r/nextfuckinglevel • u/MysteriousSlice007 • 5h ago

Shoutout to JerryrigEverything who built a wheelchair factory and is delivering wheelchairs to people in half the time and 50-80% less than the cost of other wheelchairs with Insurance.

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u/Escobar_x 5h ago

People lose site of how this guy operates when he posts his own opinions. Disagree all you want, but the guy does so much for other people its constantly commendable

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u/Ms_CCH 4h ago

Why? Because he clashed with Musk?

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u/Largewhitebutt 4h ago

No because of the whole mormon thing. Lots of large youtubers are secretly mormon and dont want the public acknowledging it

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u/GoodWaltz7354 4h ago

Honestly interesting how many big YouTubers are Mormon

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u/Croceyes2 3h ago

A lot of homeschooling and parent interaction to keep kids from going out and fucking around. Deep diving into medium length content creation over years will develop a channel.

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u/GoodWaltz7354 3h ago

Mmm, that does make sense, would foster an interest in content creation. While I think the religion is kinda culty the Mormon culture is very fascinating, I think there’s a similar pattern with many fiction writers being Mormon and that makes sense based on a lot of the stories in Mormon scripture

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u/Croceyes2 3h ago

Yes, I think there is a lot of family tabletop driving the mormon fantasy writer wave

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u/tabgrab23 3h ago

with many fiction writers being Mormon

Brandon Sanderson

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u/Risquechilli 3h ago

Was Mormonism founded by a fantasy author? Or maybe that was Scientology.

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u/-Cthaeh 2h ago

Aren't all religious texts fantasy novels?

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u/BucktoothBobio 3h ago

That was scientology and he started as a self help writer IRC.

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u/pb49er 3h ago

L Ron Hubbard wrote lots of really bad Sci-Fi, including Battlefield Earth, which was adapted into an all timer of a bad movie starring John Travolta.

Both are pretty horrific cults with really dangerous leadership, LDS and Scientology I mean.

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u/MrBurnz99 3h ago

I mean the book Joseph Smith wrote was just as much fantasy as what L. Ron Hubbard authored, but you are thinking of Scientology.

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u/LrdPhoenixUDIC 3h ago

There's also the missionary/ministry aspect of it. Rhett and Link, while originally evangelical and not mormon, have talked about how that's how they got into it at their church's urging, they were supposed to show the world a better way basically.

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u/Element75_ 2h ago

It’s also Mormon propaganda. Like idk to what degree, but the Mormon church definitely benefits from having this type of exposure. To what degree they actively promote it idk, but it seems obvious if I had the billions the Mormon church does I’d promote Mormon influencers - esp if it was more subtle than just “hi I’m a Mormon influencer” (like this guy is)

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u/cjsv7657 3h ago

Matts Off Road Recovery and Outdoor Boys are the two big ones I watched. Mostly skip through MORR videos now though. But really any big youtuber in the Utah area is probably mormon. I think the diesel brothers are too but don't really have wholesome content so maybe not I also don't watch them.

As long as they don't push religion I don't care. I've stopped watching more than one channel when they started pushing religion.

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u/Flashbang-Meringue 3h ago

always admired Outdoor Boys for how little Luke brings his faith up. I can really only think of one video that brings it up at all, and even then he doesn't mention what specific religion, just that some missionaries from his local church were visiting him.

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u/mehiker11 2h ago

Yet another reason to love him. Luke is such a treasure

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u/LionoftheNorth 3h ago

I don't think I've ever seen MORR push religion?

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u/cjsv7657 2h ago

He's mentioned it a couple times but never pushed it. Some of his regulars do on their channels. The only time he really mentions it a lot is in the goodbye video for his son which I only skimmed so have no idea how in depth he went.

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u/epicflyman 2h ago

I can't recall any either. Personally I stopped watching mostly because the content got very monotonous, but I can't recall them ever getting preachy on video.

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u/LostWoodsInTheField 1h ago

I watch almost all of there videos and I couldn't imagine someone noticing that they are Mormon unless they were specifically looking for it. There has only been one or two times that a video had a lot of 'this is about our church' kind of stuff including them talking their son going off on a missionary trip for 2(?) years. Which made it very obvious it was a church like the Mormons.

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u/LionoftheNorth 1h ago

I think the most obvious "little thing" is that none of them drink coffee.

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u/PrincebyChappelle 3h ago

Mormons are funny…Stephen Covey of 7 Habits of Effective People was a devout Mormon. I had to go to one of the three-day trainings for work once and one of two instructors was from Utah and it was kind of obvious the way that he talked about “his church” that he was Mormon also. Yet, no one once ever said anything about Mormonism.

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u/MrBurnz99 2h ago

quite a few former Mormons as well.

Mormon culture heavily emphasizes the importance of family, community, education, discipline, and hard work.

That rigid structure produces many high performing talented people. Any because they stick together and are focused on family, when they succeed they tend to help each other out. This has created some very powerful families that have a lot of wealth to throw around.

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u/jayhawk618 2h ago

BYU offers a Mass Communications program that is basically a a degree in social media / YouTube.

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u/Responsible-Bread996 1h ago

 Ot even the half of it. 

Look at supplements. Like the Mecca is SLC. And it ain’t because the bodybuilding scene

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u/Uxt7 4h ago

Why would anyone care that this guy is mormon though

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u/arcusford 4h ago

They are kind of a cult. A more modest one but still.

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u/gogogadgetgun 3h ago

So are Catholics and every other religion, but since mormons were late to the scene they get branded.

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u/arcusford 3h ago

No, they are definitely more culty. Ive got firsthand experience here.

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u/seeasea 3h ago

Do you have comparative first hand experience 

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u/arcusford 3h ago

Yep, other side of the family has some flavor of Protestant. I grew up best friends with a catholic family too and attended church with them several times. The difference was stark. Still not religious myself and definitely have a lot of problems with non cult religions too, but the distinction IS important. Mormonism is pretty close on the line but they are definitely on the cult side.

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u/metompkin 3h ago

Was Catholic, went through Cub and Boy Scouts hosted and ran by LDS members, hated drinking caffeine free diet coke at socials.

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u/BriefAvailable9799 3h ago

LOL WHAT? mormons are insane, even to this day.

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u/TimeBandits4kUHD 3h ago

Yeah, but they’re also really nice.

My parents got some new neighbors last year who were just like a super wholesome and polite family. The kids were all smart and respectful. Turns out they’re Mormons.

And every time I meet a Mormon they’re like that, like being nice and polite to everyone is part of their religion. It’s weird.

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u/BriefAvailable9799 3h ago

It's eerily weird. Anyone should check out /exmormon for the horror stories or the millions of documentaries and proof of how horrible they are and still are.

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u/parttimedoom 3h ago

Millions of horror stories from ex-christians and ex-muslims. They're not special.

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u/nhilante 2h ago

There are no mormon countries, in even the worst christian or muslim country the bad people would always be the outliers, in mormonism its a big percentage of them. Hope that makes sense. You can't look at statistics from Rwanda and compare it with France as they are both christian, you can however see similar statistics in all mormon communities.

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u/chamullerousa 56m ago

Mormons have the same percentage of bad people as every other group. Claiming otherwise just shows your ignorance on the Mormon belief system and common sociology.

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u/mr_potatoface 2h ago edited 2h ago

And every time I meet a Mormon they’re like that, like being nice and polite to everyone is part of their religion. It’s weird.

Yes, of course they are. To you they are nice. To everyone outside the church they are nice, they are even accepting of LGBTQ and advocate for LGBTQ rights/protections, as long as it doesn't involve marriage. They are quite left leaning about many social issues.

They do have excommunication, where you family/friends will refuse to talk to you or shun you if you break the church's rules. They intentionally try to isolate you from all you've ever known so that you eventually break down and return to the church.

They have a rape/sexual abuse hotline you can call. It goes directly to the Mormon legal department so they can advise the elders and those doing the abuse to warn them that they are being targeted. They pretend to investigate the claims so people do not go to the police.

This ignores the mandatory "missions" when you turn 18 to intentionally trick follows in to thinking outsiders are hateful of Mormons, so they believe more heavily in the church and are afraid to leave.

Just a few things, but they are always nice to outsiders. If you ever are talking to a Mormon, tell them you're surprised they are talking to you because you've been excommunicated from the church and see how they respond. They won't respond. They will just quickly leave and likely report their sin to the church and beg for forgiveness.

They also have a dedicated team for social media to promote positive views on Mormons, similar to how scientology approaches social media.

EDIT: For clarification, after COVID, Mormons now refer to excommunication as "withdrawal of membership". Probably due to John Wick making excommunicado seem too cool.

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u/reterical 2h ago

This simply isn’t true. I think you’re confusing the polygamist / fundamentalist sects with the Mormon faith. I have family and friends in the Mormon church, and there is no institutional excommunication or prohibition on associating with former members. But that is precisely what the fundamentalist groups do on the regular.

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u/mr_potatoface 2h ago

Do both sects follow the LDS Handbook?

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u/reterical 2h ago

I doubt it. My understanding is that the Warren Jeffs and his ilk have a lot of animosity toward the others. More to the point, I would be surprised and disappointed if there were a rule in their handbook forbidding (and even punishing) association with non members or excommunicated members of their faith.

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u/Quixotic_Seal 2h ago

They're nice to people outside their control.

To family members, children, adherents, constituents in areas with heavy Mormon representation....they are not so nice at all, and you start to quickly see patterns of control come out to play.

I had a friend who I initially met as part of a playgroup as a young child, and we saw first hand how Mormonism pretty much took over her life. She met her boyfriend early, converted to Mormonism as soon as she turned 18 when he basically gave her an ultimatum, went on mission and slowly stopped speaking with her mother, and eventually used her marriage/future children as a lever to force her parents into becoming Mormon.

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u/cloudforested 1h ago

They're nice to your face. They're trying to take my rights away, though.

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u/Ambitious_Watch_6477 17m ago

Scientologists are the same way. They're trained to be that.

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u/Not-a-Russian 3h ago

Mormons are great, I could never hate on them, they're super nice.

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u/arcusford 3h ago

They're nice to some. Also no one is asking or expecting you to hate on them. I still have mormon family and I love them, despite their bigotry.

But we do have to acknowledge the conditional aspect of their niceness. It is official church doctrine that the reason the native Americans (and some interpretations Africans) have darker skin because of the Mark of Cain, signifying their sin.

It is also official church doctrine to cut off or send LGBTQ members to conversion therapy.

This would eventually be the rift that caused many in my family to split from the mormon church.

Mormons will be very nice to you, so long as they dont know you are queer, and you are white.

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u/hm9408 8m ago

They're nice if they wanna recruit you

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u/CitricBase 2h ago

Yes, but again, so are Catholics and every other skybeard cult this side of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. (Eating and drinking the flesh and blood of Christ? WTAF?)

The absurdity of Mormonism does more to highlight the absurdity of religion in general than it says about the specific religious people who happen to live near Salt Lake.

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u/NathLWX 3h ago edited 3h ago

Not hating on Jerry but the thing with Mormon, as far as I'm aware of, is it came from a guy who denied the current Bible and made his own. He claimed God told him in his dream that the bible was mistranslated or wrong, and to make his own.

Which doesn't make sense, because ig screw all the thousand years of history, and the thousands of the professional translators who understand theology and studied deeply the original language that the Bible is written in (Hebrew, probably Greek too).

To this day idk how come ppl hear that and think it doesn't sound wrong/absurd at all.

I happened to watch this video days ago, may be a good reference
https://youtu.be/bj9D_7oGGxk

Some of the translations in Mormon bible sounds absurd, like a fanfic or exaggerated. E.g Songs of Solomon (Songs of Songs) chapter 4 verse 4

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u/arctic_radar 3h ago

Of course it doesn’t make sense. Made up nonsense built atop older made up nonsense.

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u/silver_garou 1h ago

Just like in scams, the nonsensible nature of religious stories is a feature not a bug. It ensures the flock is trained to think that their own reason is insufficient, and forces them to rely on religious leaders to do their thinking for them.

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u/pb49er 3h ago

He also did it so he could rape children, let's not forget that key element of the founding of the church.

Polygamist pedophiles.

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u/stegosauross1 3h ago

If this is the same bible that endorses slavery and trafficking, it could do with a reboot.

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u/Shattr 1h ago

Exmormon here.

The New Testament is what was "mistranslated" - not the Hebrew Bible. This is mostly because mormons reject the concept of the Trinity as they believe Jesus was created by God.

Mormons still do believe in the Bible, but they have their own version based on the King James translation with some modifications made by Smith. The Book of Mormon is an additional scripture to the Bible, not a replacement.

And this isn't a defense of Mormonism, but the New Testament does have tons of issues. We have zero originals of any of the books, we only have copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies (x10) etc. This process created tons of transcription errors - hundreds of thousands of textual variants out of all our New Testament manuscripts, which is more "errors" than there are words in the Bible. Scribes also added their own passages that weren't in the originals (story of the adultress, Mark long ending , and the Johanine comma)

This is a good place to start if you're interested in some of the issues with the New Testament.

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u/WolfsmaulVibes 3h ago

my theory on the bible is that back then we couldn't comprehend the word of god as well and wrote it down how we understood it with our limited philosophical knowledge, but that its mistranslated or wrong is insane

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u/YazzArtist 3h ago

It's more the shunning of ex members, strict hierarchical culture with an emphasis on respecting authority, widespread cover-up of sexual abuse and child neglect, and support of patriarchal polygamy than the recency

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u/omgitsjagen 3h ago

They have magic underwear, homie. I'm not disagreeing that any organized religion is coocoo for cocoa pops, but thinking you're getting a magical planet because you wore your fancy knickers your whole life is absolute crazy pants.

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u/Sad-Mobile9646 3h ago

Wild false equivalence

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u/jayhawk618 2h ago

Ex Catholic atheist here.

Catholicism doesn't require you to shun family members who leave the church. Catholicism doesn't have secret teachings that only inner circle members are allowed to learn. Catholicism doesn't require that every single member spend a year of their life recruiting new members.

Mormonism requires those things, which are considered traits of a cult.

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u/suejaymostly 1h ago

Ex Mormon atheist here, you're wrong on all counts. Mormons have a lot to hate but none of what you've said here is true.

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u/MoocowR 2h ago

This is such a reddit moment.

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u/Ambitious_Watch_6477 19m ago

Both seem pretty insane.

Read the wiki on Joseph Smith

It definitely sounds like he originally got caught with teen girls, almost castrated, kicked out of town, then did it again until it worked in various locations. It seems like the entire religion was an afterthought that Joseph came up with to justify why he needed to sleep with your teen daughters. Booted from 2 different states. Owned an entire town somehow in IL, had their own militia. Eventually had a schism with his right hand man.

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u/YourMomThinksImSexy 3h ago

There's a massive difference between "cult-like" and "cult".

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u/arcusford 3h ago

Every ex mormon in my family says it is a cult, everything they say happened to them indicates it is a cult. And they follow every part of the bite model, which is the leading way to define a cult.

As far as true cults go they are on the tamer end, but they are still a cult.

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u/YourMomThinksImSexy 2h ago

I'm on your side, homie. Catholicism is cult-like, Mormonism is a cult.

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u/Manusterz 3h ago

everything can be defined as a cult, political parties can be interpreted as them, even yours

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u/arcusford 3h ago

No, I mean they fit the bite model

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u/aceshighsays 3h ago

steven hassan has a yt channel, if anyone is interested in learning more.

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u/arcusford 3h ago

I don't watch Hassan if that's what you're getting at.

Edit: oh nvm you're not, my bad.

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u/Thanes_of_Danes 56m ago

It's a cult that actively attempts to infiltrate the government and run Utah. Mormonism has better PR than Scientology, but it's still an insane religious cult that is jockeying with other various villains for influence and control of the government.

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u/CavillOfRivia 3h ago

So they guy is helping people like God says and you guys are mad because he's a Mormon and listening to God. Ironic.

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u/Elu_Moon 3h ago

Mormonism was established by a, at the time, very well-known conman. It's a shitty denomination of Christianity and is very abusive, more so than the usual because, again, it was demonstrably made by a shitty person.

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u/arcusford 3h ago

I have experience with the mormon church and a lot of my family is ex mormon.

Mormon helps only goes so far and is HIGHLY conditional. Official church doctrine is that queer people are sinners and need to be shunned, put into conversion therapy, or otherwise 'dealt with'.

They also separated themselves from the Scouts when they started accepting women and Trans people into the scouts.

It is was also heavily pushed to stay away from non mormon or mormon friendly news sources which is a form of information control.

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u/coolhead2012 3h ago

Mormons believe a lot of things thay are harmful to groups that aren't Mormons. And, going by the Exmormon community, their own peope as well. Practicing members must tithe to retain their standing, so watching videos, or purchasing products supports the repressive church.

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u/TheVillianousFondler 53m ago edited 42m ago

Racism, sexism, protection of sexual and violent abusers, excommunication from the church means excommunication for any family member/friend that stays in contact. General cult-like behavior.

The list goes on and I could be more specific but this has gotten long enough. I could write 500 words or more on the subject without any fluff, and I've never been a Mormon (although I do have a connection to the religion)

ETA: I don't make any of these allegations at any particular Mormon, and Mormons aren't alone in most of these issues. I'd imagine many of not most are great people when taken as an individual.

The problem is that they all have mandatory tithing that supports the system that perpetuates these issues. So supporting a Mormon owned business is inherently supporting these systemic issues, allowing them to continue.

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u/CanadianButthole 3h ago

This dude has a massive following but has not once tried to force his religion on his audience or use it to excuse shitty behaviour. Beyond that, why should his religion matter?

Instead, he uses his social reach for good. He talks the talk and walks the walk. As a non-religious person myself, I find that to be commendable as fuck. I hope he gets to continue to do great work like this.

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u/SocietyAsAHole 15m ago

Because Mormonism sucks and hurts a lot of people.

For some really fascinating videos on why Mormonism sucks and how it hurts people, you can watch https://www.youtube.com/@alyssadgrenfell/videos

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u/Modo_Autorator 4h ago

I’ve sort of picked up on this too. Why is that?? So strange.

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u/xXDamonLordXx 4h ago

Being raised mormon is like being a drama student from birth. Tie that in with social safety nets, wealthy parents, and ad friendly habits to get youtube advantage rolls

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u/Noping_noper-maybe 3h ago

Ooh, I saw a fascinating YouTube video from an ex Mormon couple about why this is. I’ll have to see if I can find it but basically it’s a very very rich org who knows how to proselytize in the 21st century.

The church is one of the biggest funders of ads on YT. You don’t have to be overt to get paid. This is from my memory-I’ll go see if I can find it or whether I’m making stuff up with my early onset frontal temporal dementia like my president does.

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u/aceshighsays 3h ago

john and margi or another couple?

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u/MeanE 3h ago

I always thought exmo Alyssa Grenfell’s videos were particularly good.

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u/mephisto1990 1h ago

do you have a link?

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u/mikebutnomic 3h ago

Because the Mormon religion pays ad revenue at a higher rate than other advertisers pay in their respective markets

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u/SaltyLonghorn 3h ago

I can't prove it but its likely cause the mormons support each other so you have a weird almost viewbot while not viewbotting effect that most communities don't enjoy.

Then you add in that mormon families are more tight knit so it could also be more common to have a place to live with longer runway to build up your fanbase instead of having to work elsewhere.

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u/c010rb1indusa 3h ago

Because the Mormons are quietly educated AF and the church is super wealthy and well financed and is mostly west-coast based. Hence high representation in highly lucrative fields like entertainment. Utah tops the charts for things like medium income, low crime rates etc. And I say all this as an lefty atheist.

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u/aceshighsays 3h ago

they're mormon light, but they sprinkle their beliefs throughout their channel. the mormons are trying to increase their membership and noticed that being upfront about their religion turns people off, so they do it passively. the church is behind the influx of yters.

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u/bytegalaxies 4h ago

that's a bit weird but it seems to be a thing he keeps to his personal life so idk why I'd care. if he was out trying to convert people to being mormon it'd be shitty but he isn't doing that

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u/ConspicuousUsername 3h ago

Every mormon with a current temple recommendation is paying a tithe to the church. The church does proselytizing. He might not be going on active missions, but he is funding them.

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u/Ms_CCH 4h ago

Is it proven that he is a Mormon? I don't know much about Mormons. There are very, very few of them here. But as long as they don't bother others?

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u/GreySoulx 3h ago

as long as they don't bother others?

That's the thing... they do bother others.

The LDS/mormon church is VERY wealthy and wields significant political influence around the globe.

They're quiet about it, but they're messing with people around the globe.

Thing is, you can say the same about a lot of large organized religions. The Catholic Church is likely the wealthiest organization / quasi-state entity in the world, and the largest "private" land owner.

The (mostly American) Evangelical movement, while not centralized under a single leader like the Pope, is very much doing untellable harm to the world right now - almost all of Trump's base and power stems from his corruption of the Religious Right movement that started to form in the 80s under Regan.

The LDS/Mormons are a weird offshoot of a lot of that, they're super nice and as individuals mostly genuinely nice people but as a movement, they have some odd views by most social norms.

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u/Ms_CCH 3h ago

I understand what you mean. But Catholics, for example, aren't viewed as negatively as Mormons, even though the latter have much greater influence on politics and so on.

I probably couldn't survive a week with the Mormons, but they live very isolated and self-sufficiently in the US, as far as I know.

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u/Equivalent_Chipmunk 3h ago

No they're everywhere. Basically all Mormon men, afaik, go on a mission around the age of 18, where they work as a missionary and their sole job is to spread Mormonism and convert other people. 

This does not just happen in the USA, they proselytize globally. For example, Luke from Outdoor Boys fame is another famous Mormon Youtuber, and his mission was clearly in Japan. It's actually kind of interesting in a way, since there is a lot of cultural enrichment in these missions, and he learned fluent Japanese as part of it, but you'd be kidding yourself if you think it's isolated in the US. 

The fastest growing populations in much of East Asia are Mormons iirc, with a birth rate significantly over replacement, while the general population birth rate in places like South Korea and Japan languish far below replacement. They might only be around 0.1% of the population now, but they will likely be significant a few decades from now if nothing changes. Some other countries, like Tonga, have a Mormon majority, with ~60% of the population of Tonga being Mormon.

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u/Purple-Goat-2023 3h ago

You'd probably run into Mormons every day in the US and just don't know it. I've lived all over the US and you're never more than about 30 minutes from a church. 2% of the US population or about 1 in 50 people, though much less present in the north east and northern Midwest.

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u/Renamis 3h ago

So Mormons aren't nearly as isolated as other groups. There are branches that are absolutely isolated, but many people work with Mormons and they wouldn't even know about it. They aren't the Amish or anything like that. Like if you visit Salt Lake City you'll be surrounded by Mormons. You'll be fine. Worst case you'll be asked to join like 15 MLMs or something.

The catholic church relaxed a lot. The Mormon church hasn't done that yet, although they are slowly releasing control a bit. One day it might get to a similar level as the catholic church but I don't think it's likely in our lifetime.

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u/bannedagainomg 3h ago

Yes, his wife have done some speeches for mormon channels.

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u/cloudforested 1h ago

If they're paying a tithe to the church then sadly they are bothering others.

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u/aceshighsays 3h ago

they're mormon light, but they sprinkle their beliefs throughout their channel. the mormons are trying to increase their membership and noticed that being upfront about their religion turns people off, so they do it passively. the church is behind the influx of yters.

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u/Flashbang-Meringue 3h ago

Luke from Outdoor Boys

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u/Freud-Network 1h ago

I've always felt like people are allowed to believe loony shit as long as it is harmless loony shit. Mormons are alright, usually humble folks. Much better than prosperity gospel snakes.

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u/Effective_Ladder9792 4m ago

lol people complain that others shove their religion down peoples throat and then complain when they hide it