Amadeo Llados. Hardly a young person who is under 25 years old will not have heard that name at some point. This 32-year-old young man from Madrid has gone viral on social networks for boasting a lifestyle of success and luxury, and for a language that has become his hallmark with words like mileurista, panza and fucking.
Llados’ speech is simple, direct and hits home with teenagers. He calls those who get up at 9 o’clock at the latest as failures, those who do not aspire to have three Lamborghinis parked in the garage as non-conformists, those who do not have a salary of around 1,000 euros as poor, and those who do not have a salary of around 1,000 euros as delusional. They spend hours studying. He sells his own story as a life of improvement, claiming that he has become a millionaire after years working as a laborer and washing dishes. A story that does not match reality, since it has already been revealed that he comes from a rich family.
Everything that Llados sells and promises on his social networks has generated a lot of controversy: from absolute admiration to warnings that it is a sect. Who really is Amadeo Llados and what is behind his message? Clinical psychologist Miguel Perlado, specialized in helping people involved in sects and abusive relationship dynamics, explains on RAC1.cat what is hidden behind the Llados brand and the dangers of what has already become a phenomenon.
Perlado describes the phenomenon of influencers like Llados as “a fairly characteristic symptom of our times.” They are “characters who proclaim themselves successful people at all levels and who promote courses, workshops and motivational talks around the product or services they offer in this way.” And why do these people build a character?
The psychotherapist points out that “they are people who have experienced various frustrations in their lives and they handle it quite badly.” Therefore, “these radical frustrations” generate the need to completely change their life and speech, presenting themselves to others as “successful people.” The staging of this speech, furthermore, is even more striking for Llados’ audience, which is basically teenage boys who have access to digital platforms.
Perlado describes them as an “excrescence of the system.” Taking into account that, “from a young age”, there is a special “emphasis on success, on performance, on getting jobs with money”, which is contrasted with the current reality in which young people “face futures increasingly more uncertain and difficult at work. It is in this gap where these types of self-constructed and self-referential characters insert themselves, package their offers and shoot them everywhere,” he details.
The character that “they create, launch and make viral is a construction,” Perlado insisted, adding that there is “prior preparation” and a conviction of “moral, spiritual and even physical superiority.” “Under this conviction, they inject into others the desire to become like them in order to achieve success,” the psychologist remarked.
These influencers promise success, which does not only involve “making money.” Llados’ course is ‘Tu1millón’, but his speech also ensures that, thanks to him, “you will achieve an absolute transformation.” In reality, it is a pyramid scam. This is what is known as affiliate marketing.
“There is an exploitation of those who are part of the base and only a few, those at the top, are the ones who end up having economic benefit and, above all, control and power over others.” It is not just any scam because “it plays with the emotions and the vision you have of yourself, the world and what you want for your future.”
The self-constructed characters are based on a “life story that is almost a heroic life,” says Perlado. Now, “when we look at it closely, it has little heroic character and a lot of accumulated frustration.” The expert adds that he projects an image that “continues because there is a staging, a charisma, a way of speaking and addressing others that makes an impact.” A story that the influencers themselves begin to believe and that ends up convincing their audience.
“Many of the clients or Internet users can move in a first line of ‘likes’ and following. The problem is when a blind devotion begins to be generated” and each time, the followers are “eager for more content and without which they cannot live.” And the leader does not stop that, but encourages devotion to grow by affirming and reaffirming that “he is unique and infallible and that he has an enviable method.”
Perlado distinguishes between three figures that move through digital platforms: influencers (who can be “harmful”), the growth guru (who “organize activities that put people’s health at risk”) and, finally, digital sects (they emerge as a group with a specific “casuistry and way of functioning”). In which of them can we place Amadeo Llados?
“Llados shows sectarian behavior, halfway between a toxic influencer and a guru of personal and economic knowledge, with the salvific message focused on the bank account,” responds Perlado. The expert on sects warns that we often confuse these “self-proclaimed motivational coaches” and perceive them “as having set up a sect” and that we must be “careful when describing a relationship or group dynamic as sectarian.”
For it to be a sect “it must meet different indicators and stable dynamics over time that are met at the same time.” The clinical psychologist confirms that there is “a sectarian narrative and behavior” that is characterized by “the tendency towards a single discourse”, with its own vocabulary and phrases that function as slogans (fucking, mileurista, paunch…); in addition to a “very strong emotional charge that mobilizes people” and the stimulation of isolation from the closest environment.
All of these elements are what “guide people” towards a process in which they believe they will emerge with objectives achieved and in which they believe they “control the consequences.” But Perlado describes it as “a hamster wheel,” in which the fans increasingly chase the ball “with more zeal and frenzy.”
Many of these toxic influencers work, mostly, through social networks. Now, they also organize face-to-face meetings and this is where you should also be alert. “There are activities where influencers generate a cult of the person, but that does not mean that a sectarian dynamic ends up being organized. The cult of the person is part of the sectarian mechanism, but it is only one element and others should come together,” explains the psychotherapist.
“When one enters a dynamic of devotion that tends to go in crescendo or to be exclusive and isolating, it is important that those who are close open all lines of communication,” Perlado points out. The important thing is to avoid direct confrontation, “they should not run to try to prove that everything is a deception and a scam”, but rather they should “listen, pay attention and try to detect what is going on in the mind of that young person, what is happening in their life so that all this is penetrating into him.”
The psychotherapist insists on “not questioning the adolescent’s convictions head-on and from the outset,” and defends “introducing some elements of contrast based on respect, dialogue and patience.” Finally, he remembers that it can also be very useful to allow yourself to be “accompanied by a professional prepared for this type of dynamics.”
Perlado affirms that “leaving a sectarian relationship or a destructive sect, whether digital or not, is a complex process” and that there are different ways: from being expelled, to leaving because they have lost all the money or later being victims of abuse. physical or sexual or even because there has been a police intervention that has disrupted the group. “There is a brutal clash with reality,” he says, and it is the moment in which “sustained work” begins to face the trauma that has caused belonging to and leaving a sect.
This article was originally published on RAC1.
