Gen Z ex-Mormons find community on social apps like TikTok

In April 2022, Jillian Orr – a student attending Brigham Young University – showed viewers on the video-sharing social media app TikTok how she sewed a pride flag on the inside of her graduation gown. Orr then flashed the flag to the audience of her graduation ceremony.

Orr posted the video in protest of the Honor Code set by BYU, which operates under The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Honor Code outlines standards that students and faculty are required to follow, and in 2020, BYU updated language within the Honor Code to say same-sex relationships are not compatible with the school’s principles.

https://www.tiktok.com/@jillianoreo/video/7089901779235654955?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7186741251936339502

The tag #exmormon – a term used to refer to someone who has left the church – went viral on TikTok in the time leading up to Orr’s video. The phrase has caught the eyes of young audiences, especially those in Gen Z, with tagged videos receiving more than 1.4 billion views as of January 2023.

“[TikTok] is giving [Gen Z] the information so they can choose and think for themselves,” said Orr. “When given all the information and allowing people to learn, question and challenge, that is when people can make decisions for themselves.”

Salt Lake Community College student Layah Kou left the church as a teenager, and without that association, she said, she found herself feeling lonely.

“My entire life I was taught to believe in God and that my purpose on Earth was to be with him again,” Kou said. “But now that I don’t, it feels like I don’t know anything anymore. I didn’t know my purpose.”

Kou found a sense of community on TikTok watching videos of ex-Mormon creators like psychologist John Dehlin, who hosts the “Mormon Stories Podcast” and interviews individuals on topics and personal experiences relating to the church.

“Seeing their experiences … and how relatable and similar [they were] to mine, made me feel validated,” Kou said.

With the tagline “post-religion discourse but make it fun and cute,” the platform Zelph On The Shelf was created in 2016 by best friends Samantha Shelley and Tanner Gilliland after they left the church. To help them process losing their faith, Shelley and Gilliland began making parody song videos and funny responses to church blogs.

“Gen Z is probably the first generation in Mormonism to have access to others to validate what they are going through,” Shelley said. “If you have doubts about the church, you can always find community [on TikTok].”

As a creator who uses the tag #exmormon on TikTok, Shelley said the goal extends beyond just having a laugh with other former members of the church.

“A lot of [creators] are trying to give [viewers] an opportunity to consider whether their beliefs or ways of looking at the world might be skewed or wrong,” she said.

The church strongly discourages members from finding answers to their questions via outside sources. During a talk called “Christ Is Risen; Faith In Him Will Move Mountains,” the prophet of the church, Russell M. Nelson, told members to take their questions “to the Lord and to other faithful sources.”

“Accounts like Zelph On The Shelf let you actually explore those questions and find answers,” said Jill Morrison, a Utah Valley University film student. “I think it’s important for members of the church to really explore the history and maybe [the] negative sides of their religion.”

In March 2022, the American Survey Center found that 34% of Gen Z is religiously unaffiliated, compared to 29% of millennials, making Gen Z the least religious generation yet. And according to a study done by Pew Research Center, adults who are religiously unaffiliated stand at 29%, six percentage points higher than 2016.

Membership among younger members of the church has followed the trend, according to “The Next Mormons: How Millennials are Changing the LDS Church,” which notes the church is retaining 45% of its young people in the United States compared to 80% in generations past.

“Previous generations are told to obey, and I believe we have a new generation that is choosing to reflect on what they feel is right rather than what they are told is right,” Orr said. “[Gen Z] is finally getting accurate information and choosing for themselves.”

Shelley adds that because of social media, younger people have greater access to information.

“In the past, a Mormon in Salt Lake in the ‘70s would have to go to a scary book shop to get some forbidden book about the truth of Joseph Smith,” she said.

Shelley said she believes there has been a cultural shift among practicing and former members of the church regarding views about those who decide to leave.

“Over the last 10 years there’s been so many more people leaving the church, and they’re not doing it in the shadows anymore,” she said. “It feels like the culture has shifted – the church itself seems like it’s made some kind of effort to not demonize people who leave.”