FairMormon has begun to produce a series of YouTube videos aimed at responding to the CES Letter, produced to be a mock news show in the style of SNL’s Weekend Update. The name of the series is This Is The Show (or TITS), and one of the primary minds behind it appears to be none other than Kwaku El, the wannabe Provo influencer and COVID dance party organizer behind Young/Dumb. Yes, those are all actual things.

The director and producer of these videos is Cardon Ellis, an aspiring comedian and filmmaker, who hosts his own Joe Rogan wannabe webcast, when he’s not sneaking knives onto airplanes as a joke. The videos also feature others in the DezNat adjacent, radical orthodox crowd of LDS apologists, like Stephen Smoot, who left Twitter in a hissy fit after being called out for his bullshit and has his own axe to grind against “ProgMos” and “Exmos.”

FairMormon is funded through the More Good Foundation, a nonprofit organization that receives funds from the LDS church’s for-profit enterprises. FairMormon is one of a number of sites that church leaders send members to for “faithful answers” to their doubts and questions about the church, which is something of which they are very proud. Interestingly, in their FAQ section, FairMormon claims:

FairMormon doesn’t bash with anyone. We don’t engage in debate. We just research anti-Mormon literature and respond to it. Our audience is members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and people who are interested in its teachings.

FairMormon FAQ, “Isn’t it wrong to bash with anti-Mormons?”

While a brief peruse of their site shows this is obviously untrue, these videos attacking Jeremy Runnells and the CES Letter are a glaring example. Rather than being a scholarly response to the claims made in the notorious CES Letter, these videos are a series of mocking ad hominem attacks made against Runnells and other critics of the church. Moreover, they are demeaning to members who have legitimate questions or concerns about the church, and feed into a worn out narrative that former members are deceived, lazy, and looking for excuses to sin. This wouldn’t be noteworthy under normal circumstances, because this is an old and favorite tactic by apologists and church leaders from over the pulpit and in their official publications. However, these videos take that trope and dial it up to such an extent that it’s nearly a parody of itself. Every video is dripping with scorn for those they are responding to, and go out of their way to levy attacks on Runnells or others who dare criticize the church. The videos are extremely reactionary and immature, to the point where one wonders if these are really meant to answer people’s questions, or are really just a means of the participants venting their frustrations at trying to defend an indefensible narrative. Really, however, I think the purpose of these videos is to deride and divide, and their attempts at humor at the expense of those who leave the church is the tell.

To explain, let me summarize something I learned from Jason P. Steed, who wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the social function of humor. Namely, humor is a social act that always takes place in a social context. We never joke alone; humor requires social participation, and is a way we relate with others. That is, humor is a way we construct identity, form groups, and find our place in or out of those groups. A primary function of humor is to bring people in—or keep people out—of our social groups. This applies not only to people, but also to ideas, as humor is used to define which people are acceptable and what ideas are acceptable among that group of people. For instance, racist “jokes” are bad because they alienate people on the basis of race, and convey acceptability of racist ideas among the in-group. The teller of the racist joke may defend their behavior by claiming they are “just joking,” but what that conveys is that if you found the joke distasteful then you are in the out-group; they don’t have to defend their behavior to the in-group. In this way, how we use humor is a window into the organization of our social structures.

With this function of humor in mind, what is the real purpose behind FairMormon’s new videos? The videos are basically entirely devoted toward making fun of the CES Letter and anyone who takes it seriously. The purpose would seem to be creating an in-group of “faithful members” by specifically poking fun at the supposed gullibility of former members for being deceived by a hack like Runnells. That is, the goal of these videos is to alienate those who have doubts represented by topics in the CES Letter and to make acceptable the derisive dismissal of them and their concerns. That the jokes levied against those who leave the church are designed to insult and offend is icing on the cake. When former members push back on these insulting mischaracterizations, it only feeds into the narrative that people who leave the church are thin-skinned and easily offended. This is evident in Ellis’s response to folks in the YouTube comments pushing back over the tone of these videos:

This response highlights exactly what these videos are about. Cardon demonstrates that he and FairMormon are operating from a defensively reactionary posture against what they perceive as an endless barrage of “attacks” and “mean-spirited insults.” The solution? To fight fire with fire, apparently—and that includes using the very tactics of distortion, misrepresentation, and fabrication that they accuse the CES Letter and other critics of committing. Again, the purpose is not to provide a legitimate rebuttal, but to portray doubters, critics, and former members as ridiculous in an effort to make them easy to dismiss. These videos attacking the CES Letter are not for those who are struggling after having read the CES Letter; they are for people who have yet to encounter it, in order to prime them to dismiss it out of hand. It’s the tried and true tactic of deploying negative campaign ads to define your opponent before they can define themselves. The author at LDS Discussions sums it up nicely:

This series by FAIR Mormon is not about having an honest dialogue about what is true in the church – this series is about shouting down the CES Letter and anyone who reads it so that they can present their view and only their view.

LDS Discussions

The question is, will it work? Many believe that by calling so much attention to the CES Letter, FairMormon will inadvertently cause some to read it out of curiosity. This may then trigger a faith crisis, especially if they notice that FairMormon’s videos does not actually address the CES Letter’s criticisms or even represent them honestly. After all, that is the crux of what makes the CES Letter so potent a catalyst for faith crisis among so many—the realization that the LDS church has not been honest and forthcoming regarding its narrative and history. For those many who first encounter these issues via the CES Letter, it is natural to feel that the church has intentionally deceived them by hiding so much. This treatment of the issues by FairMormon may only confirm that suspicion.

On the other hand, for those who watch these videos without having heard of the CES Letter and who are unlikely to go check it out through curiosity, then these videos are likely to ensure that they never read it, and to dismiss some of its criticisms out of hand if they encounter them elsewhere. They will also be less inclined to listen to a friend or loved one who raises these concerns or makes reference to the CES Letter as contributing to their faith crisis. Again, this is the point. This is who these videos are geared toward, and I frankly think they may do a decent job of it—so long as viewers aren’t turned off immediately by the cringey jokes and belittling tone and manage to actually watch an entire video.