Pop Culture Mondays/5.31.22
The “MORMON MOM INFLUENCER” Edition
Hello, my pop culture junkies, and happy Tuesday. If you had a long weekend and were able to enjoy it and are now in full panic mode for the short week and all that has to be done, you are my people. We all need a holiday…certainly, if you live in America you do. So yes…we had another mass shooting. Another one in a school…an elementary school where nineteen 10-year-olds were murdered and their two teachers were found trying to protect them. They too lost their lives. It is too much to comprehend and I wrestled with how to cover it and decided that it was a topic for the podcast as it was too heartwrenching to try to tackle in this newsletter. There were several viral moments from it that got everyone talking and one of the most impactful was that of Warriors coach Steve Kerr:
If only our politicians had the courage that Coach Kerr did. But really, I am too heartbroken to write more about this. But please do listen to my podcast last week which I did with the remarkable Nayeema Raza, the producer of Kara Swisher’s “SWAY”.
And I applaud Jimmy Kimmel for really telling it like it is to his viewers:
And this happened over the weekend which if it wasn’t so tragic would be actually pretty funny. But it’s not funny when you think about it. Not funny at all and that some people in the audience thought he was serious? TERRIFYING.
But, while we all must FIGHT for better gun laws on top of everything else we need to fight for…let us find a little escape for a moment. If you are new here, welcome. Grab some headphones and say goodbye to a few brain cells and enjoy the escape…
MORMON MOM TIKTOK DRAMA:
Guys. I will open with the truth and that is I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS HAPPENING. I will say this is the first time I cannot actually get my head wrapped around a drama. Thankfully, this Thursday I will have a VERY VERY special podcast guest who is really the most knowledgeable human on all things pop culture and TikTok and she will break it down for us, but let me see if I can at least get you to some place of understanding. Let’s go on this journey together.
I will say there has been NO other story that has inspired SO many emails and tweets from you guys asking me to cover this. It has crossed into mainstream and now people are asking me to showcase it and I am filled with anxiety at my lack of understanding here. But let’s start where I am most comfortable, and that is talking about my own experiences.
Back around 1986 or ’97 I had a very dear friend who was Mormon and she and her family lived in South Carolina. I came from a pretty quiet home where my much older siblings were out of the house and my parents worked all the time so being able to spend time with a friend who had a gazillion siblings was amazing and foreign to me. The house was always in chaos. Meals were all about the survival of the fittest and we would sleep wherever we fell. It was heaven to me. Being that this was a Mormon family there were certain things that were SO different from how I grew up. First of all, soda was a MOST DEF NO NO. Whereas I lived on Tab and then Diet Cokes…when I visited my friend and her family, sodas were NOT allowed. Which is why her older sister would take us out back and sneak us JOLTS. DO you know what a JOLT is?
ALL THE SUGAR.
TWICE THE CAFFEINE.
So, here is the needle I am trying to thread here. Because Mormons were not allowed to drink caffeine, it became the forbidden fruit SO they had to sneak the MOST amount of caffeine known to man. We were WIRED 24/7. IT was incredible. Literally like taking speed…I was 12 and flying high baby.
My friend’s dad also had a whole other family in Hawaii. Another wife and kids and that was ALL ok and openly discussed. And her older sisters and brothers got married like when they were 17 or 18. Anyway, the point is they were not allowed to do certian things in the eyes of GOD (smoking, sex, drinking, caffeine, sugar) and of course they did all of those things times 100. Not because they were teens but because it was against MORMONISM. So the kids rebelled. SO, here we are in 2022 and we have MORMON INFLUENCER TIKTOK. First, hereis a good description of a Mormon hiding things from her parents:
If you spend time on TikTok, you have been served a Mormon Influncer video whether you knew it or not. They all share the same general aesthetic…floral dresses or work out gear, hats, kids, big houses, big closets…I love this creator who tried to break down the different types of Mormon influencers. This is before the drama we are about to get into:
OK, so let’s get into THIS drama. AND I WILL ADD we are not 100 percent sure these people are MORMONS strangely. They all live in Utah and seem to fall into the STYLE of Mormon moms but they do not talk about it whereas they def party and drink and so forth so maybe they have fallen in the eyes of the church. But let’s dive in…And get ready, it has all the fun things you would expect…a group of couples who are all besties and they do everything together INCLUDING apparently, sexy time. Well, they do everything but actual sex…in what we are now calling SOFT SWINGING. That is correct. Blow jobs YES. Anal NO. 🥳
Wait wait wait…how did we get here? (I have sunk to a new low, I understand this. THANK YOU JESUS.)
This is Taylor Frankie Paul and her husband Tate and their kids:
Taylor is basically the leader of the pack…the pack of Hot Influencer Moms in Utah. She makes a lot of content with her family (her kids) and her hot mom friends like this she pretends are sister wives:
And this…
But she also is known for making controversial videos FOR clout…which a lot of people do whether they are Mormon or not (like all the creators who saw how popular Johnny Depp TikTok was so they began creating content supporting Depp because of the algorithm)…I digress. But here is an example of Taylor making a TikTok where she claims this woman is her husband’s other woman…my understanding is this was the nanny but not a romantic partner of the husband at the time…
Like think about it…making a JOKE about your nanny being the side piece of your husband’s? Weird. But the Queen Bee kept people on their TOES. People either got it or were confused or believed it or something in between but engagement was HIGH, views were HIGH and people wanted more.
She then posted this:
Wait wait what?? Her community went mental. She and her man were divorcing? BUT WHY?? But then many people felt this was yet another fast one by Taylor to get everyone in a tizzy and that she and her family were just actually moving to another house and it was all a joke. But that didn’t seem to be the case and in now deleted videos, but thankfully the INTERWEBS saved this and we have found on YouTube..she discussed in a very “hard to follow” fashion what happened.
Long story short, she and her husband were in an open relationship which her followers knew. But then she spills THE TEA that she and her “couple friends” all swing (minus the actual act of penetration, sorry) but the rules were they could never be solo with someone. That is, the partners had to be involved or watch. But that she and one of the husbands got wasted and ended up banging solo and well…I HAVE NO MORE BRAIN CELLS but the INTERNET has lost its mind:
TikTok creators have tried to explain to us normals:
There are so many of these and a LITTLE todbit is that we are not actually sure these people are in fact Mormon from my understanding. It is the assumption but their brand is more MOMTOK than MORMON TOK. But maybe it is all some deep, dark manipulation from the Mormon Church to show the world what happens when you stra from their values? MAYBE??
AND just because we cannot have nice things…
…apparently if you want to indicate to peeps that you and your partner DO swing…then this is the image you use to let your people KNOW:
SO now you know. If you see this on a dating profile or on your kid’s teacher’s insta, well YOU HAVE BEEN INFORMED!
So that’s really all I can cover this morning. I don’t have the energy to go into more stuff but PLEASE TUNE IN THURSDAY to Pop Culture Mondays on Thursdays to hear much much more. And to get your Mormon fix, do check out the series “Under the Banner of Heaven” starring Andrew Garfield which is dark and fabulous:
And for more on the swinging moms….
AND NOW FOR SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS (OR SOME OF THE DESPICABLE ONES…)
Yes only ONE big deep dive story this week. That’s because Mormom Mom TikTok has taken my soul. But lots of fun/not so fun/crazy things that are happening this week. Woo boy.
- Is there anyone having a bigger moment than Harry Styles? I THINK NOT. And here is a man using his massively powerful and influential platform for good and for change:
He is giving a lot of money to Everytown which is the organization seemingly doing more to save people from gun violence than most of our politicians are. If you can, please donate to them, please volunteer to work with them in some way, please raise awareness to END GUN VIOLENCEm if you can:
Be like Harry.
BUT in other Harry news, there is a big TikTok theory that his girlfriend, Olivia Wilde is preggers:
Look I am not going to lie, this man is flawless. His PR/marketing for his new album Harry’s House is amazing….here he is on Howard Stern:
And guess what? THE ALBUM IS AMAZING. Like really amazing.
Check it out:
- James Corden. He recently announced he is leaving his show so he and his family can go back to England. But man is he making the best of it and while I always think his carpool kareokes and other skits with celebs are clever, the last couple of weeks he CRUSHED it. Like this interview with Tom Cruise…carpool karaoke in a fighter jet…actually flown by TOM. This is a long video that has them starting out in a vintage fighter plane only to upgrade to a crazy new one where Tom does crazy stunts. If you must skip ahead to minute 11 or so…but the whole video is worth it tbh:
And speaking of Harry Styles…I saw this unfold on TikTok:
But the whole video of the making of this video is hilarious:
- The Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial came to an end after 6 weeks and we are all very damaged. The fact that the masses have come out in defense of Johnny Depp shows how wild the state of things is. I am not saying Amber Heard is innocent and she may in fact have lied about a lot but Johnny said some pretty awful red flag sort of things. But here we are…the witness were crazy like this guy TikTok is having fun with:
And Kate Moss gave her very brief testimony but put my happiest of happy places, GOLDENEYE in Jamaica, front and center:
Since I have watched 23 seasons of Law & Order SVU among every other law show ever made I am basically a lawyer, I can say with authority that Johnny had a much better legal team. They killed it:
And in closing arguments, an ACTUAL AMBER ALERT went off in the courtroom:
Can’t make this shit up. And now that the trial is over, Johnny has left Virginia and apparently ended up in Yorkshire where he seems to be touring with Jeff Beck for a bit and I will say he performs quite beautifully tbh:
- Imagine the bravery of this kid? Zander Moricz is his class president and at graduation was told that is his speech contained GAY in it (he is out) they would cut his mic…so he did this:
- And Dublin airport had a bit of an overcrowding meltdown this weekend:
- And this romantic has gone viral. His video:
And many like these:
- WHAT IS TIME? No really, like sometimes I think we all must be living in the matrix for reals. Like take for example “STRANGER THINGS” star Millie Bobby Brown. When we were first introduced to her as ELEVEN in the groundbreaking Netflix show in the summer of 2016, she looked like this:
Now, the summer of 2022 and the final season has dropped, we are now confronted with this grown up woman and I am not ok:
Slow down time… slow the fuck down. But also a note to this beautiful young woman…don’t be in such a hurry to grow up.
ANWAY, here is the trailer for the new season:
And while I have not yet binged it (I will), TikTok tells me that Kate Bush’s “Running up the Hill” plays a big part and is NOW NUMBER ONE on the iTunes charts. And the OLDER TikTokkers are like listen up kids, but this was OUR song back from the show “THE OC”. And I am horrified. I am like YOU ALL SHUT UP because this was the big song in my childhood in the ’80s so please all stop right now. From “Top Gun” to Kate Bush to high gas prices and economy hanging in the balance, we are basically right back in the 1980s. Can’t wait for pastels and cocaine and Molly Ringwald & Andrew McCarthy to all make a comeback. So there’s that.
More here:
- Gosh there is so much more tbh but we all must get on with it. So let’s close with this…the AUDACITY is all I can say. And how this is a prtest on the climate crisis I have no idea but I hate this:
The Mona Lisa is like WTF 2022, no thank you.
THAT IS IT my darlings…
Have a wonderful short week for those who took Monday off and remember there is nothing LONGER than a short week. Remember those words on Thursday my darlings.
And please…be kind to yourself and to others and let’s change this world we are in.
AND…please do check out the POP CULTURE MONDAYS ON THURSDAYS podcast here or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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