{"id":57619,"date":"2026-02-10T09:43:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T16:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/?p=57619"},"modified":"2026-02-17T13:31:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T20:31:04","slug":"the-ethics-of-contempt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/covering-the-coverage\/the-ethics-of-contempt\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ethics of Contempt"},"content":{"rendered":"

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New York Magazine<\/em>\u2019s The Cut<\/em> published a long reported feature yesterday on Latter-day Saints, Utah, influencer culture, and the national appetite for \u201cMormon aesthetics.\u201d Buried inside it is a serious thesis: Latter-day Saints helped shape key parts of modern online life\u2014tech, genealogy, affiliate marketing, brand deals\u2014and now a particular Utah-flavored influencer ecosystem has gone mainstream.<\/span><\/p>\n

That subject deserves real cultural journalism. But the feature doesn\u2019t treat Latter-day Saints seriously. It treats a living religious community as a cultural prop: a reliable source of weirdness, a costume rack of eccentric doctrines, and an acceptable target for winking contempt\u2014then layers that tone over doctrinal errors and an over-reliance on critics with little balancing context.<\/span><\/p>\n

Latter-day Saints do not need the approval of a lifestyle magazine to live out our faith, but there is something wrong when editorial culture<\/a>\u00a0still thinks it is acceptable, or even smart, to understand a religion through nothing but memes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Criticism isn\u2019t the Problem. Contempt Is.<\/span><\/h3>\n

The Church is not above scrutiny. If you want to examine PR strategy, media posture, investments, or Utah\u2019s insular status dynamics, fine\u2014do the work: show receipts and speak with informed believers, scholars, and, where relevant, critics. Latter-day Saints are so accustomed to sneers from legacy outlets that even serious critical coverage can feel like a relief. But this feature does not read like an investigation guided by intellectual curiosity. It reads like something else: a story that wants to be both reported analysis and group roast.<\/span><\/p>\n

Criticism isn’t the problem.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>
\n<\/span>The tone signals\u2014early and often\u2014that the reader is supposed to feel superior to the subjects. The \u201ccolor\u201d isn\u2019t neutral; it\u2019s cudgel-like. And once a story trains readers to laugh first, accuracy and fairness become optional.\u00a0<\/span>Contempt isn\u2019t criticism: criticism evaluates claims and practices, contempt is the refusal to grant moral seriousness to the subject\u2014signaled by ridicule-as-default, caricatured summaries, and the selection of sources that make sincere belief unintelligible.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Publication That Wants Credibility Can\u2019t Cover Faith Like It\u2019s a Freak Show<\/span><\/h3>\n

The clearest tell is the piece\u2019s reliance on outsidery shorthand: familiar \u201cMormon jokes,\u201d recycled late-night tropes, and online folklore presented as representative. That method is at best lazy, at worst socially corrosive. When a major publication treats the sacred life of its neighbors as a punchline, it is not merely \u201cedgy.\u201d It\u2019s the normalization of contempt for a minority faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

And to be blunt: there is a reason this kind of tone still shows up with Latter-day Saints more easily than it would with many other religious groups. The feature claims Latter-day Saints now carry real cultural cachet, yet writes as if anti-Mormon mockery is still culturally acceptable. That\u2019s a sign that anti-Mormon mockery is still socially permitted in a way it wouldn\u2019t be for many other minority faiths.<\/span><\/p>\n

What the Piece Does Well<\/span><\/h3>\n

To be fair, the feature does some real reporting: It paints a vivid picture of a Utah influencer ecosystem; it traces how early Mormon mommy bloggers helped professionalize affiliate marketing and online commerce; it captures how \u201cnoncontroversial\u201d family content became brand gold during the pandemic; it correctly notices that Utah\u2019s particular blend of community networks, aspirational domesticity, and entrepreneurial hustle can be an accelerant for online business.<\/span><\/p>\n

Accuracy and fairness become optional.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>
\nThis is what makes the article so frustrating: it’s close to being thoughtful journalism. The reporting is substantial enough that the failures aren\u2019t simply mistakes; they are choices. The inaccuracies aren\u2019t the price of speed; they are the price of not caring enough to get it right.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you want to analyze a community that you believe has exported a powerful cultural product\u2014\u201cMormon mom\u201d influencer culture\u2014then you also owe that community the baseline respect of accuracy and the basic fairness of being represented by more than its loudest detractors and its most sensational reality TV exports.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Three Failures that Warrant Post-Publication Changes<\/span><\/h3>\n

The problems in the feature fall into three categories:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Factual inaccuracies<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Statements included for the purpose of mocking Latter-day Saint belief<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Unchallenged criticisms presented as if they are settled truth<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    These are not nitpicks. They go to the heart of whether the piece is journalism or polemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

    1) Factual inaccuracies: the kind that shouldn\u2019t survive a competent edit<\/b><\/p>\n

    Some errors are interpretive. These are not. These are statements about what Latter-day Saints believe, teach, or do\u2014asserted in the narrator\u2019s voice\u2014that are wrong, distorted, or presented with such sloppiness that readers are misled.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Here is a catalogue of the most obvious problems:<\/span><\/p>\n

    Doctrinal claims that are misstated or sensationalized<\/b><\/p>\n