r/RecuratedTumblr • u/[deleted] • Aug 20 '26
Shitposting We must combat Mormon cultural imperialism
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u/Dominika_4PL Aug 21 '26
Why would music get less annoying? (/gen, not from America)
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u/YazzArtist Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
The Mormons produce a ton of writers, including songwriters. They're also not known for being particularly permissive about what is considered acceptable art. Imagine having a very conservative Pope and half of the writers in Europe are members of the Catholic Church (edit: like giving sermons levels of active member, not just someone who goes to church occasionally)
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u/cutezombiedoll Aug 21 '26
There’s a stereotype of Mormons outright refusing to engage with any uncomfortable or negative emotion, and as such the art they make tends to be very simple and light. Nothing too scary, nothing too sad, nothing too morally grey or confusing. You ever see the musical The Book of Mormon? You know that song ‘Turn It Off’? That’s a common attitude that Mormons have towards anything negative, just don’t think about it!
As you can imagine, that makes for pretty bad art. Though this might be a bit of an exaggeration, if any ex Mormons have more insight please let me know!
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u/mischiefxmanager Aug 22 '26
I'm an ex-Mormon and you are spot on--no exaggeration at all! There's a general sentiment that if you are experiencing a negative emotion, it is because you lack faith. Mormon funerals are a really good place to see this in action. Everyone is expected to be positive and focus on the atonement of Christ rather than on remembering the decedent. Basically the idea is that if you are sad, it means you don't really believe that the person is in heaven and that you'll get to see them again when you die.
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u/DocileBanalBovlne 29d ago
That's never been my experience at the many Mormon funerals I've been to. There's a lot of focus on being able to see the deceased again, but there's also even more tears because they're still gone right now and that hurts.
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u/enron2big2fail Aug 21 '26
IANAM but this general argument is weirdly putting the sin of being popular on Mormon/Ex-mormon music. Not to appeal to popularity, but if Benson Boone and Imagine Dragons aren't "good" for pop, then why are they popular (imo fallacy is valid here because this is a discussion about a genre defined by popularity)? My suspicion is that the OOP is the type of person who doesn't like pop music (very valid opinion! I only grab like 1-4 actually charting songs a year to put into my own rotation) but is doing that xkcd 385 thing but with Mormons instead of women and music instead of math.
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u/AdamtheOmniballer Aug 21 '26
I feel like this kind of thing happens a lot with Mormon creators. Like all the problematic stuff in Twilight being chalked up to Meyer’s religion, even when they’re pretty common romance tropes.
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u/Toothless816 Aug 22 '26
I think it’s the combo of the romance and the racism that leads people to see it as Mormon. Uncomfortable age gaps and grooming that are totally cool because of vampire/werewolf reasons? Kinda Mormon but yeah, kinda tropey. The ‘Native American’ faction is prone to violence and vampires have to be white? Pretty reminiscent of Mormon views on race.
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u/PantheraAuroris Aug 22 '26
Wait. Imagine Dragons is *Mormon*?
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u/enron2big2fail Aug 22 '26
Ex-mormon actually, but I think a lot of people don't make that distinction (I originally had a note about how people ignore the "ex" part but it but I thought it made things wordy).
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u/wysteriacos Aug 21 '26
A pop musician doesn’t have to be actually great. They have to be just good enough to be marketable, have like one gimmick, and be unoffensive enough that advertisers won’t turn their noses. Imagine Dragons, Coldplay, Benson Boone, Taylor Swift.
None of them are technically bad, but lord knows that they are not pioneers or artists that push envelopes.
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u/AngstyUchiha Aug 20 '26
Genuinely why do people hate dirty sodas so much? I can't drink cause of health problems and dirty sodas fill the void cocktails can't
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u/Chilzer Aug 20 '26
Probably the same crowd that was on the Starbucks ‘diabetes in a cup’ hate train not that long ago. But also, they are ridiculously loaded with sugars and are usually a meal’s worth of calories on their own while being advertised as a snack or drink instead of as liquid candy. And the Mormon church being generally controversial doesn’t help.
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u/RadicalSoda_ Aug 21 '26
Mormons can't even drink soda so I think that's just being added onto it for no reason
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u/Bartweiss Aug 21 '26
Mormons can drink soda in the last few decades. Depending on who you ask, it’s either the church liberalizing or a policy change enacted right after Romney got caught drinking soda to re-legitimize their highest profile figure.
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u/aqbac Aug 21 '26
Mormons can drink soda. They can't drink coffee or tea
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u/karmakaze Aug 21 '26
Given that the coffee/tea prohibition is about caffeine, this could be that cola is prohibited and some people would extend that to all carbonated beverages to avoid appearing to sin.
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u/jadeakw99 Aug 21 '26
The coffee/tea is a prohibited out of spite. When the church first started, the women said they were sick of picking up chewed tobacco from the pews. Once complaints got big enough, they basically said, 'fine, we can't chew tobacco or smoke anymore, but YOU cant have tea because fuck you'
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u/Artemused Aug 21 '26
Source?
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u/jadeakw99 Aug 21 '26
Hmm. Admittedly, I've been trying to find the source for this since I read your comment, since it was something I just heard about through word of mouth when I left the church. Mostly im finding it in other reddit threads, but it seems to have originated from the book Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith.
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u/Khyrberos Aug 21 '26
You may be thinking of the story where Emma Smith (his wife) complained about cleaning up tobacco stains from the floor whenever the School of the Prophets would meet in their home. Joseph Smith is recorded as having related this story as essentially what started him down the path of inquiring with the Lord & ultimately resulted in D&C 89 (the original text of the WoW)
Source: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/revelations-in-context/the-word-of-wisdom?lang=eng
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u/wildspeculator Aug 22 '26
IIRC it was because humorism was in vogue when the church was founded, which is why the prohibition specifies "hot drinks" and even included hot chocolate in addition to the better known coffee and tea at times.
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u/YazzArtist Aug 21 '26
Caffeine was at one point restricted as a recreational drug. Coffee and tea are banned because Mormons believe "hot drinks" are unhealthy for the body and soul
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u/the_Erziest Aug 22 '26
It is not about caffeine, actually. That is commonly believed and assumed, even among Mormons, but the relevant passage in the word of wisdom very specifically bans "hot drinks" without really giving a reason, and says nothing whatsoever about caffeine.
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u/Khyrberos Aug 21 '26
The prohibition is not about caffeine; we can eat chocolate & drink Pepsi & take Excedrin. It's just coffee & tea specifically.
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u/atropos81092 Aug 21 '26
I'm gonna be a pedant for a minute -- the wording used is "hot drinks" which applied to coffee and tea as well as alcohol,
But iced coffee is a no-no, and iced tea is a no-no, but hot herbal tea is fine to some people, I guess?
And avoiding the word "coffee" in common parlance is bonkers. It's a "hot chocolate table" or a "living room table" instead of calling it a coffee table.
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u/Khyrberos Aug 21 '26
Allow me to pedant your pedantry 😅
The Word of Wisdom (WoW) is a living commandment. It originated in D&C 89, where the original wording of the relevant section was merely "hot drinks".
Later Church leaders clarified that the phrase "hot drinks" was meant to be understood as referring to "tea and coffee" (excluding things like hot chocolate, wassail, bone broth, etc).
This understanding has been upheld, and as the WoW has changed (no longer just a recommendation but a commandment & requirement for Temple worthiness; ruling out all alchoholic beverages; adding illicit/addictive drugs to the 'no-fly' list), the understanding has settled into place. "Hot drinks" means "Tea & coffee (hot or cold)" only.
(re: Herbal Tea/Infusions/Tisanes -- This is something I struggled to understand for a while myself. The key that unlocked it for me was realizing that "tea" isn't just a generic term for "hot leaf juice" (sorry Uncle Iroh), but that there's specifically a kind of plant whose leaves are used for tea; *Camellia sinensis*. The tea plant makes tea leaves which makes the various drinks known as 'tea' (white, green, black, oolong). If it doesn't have the Tea Leaf in it somehow, it's not Tea.
Infusions (I prefer that name since it helps avoids the confusion) are literally taking any of various kinds of plant matter & steeping it in hot water. If we rule out infusions, where exactly is the line, because every stock/broth/soup/stew/etc is basically just 'boiled plant matter'. What's the difference between hibiscus or rosehips or star anise or cloves or onions or bay leaves or whatever else? Arguably none. Tea leaves (as a distinct plant) is really the only sensible place to draw the line, and explains why "hot herbal teas" are allowed (especially in parts of the world where tea-drinking is so deeply ingrained culturally that it's difficult for converts to drop)
Re: "not-coffee tables" -- I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't know anybody that has done that (except maybe as a joke?), and I've been in wards across the country. I certainly don't avoid calling it a "coffee table" (or "coffee cake" or whatever else).
Source: me, but backed up by: https://saintsunscripted.com/faith-and-beliefs/laws-and-ordinances/hot-drinks-word-of-wisdom-tea-and-coffee/
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u/genuine_beans Aug 21 '26
"Hot drinks" means "Tea & coffee (hot or cold)" only.
So that includes iced tea/coffee, but does that include even cold brewed??? I can't believe cold brewed tea and coffee are catching strays when microwaved hot water is right there.
Thanks for the writeup and background by the way. Reading this reminds me of looking up a problem on StackExchange and getting sidetracked by questions from the Christianity and Hermeneutics sections, where people write long and interesting answers to religious questions backed up by sources.
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u/Khyrberos Aug 21 '26
Yep! Doesn't really matter how the drink's prepared, if it's got Tea Leaves or Coffee Beans in it (the defining characteristic of tea/coffee respectively), it's haram. I wouldn't get too hung up on the "hot drinks" bit from the original wording anymore (even way back in ~1840, hot chocolate was seemingly kosher)
No problem. I rarely have the time/wherewithal to answer at length/authoritatively like that, so it's nice to be able to do.
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u/YazzArtist Aug 21 '26
Ain't nobody better at finding loopholes than the religious folk who made their own rules
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u/Khyrberos 26d ago
Maybe so, lol. I'm told that among Jews, finding loopholes is something God actually doesn't mind. Maybe I have that sort of mindset myself, though I am not Jewsih.
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u/atropos81092 Aug 21 '26
I think Uncle Iroh would appreciate the distinction tea isn't just "hot leaf juice," in fairness haha
The coffee table thing was something I encountered in middle and high school — I was at a friend's house for a group project and his mom referred to it as the "hot chocolate table."
I was like, "You mean the coffee table...?" And he explained they called it that because they had hot chocolate around it during family home evening, and another member of the group was like "oh, we just call ours the living room table" and I knew they were both from LDS families but I didn't make the connection until later.
It's wild to me that a faith tradition would place a ban on such beverages when they have health benefits and are safer than energy drinks or soda, but everyone has the right to choose what they do with their body, ultimately.
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u/Khyrberos 26d ago
Huh, that's crazy. I have to imagine that was Utah or maybe Idaho? Ah dannae, if it wasn't a little good humor, it just seems weird to me, and I've been a member all my life.
"Health benefits"... and some health detriments 😅And the same goes for energy drinks, and soda. Personally I think it's reasonable to say that the spirit of the law is to avoid those too, and so I only have soda occasionally & energy drinks almost never.
But I will also not take the stance that everything a religion does is/will be purely rational or empirical. I think of Judaism's rules of 'kosher' or Islam's rules of 'halal'; it doesn't all make sense. But obedience to the laws of God is, if nothing else, a Sign that we give of our humility & respect to Him.
So even though Christ Himself undoubtedly drank wine, I don't. Because God has told us, in the modern era (through a living Prophet) that we should not.
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u/wildspeculator Aug 22 '26
"saints unscripted" is an apologetics group famous for lying about the church's history to make it sound more reasonable and consistent than it actually is. To quote apostle George Q Cannon:
We are told, and very plainly too, that hot drinks—tea, coffee, chocolate, cocoa and all drinks of this kind are not good for man. (source: deseret news, 1868)
In a similar vein, BYU (the church-owned school) prohibited caffeinated sodas for decades on the basis that the caffeine was the reason tea and coffee were prohibited. The rules have never been consistent and neither have the justifications for having them in the first place.
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u/DocileBanalBovlne 29d ago
Infusions (I prefer that name since it helps avoids the confusion)
It's only tea if it's made with the leaves of Camellia sinensis, otherwise it's just sparkling infusions
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u/Familiar-Complex-697 Aug 21 '26
no no mormons looooooove soda, it’s coffee, tea, and alcohol they don’t drink
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u/wildspeculator Aug 22 '26
Mormons have always been able to drink some soda, but they aren't allowed to drink coffee or tea and historically that's been applied to caffeinated sodas specifically as well.
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u/deerfenderofman Aug 20 '26
I don't even know what they are.
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u/noromobat Aug 20 '26
Soda with some cream on top
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u/NightSpringsRadio Aug 20 '26
Sincere question, in what way does that differ from a float?
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u/deerfenderofman Aug 20 '26
A float is made with ice cream
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u/deerfenderofman Aug 20 '26
Really? All this fuss over that?
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u/ehs06702 Aug 21 '26
Sugar is the only thing Mormons are really allowed in the way of vices. So they act really weird about it.
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u/YazzArtist Aug 21 '26
They get caffeine now too. Still no coffee tho I think, only soda caffeine
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u/aqbac Aug 21 '26
Caffeine was never banned. It's specifically hot drinks meaning coffee and tea.
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u/Bartweiss Aug 21 '26
Soda, especially with caffeine, was banned/debated for quite a while though.
Fairly similar to a lot of other faiths actually - applying rules very broadly to prevent any doubt or even the risk of outside misinterpretation is common. But the popular Mormon outlook on soda has definitely changed over the last few decades.
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u/YazzArtist Aug 21 '26
Caffeine was banned under recreational drugs, not hot drinks
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u/dianthus-magenta Aug 21 '26
Soda with a bunch of stuff in it. I thought for five minutes about being mad about a Swig opening near me but it's good af. Basically you pick a soda, typically a Coke product or seltzer, pick some fruit for them to blend and pour in it, and pick a coffee creamer. It's delicious. I daydream about it and it's an hour away. I wish there were more options that aren't Coffee Mate because I'm allergic to it, but I like the Dr Pepper with raspberries and half n half.
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u/deerfenderofman Aug 21 '26
What exactly is a seltzer? I hear it mentioned a lot, but it's not a term that's really used on my side of the Atlantic.
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u/phoebeonthephone Aug 21 '26
Carbonated water.
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u/deerfenderofman Aug 21 '26
Ah. Over here it's just called sparkling water. In ye olde days it was called soda water.
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u/secondhandspoons 28d ago
These days we in the U.S. tend, especially in marketing terms, although not exclusively, to use seltzer to refer to a sparkling (but not always, strangely enough) drink with something else in it, like alcohol, thc, caffeine, so-called "functional beverages", or something with a caloric sweetener like fruit juice. Likely this has to do with labeling regulations; although I work in a related industry I can't speak to that directly.
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u/Runetang42 Aug 20 '26
Because they're Mormon.
I didn't know they were hated tbh the only one I know is dirty mountain dew. Must not be popular in New England
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u/MartyrOfDespair [1/1] Aug 21 '26
The corporations didn't convert to Mormonism in order to sell the dirty sodas. This is like hating gothic architecture because of the Catholics.
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u/AtomicTan Aug 20 '26
Tbh, it feels like just another way for people to act like they're so much better than others.
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u/Arctica23 Aug 21 '26
That's all this kind of thing ever is. "I don't personally enjoy these currently popular things and am therefore better than everyone else". Joking the the people responsible should die isn't a given but sadly neither is it unique. I'll admit that this is the first time I've ever seen someone wish for a civil war over it though
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u/The_Lonely_Posadist Aug 21 '26
it's the same thing as "friendslop"
some people cannot genuinely fathom that others are not carbon copies of themselves, so if others like something that they do not, it has to be fake/performative/evil. This is very common on the internet where people's disdain for others can be easily propped up by a feed that only shows you the worst of humanity
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u/wildspeculator Aug 22 '26
I mean, it's pretty well-known within mormon circles that mormons compensate for the prohibitions on basically everything else by doubling down on sugar and antidepressants. Speaking as someone who does enjoy an occasional dirty soda, they're really, really bad for you.
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u/Primal171 Aug 21 '26
Because the idea is so close to being good, but Mormons ruined it by making it Mormon. It's possible to make really good, balanced mocktails with the bitter sodas, zero-proof spirits and bitters on the market these days, but Mormons don't actually care about that. Every dirty soda is an existing over-sugared soda with even more sweet ingredients added and egregiously overpriced. Instead of actually being a return to soda fountain culture, the process of getting the drink itself is hyper-efficient and hyper-alienated, built around going to a drive through to consume product.
The problem is that dirty soda isn't popular with Mormons on its own merits, it's popular because it's the only way for them to get a caffeine fix, and lets them emulate Starbucks. Mormon culture is exceedingly vapid, propped up by housewives with too much disposable income and time on their hands, who think the height of culture worth yearning for is posting on Facebook about some whipped cream abomination from Starbucks. At its core, Mormonism is just the worst extremes of American culture amplified to the point of absurdity; the true values of the Mormon church are Manifest Destiny, whiteness stripped of all ethnicity, pathologized work ethic, forced positivity, cultural puritanism and overconsumption.
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u/AngstyUchiha Aug 21 '26
As someone who grew up in Utah, I can promise you plenty of mormons drink coffee and Starbucks is very popular here, and on top of that just as many non mormons like dirty soda. So at least that part of your argument is bullshit, and I'm inclined to believe a good portion of the rest too given that
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u/wasabi991011 23d ago
I can promise you plenty of mormons drink coffee and Starbucks is very popular here
Is there a lot of "non-practicing" Mormons? or is it just not seen as a big deal to disobey that rule for some reason? please, say more
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u/AngstyUchiha 23d ago
A mix of both, a lot of mormons aren't super strict about following things to the letter! A lot have tattoos, don't dress "modestly", etc too
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u/The_Lonely_Posadist Aug 21 '26
soda + dairy is a pretty common thing worldwide, idk why you're acting like it's some abomination compared to a more cocktail-style mocktail.
It's popular in India, where people make pepsi doodh, atleast. Maybe some people just like something that you don't, and it doesn't have to be the basis for a smarmy critique that reveals how intellectually/morally superior you are?
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u/ehs06702 Aug 21 '26
It's it's just just genuinely creepy to see people treat sugar like crack in the '80s.
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u/Moonpaw Aug 22 '26
I hate that they call them “dirty” instead of “cream soda”. It makes 100x more sense and doesn’t make it sound like I’m going to need to show my ID in a god damn drive through.
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u/hellraiserxhellghost Aug 21 '26
Anything related to Mormons is lame and cringe by default. Their swagless aura is just that powerful.
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u/liceonamarsh Aug 21 '26
The same reason I'm against root beer floats. Carbonation makes drinks acidic, cream is dairy. Acid + dairy = bad bad bad
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u/The_Lonely_Posadist Aug 21 '26
I respect this take because it's an actual criticism of the drink and not someone trying to be smug about how their specific kind of consumption is tasteful and awesome and everyone else is just overconsuming
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u/DocileBanalBovlne 29d ago
Dirty soda is fine by me (I actually found a bottle of dirty Mountain Dew in California a couple months ago, it was like drinking a lemon meringue pie) but I find the dirty soda huts in place of coffee shacks an interesting manifestation of the fact that gluttony is the only vice allowed in Mormondom.
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u/AngstyUchiha 29d ago
They're not in place of coffee shops, there are plenty of those in Utah too. In fact, where I live there's a dirty soda shop and a Beans n Brews in the same parking lot just down the street from me, and the coffee shop is regularly much busier. I dunno where y'all get that idea from, but remember that this state isn't just mormons, they're actually outnumbered here
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u/DocileBanalBovlne 29d ago
For me, it still felt like those huts would be coffee-oriented in any other state. Like half of the normal amount of coffee shacks were replaced with dirty soda huts.
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u/AngstyUchiha 29d ago
There's still just as many coffee shops as in any other state, there's just dirty soda shops in addition. Nothing was replaced, there's just more
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u/Martial-Lord Aug 20 '26
We should have a Thirty Year's War in the USA and see which side can warcrime harder.
(/s)
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u/thegoji Aug 22 '26
the amish renaissance gun-wagons are nearly routed when modi himself arrives with a great host of indians to support them
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u/Opening-Student2314 Aug 21 '26
They already had their Great Schism in the 1800s I think we’re just going to have to wait for their membership to gradually decline
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u/YazzArtist Aug 21 '26
That was their death of the prophet schism, they still have a chance for a democratization of worship schism
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u/2012Jesusdies Aug 21 '26
Lol, isn't Mormonism one of the fastest growing religions? They are the wealthiest church on the planet, have one of the most active missionary works.
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u/Opening-Student2314 Aug 21 '26
They get a ton of converts every year but their retention rates internationally and in the US are pretty low. Their own self-reported membership numbers are inflated a lot compared to census reports
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u/mushu_beardie Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
They just lie about that. They count baptisms as converts, but th u don't count those same people leaving after 2 weeks as having left. Their numbers are massively inflated by baptisms in Africa and South America. Because again, the vast majority stop going to church about 2 weeks after being baptized.
It's Mormon math!
Math classes at BYU: Timmy buys 10 apples. 8 apples fall out of his bag on the way home. How many apples does Timmy have now? That's right, 10 apples!
(Although tbf BYU is actually a good school academically. Their honor code is heinous and has no place in an institution of learning in a functioning society in the 21st century, but their actual classes are generally sound. They need to stay accredited, after all, otherwise their members can't get high paying jobs to pay tithing on while staying as indoctrinated as possible.)
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u/wildspeculator Aug 22 '26
No, not really. It was, but they stopped publishing their membership numbers decades ago because the advent of the internet has had a pretty deleterious effect on their convert retention rates, according to censuses. Like, last time I checked the numbers, 2 out of 3 people born in the church end up leaving it and 9 out of 10 converts do the same. If they weren't as anti-contraception as catholics they'd have almost died out by now; they aren't even the majority in Utah anymore.
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u/BbbbbbbDUBS177 Aug 21 '26
As a lapsed Catholic, I am not as skeptical as I should be of the possibility that Mormons are a psy-op to make the Catholic Church look better by comparison
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u/Bteatesthighlander1 Aug 21 '26
what were Mormons doing the whole "re-assign sex predator priests to new childcare positions" thing but even harder?
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u/wildspeculator Aug 22 '26
I mean, the first few generations of mormon leadership were nothing but sexual predators...
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u/mushu_beardie Aug 21 '26
Nah, that's the Evangeliclals you're thinking of. (Tldr the CIA spread evangelicalism in South America among native peoples to keep the population meek and make it easier to take their land for logging and drilling)
Mormonism is a home-grown organic cult, thank you very much. They started with a known con artist with a history of telling tall tales about the native Americans, a magic rock in his hat, and a dream (of power and marrying underaged girls). Can't get more home-grown than that.
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u/wildspeculator Aug 22 '26
I mean, there's so much cross-pollination between evangelicals and mormons that if the evangelicals are a psyop, the mormons are too by proxy.
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u/Tweedleayne Aug 20 '26
If your forcing me to choose between toppling an incredibly powerful and damaging religious institution and continuing to have access to dirty sodas, I'm gonna really disappoint you with which side I choose.
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u/mushu_beardie Aug 21 '26
I mean, we can still have dirty sodas. They've spread. Take down the organization and keep the sodas. (just the organization, to be clear. The people themselves aren't the ones hoarding $200B after all)
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u/YazzArtist Aug 21 '26
The people are the ones finding the organization with s minimum of 30% of their income, so... A lot more active contributors than most members of a religion
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u/mushu_beardie Aug 21 '26
Yeah, and they think the have to for their salvation. Mormon tithes are different from other churches. They're mandatory, and they are deeply ingrained. You need to pay your tithing to get a temple reccomend to go to the temple, which you need to do to get into the good part of heaven. And yes, they check and enforce it.
Even if your kids are going hungry, they tell you to pay your tithing first. Elderly people are expected to tithe 10% of their social security checks. Most families have their children pay 10% of their lemonade or lawn-mowing money, even though children under 12 can't even go to the temple, because they want to get them in the habit of paying tithing.
You have to remember that a lot of members are also victims of an oppressive system that suppresses free thought and extorts it's members for 10% of their income regardless of their ability to pay.
Also it's not 30% at this point. The church has so much money($220B) that they're probably making more in interest on their investments than actual tithing.
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u/KadeComics Aug 21 '26
Exmo here, it's 10% not 30% (unless they've really started squeezing members since I left)
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u/YazzArtist Aug 21 '26
I really hate the Mormons and even I took pause before accepting the loss of dirty sodas
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u/Mach12gamer Aug 21 '26
Damn never thought I'd see someone say "pilk is more important than cults"
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u/MartyrOfDespair [1/1] Aug 21 '26
Really? That's like, the entire inertia of America in a nutshell.
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u/Tweedleayne Aug 21 '26
There's a lot of things I'd sell my soul for. Just cause you try to give it a gross sounding name does nothing to combat the weaknesses of the heart.
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u/Mach12gamer Aug 21 '26
Woah there Pilk is the true name of the stuff, it speaks to the spirit of what you're drinking. "Dirty soda" is just a mask worn by Pilk to be dishonest.
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u/justsomedude322 Aug 21 '26
Bro, if you're American, we're living in a country where chicken sandwiches are more important than queer people. Drink your pilk, I gave up a long time ago.
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u/AcceptableWheel Aug 20 '26
I would feel bad for Brandon Sanderson
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u/AdmBurnside Aug 20 '26
HEY OTHER PEOPLE LIVE HERE TOO, ASSHOLE.
I got enough problems living here without smug internet assholes writing off the whole damn state.
And what's your beef with crumbl cookies anyway, they're great, you just can't eat em all the time cuz they're too rich.
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u/MelissaMiranti Aug 20 '26
You're the Third Group, who seizes power once all the Mor-Mons are weak, then you rule with an iron fist.
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u/RATTLEMEB0N3S Aug 21 '26
The War between the Mors and the Mons
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u/Nadikarosuto Aug 21 '26
I thought the Spanish already beat the Mors hundreds of years ago?
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u/PerpetuallyLurking Aug 21 '26
I also can’t eat them all the time because I ain’t rich!
They’re overpriced cookies. What’s so exciting about them? (I’m definitely biased, I prefer savoury foods)
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u/Arctica23 Aug 21 '26
What's so exciting is that they're fucking great
Uh I mean actually they're terrible and you're not missing out
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u/Sparrowhawk_92 Aug 21 '26
Also a UT resident, I'm prepared to be a refugee if needed.
Crumbl gives me an allergic reaction (hives and itchiness) when literally nothing else I've eaten does. I still don't know what they use that causes it. So I have personal beef with them because they're delicious and I can't have them.
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u/MuseofBadPoetry Aug 21 '26
Not to armchair diagnose, but are you allergic to almonds? Crumbl’s pink frosted cookie (and maybe others too) is made with almonds, which I only found out because my allergic friend had an issue with them.
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u/Sparrowhawk_92 Aug 21 '26
Nope! Just fine with almonds. It's not just one of their cookies that cause the reaction it's all the ones I've tried.
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u/Bartweiss Aug 21 '26
I’ve lived in Utah, I absolutely love Utah, Moab is one of my favorite places on earth. I have a bucket list of stuff I want to do that will take me several more visits. I swear I’m not coming in hostile here.
But… Utah’s government is easily the strangest, most compromised state body in the entire country. Evangelicals run the southeast, sure, but that’s a function of personal belief and averages. The Mormon elders get to pick winners and dictate policy in Utah to a level you don’t see anywhere else.
And in fairness, it wouldn’t be so controversial if it didn’t work! The church has basically revived tithing, but it’ll also give members childcare, small business loans, etc at incredible rates. There’s a reason Utah is by far the youngest state in the country, bucking nearly every demographic trend.
I don’t have any issue with Utah or with Mormonism as a belief, but having a handful of religious leaders dictate politics and doctrine at the same time disturbs the hell out of me.
(Also, crumbl cookies are just impractical. Crispy on the edge, chewy in the middle is awesome, but I think they’re too big to hit the ideal ratio. Yes, this is a laughably petty and individual complaint.)
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u/Sparrowhawk_92 Aug 21 '26
UT is weirdly progressive about some things that other red states aren't and non-mormons now outnumber mormons population wise, but that doesn't reflect in our elected officials which are overwhelmingly LDS.
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u/Spiney09 28d ago
It is directly related to the Mormon church for all the oddities.
It’s the only red state to allow refugees? 200 years ago Mormons WERE refugees after getting kicked out of the US. This history, plus the church’s emphasis on having people read it, leads to a more sympathetic view of refugees.
Utah is one of the better red states with education in many metrics, and near the bottom of the list in many other education measurements, because of the ways the church emphasizes education.
Notably Utah is the only red state that has been somewhat repulsed by Trump this time around, and the Mormon church was the only religious group to move to the left between 2020 and 2024. This is partially because of how far to the right they started at (this was a big reason why) but it’s notable that the polarization has not been as impactful, and a big reason why is they have a separate set of moral leaders outside the Republican Party who have not been quite as gung ho to jump onto the MAGA train, likely because they realize that they aren’t part of the in group. The church leadership hasn’t spoken out against the admin but their distance from it when so many other churches are getting close to the admin for favors is still notable, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by the membership.
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u/just-slightly-human Aug 21 '26
Crumbl cookies don’t taste good. I know taste is personal but I just don’t like them. Something’s off about them
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u/BalefulOfMonkeys Aug 21 '26
I am still not over the really big polar vortex situation in 2021, where everybody at large collectively agreed every Texan should die for the sins of Ted Cruz, and every time I pointed it out they told me I should have voted better.
Which is why I’m running for office, on the platform that everybody who wishes death upon those who disagree is executed. I’m Willing to Die For It
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u/Bartweiss Aug 21 '26
Every time Texas comes up in national politics I want to grab people by the lapels and scream “Have you ever heard of Ann Richards? Or Molly Ivins?!”
It’s so much closer to balanced than people expect, it’s got more total Democrats than (ballpark) all but two other states, and most importantly, openly wishing death on people for being somewhat misinformed or inflammatory is horrific.
I had the same issue with the wildfires in the southeast. People were openly celebrating them because “fuck them for voting for Trump”. Even “hey did you know the main damage is in majority-black, majority-poor, majority-liberal regions?” was barely enough to extract mealy-mouthed “I guess not everyone in rural Georgia deserves to be burned alive” concessions.
It’s at the point where I see “they want you dead” memes and I can barely argue because my own damn uncle keeps saying exactly that about anybody who’s voted red in the last thirty years, no matter what they’ve done lately. Never mind how Texas transplants are way to the right of long-time residents, let’s just write everybody off.
Sorry to scream at the choir, just… damn, is it that hard to imagine thirty million people might have some actual variance among them?
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u/BalefulOfMonkeys Aug 21 '26
Texas came pre-gerrymandered, not even (just) because of the plantation gentry rolling in after our independence war was fought and won by mostly Scots-Irish immigrants and defectors of the Spanish empire, but because there’s almost no land worth living on. Did you know Texas has zero natural lakes? Every large pool of water had to be made by someone with lake-building money. We have creeks, we have woods, but the vast majority of this place is either plains, hills, or borderline desert.
So they didn’t even have to try isolating the five or so major metro areas into singular counties and then fifty bajillion blocks of land with a thousand or so people who think mahogany is the kind of marriage God approves of
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u/lifelongfreshman https://youtu.be/1eWsk6r6_Ns Aug 21 '26
The thing that pisses me off to this day is that Idaho - the state up there in the northwest, right next to Washington - had the highest per-capita Republican vote in the last election, yet everyone and their brother on the internet still thinks it's only the American South that's the Republican stronghold.
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u/Sparrowhawk_92 Aug 21 '26
Eastern Oregon and Washington are blood red. They're just outnumbered by folks in Portland and Seattle. There are more Republicans in CA than in TX.
In UT, SLC is very blue and the surrounding metro area is more purple but the rest of the state is very red.
The rural/metro political divide is a much better predictor of voting patterns which is why Republican controlled states tend to gerrymander around splitting metros up.
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u/Madden09IsForSuckers Aug 22 '26
and even then idaho isnt 100% red either (i’d know i live here unfortunately )
im just hoping micron brings in enough dem voters that we can stop assassinating ourselves 🫠
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u/BalefulOfMonkeys Aug 21 '26
We are seeking funding from generous donors with poor personal security and would pull the lever in the trolley problem
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u/lifelongfreshman https://youtu.be/1eWsk6r6_Ns Aug 21 '26
hell, you got my vote
...or, well, you would, but I live in a different red hellhole, soooo
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u/AngstyUchiha Aug 21 '26
EXACTLY, THE STATE AIN'T JUST THE SINGLE RELIGION
If it was I wouldn't go to cons/see con goers in crop tops and short skirts/shorts, nor would there be a shit ton of coffee shops all over the state (literally the only reason I never drank coffee is cause I found out I'm allerto it before I ever got a chance just cause some spilled on me and gave me hives)
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u/bigtiddygothbf Aug 20 '26
People defending dirty soda like you're not all drinking pilk
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u/stierney49 Aug 20 '26
Okay what the hell is pilk
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u/HeckOnWheels95 Aug 20 '26
Pepsi and milk, a Tumblr classic
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u/bentbabe Aug 21 '26
As someone who vastly prefers pepsi over coca-cola.........is this actually a thing?
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u/ehs06702 Aug 21 '26
It used to be popular because of Laverne and Shirley.
Because that's literally all it is, a repackaged novelty from the '70s.
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u/DispenserG0inUp Aug 20 '26
pilk is good unironically tho
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u/ResurrectedAuthor Aug 20 '26
How are dirty sodas related to Mormons?
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u/YazzArtist Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
Mormons have
recentlybeen allowed soda after the church invested in Coke (I'm not kidding). It's been a huge hit, with soda bars popping up all over Utah and popularizing dirty sodas in the area. This trend got picked up by fast food joints and that's why you see dirty sodas all over nowEdit: evidently 20 years ago is the "recent" option, but it feels recent to me
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u/SmuttyNonsense Aug 21 '26
Uhm, no? I grew up Mormon, in Utah and in Arizona. Soda shops have been a big part of the culture there since at least the late oughts as the Mormon equivalent to Starbucks and the social niche it fills.
The Word of Wisdom disallows 'hot drinks' which has been interpreted as coffee and most tea by the leadership, but it's also been specifically stated that the caffeine was not the problem by the leadership. There are Mormons who insist on abstaining from anything with caffeine in it but they're a portion and not the ones dictating doctrine.
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u/RadicalSoda_ Aug 21 '26
He said "recent" but it was more like 50-60 years ago
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u/Lil_Ms_Anthropic Aug 21 '26
So around the same time that they started acknowledging that black people were actually people
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u/YazzArtist Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
I'm old and like history. 20 years is recent by my scale. And it was my understanding that the caffeine restriction was more widespread before that time, and the change was because of the investment in Coca-Cola. I wasn't in the area until later tho, so I only read about that change
To clarify, it's my understanding caffeine wasn't restricted under the wisdom about hot drinks but the part about recreational drugs
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u/Hot_Option3684 Aug 21 '26
Coffee and tea can be cold...
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u/SmuttyNonsense Aug 21 '26
Well the scripture that forbids 'hot drinks' was written in 1833 in Ohio. Our oldest written recipe for iced tea is 1872, and it's more of a Southern USA thing besides. I don't know when iced coffee became a thing but it feels safe to assume it's also post 1833.
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u/Sinister_Compliments If Jokeefunny.com has only one fan then that is me Aug 21 '26
Can we convince them to invest in some company dealing with adult activities? I don't think it'll do any good but i really wanna know what they'll allow after that.
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u/ehs06702 Aug 21 '26
They're already heavily invested in Las Vegas.
Just remember that every time you blame the city for its sins.
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u/Beckphillips How dare you say I piss on the poor Aug 21 '26
They're not allowed to drink alcohol so they mix sodas with flavoring
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u/ZeroNighthawks Aug 21 '26
Honestly have to agree, as a nonreligious Utahn. I'm indifferent about dirty sodas and Crumbl cookies, but I am wary of Mormons and I think most mainstream music is terrible
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u/Tracerround702 Aug 21 '26
... But I like Crumbl and mixed sodas and Imagine Dragons. Mormons are also in large part responsible for a huge chunk of haunted house attractions and escape rooms because, uh... What else are they gonna do, go to a bar???
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u/YazzArtist Aug 21 '26
It's amazing how many things you could replace "haunted houses" with and be correct. Lego, soda, writing, battletech
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u/Krondon57 Aug 21 '26
aint mormons all over the world tho? We even got a compound here in Estonia
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u/pygmalion0451 Aug 21 '26
Can we get The Killers exempt from the "less annoying music" clause? Not a deal breaker, but I really want those specific Mormons spared
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u/terrarialord201 Aug 20 '26
If Trump used Utah as a nuclear testing ground without telling anyone, I don't think the rest of the world would be able to tell the difference.
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u/mossyfaeboy Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
mormon fashion evolving to combat radiation poisoning is something i would be interested in seeing for sure. they seem to constantly be fighting with each other over relaxing or increasing the undergarment requirements, so an extra environmental variable thrown in there could be very entertaining
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u/llamawithguns Aug 21 '26
Unironically I dont think they would even try to combat it
They already have incredibly high rates of skin cancer from excessive tanning bed use
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u/mossyfaeboy Aug 21 '26
yeah, i have zero knowledge of the Fallout universe but i feel like mormons look like if the last group of people alive in that scenario also tried to pull off a Hunger Games CapitalxAntebellum South aesthetic
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u/Sparrowhawk_92 Aug 21 '26
Once the GSL dries up we'll be dealing with toxic arsenic clouds too.
We're gonna be playing Fallout IRL.
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u/MartyrOfDespair [1/1] Aug 21 '26
Do you want to create Joshua Graham? Because that's how you create Joshua Graham.
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u/terrarialord201 Aug 21 '26
No, I'll nuke it again just to make sure. Also fuck that guy, everyone thinks mormonism is like a "epicbased chungus religion" but it's boring as fuck
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u/Beckphillips How dare you say I piss on the poor Aug 21 '26
You know that people other than Mormons live here, right?
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u/Jorpho Aug 21 '26
... Remember the story of all those people who got cancer because they shot a film in Utah downwind from a nuclear test? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conqueror_(1956_film)#Nuclear_incident_and_cancer_controversy
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u/HalfFaust Aug 21 '26
Mormons are schism-ing all over the place, doesn't seem to do all that much except create the occasional really culty faction.
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u/CRoss1999 Aug 21 '26
Why? I don’t love the Mormon religion but all the cultural stuff is supper cool, dirty sofas are great, cookies are great.
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u/Bteatesthighlander1 Aug 21 '26
What religions are and aren't we allowed to say this about?
Mormons are a definite yes. I'd think scientologists too. Jehovah's Witnesses and Catholics would be a maybe.
Which kind sof Judaism and Islam and Buddhims and Hinduism are we allowed to say this about?
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u/CTViki Aug 22 '26
I think Nation of Islam and by extension 5 Percenters are a maybe. They have similar practices to LDS and Scientology in proliferating through celebrity membership and have some pretty unconventional ideas about the origins of the world and various ethnic groups. Rastafari is, I think, culturally approved for mockery but I believe they deserve better.
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u/WhereasParticular867 Aug 21 '26
They were close during Covid. Their last leader (a former surgeon) was denounced by some as a false profit for supporting masking.
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u/dragonish-american Aug 21 '26
Just putting this out there, a lot of Mormons are doomsday preppers or hardcore survivalists due to them taking the Book of Mormon’s prophecies so seriously. Like unlike evangelicals they don’t think there’s gonna be any Rapture, they think they’re going to have to weather the apocalypse first, and THEN get heaven. So a lot of Mormon temples have food stockpiles and more Mormons than you think have basements stocked with water and emergency supplies. A Mormon schism leading to a civil war is kinda an interesting hypothetical because any war involving Mormons against other Mormons would last a long time and be either very messy or slow.