LOS ANGELES (AP) — For decades, the typical public image of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints centered around male missionaries in crisp white shirts and name badges, a picture reinforced by Broadway’s popular musical “The Book of Mormon.”
However, a different face of this male-dominated religious organization has gained prominence in American popular culture: tech-savvy female content creators, frequently photographed in workout gear while holding oversized beverages — and displaying varying levels of commitment to their church’s guidelines.
These social media personalities have attracted devoted followers nationwide who are fascinated by their religious practices and family dynamics. While some creators explain the principles of what many call the Mormon faith, others draw attention by violating traditional rules — consuming alcohol, engaging in sex before marriage, and in one widely publicized case, participating in a “soft-swinging” controversy that inspired Hulu’s hit reality program “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”
ABC attempted to leverage this popularity by featuring “Mormon Wives” personality Taylor Frankie Paul on “The Bachelorette,” but the network recently canceled the completed season after footage emerged showing a domestic violence situation.
These internet sensations and “Mormon Wives” present an image of the religion that seems more liberal and flexible than what church officials and other faithful Latter-day Saint influencers prefer. “The internet really challenged the church’s ability to maintain its own narratives about itself,” explained Nancy Ross, an associate professor at Utah Tech University who researches Mormon feminism.
Church leadership has attempted to create distance from “Mormon Wives,” releasing a statement before the show’s 2024 debut without directly mentioning the program. The statement noted that certain media depictions of Latter-day Saint women rely on “stereotypes or gross misrepresentations that are in poor taste and have real-life consequences for people of faith.”
Camille N. Johnson, who leads the church’s Relief Society women’s organization, emphasized in an email statement the importance of finding reliable information sources about the church and its members given recent media coverage.
“Millions of Latter-day Saint women around the world strive to live faith-filled lives grounded in a love for God and all of His children,” Johnson stated.
While the “Mormon Wives” cast cannot possibly represent the millions of women in the church, they are not the only Latter-day Saint influencers online — nor the only ones with substantial followings.
Many are women in their early twenties who have married and started families young. They share content about early motherhood and milestones like purchasing homes before age 25. Lauren Yarro, a Latter-day Saint content creator and podcast host, acknowledged this lifestyle might seem unusual to outsiders.
“Our culture is fascinating to an outsider, and I can understand why it would pull people in,” Yarro said. “That Mormon timeline is intriguing to the rest of the world. I think most people innately have a desire for a happy marriage and a happy family life and we tend to create those in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
Church members’ beliefs and customs have frequently attracted intense interest and examination due to their differences from other faiths. These include the belief that church leaders can receive divine revelations and the practice of wearing religiously significant undergarments.
Latter-day Saint influencers are not a recent development, but they have maintained relevance by influencing popular culture conversations and sharing their daily lives. Many use content creation to remain home with children while earning family income. Several well-known creators reside in Utah, where the church’s administrative and cultural center is located, though they vary widely in how much they incorporate their faith into their posts.
Although “Mormon Wives” and its controversial star Paul have recently driven public curiosity, the cast rarely discusses the church. Rosemary Avance, an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University who studies religious identity and digital media, noted “there’s so little reference” to the cast’s faith after viewers are drawn in by the show’s title. Many cast members have departed the church or are no longer participating actively.
“It was clearly a marketing strategy on behalf of the people putting these shows together. They think that’ll draw people in, and it does,” Avance explained. “It’s not like you have these women sitting down talking about their secret temple practices that they’re not supposed to speak about, or challenging the authority of the church in some way. They’re just not talking about it.”
Avance draws comparisons to approximately 15 years ago, when Republican Mitt Romney sought the presidency and “The Book of Mormon” opened on Broadway. During that period, people wanted to understand “what’s going on behind the scenes in Mormonism,” she noted.
“People think they know a lot about it (Mormonism), and they’ve heard a lot about it because there’s prominent stories and prominent people who are well-known and those narratives are circulated, but it’s almost always second-, third-hand,” she said. “A lot of people don’t know any Mormons and may never meet a Mormon, or if they have, they don’t know it, and so it’s what you’ve heard and the preconceptions you think you have about Mormonism.”
Content creators like Yarro, who discuss their faith openly online and strictly adhere to church teachings, said “Mormon Wives” does not reflect their church experiences or Utah lives. The faithful Latter-day Saint creators who spoke with The Associated Press stressed they don’t blame individual cast members, but rather the show’s production and its Hollywood-style treatment of their religion. Hulu representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
“The only thing I don’t like about what they do is sometimes they will play on things, twist things, use what is sacred to us as members of the church, and they’ll put it out and it feels like mockery to us,” said Shayla Egan, another Latter-day Saint content creator.
Some more devoted members utilize their online platforms to respond to and correct sensationalized social media content or “Mormon Wives” storylines they believe contradict their understanding of church teachings or experiences.
Mimi Bascom, a Latter-day Saint content creator whose social media mission is to “show that members of the church are real people,” frequently creates videos responding to “Mormon Wives” clips. She considers the show a “net positive for our church” because it allows regular members to “share what we actually believe and get that more out there into the world,” she said.
Bascom had always planned to serve a mission but could no longer do so after marriage. Creating church-related content has provided a way she’s “able to still live that out,” she explained.
“We want to be missionaries and spread the good word of the Gospel,” she continued, “and so this is just another way we can do it.”
