Jamie Loftus

This was miserable.

This was miserable.

This was miserable.

You wake up, put on your Ray-Ban Meta glasses. You're living all in. You realize you need coffee, so you say... Hey Meta, how do I make a latte?

After Meta AI gets you caffeinated, you're ready for some beats.

You head to meet some friends, but can't remember the place.

Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, the next generation of AI glasses. Just say, hey, Meta, to harness the power of Meta AI. Shop now at meta.com slash smart glasses.

You wake up, put on your Ray-Ban Meta glasses, classic style, innovative tech. You're living all in. You realize you need coffee, desperately.

After Meta AI gets you caffeinated, you start walking to work and you need a soundtrack.

With the built-in camera, you snap a pic of a dope mural on the side of a building that you think is worth sharing.

After work, you head to meet some friends.

Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, the next generation of AI glasses. Just say, hey, Meta, to harness the power of Meta AI. Listen to music, make hands-free calls with open-ear audio and built-in microphones, and so much more, all while staying present to the world around you. Shop Ray-Ban Meta Glasses at meta.com slash smartglasses.

Welcome back to 16th Minute, the podcast where we talk to the internet's characters of the day and see how their 15 minutes of fame affected them and what it says about the internet and us. But this week, we're taking a bit of a side quest to answer a question I've been asked quite a bit lately and I didn't know how to answer.

Why are there so many Mormon women at the top of the social media influencing pile? After a recent episode, I saw this question in the comments everywhere. I saw it on the 16th Minute Reddit board, which, by the way, someone made if you're interested or have thoughts after episodes.

And while it did resonate with me that the subject of the episode had been raised Mormon, I didn't want to touch that within the episode for a couple reasons. First, because they never talk about Mormonism in their content and have generally avoided questions about it. And second, I didn't have a fucking clue what the answer to this question was, even though I understand why it was being asked.

So this week, we're going to attempt to answer that question in a two-part deep dive series, the second of which will release on Thursday. Because to understand the root of why Mormonism and present-day Mormon mommy influencers are so successful, you've got to understand where the overlaps in their interests are and how the values of both of these communities line up.

So this week, we're going to get all up to speed on that. And on Thursday, Alyssa Grenfell will unpack how Mormon moms have stayed on top of internet influencing for the last 20 years. All right, let's jump in and take a brief, God, I really hope actually brief, look into the history of the Mormon church in America. And I'll link to some additional resources in the description of the episode.

Okay, let's learn about Mormons. Mormonism is a 19th century religion formally founded by Joseph Smith in 1830. He was born squarely in the middle of the Second Great Religious Awakening in the U.S., a religious revival that would strengthen movements like Methodism, Presbyterianism, and the Baptist Church, and would birth a lot more. And Joseph Smith was a kid of this era.

He grew up without a firm religion, but was curious to try things. The Mormon faith, often called the LDS or Latter-day Saints, came up shortly after the Shakers movement. The LDS came to prominence around the same time as a number of black church movements like the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The LDS shares a little bit of DNA with spiritualism.

And you can listen to my limited series, Ghost Church, for more about the history of that. The mid-19th century was a big time of religious change and upheaval in the U.S. And after Mormonism took off, new religions continued to pop up. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian scientists weren't far behind Mormonism.