Podcast Summary: "How Mormons Captured Pop Culture"

How Is This Better? – Hosted by Akilah Hughes (COURIER)
April 3, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Akilah Hughes investigates the surprising domination of Mormon (LDS) aesthetics and values in modern pop culture. She explores how Mormon women have become influential internet personalities and how the church’s history of control, conformity, and media-savvy moneyed interests have paved the way for this phenomenon. With insights from journalist Bridget Reed and ex-Mormon podcaster Shalice Anzola, Akilah dissects both the allure and the contradictions of this new “Mormon moment” and asks: is this trend pushing us in a better direction, or simply rebranding old, repressive patterns?

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Mormonism: A Brief, Complicated History

• Akilah Hughes contextualizes the LDS Church’s beginnings, power struggles, and history of controversial policies regarding race and polygamy.

• Main Points:

  • Joseph Smith’s founding vision in 1820 and the official 1830 formation.
  • Origins involving “golden plates” and “magic rocks”—details that even church critics acknowledge are official history.
  • The nickname “Mormons” was imposed by outsiders, and the church has spent two centuries trying to rebrand as “LDS.”
  • Early church exhibited classic “high control” behaviors: leader with direct access to God, isolation from outsiders, severe punishment for dissent.
  • Polygamy’s rise and secret practice, later made public; ultimately abandoned only under government threat in 1890 ([02:20]).
  • Quote:
    “It’s funny how revelation tends to arrive right when the alternative is losing everything.” — Akilah Hughes ([03:52])
  • The church banned Black men from the priesthood and temple rites for 126 years, changed under social and civil rights pressures in 1978.

• Memorable moment:

  • Akilah’s summary of the church’s racial reversal:
    “I think they probably could have written more than a substack about their institutional racism, but that’s neither here nor there.” — Akilah Hughes ([04:52])

2. Pop Culture’s Changing Mormon Archetype

• Akilah charts how Mormonism’s pop culture representation evolved from patriarchal polygamists to internet-savvy women.
  • "For decades, the pop culture image of Mormon men was either polygamist, patriarch, or earnest missionary. But the Internet broke that open." ([05:42])
  • The success of South Park’s “All About Mormons” and the Broadway musical “The Book of Mormon” led to public debate and even strategic church ad buys lampooning themselves ([05:20]).
  • Mitt Romney’s presidential run as a cultural touchstone.

3. The Rise of Mormon Women Influencers (“MomTok”)

• Guest: Bridget Reed, New York Magazine features writer
• Main Insights:
  • Pandemic habits normalized “watching people inside their homes,” fueling demand for mom-fluencer content ([06:50]).
  • “Mormon moms were doing this long before everybody else.” — Bridget Reed ([07:19])
  • The homesteading, big-family, modest-fashion trend is driven by white Mormon women but is now monetized by a broader cohort.
  • Influencer “gold rush”: Talent agencies report all their Utah clients (ex-, semi-, or current Mormon women) earn at least $300,000 per year ([11:14]).
• Quote:
  • “The world of influencing has just boomed... Mormon moms were doing this long before everybody else.” — Bridget Reed ([06:51])
  • “We’re all becoming Utah.” — Akilah Hughes ([11:50])

4. Internet, Tech, and Mormon Cultural Power

• Bridget Reed exposes the under-explored Mormon role in shaping the modern internet:
  • University of Utah helped develop ARPANET.
  • Mormon technologists pioneered the personal computer, WordPerfect, and major companies like Pixar and Adobe; deeply involved in Ancestry.com for religious genealogical reasons.
  • Significant investments in major tech firms and a concentration of SaaS companies in Utah ([13:47]).
• Notable Discussion:
  • The LDS cosmology (eternal families, ascension) fits with transhumanist tech; some Mormon transhumanists foresee “uploading” into “the cloud” as religious fulfillment ([14:19]).
• Quotes:
  • “You are really—the currency in Mormonism…is that you are part of this highly connected network where you’re constantly demonstrating that you deserve to be there. That translates to a lot of really high performing Mormons.” — Bridget Reed ([15:12])
  • “We’ve normalized that type of system and just sort of exported it again in an environment where there’s all kinds of people in the system, but it’s highly controlled by a small group of, frankly, men.” — Bridget Reed ([16:09])

5. Surveillance, Judgment, and Performance—Religion vs. Social Media

• Parallel: Social media’s pressures to perform, conform, and surveil mirror the church’s internal dynamics ([15:10]–[16:37]).
  • Both institutions: hierarchical, networked, oligarchic, prone to repressive conformity.
• Memorable moment:
  • “You succeed on The Internet by high engagement and constant performance. And so even if we’re not doing that as Mormons…we all have kind of come around to this idea that performing one’s identity constantly...is normal.” — Bridget Reed ([15:47])

6. Critical Perspective: Ex-Mormon Experience

• Guest: Shalice Anzola, host of the "Cults to Consciousness" podcast

• Personal Story:

  • Grew up in LDS church believing it was “the one true religion.”
  • Her first doubts began when asked to explain beliefs to outsiders—“So where are the plates now?”—and realizing how implausible some claims seemed ([20:18]).
  • LDS is a “high control group”; intense conformity and surveillance of behavior affect every aspect of life ([18:28]).
  • Struggled with guilt, shame, and church-imposed rituals of repentance after “sins” like oral sex—punishments and shaming that made her question church values ([23:05]–[24:46]).

• Quotes:

  • “Your entire life, your entire being, all of your choices were filtered through: is this what I should be doing?” — Shalice Anzola ([18:28])
  • “What if I’m suffering for no reason? What if the church is not what they say they are?... Oh, it’s all made up.” — Shalice Anzola ([24:50])

• Nuanced Impacts:

  • The pop cultural “Mormon moment” platforms progressive-seeming “cherry picker” members, who ignore or sidestep the stricter, repressive elements.
  • Critique: This risks misleading outsiders and “in” members about what the church actually is ([26:12]).
  • Quote:
    “It’s also very misleading for the general public thinking that this is what Mormonism is and it’s harmful for people who are ‘in’, because they’re thinking, ‘Oh can I be this progressive?’” — Shalice Anzola ([27:32])

7. Broader Lessons: High Control Groups & Pop Culture

• Anzola’s experience running her deprogramming podcast:
  • Parallels between cults, high-control religions, self-help and yoga cults ([29:00]).
  • Stigma: “How stupid could you be to fall for a cult?”—misses how these systems operate ([29:18]).
  • Comment:
    “No one joins a cult. They join something that makes them feel elevated… It just gets deeper and deeper until the cost of leaving is so high that you just stay or you lose everything.” — Shalice Anzola ([29:22])

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• Akilah Hughes:
  “Mormons are absolutely everywhere… there is a vested moneyed interest in making us care about aesthetics, values, and, they hope, belief in their causes.” ([00:00])

• Bridget Reed:
  “We’ve now almost decided as a country that what they’re doing—primarily being moms and wives at home—is worthwhile and interesting and worthy of watching.” ([07:49])

• Akilah Hughes:
  “It poisons the brand. More on the brand after a quick break.” ([08:34]) (Humorous transition)

• Bridget Reed:
  “We are calling it the Utah Singularity, because it’s like: why? Why are so many eyes on Utah?” ([11:28])

Conclusion & Reflection

The episode concludes by suggesting that Mormonism’s newfound pop culture appeal is as much about America’s hunger for curated, performative wholesomeness as it is about the church’s unique, and often troubling, influence techniques. While Akilah respects the agency and entrepreneurialism of Mormon women influencers, she highlights the need to remain critical of movements—religious or otherwise—that promise a “better” way but ultimately perpetuate conformity, hierarchy, and control.

Closing Thought:

“You don't have to feel guilty for watching, but it's definitely not better than a liberated, equality-focused alternative.” — Akilah Hughes ([30:55])

Quick Reference Timeline

• 00:00–05:50 – Historical context: The origins, power structure, and controversies of the LDS Church
• 05:53–11:28 – Pop culture evolution and the rise of MomTok; women as the new face of Mormon influence
• 11:29–16:28 – The “Utah Singularity,” Mormon dominance in tech, and parallels between social media/tech oligarchies and church hierarchy
• 16:29–18:09 – High performance, surveillance, and perfectionism as Mormon and digital currencies
• 18:10–25:50 – Shalice Anzola’s personal experience: growing up LDS, awakening to doubts and constraints, path to leaving the church
• 25:51–30:55 – Broader critique of cult-like systems, the dangers of platforming sanitized versions of high-control groups, emotional trauma of leaving