Introducing the Episode and Guest

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. Dare I say a special edition of Mormon stories podcast. I'm Dr. John Dehlin. It's March 27, 2026, and I am over the moon bananas, excited to have with us a feature writer for New York magazine. Her name is Bridget Reed, and she recently came out along with New York magazine with an article entitled under the Mormon Influence how the Women of Utah Blogged and Posted Their Way into American Hearts and Wallets.

John Dehlin [00:00:45] It's an article that deals with the Mormon mom influencer movement that has swept the nation and the world. And, you know, this week is a particularly intense week in this regard in that Taylor, Frankie Paul, her season of the Bachelor was just set to release and it was scuttled last minute because somehow the video of her throwing chairs at her husband, Dakota, and also potentially a child being hit or hurt in that video sort of caused the potential undoing of the Secret Lies of Mormon Wives franchise. And now the Secret Lies of Mormon Wives franchise is potentially on pause. Other competitive series are potentially in development.

John Dehlin [00:01:39] The World, the Mormon Mom Talk World, is coming unglued. And I'm not sure there's a better person to bring on to talk about that other than Bridget. And one other thing I'll say as an intro before we introduce our guests and guests is I've got an ambivalent audience. Some of my audience.

John Dehlin [00:02:00] Bridget, I'll just say before I even introduce you, some of my audience really values this type of content. Others think it's annoying and superficial because they think that all this Mormon reality TV is not just vapid or harmful or sensationalistic or superficial or even misrepresenting of the Mormon experience.

John Dehlin [00:02:26] So I've got this ambivalent audience. And I just want to say as a disclaimer, if Mormonism has elements that are dominating global or national media discourse, we should be able to talk about it on Mormon Stories Podcast. And so I'm not going to apologize for it if y' all don't, you know, if some of you don't want to hear. But what I think today is really important and interesting. And what I love about publications like New York Magazine is that they do deep dives. This is a long form piece. I highly, highly recommend it. Everyone subscribe to New York Magazine today and read this article.

John Dehlin [00:03:09] And I'm just going to add that it's not just this article. I was browsing through, like, the 30 most recent articles on pop culture in the United States. I think I counted like eight different articles that Talked about Mormon moms and Mormon mom influencers and Hannah Neeleman and all sorts of stuff. So anyway, I just want to say, Bridget Reed, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast and thank you for a phenomenal article and I'm so excited to have you on. And also, please introduce your book on Mormon MLMs as well. Tell us just a little bit about yourself.

Bridget Read [00:03:56] Sure. That was such a nice introduction. I hope I live up to it. But yes, please subscribe to magazines. We need people subscribing to magazines. Yeah, I'm a. I'm a features writer at New York magazine. I write long deep dives on all kinds of things.

Bridget Read [00:04:13] And so, yes, the. This latest one was about Mormon influencers and it was our cover story, actually. There were a bunch of Mormon influencers on the COVID sort of playfully the. They were depicted ringing a doorbell and the COVID said Ding Dong, which was sort of a Book of Mormon musical callback too. But yes, I also wrote a book about pyramid schemes. Not just Mormon or Utah based MLMs and pyramid schemes, but the history of the whole industry. It's like a structural, historical deep dive into where these companies came from, which is actually California and not Utah.

Bridget Read [00:04:55] But anyway, it goes all the way back to the very beginning in the 20th century and up through today. Yes. And definitely touches on a bunch of MLMs in Utah.

John Dehlin [00:05:06] Okay.

Bridget Read [00:05:06] And it's called. Oh, sorry, it's called Little Bosses Everywhere. It came out in May. I always forget to say the title, which my publicist gets upset about. But yes, Little Bosses Everywhere. How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America is the title of the book.

John Dehlin [00:05:22] Wait, this is Mormon breaking news? Are you. Are you trying to tell us that Utah is not the world's capital for MLMs?

Bridget Read [00:05:29] I would say it's. I would say it's definitely the contemporary capital. And in terms of legislation and regulation. Yes, but if they don't actually, they were born in Los Angeles, where I'm from. So we. We must claim the mlm.

John Dehlin [00:05:43] Not the birthplace, but. But maybe the. The capital.

Bridget Read [00:05:47] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:05:48] Okay, well, I also just want to say. Joining us also for today's episode is Samantha Shelley from Zelf on the Shelf. And I think I. Samantha, I think I called you or texted you like 45 minutes before showtime. Yes, you did, but I was kind enough to at least give you a copy of the article before you came.

Samantha Shelley [00:06:11] Yeah, and I love this topic, so that should be fine.

John Dehlin [00:06:15] And tell us just a bit about you just for the. And tell Bridget a bit about you, just so everyone knows.

Samantha Shelley [00:06:20] So I'm half of the YouTube channel Zelf on the Shelf where we talk, I suppose a lot about Mormon deconstruction, but deconstruction of high control ideologies generally. And I'm also a faith transitions coach, so I help people who are navigating exit from Mormonism and other groups.

John Dehlin [00:06:38] And your cinematography today is, is. Is S tier.

Samantha Shelley [00:06:43] Thank you so much, John. Now that I'm solo here in Utah, I've really been trying to step it up.

John Dehlin [00:06:49] All right, well, it's looking. The cinematography, lighting, everything's looking good. Okay, well. So Bridget, believe it or not, even though I've been doing this stuff full time for decades now, I learned so much from your article. But maybe before we dive in, can you talk a little bit about the. You know, we're going to be talking a lot about Mormon moms today. Do you feel comfortable talking just a little bit about the connections between Mormon moms and what you learned about the MLM industry? Just because I think there's actually a connection there.

Why Mormon Women Dominate Media and Commerce

Bridget Read [00:07:27] Yeah. I mean, so much of what I talked or discovered, I guess you would say in the article and then, and then laid out in my reporting is about why. Trying to figure out why Mormon women were so ahead of the curve in terms of influencing on social media.

Bridget Read [00:07:48] And again, there's so much to cover with that. But a big revelation was understanding how Mormonism as a religion and a social organization that involves a lot of mimetic behavior. So not just performing for yourself and for your community, but also watching the rest of the community and emulating worthy behaviors, how much that actually is built into the social media that everyone across the world uses and how social media trends, movements take off and, and how much influencing as a business relies on that kind of mimetic cycle.

Bridget Read [00:08:33] Of course, MLMs, same thing. Multi level marketing is controversial because the argument is whether it's a real business or whether it's a business that actually grows by sharing. Right. Whether recruiting and bringing people into the business opportunity is the business opportunity itself rather than whatever product an MLM is purporting to sell. So again, also makes sense that it would have thrived in a community where everybody's deeply connected and also in this kind of constant cultural conversation about what they're doing with their time, what they're buying, what they're buying for their families, what they look like, that kind of all around fire to fit in, but also lead.

Bridget Read [00:09:18] You know, I think it goes both ways, right? There's a sameness here, but there's also like these, these women influencers were pioneers Truly, the Mormon influencers pioneer the industry and we can talk in detail about that. But anyway, so just to be very quick and dirty about it. Yeah, there's, there's so much that makes sense why MLM would thrive in Utah and why influencing would.

John Dehlin [00:09:40] I love it. Okay, so we'll make sure and include a link in the show notes to your book. I'd like to, I'd like to potentially do an episode about that book, if

Bridget Read [00:09:49] that would be great. Books are only $30. It's the influencers. You can spend a lot less on a book than you would on what influencers are selling you. So that would be great.

John Dehlin [00:10:01] Okay, so really quickly, and this is going to be a tiny bit out of sequence, but tell us a tiny bit about how you got into journalism and long form journalism and what piqued your interest in either Mormons or Mormon women or MLMs, and if there was any history that you had around Mormonism that influenced, you know, your interests or entrees into any of these topics.

Bridget Read [00:10:30] Yeah, I mean, I, I came into journalism just because I, I love writing. I, I worked in publishing after college and just kept writing on the Internet probably during the, you know, kind of big blog explosion, you know, in the 2000 and tens.

Bridget Read [00:10:48] So I wrote for like a lot of online sites, most of which no longer exist. My first job was at Vogue magazine. That was my first full time writing job. Wrote about all kinds of culture, politics, pretty much anything that was not fashion. And then I went to New York magazine in 2019. So I've been there for almost seven years.

Bridget Read [00:11:10] And yeah, I mean, I was a blogger. I wrote shorter form. And then the way you kind of build up is just by doing longer and longer reporting projects. I used to work at the Cut specifically, which is part of New York magazine, so focusing on a lot of women in politics, women in labor culture, stories about women, and then, you know, all kinds of long form reported pieces on issues that impact women.

Bridget Read [00:11:38] And that's how I came to write about MLMs and how companies pounce on unemployed women during the pandemic. That's how the book got started. Yeah. And since then at New York Mag, I write about all kinds of questions, basically. I mean, that's why, John, you and I were talking about.

Bridget Read [00:11:59] I think my job is, I feel so lucky that I really get to like answer questions for a living and try to, try to deep. Go deep where? On, on topics that especially like this one, that people might not think you can go deep anyway, so they, they, they certainly assigned me A. A piece on Mormon women. I think because I had written about MLMs and I knew a bit about Utah, but also our editors, multiple editors, had pitched very different Utah stories. And we all sort of realized that there was like a, a singularity arriving around Utah. You know, someone pitched the Mormon Wives, someone pitched the Real Housewives Wives.

Bridget Read [00:12:39] Excuse me, Charlie Kirk had recently been murdered in Utah. People were interested in, you know, what that sort of was bringing up in conversation. People were interested in Spencer Cox, like all kinds of things made sort of Utah on the brain. And then Ballerina Farm was the other one. So that's how we kind of realized we can't just do one of these things. We need a big story on why Mormons are so hot right now.

John Dehlin [00:13:04] And you, and you. As I was seeing how many Mormon themed articles there were just in the past couple of months, it's got to be that you and many of the writers on your staff are talking about Mormonism constantly. Maybe I'm projecting there, but that's just how it seemed from the brief browsing I did of other articles.

Bridget Read [00:13:24] Well, the cut especially has, I'm sure been writing about Mormon women for a long time. And again in, you know, New York Mag has dozens of bloggers and dozens of writers who are, who are doing more, quicker turn, shorter form stuff. So there are a lot of people writing all the time.

Bridget Read [00:13:42] But there is a long history of women's magazines, women's media covering Mormon women. I mean if you look even at the sort of first post blogger knuckle wave of people who I mentioned in my article, you know, Amber Filler up or you know, all kinds of other sort of the first wave of more text based bloggers. Right? Not, not really influencers on Instagram yet, but people still on blogspot and other text based sites. There are so many articles written by women in New York City or in la, sort of about how they're obsessed with Mormon influencers. So there's just like a long tradition of that.

Bridget Read [00:14:21] So that's why, you know, as soon as Ballerina Farm came on the scene and you know, she's so viral and so out there, then I think it just, there's. There's so much context to her that women and, and women journalists have. So that's why it's, it's sort of a very rich topic, rich text for, for women writers, I think.

John Dehlin [00:14:44] And you just said the word bloggerdackle. Do you have any Mormon background at all yourself in personal life, et cetera?

Bridget Read [00:14:52] I don't, not at all. But I just learned so much in my research about Mormons on the Internet, which is of course basically what this piece was really about. And so that's where I learned about things like the blogger Knuckle.

John Dehlin [00:15:05] Did you grow up knowing any Mormons?

Bridget Read [00:15:09] You know, I. I don't think I did. I'm from suburban Los Angeles and then also spent time in D.C. i certainly was aware of. Of Mormons and the Mormon Church. I don't know if I knew any really closely growing up or anything.

John Dehlin [00:15:26] Okay.

Bridget Read [00:15:27] I don't think I did.

John Dehlin [00:15:28] Okay. So I'm dying to ask you, like, if someone had said a Mormon to you in high school or in your college years before the Mormon blogging stuff took off, what. What would have come to your mind? Just what. What would have Mormon brought to your mind prior to the blogger Knuckle?

Bridget Read [00:15:49] Sure. I think my first real exposure to Mormons, this is going to make a lot of people mad, is Big Love. For sure. That was my first kind of cultural exposure, which of course I think a lot of people would say it's not an accurate depiction at all, but you know that it's a television show. So of course I didn't think those were. Those are real Mormons.

Bridget Read [00:16:13] But certainly, certainly that show came out when I was in high school. And then I also, being a budding little journalist, reading a lot of nonfiction, I read Jon Krakauer's under the Banner of Heaven when I was, when I was certainly in my teens.

Bridget Read [00:16:30] That book came out in the early 2000s and then book of Mormon came out when I was in college. These are all things that a lot of LDS folks hate. I know. But when you're, you know, living in, in D.C. or LA and you don't know Mormons, this is what you're absorbing. So. So those are sort of like the first cultural kind of artifacts, I think that that expose me to Mormonism.

Bridget Read [00:16:58] But of course have done a lot of research since then and read a lot and watched a lot of interviews from Mormons who are not fictional.

John Dehlin [00:17:08] That's actually amazing. Before what I was used to, when I would tell people I was Mormon, before all this stuff came out, Book of Mormon, musical, et cetera, they either thought we were Amish, so they would think we were Mennonites or Amish, or they would think polygamy, but only vaguely, because a lot of people haven't seen Big Love, but that's. That so much of what you knew us for was like True Crime with Krakauer or HBO's Big Love. That's awesome. I'm sure. The church love. Well, let's jump into your article. You start out with the billboard from Jesse Draper that says, can you handle 22 inches? So you came to Utah, and you met with Heather Gay. You met with Hannah Neeleman and her people. You met with Jesse Draper. Do you want to talk about that? Let's start with Jesse.

Bridget Read's Journey Into Mormon Reporting

Bridget Read [00:18:02] Yeah, I did. I. Yeah. You know, again, if you. If I'm starting from a place of, like, oh, I watched Big Love, you know, the whole point of being a real journalist is to go see it. So I did. I did head out there and try to experience the kind of explosion myself of these influencers. And so much actually in the piece was cut just because it couldn't be crazy long, but about just, like, what it feels like right now to be in these influencing worlds in.

Bridget Read [00:18:39] In Salt Lake and in Provo and in Utah county, like, and it. It's crazy. It's. It's. It almost feels like a gold rush. Like, everybody is running around. Of course, in this sector of the economy, right, there's lots of people with jobs that are not influencers at all. But truly, like, someone like Jesse, her business is blowing up. She's recording Spawn Con videos. She's doing brand deals. She is doing other interviews. Like, and everyone in the salon are other influencers who are doing the same thing. You know, they're picking up Swig, and they're posting content for Swig, and I'm interviewing Swig, and Swig is saying, you know, these.

Bridget Read [00:19:18] Every time the Mormon wives drop a season, we get crazy, you know, online traffic and, you know, we now have Dirty Soda in New York. And those guys are like, this show means that we, you know, have a line around the block every time. So. So it really was almost like a Gold rush moment that. That I. You can really feel on the ground in. In Utah. I don't know if you guys who live there understand that, but from the outside, it was like, everybody is beautiful. Everybody is an entrepreneur. Everybody's sort of. There's really a positivity right now. I also went to Crumbl Cookies, which didn't make it in. So, yeah, I mean, it was a really fun experience.

Reality TV and the Mormon Moment in Pop Culture

John Dehlin [00:20:03] And I guess I want to ask when Secret Lies in Mormon. When Real Housewives of Salt Lake City came out and then Secret Lies of Mormon Wives came out, I imagine they caught your attention. And I'm wondering how this sort of modern Mormon reality TV housewife kind of stuff struck you then contrasted with your Jon Krakauer under the Banner of Heaven, big love kind of perceptions of Mormonism. What were your original reactions to Mormon mom reality tv?

Bridget Read [00:20:39] Yeah, you know, I think as sort of silly as the Real Housewives is as a cultural entity, and I watch a lot of Housewives shows anyway, so it's certainly a medium I'm familiar with. But even as silly as it was, I do think I thought that at least the Mormon women on that show wanted to be thoughtful about talking about their faith and were really sort of serious about it in a way that made this Mormonism was the marketing hook for the show. But it also was really interesting to hear adult women talking about, you know, going to BYU and what it meant to sort of have a reputation or not at byu and, you know, one of them being.

Bridget Read [00:21:30] Being somebody whose parent converted later in life. You know, all. All the kind of textures of how somebody might come to the church. You know, you have someone like Heather Bourne, you know, sort of deep in it, someone like Lisa Barlow coming to it. I thought it was. I thought it was great and, and really interesting, and I think it definitely helped elevate that beyond just sort of a regular Real Housewives show. I thought. I thought it was really interesting and it definitely sort of gave another update if the last kind of round of, you know, I was in. I was a college student when the Book of Mormon musical came out and when Mitt Romney was running for president.

Bridget Read [00:22:07] So I definitely. That was part of probably the first update to the John Krakrau stuff. Right. Because then you have Romney in the media and tons of really great deep dives, big reported pieces in the New York Times and elsewhere on, on Mormonism and modern Mormonism. You have somebody like McKay Coppins from the Atlantic, you know, also starting to. To write publicly about being Mormon. So, yeah, I, I think from. From 2012 and Romney and then you have 2019 and the real Housewives, you just kind of get more and more, I think, maybe a little closer to.

John Dehlin [00:22:52] To love it. Yeah, certainly the Mormon moment, the Mitt Romney kind of Book of Mormon musical Mormon moments were big deals. Okay, so let's talk about meeting. I mean, just this week, Samantha and I had Chase from.

Bridget Read [00:23:14] I listened to that. It was great.

John Dehlin [00:23:16] Okay. Yeah, yeah, Sam and I had Chase on. And just this week, I guess just this past day or two, you know, the, The Hot Goss came out, I guess. I guess. Kate. I. I guess. I guess. Oh, my gosh. I guess Chase kissed Jesse.

Bridget Read [00:23:39] Oh, my God.

John Dehlin [00:23:40] Miranda Chagrin. Samantha, do you. Do you have anything you want to add? Did you find that odd, Samantha, that Chase got in the news as soon as he came on Mormon stories in a big way.

Samantha Shelley [00:23:51] It's not odd. Everyone would kiss Chase.

Bridget Read [00:23:55] He's pretty charming.

John Dehlin [00:23:57] You're projecting, Samantha.

Samantha Shelley [00:24:01] Ask around. See what people say.

John Dehlin [00:24:04] Anyway, but you got to meet Jesse in her home environment. Do you want to talk about that?

Bridget Read [00:24:09] Yeah. I actually met half of the whole cast when they came to New York City. They, you know, did this whole kind of media activation, and it was the first time that they had been brought to New York. Usually they only bring them to la. So this was before season three came out, the one that came out

Samantha Shelley [00:24:30] or

Bridget Read [00:24:31] a few months ago. They release episodes or season so fast, but they came to New York and they did this whole, like, ice skating thing at the Plaza and then this big, really fancy influencer party with that Hulu threw. So it was really like their arrival signaling that Hulu and ABC had put a ton of money behind this and they were all really lovely, but it was a kind of in very intense environment.

Bridget Read [00:25:02] And yeah, they. Then. Then I kind of. When I went on my trip, Jesse was the one that was available and was also of interest to me because she is a entrepreneur, you know, and talks a lot about her relationship with the faith.

Bridget Read [00:25:20] Yeah, she was great. Like I said, I visited her at her salon, which is like just sort of bustling with. With these influencers, and they, they shoot some of the show at her salon. They shoot the confessionals, which was fascinating to learn because it, you know, it means she's also making money off of Hulu, which I thought was, like, really enterprising and interesting.

Bridget Read [00:25:43] Yeah, you know, it's. When I. When I was there, I tried to, like I said, capture this sort of incredible pettiness of the environment. And now I cannot believe where we are now. You know, two months later, three months later, I. I was there in December. My colleague Rebecca Jennings wrote actually a Taylor Frankie Paul profile that came out almost, I think, I think the day after the cancellation, or pretty much right around the cancellation. And she also had been working on that story since December. So, I mean, we. We could not even fathom the frenzy that is now happening, you know, and at the time, we thought it was very frenzied.

John Dehlin [00:26:28] Yeah. Yeah, it's hot. And I'm going to be asking at the end if this is all going to implode and fizzle or if it's just going to grow. It's hard to imagine it getting bigger. You talk about Jesse not being a practicing member. You mentioned the Article that four of the nine secret lives of Mormon wives, women, I guess, are no longer active in the church, which is a little less than 50%.

The Rise of the Culturally Mormon Identity

John Dehlin [00:26:59] And you, and you introduce the term culturally Mormon, which is really interesting because I don't know if you know this, Bridget, but like, prior to very recently, this idea of being a cultural Mormon just wasn't a thing. You know, you were either all in in the mind of a Mormon. You're either all in or all out. And the church was fine calling itself Mormons for a long, long time. And then all of a sudden a recent prophet denounced the term and said, it's a victory for Satan to call yourself Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:27:34] And I've kept the name Mormon stories even though the church excommunicated me because I learned about Reformed Judaism and the idea of being a cultural Jew. And I realized, well, heck, if the church is going to abandon the term Mormon, let's embrace it as a broader cultural term.

John Dehlin [00:27:51] But all this kind of technicality is lost both on most Mormon faithful Mormons and on the rest of the world. But you kind of picked up on that idea that there is emerging such a thing as a cultural Mormon. Do you have, do you have any thoughts about that? Is that how you think of it? That like, just like there are secular Jews and faithful Mormons, that there could be secular Mormons but also faithful Latter Day Saints?

Bridget Read [00:28:19] I mean, that is, that is certainly how, you know, I would, I would sort of put my anthropologist hat on, right? Because so much of being a reporter is kind of doing anthropology. That is definitely how these women talk about it. And I think before them, you know, how a lot of the Real Housewives, for example, talked about their Mormonism because they were maybe not practicing in the way that would necessarily, in the eyes of the church, make them full members, full and active members, worthy members, but they weren't ready to necessarily give it up themselves. And so that sort of blurry line, I think then leaves the sort of more cultural aspects of Mormonism to be embraced and, and talked about as in this gray area.

Bridget Read [00:29:11] Right? Like, I think having being a really young mom, having many multiple children at home, that, that to me is a part of cultural Mormonism. And I think it impacts the sort of landscape how being in certainly Utah county feels. Right? And a lot of Mormon women I spoke to who weren't necessarily active, they still consider themselves steeped in a lot of Mormon lifestyle.

Bridget Read [00:29:38] And part of that is like being really close to your neighbors, being really close to your family, seeing each other a lot, you know, all so. So there's there's all kinds of things that are really sort of social, cultural, and then there's like the silly things like, you know, drinking dirty soda. Right. So all of this spreads when there's more of a platform for people to really talk about that. You know, I'm sure that. And correct me if I'm wrong, John, but I feel like there are probably Mormons who felt this way for a long time, but there just wasn't language to talk about it, or there weren't platforms on which people were talking about it.

Bridget Read [00:30:12] You know, I'm no longer active, as active as the church would consider me, but I am still very much a part of Mormon culture. You know, that seems like something that, Yeah, I think a lot of people have probably felt for a long time, for sure.

John Dehlin [00:30:26] There was this idea of being a Jack Mormon which meant you didn't follow the rules, you didn't attend.

Samantha Shelley [00:30:32] Right.

John Dehlin [00:30:33] You were still on the rolls. And there was certainly the idea of an inactive Mormon. But. But the idea of. Of being a Mormon, a cultural Mormon, broadly, you know, I've been saying that and thinking it for 20, 30 years, but the idea of that type of identity penetrating not just broad Mormon consciousness, which I don't think it really has yet, it's just starting to. But. But the fact that it's starting to penetrate the consciousness of New York journalists and the broader world is kind of mind blowing. Samantha. I'm curious. Samantha's a convert. I don't know if Samantha even identifies now as an ex Mormon, still as a Mormon. But, Samantha, I just wanted to bring you on. On this idea of. The phenomenon of this idea of a cultural Mormon being an identity.

Samantha Shelley [00:31:29] Yeah. I don't know if I would consider myself culturally Mormon, but I suppose what is quite nice about it is it's showing that, well, the church's grip on people is loosening and people are finding ways to still be tied to their community because not everyone's wanting to. You know, in the past, the trope was to go off and be the angry ex Mormon who's completely at odds with their Mormon community members. But now there's so many people leaving, they. They need to be able to find those bridges because everyone doesn't just want to strike out completely on their own

Bridget Read [00:32:01] and the other happy about it for that perspective.

John Dehlin [00:32:03] Oh, go ahead. Say that again, Samantha.

Samantha Shelley [00:32:05] No, I was done.

John Dehlin [00:32:06] Oh. The other unspoken trope is the. Someone leaves the church and they disappear because nobody cares, and everyone cuts them off and nobody wants to talk to them anymore. So this idea of standing in the cultural Mormon space and claiming some sort of Mormon identity that's disconnected from attendance or belief, would you say that's a pretty new concept to penetrate the public consciousness, Samantha?

Bridget Read [00:32:33] Yeah, yeah.

Samantha Shelley [00:32:34] And I like it because I feel like it means those people get to continue being a part of the cultural conversation, whereas before, you know, it was more black and white, so they couldn't.

John Dehlin [00:32:45] Yeah, yeah. Well said. All right, so. So, Bridget, overall, were you pretty stunned? I know you mentioned again, Jesse being enterprising in just so many ways, from the product she's selling to her appearances on the show, to her licensing recording studios, back to Hulu. Were you pretty impressed with Jesse's command of, of her business prowess? Basically, yeah.

Bridget Read [00:33:18] I mean, just that day, I think she and Jordan, who now she has filed, they're getting divorced. But they had filmed their Cafe Rio like ad together. I didn't know they were again, at every single moment, they're like, monetizing, monetizing, monetizing.

Bridget Read [00:33:36] And, and it's a real, it is a trip to watch it happen. And again, I talked to other influencers who weren't. Aren't even on the show and they're all seeing like a bump in, in income. They're seeing more followers, they're getting more interest. I talked to one woman who, you know, she young, young new mom in, in Utah County. She had triplets and when she learned she was having triplets, she really thought that it was going to change her life and, and actually take her out of the workforce. It was going to really end her career. She worked with her husband, they had a business and actually transformed her career.

Bridget Read [00:34:19] And now she is a triplets influencer. Like it. And the show has sort of all, you know, rising tide lift all boats style helped everybody. Even the event planner who works on all those shows, you know, she's in there telling me she was able to leave her quite controlling marriage because of all of the business from the Mormon wives and the housewives with these like big events that they're throwing.

Bridget Read [00:34:47] So, yeah, I mean, I was. That really made me also want to keep getting to the bottom of like, where does this come from? How is it converging with social media? How is it converging with trends in the job market in the way people think about and women in particular think about their labor and how to make money from their labor? And then really the pandemic then also played a huge moment in shifting the rest of the country over to this sort of Mormon influencing Mormon women influencing World that had been kind of percolating as social media built, you know. So that's why I went all the way back and talked to someone like Rachel Parcel from Pink Peonies who was one of those early bloggers.

Bridget Read [00:35:29] You know, there was a lot to dig under the Mormon wives. That really shows how they are just the latest chapter in something that's been building in Mormonism for a long time.

John Dehlin [00:35:40] I'm going to, I'm going to blow your mind maybe. But I had never heard of Rachel Parcel or Pink Peonies until I read your article and I do this full time again for decades. Samantha, I'm curious, had you ever heard of Rachel Parcel or Pink Peonies?

From Mormon Mommy Bloggers to Mega Influencers

Samantha Shelley [00:35:56] Yeah, when I was Mormon I used to follow her.

Bridget Read [00:35:59] Huh.

John Dehlin [00:36:00] I thought you were going to maybe invoke Deuce. Do you remember Deuce, the Mormon mommy? Deuce. D O O C E. Heather.

Bridget Read [00:36:09] Yeah, Heather Deuce. Yeah, she was, she was also foundational and Heather along with some other. I would associate her more with the more blog based, text based, based influencers and that they were, I, I, when you sort of plot it out, that's a bit of an earlier wave. Rachel is really like the foremother of the image based influencer and then truly an influencer in that she was really the among the first women to monetize, to actually do the click my link and buy my outfit.

Bridget Read [00:36:47] You know, I talk to these executives who have built these huge companies based on those transactions and they actually shaped the company around people like her because they were watching how her followers would follow her and buy what she was linking to and truly created the monetization engines and the analytics so that she could monetize more, more sort of efficiently and they could as well because of course she's making, you know, money using their tech platform. So I mean she, this, this one was the first person by J. Crew she claims to have been paid a flat fee for, for a brand deal. So she really is, you know, this type of structure now influencers all over the world use it and in some of the most sort of elite places, but really this suburban young mom was the one doing it first. And that was just so interesting to try to figure out why that was.

John Dehlin [00:37:42] Just to fact check myself. It's Heather Armstrong and she passed away, I believe, believe she died by suicide. Which is kind of a dark angle maybe we'll come back to at the end. But I just want to make sure

Bridget Read [00:37:55] we get the Deuce. Heather Armstrong.

John Dehlin [00:37:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So when you, when you were Talking about Rachel Parcel, you mentioned the 10 France of queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Bridget Read [00:38:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:38:10] Actually worked or partnered with Rachel to shop around la. Some sort of reality TV show based on Rachel Parcel. That. And it didn't. And it didn't land.

Bridget Read [00:38:23] Yeah, I mean, that, that really shows you that just a decade ago, even as Mormon women and Mormon bloggers were becoming a bit of like a niche market. And like I said, if, if you want to look up, many of them again, are on like defunct blogs now, but, you know, places like Jezebel Parts, blogs that ran on Salon, you know, articles talking about Mormon influencers. They were. They were definitely blowing up as a little market on Instagram, but they were a lot more niche.

Bridget Read [00:38:54] They were sort of people's obsessions. Right. But you had way bigger, more, more mainstream influencers who were in places like New York and la and they're, you know, like fashion girls. Right. Like, that was a much bigger market. Brands weren't going to people like Rachel necessarily. And saying, we're ready to make a show out of you. Right. We're ready to have you help, you know, sell pencil skirts on Nordstrom, but we're not gonna. This is not interesting enough for a show. And the feedback was specifically that they were a little boring. You know, they didn't drink. Rachel and her sisters, they were white. There was like a bit of a.

Bridget Read [00:39:30] Nobody wants this right now. Was. Was the reaction to Tan and to Rachel and her sisters for this show. And that was only in 20, I think it was. The date is in the article, I think 2017, maybe 2018. I wrote down less than a decade

John Dehlin [00:39:45] ago, I wrote down the quote, nobody wants needs someone who's not just a white girl.

Samantha Shelley [00:39:54] Yeah.

Bridget Read [00:39:54] I mean, which again, is sort of shocking to think about now, especially when, you know, someone like Hannah Nealman really is embracing, frankly, like in so many unspoken, the kind of white girl of it all. Right. This, this Americana image that only a decade ago someone like Rachel was being told, oh, you're too white. Anyway. So that's where you really have to get to the pandemic in terms of how it helped break open this niche market and really kind of bring it to the rest of the world.

John Dehlin [00:40:25] I'm sure the sponsors of Heather Gay and, And, And Hannah Neeleman are super glad that they're not affiliated with a bunch of white girls.

Bridget Read [00:40:35] Right.

John Dehlin [00:40:38] Because that would be. That would be terrible.

Bridget Read [00:40:40] That would be terrible. Right, right, right. And, you know, Mormon wives, like. Right. The. It's not. It's not exactly. I don't think diversity is huge yet for, for the Mormons Mormon wives show either. But I mean the idea that like being Mormon wasn't interesting enough of a, of a sort of pitch for these executives, right? Like what is it about the last decade that turned that from something boring into something interesting and not in a true crimey way, like not in a TLC way, but in a really mainstream way in a Hulu Bravo. And then ultimately Bachelorette way. Right? These are really mainstream sort of imprimaturs of American beauty.

Bridget Read [00:41:21] What it means to be an American girl. An all American girl, right? Like that's the bachelorette. So in just this short decade from Rachel Parcel we have traveled all the way to before it all fell apart. Somebody Mormon or ex Mormon or some Mormon or figuring out her Mormonism being this emblem of everything, you know, American women are supposed to want to be like.

John Dehlin [00:41:46] I loved that you talked a bit. You went all the way back to like early 1970s Utah where the University of Utah gets a big computer on Arpanet. And you mentioned WordPerfect. We had WordPerfect co founder Bruce Bastian on Mormon Stories years ago. He's a legend. I don't know if this will blow your mind or not, Bridget Reed, but one of the co founder of Atari Computers, I believe his name was Nolan Bushnell. He was also associated with, with the University of Utah and that arpanet thing along with I think the founder of Pixar.

Bridget Read [00:42:29] Yes, yes. And you. It blew my mind the first time I read that. I. That was in the article that the tech paragraph listed so many more companies including, including Pixar and Atari because there are so many more that are like foundational. And again this is where editing comes in because you just can't, I can't go on for too long. But yeah, I mean the, the Mormon tech history that then brings us to today where a lot of Utah based tech companies are actually building the software for the social Internet. They're also doing a lot of software as a service Internet. I mean that to me is so fascinating and speaks to why again Mormons were ready to be online and not just be online.

Bridget Read [00:43:17] Why Mormons were ready to share online and be sort of like constantly plugged in. You know, I, I think that's actually something that Mormonism really laid. From an outsider's perspective you can see why a highly connected religion that relies on a kind of community surveillance would be very primed for a social Internet where we're constantly surveilling each other.

John Dehlin [00:43:44] Yeah. And then you mentioned, I Love it that you mentioned Mormon Apostle M. Russell Ballard's 2007 BYU Hawaii Talk, where he almost reaps the whirlwind by inviting Mormons to get on the Internet and start blogging. Total side note, my brother was the head of IT for the Mormon Church during that exact time period. And I texted him and asked, were you involved in Elder Ballard giving that talk? Because my brother helped bring the church into the modern sort of Web 2.0 timeframe. And he kind of, in his own way, kind of grinned and said, yeah, I may have had a little bit to do with that, but Ballard certainly helped reap the whirlwind, as did. I'm sure you found the I'm a Mormon campaign that, weirdly, the church initiated and led before it tried to, you know, threatened to sue me for using the term Mormon, even though it's disassociated itself from the term.

The Church, Domesticity, and the Influencer Pipeline

Bridget Read [00:44:48] Right, right. I mean, I think we could even go back further right before the Internet to all. All manner of contours in the history of the. Of the Mormon Church that does kind of play on this push pull of like, are we recruiting and are we growing all the time, or are we exclusive and we're about boundaries with who can and who cannot be Mormon. Right. And I. That's also a really interesting thing to think about when talking about how Mormonism transfers to an online world. And I think recruitment and proselytizing, again, a history of training young people to talk about the religion, to want to share what the religion is about, to actually go out as emissaries, as missionaries.

Bridget Read [00:45:43] I mean, again, that kind of performance that outside facing practice, I think is perfect for the Internet and makes so much sense that. That Mormons would be great proselytizers and that they would then do it on the Internet, really. Well, I mean, I think that the Mormon Church had SEO practices before any other religion in the United States, if, if my research is correct. So, you know, the fact that there were so many people who had a tech knowledge, you know, there's some. There's some statistic from the early 2000s that, like more people in the state of Utah had a personal computer than in any other state in the.

Bridget Read [00:46:21] In the country. So Mormons were just also online physically, I think, really early on. But then also this readiness to share, I think also really laid the groundwork for why Mormons would be so primed to. To post through it, basically, which we're now seeing literally in real time with the Mormon wives. You know, they. They will not stop Posting.

John Dehlin [00:46:43] Yeah. And I couldn't help but think about Donny Marie being important examples for the Mormon Church very early on. Almost like Tom Cruise and John Travolta for Scientology about how celebrities happy, positive, you know, toothy, grinning white celebrities can actually be a real boon potentially for the church.

Bridget Read [00:47:11] Oh for sure. I think, I'm sure that that was, that's a little before my time, but I am sure that that was helpful. And of course like you know, and McKay Coppins has written about this as have so many other Mormon historians and non Mormon about the assimilation period of the Mormon Church and especially the post war era where Mormons really were incredibly important and valuable parts of the federal government. You know, really when Mormons kind of ascended to or were accepted at least Mormon men were very much allowed to be part of the sort of like yeah, what it means to be an American.

Bridget Read [00:47:59] I think early on Mormon men were, were brought into that, into the fold in that way. So it's now I think really interesting to see Mormon women be really normalized as influencers and as like hot mom influencers. That was, that's really where the story ends up, you know, and that's where we can talk about the pandemic a little bit if you want. But that's, you know, the fact that women all over the world are watching other women in their homes with their kids, cleaning, cooking, that's Mormon. That's a domain of Mormon influencers that we, the rest of the world has now been imported in. Right.

Bridget Read [00:48:33] Like we are swimming in the waters that these women helped establish. So for anybody who doesn't think it, the Mormon Wide show is interesting. Of course you can think that and you're probably right on some level, but it, it really does say a lot of like where literally the world economy has helped turn its focus in a way that feels like sinister on some level, but feels really important for us all to be aware of.

John Dehlin [00:49:01] Yeah. So tell me if I'm confusing or forgetting or remembering right, but like let's just say pre, pre pandemic might have been a Martha Stewart kind of world. But, but tell us how, how we went from a world where Rachel Parcel in Tan, France would be told we don't need, you know, another white woman. How do we move from that to domestic stay at home moms who were Mormon from Utah sort of taking over pop culture. How did that happen?

Bridget Read [00:49:40] Yeah, so again this is like we're talking about social media in on a sort of larger trend level. But also like I am a white woman living in New York City. I speak English, right? So this is like I just want to, you know, I have my own niche, even if I'm trying to get outside of it and be a reporter and read and write as much as I can. You know, we're, we're coming from a particular perspective. So, you know, this is not the definitive story of the world's Internet, but what happened here on a kind of pop culture, in the influencing world before the pandemic, what happened when shutdowns and lockdowns occurred is that this specific way people were monetizing on Instagram stopped because of being stuck at home.

Bridget Read [00:50:35] And so what kept working were what these Mormon girls were doing, which was monetizing, not as fashion influencers being invited to parties necessarily, or like straight starting a fashion line or sort of these more external ways of making money on the Internet. They were like Rachel Purcell at home, linking to what they were doing in their real lives, primarily as stay at home moms. Right? So that's like the. Again, it sounds even silly to lay out because now it's so normal, but the idea that you're, you wouldn't have another job as a stylist or a musician or whatever you were doing, and then you were also sort of like showing your outfits and things, things on the side that your primary, primary role would be a mom.

Bridget Read [00:51:20] And then you're, you're selling just what you're using in your everyday life, that kind of monetization that of course did not need any real external world to keep going. So, so you actually had production companies, producers, big brands like Amazon, Walmart, etc. Instead of turning to their celebrities, the people they typically might use to sell products, they rushed to, to capitalize on the women who were still able to produce the content they were producing and who were had a bigger audience than ever because everyone was stuck at home. And so, so that type of influencing basically had its own little mini gold rush, according to these talent agents I spoke to these hometown creators, many of whom were based in Utah, exploded.

Bridget Read [00:52:07] And then you actually also had celebrities and the world's kind of elite mimicking their behavior, because guess what, they're at home too. So you have people like Gwyneth Paltrow, you know, showing her recipes that she's making her partner or whatever, you know, get ready with me to take my kids to the park. Because that's what everyone was doing. So it really normalized something that maybe on another level felt a little retrograde or like that feedback Rachel got felt like, oh, this is it's not sexy, it's not cool, it's not interesting. It really just helped onboard the rest of the world, the pandemic, helped onboard us all to like this kind of content creation in the domestic sphere and, and completely, I mean now it really is the market.

Bridget Read [00:52:53] Like, like all influencers are doing this type of content that's very much in the home, it's with their families, it's with their kids. So, so that's really what these talent agents and producers said to me is like they, they fully reshaped, remodeled the industry. And then of course, once you have Mormon wives come out, you know, the fact that that show was greenlit, I think speaks to how normal it is for all of us to want to watch, you know, and all of us want to watch. Obviously not everyone wants to watch it, but like that, that is a marketable, interesting terrain for a television show. Yeah, that was a lot, that was kind of a quick rant.

John Dehlin [00:53:33] No, it was fantastic. And you also mentioned that, that Mormon women flocked to lifestyle blogging because it required their children. Children weren't a liability, they were a requirement.

Bridget Read [00:53:47] Yeah, I mean, I think that that's what's double and interesting and sort of squishy to try to reckon with about, about Mormon women in this moment that I was coming to as a feminist, as an outsider, as someone who identifies as a progressive woman.

Bridget Read [00:54:08] I, I, I, I, I'm torn because I feel like on one level these women turned the elements of their isolation and atomization, this, this role that they had, you know, been given as little girls, that this is what they should be doing, being women at home, taking care of the kids and being good wives. They turned it into an income making scheme that enabled them to leave that, those confines. It's, it's remarkable. At the same time, they're doing it in another system that's just as controlling. Even though you might not think about it all the time, which is this like, posting machine, you know, these, these girls are constantly having to engage with this new surveillance network of the Internet.

Bridget Read [00:55:01] So like, sometimes I think that they've jumped from one controlling structure into another that I am also in, by the way, right. As a young woman on the Internet, constantly thinking about how much time am I devoting to all these, you know, different systems that are owned by like a few men. Right. Like that, I, I'm a part of that too. So it's, it's really, I, I go back and forth and I, I think that that's just a human experience, but yeah, I, I think, I think we've moved forward with them and I think we've also. We all have a new master and it's meta and Amazon and YouTube.

John Dehlin [00:55:44] You, you mentioned, Daniel, I don't know how to pronounce this postnik of select, who I think is, you mentioned is the agent who represents Taylor, Frankie Paul, you mentioned Jeff Jenkins, you mentioned a lot of these talent agencies. I had to go Google and look them up because even for those of us who try and follow this stuff, I don't think we know the names of the talent agencies or the agents that represent these talents or even much about how these brand deals slash influencer people, slash TV shows. That's a whole world that's completely invisible, I think, to most of us,

Bridget Read [00:56:31] totally. Which is why when you're a reporter, right, you have to go figure that out. So. So again, so much left on the cutting room for it. But truly a lot of the story was just figuring out, like, how much of these, how much product are these women actually moving and why do we think that they can actually, they can get people to buy stuff in a way that other types of influencers can't. And I talked to a lot of companies who again, say that the way these women have mobilized their networks because, because they're like normal moms, their followers really follow them in a way that a celebrity with many more, millions of followers might not actually move people to click on their link.

Bridget Read [00:57:12] Right? And this is what an influencer, an Instagram influencer calls engagement. And this is the number one metric of being an influencer on their. On the Internet, probably so much so that, you know, Mormon stories you might talk about, like your engagement level, maybe you don't have several million followers, but the followers you do have are highly engaged. Right? So like, that in itself is, Is something to think about.

Bridget Read [00:57:44] That's like one level of the interaction that's happening then, like what you're talking about on top of once you get above the influencers themselves. Now we have this other layer of talent agents and producers. And select, that company you talked about, Danielle and some of her colleagues, they represent almost all of the Mormon Wives. So select represents the Mormon Wives. Select is owned by the production company Propagate that makes the Mormon Wives and then Hulu, which shows, the Mormon Wives show is owned by abc, which makes the Bachelorette and Dancing with the Stars. So now you've got all these incentive networks and these women are at the bottom, like with their kids, living their lives, and you've got people invested in this second Mormon moment, many of whom are living in like mansions in Beverly Hills or in New York City or, you know, it's really, it's a machine right now.

Bridget Read [00:58:39] And the machine is not just these influencers and it, and it, it really, it really has gone fully mainstream and it's fully embedded in probably the highest echelons of, I mean we have Disney right above abc. Disney is the biggest entertainment entity on the planet. Has gotten in on the Mormons.

John Dehlin [00:59:00] Absolutely. Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is owned by Disney ultimately. Right. It's an ABC Hulu Disney enterprise.

Bridget Read [00:59:11] Yeah, I mean it is. Everybody is cashing in. And for us, you know, from a journalism perspective, that's when you go in and you say what's this all about? You know, rather than just kind of accept it and not think critically about it.

The Real Money Behind Mormon Influencer Culture

John Dehlin [00:59:32] Are you able to share the like, do you have a sense for the net worth of these women and, or the annual income of these women and or the size of the brand deals you talked about some of these women turning down six figure offers. What can you tell us about actual dollar amounts that we're talking about here with any of these women?

Bridget Read [00:59:58] Yeah, I mean I talked to a talent agent who said even her non, her clients who are not on the show but who are moms in Utah, all of them are making at least $300,000

John Dehlin [01:00:14] a year or a brand new

Bridget Read [01:00:15] year a year gross. So that's even, that's, that's just, that's not even women who are getting the paycheck from the show. Right. That's just like, you know, those are not famous people. So to me that was like a tremendous amount of money.

John Dehlin [01:00:31] So you're seeing ancillary influencers just in this broader ecosystem are making at least $300,000 a year.

Bridget Read [01:00:41] This, this one agent who does represent a lot of Mormon mom influencers or exmo influencers reported that. So that's somewhat anecdotal. But, but was was really powerful to

Samantha Shelley [01:00:54] hear

Bridget Read [01:00:57] the company that was featured on the show. I can't remember which season Hydro Jug Hydrogen is featured all the time. This other company, Emco Beauty, they by using the more the Mormon Wives stars as spokespeople and doing sort of brand deals with them, you know, Hydro Jug sold out, I think. Oh, I'm not, I shouldn't repeat figures if I can't remember them, but I think over a million dollars worth of merchandise in like two days with Whitney Levitt's, you know, activation or whatever with Hydro Jug, something like that. Some, some staggering number. You know, hydro jug actually pivoted from their old gym jug to the car based Stanley Esque cup to appeal to Mormon women because they saw the market, you know, so, so there, there is a lot of money to be made on both sides.

John Dehlin [01:02:00] And later you talk about Swig being owned by like a venture capital firm or like Larry H. Miller and, and you talk about the Huntsman's investing in curls. Like we're talking. This is shaping up to be what, a billions, billions plus kind of mini industry?

Bridget Read [01:02:21] Oh, I think so. The beauty industry itself is so big and there really is a, a lock on it right now among, among Mormons and among Mormon women and, and sort of Mormon aesthetics. You know, this idea of like Mormon beauty. Yes, I, you're gonna, the article is fresher for you than for me. But yes, we did, we did find some examples of sort of the old money Mormon families who, this is all conjecture, but who you could imagine might disapprove of a show like this. Right. Because they're quite active in the church and also in the state of Utah, but who are cashing in in these ways on these sort of influencery brands. And that was interesting to discover.

John Dehlin [01:03:11] Yeah. Okay, so in terms of like annual income or net worth of like a Whitney Levitt or Taylor Frankie Paul, you don't want to speculate.

Bridget Read [01:03:21] I, I mean, several million. Yeah, easy, easy. Again, that's like gross. And I'm sure they have a ton of expenses and you know, they have a lot of babysitters and glam artists and you know, I think Jessie probably makes a lot more because her hair brand is so, so lucrative. But I don't know. And what, you know, they all have these other ventures now. I don't know what you get paid for Dancing with the Stars, but they're making a lot more, let's just say a lot more money than me.

John Dehlin [01:03:51] I love it. So you mentioned that Jesse Draper referred to the Mormon Church as a background character. And you know, you talk a lot about perfectionism and garments and soft swinging and, but also the, you know, the, the wives attending a pride event and kind of trashing on patriarchy. Talk more about that idea of the Mormon Church being a background character in some of these shows.

Bridget Read [01:04:17] You know, it is, it is. I think it's a pretty apt way to describe it and I don't know. Yeah, yeah, maybe your, your experience watching it is probably so different from mine because there are ways you're probably picking up on more specific, like, sort of Mormon specifics than I am. But then at the same time, there are probably things that stand out to me that I've never heard about before that for you are more normal to hear and think about.

Bridget Read [01:04:46] But, yeah, I think that as they've become more successful, the show has traveled even further from the church because it's so much now of the drama is about these influencing deals and, like, who's going to whose book launch and all kinds of stuff. So I think if the church is even more receding into the background. But certainly in the beginning, I think it was forming the. Yeah. The texture against which they were all sort of interacting.

Samantha Shelley [01:05:14] Right.

Bridget Read [01:05:14] Like, you had Zach, who was from this, like, bright blonde Mormon family, and Jen, who's Latina, and they're sort of like they're arguing about, you know, who's more. Is Jen being a good Mormon mom? And. Yeah, I think.

Bridget Read [01:05:31] But at the same time, like you said in the very beginning of this conversation, you know, if you take a hard black and white definition of who's Mormon, like, they're. Many of them are not. And so. So in that sense, yeah, you can't really. You can't really push.

Bridget Read [01:05:48] Can't really be in the foreground, because if you really went to the source, the answer would be they're. They're not. They're not representing the church as the church wants to be represented. So by default, it kind of lingers in the background.

Bridget Read [01:06:03] And I think that's. That's also what enables the church to really distance itself. But then I think also probably benefit from so much conversation around Mormonism right now.

Hannah Neeleman and the Tensions of Mormon Wifehood

John Dehlin [01:06:15] Yeah. This comes up in your discussion about. With it with Heather Gay at the end. But Heather. So you talk extensively about Hannah Neeleman, and we can get into that. But you have this quote from Heather Gay that there's not a lot of sunlight between secret lies of Mormon wives and Hannah Neeleman, which I. First of all, I didn't understand what she was saying at first, and then I had to think about it a couple times and read your explanation. But talk about what Heather meant by that and Heather's additional insights about how the Mormon Church inexplicably might be benefiting from a PR perspective because of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

Bridget Read [01:07:01] Yeah, I actually visited Heather's old family temple with her and walked around and tried to go into a visitor center if there was one, but there wasn't. So I ended up just seeing, like, the temple's sort of lobby.

John Dehlin [01:07:19] Draper Draper Temple,

Bridget Read [01:07:22] Jordan River.

John Dehlin [01:07:23] Okay. Okay.

Bridget Read [01:07:25] Which is beautiful. It was a lovely sunny day, and we walked around And Heather and I had coffee cups because we had had coffee and she was saying how rogue that was. But of course she's like gone so much Roger than that. So. So it was really no so easy for her.

Bridget Read [01:07:45] But yeah, Heather, essentially, if the Mormon wives are doing kind of this new Mormonism, cultural Mormonism thing, pushing the boundaries of, of what a Mormon woman might look like. Hannah Nealman in the story is really an example of a much more traditional Mormon mother, but also maybe a more traditional conservative American mother and trying to kind of figure out, you know, if some women are going to the Mormon wives because they're kind of liberating themselves from a more traditional gendered environment. Hannah Neeleman is someone really celebrating a more traditional gender dividend.

Bridget Read [01:08:30] And. And why is that also getting a ton of followers and not just in the United States, but like Hannah Nealman has a huge international following. So. So that's very interesting to think about and kind of two tensions.

Bridget Read [01:08:43] And Heather was really saying to me, actually those things are not as intention as you might think because even the Secret Life stars are still presenting a vision of American women that are having children and primarily concerned with them in the home. Even if it's a bit of an act with the Mormon wives now because they have a ton of childcare and they're like working women for sure. They are doing a performance of motherhood and a performance of femininity. And so is Hannah Neeleman. So I think Heather was really trying to say that both of those, even though they might seem to be more aligned or less aligned with the church itself, both of them are, are still upholding the main pillars of gender dynamics in the LDS Church, which is a more a position of, you know, of the patriarchy for, you know, if we just want to be clear about it, right.

Bridget Read [01:09:41] A position of dominance of the household by the man and a very circumscribed role for women. So for her, that's what she meant by there's neither. There's not as much daylight as you might think between someone like Ballerina Farm and the Mormon Wives because they're all beautiful moms that are happy with their role first being moms more than, more than anything else.

John Dehlin [01:10:07] Wait, did you just call Ballerina Farms performative?

Bridget Read [01:10:12] I. I think all, all of social media as a performer.

John Dehlin [01:10:18] I'm totally teasing, Samantha. I want to get you in on that really quick. Like if you, if you had to think about an impossible question, which is the 1590 year olds in Salt Lake that are running the church or the Bain or McKinsey management consultants that are consulting them. Like, are they happy at the end of the day thinking that secret lives are Mormon wives? And let's focus more on the management consultants than the gerontocracy, because obviously those dudes are too old to really be able to think through this clearly. But do you think the McKinsey Urbane consultants leading the Mormon church, and I say that tongue in cheek, think that ultimately secret lies of Mormon wives is good for the Mormon brand or bad?

Samantha Shelley [01:11:09] I think we're probably past the point in culture where just like a prominent person in media being Mormon is that helpful, Especially given the fact that most secular people watch Mormon wives and think all of it is chaos. You know, I don't think it's presenting Mormonism as appealing in any way. So I. I don't think that they would be that thrilled by it.

John Dehlin [01:11:36] Okay, well, I'll ask you, Bridget, like it, you know, putting on my social scientist or psychology hat for a second. Like, there's the argument that there's the. There's the traditional idea that the more demanding a religion is, the more strict the help, the stronger the member allegiance is to it. And so the argument would be then that if secret lives of Mormon wives or religious Real Housewives of Salt Lake are encouraging immodesty from the Mormon Church's perspective or drinking or divorce or women's liberation or whatever, that that's gonna be a bad thing for Mormonism because it's gonna weaken people's observance and obedience and commitment to the church and bastardize or pollute our identity from being squeaky clean Donny and Marie Osmond, like pre gay David Archuleta, you know, Leave it to Beaver sort of vibes.

John Dehlin [01:12:40] So that's one argument that it's bad for Mormonism. But there's the other argument that it's like, hey, it's better than under the banner of heaven. It's better than freaking Mennonites or, you know, Warren Jeffs. Like, this is way better.

John Dehlin [01:12:56] It's like cool and hip and sexy and fun. Fun and not just like demonized by the world like polygamists were, but embraced and celebrated by the world. I wish you could have. And maybe you did talk to some of the church marketing or PR insiders to try and get a sense for what they really think about the benefits or harm that these shows are causing the church.

Bridget Read [01:13:26] Yeah, I mean, the church leadership remains a black box. Maybe not for all journalists, but certainly for us. And they, they certainly didn't comment on the record at all. I was able to talk to some LDS influencers who actually do talk about the faith, at being members of the faith. And those people did say like, I'm enjoying this. It's nice to not be, you know, made fun of constantly and in a mean kind of way like the Book of Mormon or like, you know, other sort of depictions have in the past. And, and you know, citing like was under, under the Banner of Heaven was a show recently, right?

John Dehlin [01:14:11] Yes, yes, it was needed to a little like.

Bridget Read [01:14:14] Yeah, you know, I think that there's, and of course, you know, there's like some really deep cut Mormon influencers who like, you know, they don't want to talk anymore about Mountain Meadows. They don't want to talk anymore about, you know, they, they want to. The lightness of this fair, I think really is a relief to them. That's, that's just as an outsider watching some of this content, like, I think it's fun to actually have a true social media meme like the, the different dances, the mom talk women do. Like that actually gave them a way to talk about memes that I'm not sure a true LDS influencer would ever have an opportunity to like use a real meme that's Mormons.

Bridget Read [01:14:53] You know, like it gave them conversation that wasn't so dark and heavy exactly in the way that you're saying, John. But I, but I do think what Sam was saying is true that I don't know if the show itself is creating conversions or baptisms. I do think there's probably a sort of sub level of level, excuse me, of runoff of like people who are interested, seeking, looking for a home spiritually and who might simply just be exposed to Mormonism through this show and that, that might bring somebody into the church not because they're necessarily seeing these women and wanting to emulate, emulate their lifestyle, but simply like again, the SEO for, for the, the church itself.

Bridget Read [01:15:44] So in that way there might be again, just the way that, that the Book of Mormon, you know, helped set the stage for the I Am a Mormon campaign. You know, there might be a way that this helps the church, I don't know, have another little eek, eek into the next era.

Bridget Read [01:16:07] The LDS Church numbers wise from what I've, I've been able to find in my research, not as an expert, but as in the limited research I've done. It does remind me actually of MLM and that MLM really hasn't grown in, in a long time, but it, it grows just enough new people Just enough new people kind of come in to keep it going.

Bridget Read [01:16:34] I, I feel like maybe that's, maybe that's the thing that the church will get out of this period. Not necessarily like a huge rise in membership, which they are kind of trying to sell a little bit like multiple influencers are talking about, oh, it was our biggest baptism year at, yet. But even if that's not true, but there's just a little bit of increase in membership, you know, that, that might be just enough what the church needs to hold on for another generation.

John Dehlin [01:17:03] There's, there's the, what it does to Mormon culture and, and active Mormon membership and orthodoxy and behavior. There's what it does to the missionary effort, and then there's what it does to the overall image of Mormons in the United States of the world. Because one of the reasons I believe the church abandoned the identity, the Mormon identity. Well, one is because Mormon stories and other ex Mormon blogs and podcasts and YouTube channels just saturated social media and took over SEO for the word Mormon. I think they realized they lost that battle. But also, whenever people would do polls of like, favorability ratings for different religious traditions, Mormons would always inevitably, even as of recently, rank at the very bottom.

John Dehlin [01:17:49] Like, almost. It's like Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses, and then Mormons and then it's like Muslims, you know, and so Mormons have had a really bad reputation for quite a long time, especially after Prop 8. And so I do wonder whether the, the perceptions of, of basically Mormon reputation or esteem is going to be lifted somewhat by this.

Bridget Read [01:18:15] Yeah. Or whether just like Mormons, Mormon women can be smuggled into just the larger movement towards, like, whether you want to call them trad wives or whether it's just like mom content, you know, mom and parenting content is enormous right now. And so. And again, for women, it's like the, it's. It's being normalized in such a way that again, focusing on women's roles as wives and mothers is no longer seen as retrograde. It's much more nuanced, but also it's like very marketable. And so in that respect, I think the church's incentives are aligned with some of the world's biggest brands and that, that they have the same aesthetics and the same.

Bridget Read [01:19:03] The values might be very different, but they, they all involve bringing in and sort of selling a narrative to women about motherhood. And so in that way, I do think the conversation. Not in the way Heather Gay is having it, obviously, but in the way the Mormon wives are having it. I think they certainly wouldn't find that as objectionable as say, Heather Gay's Surviving Mormonism series, that kind of thing.

John Dehlin [01:19:34] One of my huge takeaways from your article, there's always that, that Watergate maxim, you know, follow the money. Like if, if you want to reduce the Mormon Church to a multi hundred billion dollar multinational corporation, if you want to be cynical and reduce the Mormon Church to that in 2026 and that really what the Mormon Church is about is about making more money than God himself or herself. Certainly when you talk about Mitt Romney's former assistant chief of staff owning Swig and Larry Miller or owning one of the companies, what was it? Mitt Romney's.

Bridget Read [01:20:16] He's an executive at Larry H. Miller Co. And works on Swig. He's the CEO of Swig.

John Dehlin [01:20:23] When you talk about the Huntsman's investing in Curls and all the, the, the billion dollar, multi billion dollar market, what one way the Mormon Church almost inevitably benefits from all of this, and you did touch on this in your article, is it just likely makes the church more wealthy, right?

Bridget Read [01:20:41] Yes. I mean I actually think, and we sort of explain this in the article, but oh my God, I do, I do still exist. I'm not a ghost, but my camera isn't showing me as a real person. The, the Mormons being so interested and invested in tech means that the Mormon Church itself, through its private equity and other investment funds, is actually invested in the social Internet. Meta, Nvidia, Amazon. These are the big investments.

Bridget Read [01:21:12] Exactly. Microsoft. So the actual texture, these. That's what I mean by like we are all posting in a controlled, close, closed system that is owned by actual entities we can identify. Right. The Mormon Church is deeply invested in those entities. So whether it's we're posting in favor, not in favor, even Mormon Stories itself, my article itself, the church is actually part of the infrastructure that we are using even to have these conversations. So on that level, when you've been wealthy enough for this long of a time, it's almost impossible to get away right. From the, from the various parts of the church that are making money off of you.

Bridget Read [01:21:53] So, so that really is like the article kind of ends, I think in realizing that like the way the Internet has grown has really enabled a high control environment for us all in which the church is invested at such a level. And of course the state of Utah too. Right. Even if young moms want to move to Utah just because it looks amazing because of the show, even if they don't become Mormons, they're moving to Utah. Right. You're lining the pockets of the church one way or another because of the church's investment to the state of Utah. So that too, you know, is going to be good for the church, even if it's not in actual conversions or baptism.

What Reality TV Reveals About Mormon Women's Lives

John Dehlin [01:22:33] Really quickly, there's so many things I want to ask and we're running out of time. Really quickly. When you think about. Well, I was. Well, when, when we talk about Tanner, Frankie, Paul throwing chairs at Dakota and her children and child, child abuse and domestic abuse or, you know, when we just think about the potential trauma between Jen and Zach and when we think of all the ways that the show, the secret show, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is probably really toxic to the mental health individually and the relational health. They're almost all getting divorced, which isn't necessarily bad. Of course, we believe in good divorces.

John Dehlin [01:23:19] But there's an ethical question about to what extent are these shows bad for the people involved, but also bad for America, bad for global culture? Because they're just modeling, you could argue, really horrific, obnoxious, toxic, unhealthy behaviors. And then you think about, like, I, I was really surprised you didn't mention Ruby Frankie and Jody Hill Grant. Not. I wasn't surprised because I know that editing, it's all about what you take out and meeting word limits and stuff. But like, one reason I was maybe, let's just say wanting a part 2 of this article or maybe a future, maybe a book from you is because like Jody Hillebrand and Ruby Frankie or Lori Valo and Chad dabell, the kind of the Mormon true crime stuff shows the darker side of when social media starts getting into the, you know, Mormonism and broader popular culture and how it affects families and marriages and parenting and children.

John Dehlin [01:24:25] And I'm curious if you have any comments on the toxicity and the ethics of shows like this for the people involved, for the marriages involved, for the families involved and for the broader culture global and United States.

Bridget Read [01:24:42] Yeah, I mean, we have, my colleagues, some of my colleagues have run. We've done some amazing stories on one of my colleagues I'm not going to remember which. I have a colleague that wrote a long form deep dive into a different influencer family, non Mormon, but a family who I think adopted a child on YouTube and then basically like erased the fact that they did it.

Bridget Read [01:25:07] It's a YouTuber YouTuber family. And, and they've written extensively on, on Ruby Frankie. So we just kind of, we decided that it was like you just said, almost like a different. Another article like it, it was so much to get into that we, that we kind of put it aside.

Bridget Read [01:25:25] But it is, of course, a huge, huge thing. And that's where Utah's really interesting because of the way that I think more, more moralistic legislation in Utah is more, is normal. So like the legislation having passed more restrictive laws on using kids in social media, I think is very interesting since Utah is so deregulatory in other ways, like so permissive in terms of private business. But yeah, I mean, I, I, I think, I think my fears are the same as yours. I, I do worry that all of this is, is just furthering our own exploitation as women, as consumers.

Bridget Read [01:26:10] And, and yeah, I think when you bring children into that mix, it is something to worry about. Just what kind of stability, even, even in the Utah gold rush right now, what kind of stability does this type of economic output, type of labor bring a family? Because really, this is labor. Like posting is work. It is how these women are making their money and they have no protections in the same way that other workers do. And that's really troubling. And so, yeah, I think, yeah, it's hard to, it makes me worried.

John Dehlin [01:26:48] It's hard to have crocodile tears because they're all millionaires.

Bridget Read [01:26:52] Yeah, sure, I think so. But, but at the same time, you know, why do I think social media took off so much among young women again is because, like, what are the other opportunities we're being given in a, in a, in a larger economy where the wealth gap is so stark and getting starker every year, where student debt, where credit card debt, where medical debt is. There's, we have no relief. I mean, I can see why the idea that the job you have as a mother would actually make you a very comfortable life, I think is really seductive. So, you know, I think when you're a journalist, you really do try to bring, I don't know, CC all sides.

John Dehlin [01:27:39] So.

Bridget Read [01:27:41] Yeah, but I think it's really troubling and I think it's not necessarily a great thing to rely on for security, for health, for stability, and that we should all be a little, just conscious of this fun and frothy and silly show. What it is really saying about how we kind of live, you know.

John Dehlin [01:28:07] Yeah, I'll just extend that and say I think having been on social media, Mormon Stories is 20 years old at this point. It's, it's incredibly difficult to have a healthy personal life to maintain help positive mental health as an individual content contributor. And then it's extremely stressful in a marriage and it can be very Very damaging on children. And, you know, we all know about the epidemic of mental health problems for, for youth and young adults in the United States. So, like, there's a. You know, and just this week, I think Meta and Google were found liable for addiction and, you know, harming participants. I'll shut up and let you jump in there, Bridget.

Bridget Read [01:28:55] No, no, I was, I was going to bring up that same, that same thing that I also think we're seeing, like, generationally, what, what does it mean to not only normalize this, this way of living online, but also the age that you come into it. And I think that that's really scary. If all these little kids are watching their moms all day going on around like this, you know, they're not going to know anything else. So it's not even going to be a matter of, like, why are these kids choosing to do it. It's going to be like, that is what they were exposed to and they, they didn't even necessarily think about another way of, of life. And so, yeah, not to wrap up on a dark note, but, no, no,

John Dehlin [01:29:45] we won't end there. I did get a run, Samantha. I. I'm just curious. Jasmine Rapalai was also interviewed in this story, but I kind of see Hannah Neeleman and even Jasmine. I. I just can't see how this ends well just because of the stress and the pressure and the visibility. And I just think fame can. Can be ultimately very toxic and dangerous. Samantha, I'm curious if you have thoughts on that.

Samantha Shelley [01:30:15] Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything you both just said, and I also think that reality TV is at its best when it's shining a light on things that were sort of previously hidden. Sorry, I've got such a cough. And I do think the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives does a really good job showing how patriarchy ruins people, essentially. Like, we've seen so many storylines on the show that are the sort of natural consequences of patriarchy and now, like, the ways it's interacting with capitalism and social media. But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, going back to that thought of feeling like the, the secret live show, you know, it's not making Mormonism look good to me.

Samantha Shelley [01:31:02] I mean, like, the, the breakdowns of the marriages that we're seeing happen seem like breakdowns that should happen. And it's like, yeah, having this extra light shone on these people in ways that is destabilizing. You know, there's like, ethical considerations there, but it's ultimately just like revealing something that was true all along. I think, like, obviously fame and money and all that is, like, heightening sort of the stakes or like the intensity of everything. But I'm sort of of the opinion that I don't know if something should burn, let it burn. And I think there's ways.

Samantha Shelley [01:31:43] I just think it's a mixed bag. I think the show does do some good in. It's. Yeah, it's showing the lives of these people that are very chaotic. But I think there is a way that that can be a helpful thing as well.

John Dehlin [01:31:57] I see what you're saying. All right, Bridget, I have two quick questions. Do you have time for two very quick questions?

Bridget Read [01:32:02] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:32:03] Okay. The first is, do you see this, this Mormon mom talk, you know, secret Real Housewives, Secret Lives moment as being a fad that because of things like the Taylor Frankie Paul scandal or all the divorces, do you see it as something that eventually implodes and collapses and falls out of popularity and even becomes, you know, develops a lot of social antipathy for what it did to us in retrospect? Or do you see it. Do you see it growing and thriving and becoming dominant for. For decades to come or somewhere in the middle?

Samantha Shelley [01:32:46] I. There.

Bridget Read [01:32:47] I mean, they've. They've all but announced a spin off in California, so I think we're getting more Mormons, so that. So it's happening. Yeah, I, I think there's always like a kind of cluster in this way in pop culture. Right. Like, you're seeing it now with heated rivalry. The hockey show. It's like, are we going to get a million hockey shows? You know, that kind of thing happens a lot in TV and in Hollywood. So I think we are definitely in a moment that's going to recede, but I don't think that it's going to go away as quickly as, like, Taylor being, you know, acts from the Bachelorette.

Bridget Read [01:33:30] I think there's already other projects in motion. And, you know, Hollywood producers I spoke to told me, like, this always happens when something is as hot as Mormon wives. You have producers all around the country looking for other Mormon shows. So I, I think we are going to see some more pretty soon.

John Dehlin [01:33:47] Do you. Do you know if Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, the franchise is currently in jeopardy?

Bridget Read [01:33:54] I doubt it. I really don't think so. I think that this, you know, I don't. The, the incident that the video that went viral before the cancellation was from was known to producers? I don't know. I don't think the video was known necessarily, but the police report was right. It was on the show already. So Mormon Wives has already metabolized this incident. Even if, like, seeing the video really changes it for some people, I don't think it will change enough. I think there are enough Mormonwives stands that this will not break that show. I don't think. But I think other people do think that. So that's totally just my opinion.

Heather Gay and the Limits of Mormon Visibility

John Dehlin [01:34:39] Okay. The final, the final thing that I wanted to share and just wanted to give you a chance to comment on is there was this moment, and I'm friends with Heather Gay and Dre Robinson and I, I love them both dearly. But there, there's this moment where you talked all about beauty lab, laser and cosmetic surgery. And then when Heather was talking about there being no daylight between, you know, Hannah Nealman Ballerina Farm and secret lies of Mormon Wives, she makes this point.

John Dehlin [01:35:09] She says it's merely a cosmetic move. As if that's bad for the Mormon Church to make a cosmetic move. As someone who, you know, runs, you know, who cares a lot about beauty. I had this. And she's speaking from her $3 million home and ballerina Farms is in the tens of millions. And what I took away from your article, and I don't mean this to be dark, is that in some sense, whether it's the corporate corporation, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or Ballerina Farm or Secret Lives of Mormon Wives or Real Housewives of Salt Lake, what it's. Or Larry Miller or, or Mitt Romney or the Huntsmans or whoever, it seems like it's all about the money.

John Dehlin [01:36:00] It's all about the Benjamin's. Like, if there's one driving force behind all this, Hulu, abc, Disney, it's like greed. It's money, money, money, money. People want money. And that's where I got from your article.

Bridget Read [01:36:18] Well, John, I mean, now you're describing like capitalism itself, right? And we could talk about what Karl Marx would think of the secret lives of our lives. And I would actually love to talk about that. But this is, yeah, I mean this is, this is the problem in any industry.

Bridget Read [01:36:33] But I think Heather, though I will just say, like Heather choosing to use her platform. I mean, first of all, Heather, Heather is open about like riding the wave. And this is in the article itself about how she built Beauty lab and laser as the Mormon influencers were, were taking off and needed all these beauty treatments. So she really is like indebted in this weird way to the thing that also she is, she is finds was really something she's liberated from. Like, so she's very, it's very, I think, what's the word I'm looking for? She's conflicted. Right. About this Mormon influencer world because she really benefited from it.

Bridget Read [01:37:11] But now she's probably pretty critical of it. So, so she's open about that. And then two, I would, I will just say using your platform to then do something like Surviving Mormonism,

Samantha Shelley [01:37:22] for which

Bridget Read [01:37:23] she undoubtedly did not make money in the same way that you make money from a program that isn't so controversial and, and frankly dark and brings up issues that are really not as sexy and light and you know it. I, I speak from authority when I say selling advertising around something like Surviving Mormonism is much harder than something like Mormon Wives. So I will say I think she is somebody that has, has turned down certain levels of monetization in order to speak her truth in a way that I think is different. And, and yeah, so, so there, I just, just to give some context there.

Bridget Read [01:38:09] But yeah, I mean, look, we're all, I think, I think there's so many. It's so hard not to be implicated. And especially if you're on this level of fame and working with companies like Disney and Hulu, then I think, yes, it's very difficult not to be implicated in this, you know, enormous monetization machine.

John Dehlin [01:38:28] Yeah. Well, well, before we wrap up, let me. Samantha, I just want to give you a final chance to give a last word on anything. I almost expected you to be snapping at the video camera when capitalism was mentioned.

Samantha Shelley [01:38:43] I was behind the scene.

John Dehlin [01:38:47] Samantha's the anti capitalist of all anti capitalists. But go ahead, Samantha.

Samantha Shelley [01:38:52] Yeah, you don't get enough Karl Marx references on women's stories normally. So that was nice. I guess just the only thing I've been. This has been such a good conversation to just be lurking in the background of. But something that keeps coming to mind is I wonder if like, you know, Mormons are so big in the zeitgeist right now. I wonder if they're so. They're like the perfect other group through which people on both sides of the like religious or political aisle can kind of examine stuff because they're sort of niche and other enough that it's not necessarily too threatening for anyone. Like if this

Samantha Shelley [01:39:35] was a show about evangelical wives or Jews, even if it was like ostensibly quite similar, there's something about the fact that Mormonism is this like niche religion that I think is really useful. And like, yeah, I suppose it's just less threatening to religious and non religious people or conservatives and liberals, whatever.

John Dehlin [01:39:58] That's a good Point.

Bridget Read [01:40:01] Well, I think that's, that's so well said.

John Dehlin [01:40:04] Yeah, well, I, I was also Bridget, one of the notes I had is why she never mentioned politics. She never mentioned maga. But, but again, editing I know is, is, is crucial to a good article. Let me just end on this, Bridget. Share anything you want to share about future work. I'm hoping that a book is in the works on this topic if you're going to be doing more articles or features. But tell us what Mormonism may or may not be in your future.

Bridget Read's Book and Closing Reflections

Bridget Read [01:40:35] Well, the paperback of my MLM book, Little Bosses Everywhere comes out in the fall. It comes out in October. So hopefully I'll do some more podcasts and other kinds of press and appearances on for that book. I'm not working on anything right now in the pipeline about Mormons except that I follow the show. I listen to Mormon stories, so. So now Mormons are really in my, in my orbit.

Bridget Read [01:41:02] Even more so. I hope to continue to be part of the conversation. I'm not sure exactly how. And just like very quickly on the MAGA question, what I think we were trying to do was tackle these aesthetics of traditional conservative values that MAGA has been trying to use and exploit and sort of contort. And not necessarily through the lens of politics, but through the lens of culture and through aesthetics and through social media images and the values that someone like, you know, ballerina farm projects and, and sort of do the conversation that way. But yes, I mean, there's so much to talk about in terms of Utah.

Bridget Read [01:41:47] What, what? Utah is this very interesting almost post MAGA to me, sort of territory that I think a lot of conservatives are putting a lot of interest in Utah. Utah being a place that almost feels too nice for maga. But anyway, we can have a lot of conversation, but I do, I do probably have to run. I. But I love both of you. It's really great to talk.

John Dehlin [01:42:08] So they should buy, subscribe to New York Magazine and buy your book.

Bridget Read [01:42:12] Yes, that would be great. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:42:14] All right. Well, Bridget Reed, thank you for coming. Thank you for your article and articles and book. Thank you for coming on Mormon Stories. Thanks for the excellent journalism you do. Please consider yourself a friend of the show. Please intrude anytime you want to come on the show or have questions or want to partner or collaborate. I think the world of you and what New York Magazine is doing. And I just, I just, I wish you the best and anytime we can help. Thank you.

Bridget Read [01:42:43] Thank you both so much. Thanks a lot.

John Dehlin [01:42:45] All right, take care. Bridget and Samantha, what do you think about Bridget saying Utah's post maga.

Samantha Shelley [01:42:52] Post maga.

John Dehlin [01:42:53] I'm kind of mischaracterizing a little bit,

Bridget Read [01:42:56] but, no, I think. I think some conservatives think it's. It's a way to, like, get past Donald. It's like, okay, that's Florida. This is a different. This is different. It's a nicer. It's in a nicer package is all I'm saying. I'm not saying it's, but it's. It's. It's. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:43:11] Anyway, yeah, I. I don't mean to play back in. I was just teasing. I think Utah might have a higher percentage of MAGA voters than Florida, believe it or not. But.

Bridget Read [01:43:19] Oh, my God.

John Dehlin [01:43:20] Anyway, it was just fun. Thank you. Thank you, Bridget. Thanks for joining us. Samantha Shelley is up on the shelf. Samantha Shelley coaching. It's always great to have you, Samantha.

Samantha Shelley [01:43:29] Thanks for having me, John.

John Dehlin [01:43:31] All right, thanks, Bridget. And thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Thanks to Julia and Brooklyn for what they do behind the scenes. Thanks to all the donors that make it possible. I'll just say really quickly, I announced yesterday that mediation with the Mormon Church in their threats to sue Mormon Stories podcast and me personally for allegedly violating trademark and copyright. Mediation talks have fallen through officially, and we're now waiting to see if the church is going to sue me and Mormon Stories podcast. So we just. We couldn't agree to their terms. We found their terms to be unacceptable and inappropriate, honestly. So, anyway, that's just an update there, and I hope we never have to talk about it again.

John Dehlin [01:44:19] But if we receive a lawsuit, if we're served, then we'll be talking all about it. So anyway, that's just an update. Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Love to have you all. Thanks to everyone who donates to make this show possible. We don't do product placements or sponsorships or brand deals, so all we have is a little bit ad revenue in your donation. So if you value this content and you want to see it continue, please go to mormonstories.org sl donate, become a monthly donor and.

John Dehlin [01:44:48] And we'll keep doing the show for as long as we can. All right, everyone, take care. Thanks again. And we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care, everybody.

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