https://discord.gg/EGFRjwwS92

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they unravel a fascinating conspiracy theory about the Mormon church's influence on social media. This eye-opening discussion explores why Mormon influencers are disproportionately popular online and reveals the surprising connection to the LDS church's rebranding efforts.

Key points covered:

* The LDS church's wealth and marketing budget

* Unusually high CPM rates for Mormon-related content

* The 2001 and 2018 name change initiatives

* How the algorithm boosts Mormon content

* The challenges facing Mormonism in the internet age

* Potential strategies for the LDS church moving forward

Whether you're interested in religion, social media, or marketing strategies, this video offers a unique perspective on the intersection of faith and technology in the modern world.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Elisa Grenfell. And for her part of the conspiracy theory, what she was investigating was The question of why are there so many Mormon influences, Elisa Grenfell. It's not a conspiracy theory, basically, it is 100 percent proven from my perspective

there was a fact that she found.

That she thought was just an odd curiosity. Ooh, so silly. So silly that this is the case. I don't think this is an odd curiosity at all. I think that this explains everything. So I asked an AI algorithm, when did Mormon influencers start to rise in popularity disproportionately? And perplexity said it was in 2001.

Remember I said that was when they first started discouraging the term Mormon. And then recently there's been a rebranding to further discourage the use of the term Mormon among church members.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello. I am so excited to be here with you today. Simone. This episode is going to be one of the Malcolm goes into a conspiracy [00:01:00] theory.

Although I don't think that this one is a conspiracy theory. I think it's actually proven in the data at this point. And it's very interesting. Now I should note one, this is not going to be like an anti Mormon episode of that's what you're here for. Anti Mormon content.

Simone Collins: Yeah, sorry. We're Mormon stands.

So

Malcolm Collins: even our theological beliefs, I've been told by Mormons, they align enough with Mormon theological beliefs that. Some Mormons would consider us more like inactive members or members not in good standing with the church. But theologically they're pretty similar. So yeah.

Simone Collins: Someday we'll get our temple recommends cards.

It's okay, Malcolm. The day will come, maybe. I know,

Malcolm Collins: right?

Simone Collins: The day will come. The day will come. I guess we're not going to tithe, so probably not.

Malcolm Collins: I would never do that. I just don't believe in the central church concept. Yeah, we're very against that. Yeah. Yeah. But that aside, , that aside I believe I have [00:02:00] discovered the solution to a question I was wondering a long time, and I'll set up the question.

Okay. Yes. Throughout the nineties so just a little background on the term, Mormon. Mormon was originally used as a term, not necessarily derogatory, but just by people outside of the Mormon church to refer to people at the Mormon church because. It comes from the book of Moroni, right? That's where you get the word Mormon, right?

Like it's not like an insulting term or anything like that. Mormons reappropriated the word throughout like the 80s and the 90s and it became a mainstream word within the church for members of the church. It started to become unfavorable for church members and there was a, hold on I'll pull up the exact wording here.

In starting around 2001, the church encouraged the full use of its name and discouraged the use of Mormon church although Mormon was still widely accepted among church members. So you've got to keep in mind these [00:03:00] dates here, because they're going to turn out to be important. So the first move against the term Mormon was a lighter push that came in 2001.

But then, there was a much heavier push in August of 2018. In which and by the way, what the thesis of this video is going to be on is Why did these pushes happen? Because I'll explain why they don't make a logical sense from the perspective that they're being laid out by the church. , as of August, 2018 I'll just read basically what AI says about this and what it said the church's explanation was.

Okay. The church, of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints , has had a longstanding, so since 2001, preference for using its full name rather than nicknames like Mormon or LDS Church. But this policy was strongly emphasized and formalized in August 2018. Here's a summary of the key points.

Divine Directive, President Nelson stated, that this change was revealed to [00:04:00] him by God, emphasizing, quote, the importance of the name he has revealed for his church, end quote. New guidelines, the church has issued a style guide that discourages the use of, quote unquote, Mormon church, LDS church, and Mormonism.

It encourages using the full name, quote, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, or shortened versions like quote unquote, the church or quote the church of Jesus Christ in quote. So first of all, you've got to understand how insane this request is just from an outsider's perspective.

Okay. He wants you to not use it. So this new proclamation doesn't just ban the use of Mormon. It bans the use or discourages the use of LDS. And so he's okay, You either have to use the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, which who's going to do that except for devout Mormons, right?

Or, [00:05:00] shortened versions The Church, or The Church of Jesus Christ. And it's If I'm talking to a group of Christians and I'm like, I'm a member of the church or the church of Jesus Christ, they're not going to know or assume I'm talking about Mormonism.

Simone Collins: That's

Malcolm Collins: an insane version of a short version of the name, right?

It seems like a silly change in policy from an outsider's perspective. So let's go over their explanation for this change of policy before I get too much. I think the true explanation is for this change in policy. One. Emphasizing Christian identity. The church leadership wants to highlight that they are a Christian denomination centered on Jesus Christ.

Using Mormon was seen as obscuring this core identity. But they're not even using LDS. They're not using a shortened version that would immediately catch on within popular parlance. So it's clearly not going to re center Jesus in the mind of [00:06:00] the general public. So I don't buy this explanation, right?

Okay,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Divine revelation. In August 2018, Russell M. Nelson, the president of the church, announced that God had instructed him to emphasize the full name of the church and discontinue the nicknames like Mormon. Maybe but I'm going to present strong evidence that he, there okay, people need to understand how Mormons think and relate to God.

When a Mormon had I brought a Mormon, like a business decision or something like that, or if I brought the head of the church, like a decision, like a marketing decision he would then always, especially if it was a big one, like the name of the church pray to God to see what God had to say about it.

That is just the way Mormons relate to God. They always ask God for answers to their questions. So I'm not denying that. The head of the church went and prayed to God and then felt comfortable with this change. It's just that from a Mormon perspective, that's not a particularly profound thing to have done.

He does that, every day with all sorts of little questions. It's not what you may be thinking of. You're a secular person. We're like, [00:07:00] you're imagining like God talking to him or something like that, or a vision coming in front of him and talking to him. I don't see that as a big reason to do this.

Three. Accurate representation. Church leaders believe that using the full name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, more accurately represents their beliefs and focuses. So again, they're trying to, and I actually think this has hurt the church a lot, we've done another episode on this, trying to normalize the church as a mainstream Christian denomination which I think removes a lot of what theologically interesting than some of the other

Simone Collins: traditions.

It's almost, to do so requires one to make one's heart a religion. That is to say, a religion that is stronger, ultimately, in the face of mainstream society, but also less convenient. A softer religion, which is more weak, more likely to be subject to high attrition, not as good at imparting fitness, etc.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Okay, four. Distinguishing from other groups. The church aims to differentiate itself from splinter groups, especially those practicing polygyny, who [00:08:00] might also be associated with the term Mormon. Splinter groups? I'm sorry, the mainstream church practice polygyny. I understand that the church today can prevent, that's not true.

Joseph Smith did this, Brigham Young did this, all of your early prophets did this. Now do I think that the church is trying to actually differentiate itself from those churches? Those groups know. How do I know that they're not actually trying to differentiate themselves from those groups really heavily?

Because this is what more ex Mormons think, right? They're like, oh, it's a church trying to distance themselves from their past. If they were doing that, they wouldn't have chosen a comically long name that nobody but devout Mormons are going to use. If they had done that, they would have chosen another short form name that non Mormons could use to distinguish Mormons that was obviously mutually exclusive to the Mormon community.

Five, a rebranding effort. This change is part of a broader rebranding initiative including updates to the website, materials, and even renaming of well known entities like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I do think it was a rebranding issue, but not for the reasons you may [00:09:00] think, audience. What do they

Simone Collins: call the choir now?

Wait, MoTab is no longer, what are they called?

Malcolm Collins: We'll Google it if you want. What's the Mormon Tabernacle Choir called now? Next, historic context. While the nickname Mormon has been used since the 1830s, the church has periodically attempted to move away from it. The

Simone Collins: Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. Why?

Okay, it's one thing to rebrand. It's another thing of, sorry, we're no longer Mormons. We're the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. It's too much. You guys have to oh. Very

Malcolm Collins: frustrating. And then the final explanation that's given here is revelation based leadership. The LDS church believes in ongoing revelation.

So do we. So again, this is why we're theologically pretty similar to Mormons. Believe I have found the answer to this. And the dates line up really tightly and the person who did most of the leg work in figuring out this conspiracy theory was a YouTuber. I knew her from the female host of Zelf on the [00:10:00] Shelf.

But she also has her own channel where she released this particular conspiracy theory, Elisa Grenfell. And for her part of the conspiracy theory, Elisa Grenfell. It's not a conspiracy theory, basically, it is 100 percent proven from my perspective. And I'll go over it it's impossible that this isn't what's happening.

So what she was investigating, she just didn't put these two particular dots together, what she was investigating was The question of why are there so many Mormon influences, right? And there have been many By the way, what would be a, you know my conspiracy theory answer, but what would be your answer to the first question?

Why do you think Mormons, before I came up with this theory, tried to make the change to having Mormons call it The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.

Simone Collins: What other ex Mormons online have said is that it is to distance themselves from controversies associated with the church. I haven't had any particular, I just, I thought maybe it had to do with trying to refocus people's [00:11:00] attention on Latter day Saints or Jesus Christ, instead of just being like, Oh no, we're not a, this whole angel Moroni, whatever the book of Martin.

No, it's not that it's Jesus Christ and saints and the latter day I don't know. I really don't know.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Um, so she was trying to find out why Mormons are disproportionately present in the mommy blogging community, everything like that, because this is something they are disproportionately present. But I think that she also found out another mystery that she hadn't thought she was looking for. And the other history is why are ex Mormons so disproportionately large in the leadership of the Atheist community and in the publicly viral voices in the Atheist community? And her answer would actually explain why that's true as well.

So I historically thought this was a cultural thing. I believe the mainstream answer to this, Mormons are genetically isolated for a period and [00:12:00] culturally quite distinct from other groups. When you interact with Mormons and ex Mormons, they feel quite different than other groups. They're generally more pleasant.

They're better at social hierarchy fights, which seem to have been very important in their community history. And they are intensely interested in what the public thinks of them and appearing normative, which I think is what's destroying the church right now. I think that's always been the Mormon black pill, isn't it?

Mormon desire to fit in and be just another Christian when I think their strengths is that they're not just other Christians. But the explanations people have had historically for why Mormon influencers had more reach was LDS culture. So an emphasis on journaling and scrapbooking and memory keeping this is not commanded from the church.

It's just something that is just really common likely it's been argued a dissent of. their church practices of genealogy and stuff like that. I don't know. I think it's like a family focus and a self perception focus, which is really important to Mormons. So they are, because they're so interested in what the public thinks of them they are more interesting or more likely to [00:13:00] do things like blog or put their family online.

They're also more likely to do this because of stay at home motherhood which is more common in the LDS community. And they might, I don't know, the other answers I'm reading here are just not strong. Those are the reasons that I had bought into. So now, first part of the conspiracy theory I'm gonna roll out.

Do it. And this was all discovered by Elisa Grenfell. Gotta give her full credit for this. Lovely person. I'd love to have her on the show if she ever watches our stuff. Oh, we should ask her, Ian. Yeah, we just actually reach out. You can make a note. So the Mormon church as a corporate entity is the most wealthy church in the world at 236 billion.

So that makes it as a corporation around the size of Shell, the gas company or Pepsi. And it's bigger than companies like Disney or McDonald's. So you got to keep in mind that, um, Mormons ties 10 percent of their income, which is more than other religions. And [00:14:00] there's also more devout Mormons.

It's a proportion of the Mormon population that there are many other religions. And for a body of that size, they're going to be doing marketing. So like how much marketing are they probably doing? If we compare them to a company like Pepsi, They'd be putting in 3 billion to 3. 5 billion on ads a year.

Historically, what the Mormon church had done

Simone Collins: built billion with a B

Malcolm Collins: yeah, there's, I believe they're spending at least 3 billion on ads a

Simone Collins: year.

Malcolm Collins: And it makes sense for them. Every member they get outside of the religious motivation is a 10 percent tithe payer. That's huge from a church perspective.

Historically what they would do is they would sign contracts with people. But a number of those contracts ended up blowing up in their face because the people would then end up supporting gay rights, and criticize the church for that, or end up becoming gay themselves. Which, of course, if you are supporting someone who is theatrically gifted and has a large online following, of course they're more [00:15:00] likely to turn out to be gay.

That is just a thing, right? Then they're going to have an intrinsic beef with the church. So I can see why the church would want to move away from that model. So here we've got a mystery. How is the church advertising these days? We don't know. The church doesn't release this data. Now we're going to talk a little about the world of online advertising.

Both Simone and I, Simone used to be the director of marketing of HubPages, which was at a time, the 45th highest traffic website in the United States. And then bought by Squidoo and yeah,

Simone Collins: no. HubPages acquired Squidoo. Thank you very much.

Malcolm Collins: So you were a, quite an expert. I think we still have some people from your hub pages days who watch us even now.

She was a meme in that community and they created your image and memes and stuff. And you've been internet famous for a very long time. But, um, you helped a lot of them earn money, but people who don't know what hub pages did, what they did as a company is you could publish articles to them and make money.

It was like a, We

Simone Collins: taught people how to write content online that actually people were searching for. So instead of [00:16:00] blogging about your life or writing poetry for example, my top performing articles for some time were how to get rid of raccoons and how to kiss a boy which was ironic because I had no experience.

I just Googled it myself.

Malcolm Collins: I

Simone Collins: kissed a boy. I kissed one boy. So before me, she has one boy, one boy.

Malcolm Collins: I, so I, I love it. That is so the early internet, you so the

Simone Collins: trick to it was you would do some keyword research on Google. Basically if there was some search that got a lot of volume, but the results were really bad, Writing an article on this platform and you've got a lot of search volume and then you'd get a lot of searches.

And so that's how we taught people to make money. But yes, certainly we learned about online ads. One issue that we had on the website, and this will help to explain your point you're going to make is that people would constantly try to write articles. On subjects that had very high paying ads. So a lot of people, they wanted to talk about celebrity gossip and entertainment and write articles like that.

My job as their director of marketing and managing their community was to try to [00:17:00] dissuade people from doing that because that did not generate revenue for them or for the company. Instead, we wanted them to write about much more productive segments that had higher paying ads. So personal finance is an example.

Cars is an example. Sometimes things like pets would, was a good example. One of the one of the most, High profiting authors on the site at the time that I was working there actually wrote dog food reviews. And we're all pretty sure that she tried the dog food because she kept talking about like the flavor profiles of it.

But she made a lot of money

Malcolm Collins: with dog food, right? Yeah,

Simone Collins: there's this term in Silicon Valley, at least there was at the time of actually dog fooding, like testing your own product. And she like literally dog fooded which is great. But anyway, so the point was like the Holy grail of online subjects at the time, do you know what it was in terms of high ad revenue in terms of money online?

No mesothelioma

Malcolm Collins: the type of

Simone Collins: cancer that results from exposure to asbestos. And at the time, perhaps like because law firms were trying to do class action suits against it for [00:18:00] whatever reason, ads. Related to Mesothelioma were incredibly high paying, one click on that could sometimes be like over a hundred dollars or something.

So you'd really want to write an article about it that people searched for because it was really high, people running a lot about electronics to really successful people would park on the names of future iPhones. So that when the search volume for those would actually go up, they'd have these very detailed, amazing, positioned for SEO articles, just waiting for once that search volume was there.

And then all the ads would be for electronics stores selling the iPhone and then they make money. So anyway, this would explain. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So CPM is cost per thousand views. Okay. And that's what you make off of an ad for a thousand views. And you can look this up. This is public. So an example of an extremely high CPM thing would be new bank.

Hermes Lithium,

Simone Collins: Or yeah, buy a car. There's

Malcolm Collins: a new bank. You're going to get 25 Per, per a thousand views. Just pretty good. Yeah. And here on the screen I have put the CPMs for YouTube niches in 2023. [00:19:00] Make money Online is $13 and 52 cents. Digital marketing is $12 and 42 cents. Finance is investing is $12 25 cents.

If you look at something like cars, which Simone said was on the higher end that's 4 23 things have really

Simone Collins: changed. Yeah, then you get

Malcolm Collins: down to lower in things like lifestyle, 3. 47. Fashion and clothing, 3. 13. Entertainment, 2. 75. Tech and gadgets, by the way, is really low now at only 2. 39.

Simone Collins: That's so interesting.

I wonder what's changed.

Malcolm Collins: And cooking's at 2. I think a

Simone Collins: lot of this also depends on how you're making money. So this is CPMs but most people who are making money on selling clothing, cooking gadgets, et cetera, online are making money through Amazon affiliate links or something similar where you like literally get.

rewarded when someone buys after clicking through to your link that you actually put in there. So anyway, there are different ways to do this, but back to CPMs.

Malcolm Collins: If you're a Catholic term Catholic, so let's compare some other religious terms here, right? The CPM is a [00:20:00] 358, Baptist, it's 126, Jehovah's Witnesses, it's 464.

So these are all about what I would expect, right? Mormon, 1421. Wow! Mormon Missionaries, 3181. 3181! To give you an idea of how insane that is, Gosh! Mormon Missionaries is significantly higher than New Bank. Okay, in terms of how much somebody is willing to pay to that literally the highest on the chart of profitable new to niches is make money online, which is 1352.

The Mormon church, just plain Mormon church is significantly above that. And Mormon missionaries is more than double that. The amount of money that you would have to pour in to ads in this space to get the numbers that [00:21:00] high is billions, at least, given the number of Mormon content creators. This means that a Mormon content creator is earning, on average, more Per video that they're putting out, then somebody who is creating SEO optimized, perfect content to get people to sign up with banks or financial advisors.

Simone Collins: Isn't that crazy?

Malcolm Collins: Hold on, so it hasn't gotten fully, so you might be like, oh that might be a coincidence. New York Influencer, 526. Los Angeles Influencer, 461. Texas Influencer. 631. All about what you'd expect, right? Yeah. Utah Influencer, 1890. 1890.

Simone Collins: These are insanely high amounts.

Malcolm Collins: These are insanely high amounts.

Somebody is pouring an astronomical amount of money into this. [00:22:00] And to your

Simone Collins: point about the amount that's The LDS church is likely paying on ads.

Malcolm Collins: Why are Mormon influencers more seen than other influencers? There's basically no other answer to this unless there's some other company out there pouring billions into Mormon targeted ads.

Which there isn't, there just isn't obviously. So why would they be overcharging for ads? So there's a few things. One is if they are paying Mormons this way, like Mormon influencers this way one, they don't have any negative PR risks because they're not paying them directly,

Simone Collins: yeah, there's no one.

Yeah. Yeah. There is, and there's not, you don't have to invest in someone. Also, it saves a lot of time and money. Generally speaking, because you're not reaching out to these people, coordinating with them, sending them emails. It's not that intense.

Malcolm Collins: Two, they're getting a 10 percent discount. Cause these people, if

Simone Collins: these are tithing Mormons though, and I have something to say about this later, [00:23:00] if you want,

Malcolm Collins: What don't you say right now?

Simone Collins: So there are a lot of Mormon influencers, but one thing it's discussed on the genre of Mormon influencers is why do so many Mormon influencers dress like thirst traps? Like they're in basically thong bikinis, and there's a lot of discussion of Oh, maybe they're not in doubt yet.

Or Mormons have varying policies on when it's appropriate to wear your garments, et cetera. Like maybe for swimming, you don't but they're still wearing like extremely revealing bikinis and also taking a lot more revealing photos. I think that a lot of people, because there are these really high ads and it pays to be a Mormon influencer, quote unquote Mormon, like you say, you're Mormon is that a lot of actually not practicing Mormons, not tithing, not wearing garments.

Are just getting in the genre and basically saying they're Mormon. Just like right now, a lot of people are saying that they're autistic because it's trendy to be autistic, but they're not actually autistic. And I think a lot of these people are not actually Mormon. They're Mormon because it pays to be Mormon.

If you know what I mean. I just [00:24:00] think that there are a lot of. Mormon influencers who probably don't tie. I really don't wear garments.

Malcolm Collins: Negative externalities of this ad campaign. Yeah,

Simone Collins: exactly. And I think that's really interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Ad campaign before we go further is one it ends up elevating anti Mormon influencers as well.

So that's the reason why there's so like ex Mormons in the atheist community. They say, don't show ads on ex Mormon. If it's Mormon content, it's Mormon content. IE if it's stuffed with Mormon keywords and people who look for Mormon keywords are watching it. So yeah, it's going to artificially elevate ex Mormons.

It's also keep in mind, the rules that these people are playing with are the same, the church isn't able to disproportionately elevate the more chaste Mormons and guys being guys they're going to click on the thirstier girls.

Simone Collins: That's yeah. The thirst trap Mormons, the not really Mormon Mormons are going to be the ones that get more views because they are hotter.

I I also think that Delph

Malcolm Collins: on the shelf, or whatever her name is for her side project, didn't seem to [00:25:00] realize. She thought that the way that this was elevating Mormon content, which is definitely a way, is that it was providing them with more money to do this, which made this a more viable side income for Mormon moms, which made it more likely that they would end up creating this type of content or young Mormon women.

I don't think that is the key thing. I think the key thing that she didn't seem to realize is that whether it's Instagram or YouTube or anything like that, these platforms are in the business of making money. They will disproportionately show people content with a higher CPM. Then content was a lower CPM.

It literally boosts the term Mormon in the algorithm itself To have a higher CPM on that turn.

Simone Collins: Just like when I worked at hub pages, we didn't just encourage people to not write about entertainment and instead write about personal finance because we made money too when they made money and we needed them to do that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So you disproportionately showed. Content to users [00:26:00] on higher paid topics. Yeah. Okay. So one, no, this isn't about paying the families necessarily. This is about influencing the algo, which it is doing. So one additional piece of information that Zalph on the shelf didn't seem to be aware of. But now we're going to talk about my part of the conspiracy theory, because there was a fact that she found.

That she thought was just an odd curiosity. Ooh, so silly. So silly that this is the case. I don't think this is an odd curiosity at all. I think that this explains everything. So I asked an AI algorithm, when did Mormon influencers start to rise in popularity disproportionately? And perplexity said it was in 2001.

Remember I said that was when they first started discouraging the term Mormon. And then recently there's been a rebranding to further discourage the use of the term Mormon among church members. She found another interesting little thing here. More Mormon church as a search term.[00:27:00]

Priced at 1421. Mormon Mystery areas as a search term priced at 31 81 LDS 2 25 latter day, Saint 2 83. No one is buying ads on those terms. What? Huh? You may be asking, why would the church have done this? Why would the church, if it is the church that's bidding up these terms. Not bid up the terms that only Mormons would use. And that's your answer right there. The reason they made this name change is you have a problem if you're using this ad campaign. Who searches the term Mormon most? Mormons! Mormons search the term Mormon most. A Mormon is more likely than any other person online to be asking where is my nearest local Mormon temple.

They're the most likely people in Google to be looking for quote unquote Mormon content. [00:28:00] Clicks from Mormons are wasted money. For the LDS church. Yeah. You don't want to

Simone Collins: convert someone who you've already converted. You don't want to

Malcolm Collins: be paying for ads for somebody who you don't want to be that

Simone Collins: idiot, amazon.

com that advertises a refrigerator to you the moment after you buy a refrigerator.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, we actually pitched that to Amazon. A fun story about how inefficient Amazon is. So at one point we were interviewing an Amazon, this was a while ago. Amazon has fixed this problem since then, but Amazon used to have this problem where they would, um, pitch you products after you had bought a very expensive product that obviously you're only going to buy once in a long period of time.

Like a refrigerator is a great example of this. It would constantly be in your recommended. And I suggested that they have a low income employees. I was like interviewing, I was like I have this idea for a program. I wanted to start for you guys for, low wage workers and like the third world to mark all products as single time purchases or multi time purchases.

Simone Collins: They have mTurk, they have the resources.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I was like, you guys could use [00:29:00] mTurk do this and it would dramatically like it would be billions of dollars a year different for Amazon. This one change to their algorithm. And it would be very easy for me to do the program and execute it. I was like, okay, so if I did this or to get this program, how do I pitch that to my higher ups?

And they're like you could write a pitch to do that. Yeah. But you wouldn't necessarily get on the team that was doing it. Even if it was accepted and I was like, and I was like, is there financial compensation? If they accept it, they're like, not really. I was like, wow, you are a terribly run company.

That is how you keep greenlighting these garbage woke shows because you are the bureaucracy of bureaucracies and Amazon higher ups. If you want me to come in and clean things out, I can. Guarantee you, you will be making at least 13 percent more the next year. But anyway let's go back in here because like little things like that, like, how did they not think of that?

And why do they not have a system that would allow a smart person to come in and implement that when it was so low cost to implement? But anyway. Back to the topic at hand here. Um, the problem that you have if you're one [00:30:00] of these organizations is that people who are already bought in, who are already tithing are clicking these search terms more than any other group.

So you're just wasting tons of money. What's the best way to get around that? You change the church's name among the devout to something that people outside of the devout circles will never ever use. Like Jesus Christ Church of Latter day Saints. They didn't plan on the general public to stop using the term Mormon.

They were just trying to get the devout Mormons to stop using the term Mormon. That is why the name change happened. This isn't like a bad thing from a theological perspective. Even if He knew this and he prayed to God about this. I'm sure God was like, yeah, that's a, especially if God's a Mormon

Where, where am I? What's happening?! Hello newcomers and welcome. Uh, I'm the Held Director. And for those of you who were a little confused, uh, you are dead, and this is [00:31:00] hell. So, abandon all hope, and yadda yadda yadda. Hey, wait a minute! I shouldn't be here! I was a totally strict and devout Protestant! I thought we went to heaven! Yes, well, I'm afraid you were wrong. I was a practicing Jehovah's Witness! Uh, you picked the wrong religion as well.

 I'm afraid it was the Mormons. Yes, the Mormons were the correct answer.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah, of course. Of course, it's the right thing to do. It's the efficacious way, to reach people, and to not waste your followers tithing money, which is obviously a sinful thing to do. Nothing about this is below board, exactly. It's just that they were doing this program secretly.

And that I find absolutely fascinating. I also think there was a secondary reason behind the rebrand to the impossible name that no one's ever going to do, which is this was the height of victim culture. And I think the church was trying to force those who criticized it to call it a term they categorized as a slur so that they could [00:32:00] say that these individuals shouldn't be taken seriously as critics because they were.

Using a term that was derogatory about the church itself.

Now, do you have any thoughts, Simone?

Simone Collins: I will say part of this seems quite wasteful, especially because so many not actually, I would say best role model Mormon influencers are becoming Mormon influencers. However, I've also noticed that some very not Mormon type people follow and secretly love following Mormon influencers online now.

So the church has done a pretty good job at raising its profile in mainstream media and exposing a lot of people to the Mormon lifestyle and getting them to see it and think, Mormons, oh, whatever, right? They hate gays, but then Oh, but their lives are so nice. Oh, they look so happy,

Malcolm Collins: they're playing the game as [00:33:00] well as they can, given that their hands are tied with this gerontocracy ruling the church. The problem is that the modern culture is just not conducive to Mormonism. If you look at even like a girl defined husband, deconstructing or deconverting from the church, and she is likely one of them, it's likely on a pathway to deconvert, like that's as Mormon, a poster child as you have for our generation.

And I think. That sadly, we're seeing a lot of them deconvert and I, a comment on our discord and people should check out the discord. It is so interesting, as interesting as the episodes. I will try to remember to include a link, but I actually thought that this was the user on the discord was called Kat Katlup, I don't know, CattlePA3.

I can't pronounce this. But three, people might be wondering why three. On the Discord, everybody lists their child count at the end of their name. Which I absolutely love. Wonderful. Props for three. We are, yeah, props for three. Congratulations.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well done.

Malcolm Collins: And they said, [00:34:00] And this comes from a perspective like us, like we're not Mormons we can't quite bite the bullet on the centralized church ourselves and some of the theological teachings and the alcohol prohibition it reminds me of when the story of the it was the head of the, I, I believe, Russian and they brought various preachers to come and try to convince them to convert to their religion. And the Muslims said you can't drink alcohol. And they're like, oh, okay go away. I'm done. I don't need to listen to anything else. I'm done. We're not going to do that one.

Anyway so this person said, I love the culture of LDS, but I think they're a dead man walking. It's over for them. I think there are a number of sects that simply cannot survive the internet information age. They relied on concealing inconsistencies and obvious fabrications in their doctrine that the internet now lays bare.

In a way that they're unable to counter, there is a wave of young Mormons going online and being forced to confront the reality that their religion is so obviously [00:35:00] fabricated and is a collection of embarrassingly, shamelessly lifted Masonic rituals, and they're falling away in mass. LDS has a maximum one more generation's lifespan worth of relevance.

In my opinion, if that, barring some kind of apocalyptic world change where the internet disappears, it's happening to my own childhood religion, Seventh day Adventism. And so this is a person from a very hard culture as well. Yeah. Just go online and find out uncomfortable facts about Ellen G. White. That is not a Mormon, by the way, that's from his church.

and the church foundation and doctrine that you used to never encounter in an entire lifetime of conversation, communion, church education, et cetera. The fallout is brutal and devastating. This could be an interesting podcast topic for Malcolm. In the way belief systems medically evolved, but didn't have selective pressures to survive the information age and are currently smashing The squared circle, or I think he means a cube into a squared circle.

And I think [00:36:00] that is really what's happening within Mormonism now. It's a culture that was a very well evolved culture. It was a very. Emotionally healthy culture when I look at Mormons. They seem to be just delightful people. Even ex Mormons that I say, if you grow up in a religion, you get most of the benefits of that religion.

Even if you deconvert, your kids are the ones who are really going to suffer for your deconversion. But Mormonism. As it is often presented to practitioners and outsiders, i. e. I call it South Park Mormonism which is a pretty good example of what your average Mormon normie thinks is not a compelling religion in the information age.

Just too many inconsistencies, Joseph Smith did too many horrible things and Mormons are still required to uplift these individuals. How does the Mormon church get around it? I think they can. The fact that our belief system is considered nominally Mormon by many people you need to accept a few things.

You need to go with the David defense. David I'm sorry, what I mean is David of David and Goliath, David of David and Bathsheba was a complete douche [00:37:00] canoe. But he was still favored by God. You can go to the David and Bathsheba story for a story of his supreme douchiness. Being a horrible dog poop human being doesn't mean that you aren't a prophet of God.

The problem is Mormons won't say that about Joseph Smith. Which I think is the kind of pill they need to bite in order to get through the Information Age. Just be like, hey, King David, right? That gets you through that second is they need to embrace their weirdness. Stop trying to be a normal Christian church.

That's what's interesting about them. That's what protects them. The more they try to be normal Christians, the more they lose. What makes Mormonism special and different which I think is just a huge strategic. Um, And the final difference is they need to get much more comfortable with the, because when I talk to Mormons who are like very theologically compelling, they are the extreme Mormon nerds, right?

Yeah. Like person prat guys. All right. Like the people [00:38:00] who love, love, love church history and studying it and the theology because actual Mormon theology. is pretty sophisticated and interesting. The problem is, and actually this is about important problem for Mormonism is Mormonism. If you're talking about like the intelligence level of the Kings within Mormonism, you know, I developed society into like, like the consequentialist to people who really study everything.

You need to make the, who needs to be very high IQ, high personal agency. Mormonism doesn't shed the high IQ King. But the deontological form of Mormonism, which is for the lower IQ people, it is very bad at the information age. So long as it presents itself as a form of mainstream Christianity. It's not a form of mainstream Christianity and it doesn't provide good answers to these.

And so I think that Elevating what I call almost like the secret Mormon theology, the Mormon theology that like all the church nerds know, to being the mainstream theology that's taught at the pulpit. That is how [00:39:00] Mormonism gets through this. It'll deal with a main, a huge flow out when it starts doing this, when it starts, embracing all the weird stuff that's actually theologically part of Mormonism, but it will keep those members and those members will be higher fertility and they will be higher fastidiousness. But it's very, I don't know if Mormonism could do this because it's so against the Mormon spirit, I would say, to, um, say we are weird and we are proud of that when it is their biggest strength. So I don't know if you had any final thoughts here on, on this particular post, but I thought it was really powerful for me.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that is powerful. The discord is so frigging good. Yeah. I wish it can never happen because a big part of. The Mormon religion is that it makes, I don't know how it achieved this, but it makes weirdness feel so normative that it almost feels more normal than mainstream culture. If that makes sense.[00:40:00]

Yeah, that

Malcolm Collins: does make sense.

Simone Collins: It feels they've made it, they've given it this Disney aesthetic, this main street USA aesthetic, even though it's pretty freaking weird when you actually look at it or think about it. And I think it's very impressive that the church has done that. But that means that they obviously cannot take certain stances that would.

give it some strength, especially in these times.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. I and by the way, if the church admits like why you shouldn't be over elevating Joseph Smith, if people are like how can the church survive that? Just focus on Brigham Young. Brigham Young does generally, he was an awesome guy like Brigham Young.

I consider as an outsider to be the real founder of modern Mormonism. And I just say Joseph Smith was God's tool to get Brigham Young the information in the community to create Mormonism. I think if they refocus, and I think this works very well with the iterative prophecy idea of Mormonism, that Joseph Smith is not [00:41:00] the real founder of Mormonism.

He's just another, A temple head. He helped get it there. Yeah. So in terms of prophets we're like, we ignore what they say. Like one of the prophets said in the Mormon community, if evolution is right, Mormonism is wrong. And like obviously most Mormons today don't buy into what he said.

It's very easy Mormonism. In it to discount when particular prophets make mistakes or do bad things. That's not a key to the tradition. As I said, the Abrahamic tradition house was in a school set. The David story makes it very easy to do this. I just refocused attention on Brigham young and the community of intellectuals of the Brigham young period.

So you're not just focused on Brigham young, like one uncorruptible person, but it's more like a community of geniuses. It's very much like the American founding story. I think that would play out really well for Mormonism. And then they can get their, Orson Pratt in there and like a number of other people and they get this story that even more aligns with the American story, which is to say Joseph Smith is like a lower importance [00:42:00] character and who really matters is this community of intellectuals in the early day of the church.

Simone Collins: This is fun. Thanks for walking me through this. I think you've built upon the original conspiracy theory quite well. And I think you're right. And I love it. I'm never going to look at a Mormon influencer the same way again.

Malcolm Collins: Love you to death, Simone.

Simone Collins: Love you too. We need to order pizza.

Malcolm Collins: Twisted into a little thing,

a

Simone Collins: little, A little, a doobity do. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my God. You are so good. I

Simone Collins: don't know what to say. It's cuter that way. Everyone knows. And doobity do is a technical term, just so you know.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, so this episode is going to be very interesting. I we'll get started here. This is one that, where that a lot [00:43:00] of research went into and I should know. Sorry. I'll just restart on this.

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