It wasn't only his family. They were in a circle of friends who all believed. Powell's mother had one particularly zealous friend who owned T-shirts and bumper stickers proclaiming the rapture message. She'd go around to colleges, spreading the good(?) news. She even hijacked one of Powell's Cub Scout meetings, explaining to the kids how she was burdened with the task of telling people of the approaching end times. While it made for a better lecture than how to make 28 types of knots, it wasn't the stuff that normal, healthy childhoods are made of. Especially considering that the rest of the time, little Devin had to be that zealot to his friends ...

5 Mockery From Other Students Planted Seeds Of Doubt

Unlike other kids around 2009-2011, who were into things like Phineas And Ferb and Scumbag Steve memes, all Powell would talk about was the world ending. But like any Nutralife salesperson, he had trouble getting anyone to be receptive except those that were already part of it. "Except for the son of my mom's friends, no one else in school believed ... at school, it was open season. I was made fun for believing in it, but I always brushed it off ... I figured I'd take these lumps now, and then I'd go to Heaven and they wouldn't."

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He listened to hours of Camping's preaching, including his vivid description of what ascending would be like (basically, everything crumbling around you as you flew into the sky). It brought him peace. For a while, that is.

In about March of 2011, two months before the great human die-off was to begin, Powell's class did an exercise in which each student would play one of their classmates. Supposedly this was to teach respect for each other and in no way make kids feel terrible about all of their flaws and mannerisms being comically imitated by their peers. To Powell's surprise, every kid wanted to play him -- in this class, he was the impression everyone could do. He was their Tommy Wiseau. "I asked why, and a kid next to me said, 'Because all you do is say that the world's ending. You're so easy.' It was hurtful, but I'd endured worse. For some reason, though, it stuck with me."