Among the rise of viral YouTube sensations are a pair of LDS women shining the spotlight of self-parody on Mormon culture.
Chelsea Wilson and Elisabeth Evans, known as the Mormon Girls, have released two comedy videos and are filming their third.
Their first video, “Things Mormon Girls Say” focuses on colloquialisms popular with LDS females and has reached nearly 400,000 views in the last year. Their followup video is a parody on unique Utah names and has received almost 300,000 views since it was released four months ago.
Wilson and Evans, who met as the only two LDS students in the musical theater program at University of Michigan, made the first video as a fun side project.
“At the time, the ‘Things People Say’ videos were a major trend and had gone viral,” said Wilson. “There are so many funny sayings within LDS culture that people outside of the Church don’t understand, and it made a perfect topic for a video.”
Wilson said the overwhelming response to the video was unexpected.
“We thought the video was funny but kind of figured it would just be something to show our friends,” she said. “But it really took off, and before we knew it we were racking up thousands of views.”
After their first video had gone viral, the pair set to work making the “Utah Names” clip.
“We’d been collecting these really crazy names for a long time,” Evans said. “The different spellings and just out-there names are something really unique to Utah, so it was a perfect follow-up to the first video.”
While the pair’s videos have been a hit among the LDS community, there have also been unexpected consequences.
“The comment sections have unfortunately turned into a place where people debate about doctrine,” Evans said. “That was never what we intended, but people who have misconceptions about the Church and our beliefs are using the forum to start arguments. It’s not something we can totally control, but we try to monitor the space and encourage people to see the videos for what they are: humor and self-parody.”
Wilson adds that the popularity of the videos doesn’t always feel real to her, since she lives in New York City.
“Where I live, I’m not surrounded by other members of the Church,” she said. “But when I came back to Utah for Christmas, it was hilarious because I got recognized several times, at a concert I went to with a friend, out on the street. It was then that I finally realized that the videos had had an impact within the BYU community.”
Chelsea Westmoreland, a public health major, said she can see why BYU students relate so well to the videos.
“We connect to the humor in the videos because it’s centered around a stereotype that we’re submerged in,” Westmoreland said.
Westmoreland also said it’s important for members of the Church to be able to laugh at themselves.
“We are very different from the rest of the world,” she said. “And if our non-LDS friends were to hear our jargon and to be exposed more fully to our culture, then they would probably laugh too. Let’s be honest, it’s pretty easy to laugh at some of the stereotypes in our culture.”
