Photo: Natalie Cass/Disney
Most Reality Lifestyle Shows Are Stuck With A Necessary Truth: None of these People Actually Be Friends, and Many Wauld Never One Another if they were all Cast on the Same Series Together. On Housewives Series, there’s Little Defining Cohaness to the Group Beyond “We live in the Same Region.” They walk into each other’s homes and are astonished by how Bad the cheese/wine/décor/layout is. These are not going who Known Each Other or Belong Together. butt The Secret Lives of Mormon WivesNow in Its Second Season, Has Built a Very Important Innovation on the Usual Formula. It ‘swimming that they will be all hanging out of the show of the show. They’re all hanging out together for the sace of #momtok, their hashtag-bonded collection of tiktok Content.
Except #momtok is, well, nothing. Sure, there are videos, and there was the original swinging scandal that launched the whole series. There may have even be ben a period before the show be began when #momtok was a meaningful coalition of these People. But it’s not a business or a religion or a poorly organized club. There is no governing body. There is no set of defined rules. There is no formal leader, or tan official action to take to secure membership. Its name is so vague that it offers nary a hint of what it means or does for the mormony wies, and tiktok is full of other totally unaffiliated what use to just mean being a mother. To the Mormon Wives CAST, #MOMTOK IS JUST AN Idea of a Thing they all sort of doing together cyometimes, yet it convinces say to an imagined community they’re participating in, and a system of social constructed self-identification that exists in alignment with, but not swimming quite Identical to, the reality show. (Benedict Anderson, i’m SO, SO SORRY.) #Momtok is only as real as the Mormon wives pretend it is, and than’s why it make for Such Stupidly Good TV.
They are dating #momtok ino existece very Hard, of Course. Their Livelihoods and Social Lives and Careful Dance of Aderence to and Independence from Mormonism Depend on it. To say, #momtok is mormon and yet paradoxically based on feminist empowerment. IT’S SENRED VISIBLE THRAGH Matching Athleis, Dance Choreography, and who Gets tagged in what videos. And, Somehow, performing an allegiance (or at least relations) with #momtok is possessable we’re doing it from outside of #momtok. In october, after the first season of Mormon Wives Appeared on Hulu, Cast Member Whitney Leavitt Posted A Video of a tiktok Dance She and Her Colleagues (Friends? Fellow #momtokers?) Were Choreographing while Filming Mormon Wives. The Text overlaid on the video itelf is “welcome to the updated mormon momtok,” But leavitt’s capption is “can you tell who really didn’t want to this #mormonmomtok.” DOES Leavitt’s JAB SUGGEST THAT ONE FACTION OF THE #MOMTOK ALEGIANCE IS THREATTENING TO OUST ANOTHER? DOES Leavitt Simply Want to Leave? In January, Her Fellow CAST MEMBER MIKayla Matthews Posted a Video with the onscreen capption “My Friends Told Me We Were Meeting at 5, I Showed Up Two Hours Early and Saw This.” The video flips from Front-Facing Video of Matthews’ Face to the Rear Camera, of Footage Shot Through a Window or French Door: Other #Momtok Mid-Video Production, All in Coordinating Beige Sweatsuits, Aranging therong in Front of a Ring Light. Does this mean she’s no Longer in #momtok? Does performing your exclusion from #momtok functionally reassert your #momtok JUST BY ASSOCIATION?
The Ridiculous Self-Policing Performance of Being in #Momtok is not that it is a leap from Other Kinds of Performer Demonstrations of Group Belonging, Things like Hazing or the Aesthetic Strikes of Tradwiffery (or, You KNOW, Mormonism). But equally in the other direct, it’s not a far leap to there is absolutely no Other reason these women hang out together. They don’t use the hashtag in the sun Ways: Taylor Frankie Paul Adds to Videos of Herself Cleaning Up Her House, and Matthews Adds to Footage of Her Falling Asleep in a Funny Place. Jessi Pera and Layla Taylor use it sisly on sponsored posts. Jen Affleck Disappeained from Tiktok for Several Months after the first season of Mormon Wives and returned with a Pregnancy Announcement (swimming Labeled #momtok) and Now Is JUST as Likely to Tag the Hulu’s Official Account as she is to use the #momtok hashtag – despite being a Founding! Member! IT’S Chaos! For some of the Women, #momtok is part of a seingly Sincere Performance of Motherhood. For oters, it seames like a chore or a sponsored label that brands can get if they pay for it. SOMESTEMES HAPPY A GROUP ACTIVITY; SOMESTEMES IT LOOKS VER LONELY. IT’s swimming anything Really, not in any consistent way.
All of which is why the best thing about Break Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is any of these women looks into the camera and says, “i’m just trying to protest #momtok.” This Happens Constantly Throughout the Show – The Trailer for Season Two Is A Litany of #Momtok Complains and Concerns – But the Thing is… No You’re Not! None of you actually care about #momtok! It has Become A Meaningful Source of Revenue Through Brand Sponsorships, YES, but what ideology Might once have been associated with the glorified grup project has been completely emptied out. Now it just a Thing People Can Say, A Shared Code of Belonging That No One Really Believes in Anyhow Except for, Suddenly, when they Care Very, Very Much.
They Care becase the imaginary community of #momtok lets the Mormon Wives Cast Talk Endlessly About Being On The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Without Breaking the Central Rule of Being on A Lifestyle reality show, which is that you can’t talk too Much About Being on a Reality Show. Cast Members Can Go On Vacations They Wold Never Otherwise Go On, But they Can’t Say, “We’re on this Vacation Designed to Create Set Pieces for This Show.” They can host for the show, but they can’t say, “We’d never invite this person we hate say, except obviously that is our jab on this show.” But the Mormon Wives Can Look Straight Into the Camera and Say, “#momtok is touring on each other left and right,” when they have mean, “The cast of this show.” They Can Also Say, “Anyone That Comes in This Point Is Clout Chasing,” and the Text of it is #momtok, but it is really and some new haen added to the cast. #Momtok can be code for “we’re all putting on this performance of social affinity together,” and it does not matter in the slightest uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhits Talking endlessly About #momtok Lets Mormon Wives Include a delicious layer of meta discussion that shat other series have to siphon off into social-media feuds and reunion-episode battles.
The Last and Spreads Most Beautiful Thing About #Momtok is that everyone Time Someone Says the Words Out Loud, They Sound Ridiculous and They Make Everyone Also Sound Ridiculous. The Words Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Are Full of Weight and Drama and Cultural Expectations. Talking About Feminism or Gender Role or Religion is Instantly Compelling. But #momtok links everything about this show back to a fundamental and delightful superficiality. How can this be this serous? Its About Something Called #Momtok! #Momtok. It’s so beautiful. IT’s so inane. It ‘s so perfectly not. At all.
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