to see you getting out and about for school, erm, I mean work.
Tamagochi truely is the dark souls of digital pets
"Neopets wouldnt die" I honestly really vaguely remember my neopets dying from hunger and the game telling me it was okay because my previous pet left behind an egg and it would hatch n be a copy of my original pet but I'd have to start all over. I seriously remember this happening more than once
Reminds me of Piccolo/Piccoro from Dragon Ball
The sad part for me is, I know....my Neopets are still there but...they've been tragically put in iceblocks. My whole account got hacked and frozen and I did everything (a young teen could do at the time) to get them back, only to be told constantly that "we're sorry but we can't unfreeze it."
So my Neopets are there. Sadly...frozen. Along with my better years while struggling with school...RIP these poor beloved virtual souls.
That was honestly the fastest 16 minute video I've ever seen. It kept me engaged the whole time. Keep it up!
I knew about the basic scientology stuff, but not Adam and Donna's overall story. They seem like pretty great people, I hope they're doing well these days! I laughed so hard when they were talking about "the three" 😭
So strange seeing such a deep connection to my little town of East Grinstead. I grew up near Saint Hill, and went to a school full of scientologists (and, if I recall correctly, the school was/is partly owned by them.) it was all very odd. Surprising to hear Neopets, a game I played before even hearing about scientology, was once owned by them!
If the school was ran by Scientologists, did they use study tech there?
@@bb010g They sure did! Scientology rarely if ever actually came up within school grounds, but study tech was everywhere.
The level of detail and effort you put into your videos is incredible. Going to hang on to this channel for as long as I can before youtube completely implodes on itself!
Wow. Now I feel just skeevy. The fact that a website I spent so much time on in my childhood was influenced by that cult. Super glad the creators didn't let them do what ever they wanted though. I want to thank them for that. Awesome video!
QUALITY VIDEO.
I love Neopets. Never stopped casually playing. I'm nearly 21.
You're on the list now Chris
This is a good example of video journalism. Really like that you took the effort to actually go and speak to them. Probably makes this video the most authoritative on the subject.
I have no idea why this was recommended to me but this was a really interesting video! I grew up on Neopets and I never knew the connection to Scientology.
Love how you chose the ending music as one of the songs from a game on there!! I remembered playing it right when it came out and always found that song eerily pleasant.
I had this in my homepage. Never seen any videos from this creator before. I see one of the strangest titles I've seen from a video today. I had to click.
Same, I clicked to go to another page right before I saw the title of this video and was like wtf I have to go back and watch that
Thanks!
I'm pleasantly surprised that a 'youtuber' is actually calling sources and doing investigative journalism instead of a quick google search and repeating information they find online. Cheers mate, keep up the good content 👌🏻
i used to have a white bat. Neopets was my life since its inceptions. There was so, so much to do. Sadly, i haven't been there since 2006. And now i just know i will never go back.
I remember playing Neopets daily over fifteen (?) years ago alongside Powerpets. My firewall always used to make the webpages crash for some reason. I still have an Aisha plushie somewhere in the garage.
Definitely went ...what... when I saw this video XD I do not remember anything on the website about this, although all I cared about was the avatars and that bubble game. Really great video. Your research is always in depth and shows how much work you put into this.
The old CBS-TV Saturday morning cartoon "Muppet Babies" had Scientologists as writers and they sneaked some of their religion/self-help philosophy's ideas into the show. This was in the 1980s.
Oops I still spend hours on Neopets every day.
Candi do you really? That’s super interesting:-)
@@tomg5187 I do, it's my main hobby. I've been on and off the site since 2000 (wasn't there during the Scientology run apparently.) But there are plenty of people my age still on Neopets who just find it comforting and relaxing to play.
I don't go in there everyday but I also check it from time to time and play some games :) since 2004
It's really the ultimate time killer while looking productive at work. You can only online shop so much before your job starts costing you almost as much as you're making.
By now you should be an Operating Thetan, depending on how many Neopoints you've spent.
Always look forward to another one of these!
Pour some out for all the dying Neopets waiting to be fed.
Great video! This is the first I’ve seen of your channel and what incredible research you’ve done! Thanks to you and the crew!
oh man!! I remember all the code that went into those servers. Revolutionay for that era. Thank you for making this video.
Bratt hasn't aged a day. Just wears more jumpers....
Irish don't crack
To me he will always be the fresh faced young videogames journalist experiencing virtual reality anal beads for the first time.
@@KamradO
He's not Irish though...
Adam and Donna are talking about this so casually but everything they're describing is so unsettling,
I'm glad they didn't get caught up in it.
Mood: content
Hunger: dying
me too...
Absolutely underrated channel. Fantastic quality of content. I’m subbed for sure.
Came to this video expecting crazy conspiracy clickbait and was very pleasantly surprised to be wrong!
I just ran across your channel, and I NEVER comment, but you did an amazing job on this. Your journalism, research, and wit was better than any news site or channel like this. I adored this! Thank you so much for making it!
I had no idea about this, but I'm sure it's not the only foray scientologists have made into the world of gaming. It seems like they have tendrils everywhere.
I always assumed The Three were just based on the witches from Macbeth LOL, their true origin is so much funnier. Too bad Adam and Donna weren't around to kill the NFT gambit with fire, too. :(
Amazing work as always Bratterz
Great video, I loved Neopets and this is a genuinely interesting and peculiar piece of history!
Super stuff, as usual, Chris and Anni!
r.i.p petpet park. we will always remember you.
prefects are real things? not just harry potter?
Yeah. They're just glorified hall monitors anyway.
Prefects are from the British system and many British Schools and those from the Commonwealth use them.
They're good for encouraging leadership in kiddies
@@darkinfinity333 not in any school in britain ive been to. I think a few of the posh private schools have them but in the rest of the schools the teachers just do their own jobs. Weird that
The normal schools I've been to have all had prefects, but they were just called something less poncy, like "class representatives" or something. Usually just meant you were on the school council and were supposed to communicate the ideas and wishes that your classmates had to the head teacher. That, and run pointless errands. That being said, we did have head girl and head boy in our school, but they were meaningless titles. We also had houses, usually named after famous people and local landmarks. If our house got the most "credits" (house points) we got to go to the fair or some shit at the end of the year. Dunno what it's like in posh private schools, but it's not much of a leap to assume most of them have prefects.
This is very interesting, good work! I've played neopets for most of my life and still go on from time to time
i remember some green guy called xenu on neopets
dr.sloth?XD
Neopets was my life in the mid 2000's and i still visit from time to time.
I was wondering what happened to that website.
Good to know my ponies are still alive and...famished?
Genuinely fantastic journalism man. Just stumbled across this. The technique, balance, methodology, flow, structure, research and overall quality is brilliant - regardless of the subject (which was quite interesting I must add!).
I would have liked if scientology was reffered to as a cult in this video. It is a religion yes, and also controversial.
But it is also a cult, and it is important not to leave that out. It is extremely dangerous and needs to be said.
Omg when I finished this video, I thought you had at least 1 million subscribers already because of the great editing/graphics you used! I just subscribed and I'm still in shock that you only have 29k 😱
Your graphics are amazing! Good job!
The British branch’s headquarters is called Saint Hill Manor. Need I say any more..?
Doug Dohring
is the father of Jason Dohring the actor most notably known from Veronica Mars. Because of that I already knew the Scientology connection.
I feel bad for my Neopet, I forgot my login info for my account so I can't feed her even if I wanted to (and I even managed to get like 2 rare paintbrushes when I was a kid so rip)
Edit: So apparently old accounts that weren't logged into for a long time got purged so rip my Neopets.
My oldest account was deleted and my other one requires a birthday. I used to use random ones so I'm pretty much locked out. It sucks. Now I just have dragons on Flight Rising and that's good enough even if there's not much to do.
I'm so happy Adam and Donna showed up! It's always good to hear from them from time to time :)
The intro of this video had me really worried.
Well done glad you're still around doing videos and get to work on something ya love.
I'm still an active Neopets player. Glad the site got away from this massive cult.
Clever, comprehensive, informative, fun...clearly a lot of effort went into this and it shows. Fantastic video.
I really appreciate these vids!
Now that you mention it, neopets did have a very subtle cultist vibe to it
Hey, it could've been worse. They could've been purchased by Activision or EA :)
Then you’d have to pay for lootboxes that are directly linked to the food supply.
EA BAD GERALDO GOOD
Savage
Could've been worse. Neopets could've been bought by an educational gaming company with offices in California and India, who is now owned by a Chinese-based MMO company.
Oh wait...
ABrokenTV Tencent? What do you mean? I can’t understand
Everything about this video was so well done. Great graphics, great journalism, great editing. I'm surprised you don't have more subscribers
"Yeah, sure, would you like my numb-"
*"yes please"*
Anni's done a fantastic job on this, it looks beautiful! Great video as always, I loved Neopets as a kid and it's fascinating to see the history.
My old history teacher:
"It's not a religion, it's a cult."
And then people say: "But what's the difference between a church and a cult?" At which you can say: "Ok it's an organization about wacky scifi stuff that predates on people and uses harassment and brainwashing tactics for money. Happy now?"
They really be living in Far Cry 5 doe.
As someone who studied religion as part of an A level sociology course, a cult is a religion as in a cult is a type of religion. What it isn't is a "main/major religion."
Main religion has a number of criteria such as global prominence, membership and places of worship, which Scientology is aggressively pursuing to evade the negative stigma associated with being a cult and getting their cult recognised as a main religion would legitimise it.
A cult is basically any religion that isn't a main religion or a derivative religion of a main religion (denominations and sects, former are big, latter are small), so technically Scientology IS a cult, but they don't want the stigma that comes with that hence why they try to suppress that kinda thing.
Although personally it's questionable if it's even a religious organisation as it is structured like a pyramid scheme/multi-level marketing scheme and religious stuff is just marketing fluff to bait suckers into their system and it is easier to keep people in line if their reasoning is based on blind faith than logic.
In a dusty drawer somewhere out there is my parental consent form that I sent in to Neopets, back before I knew about lying