Are the Mormon TikTok Moms Really Swingers?
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: I don’t know what you would call it if it’s like soft swinging, but you don’t like fully switch, if that makes sense.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Hi, I’m Rachel Hampton.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: And I’m Madison Malone, Georgia. You’re listening to. I see. Why am I?
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: In Case You Missed It.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Slate’s podcast about Internet culture.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: And for a brief, dismal moment, we must return to the child who shall not be named, because it’s the only thing on any of my social media platforms since the verdict came out on Wednesday afternoon.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: I mean, social media feeds I was out last night in a bar with a friend. We obviously talked about this verdict and then we’re like, okay, let’s talk about happy things. And then I spot the bartender imitating doing a sneaky bump of cocaine.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: No.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: I immediately can tell that he’s doing an impersonation of what, like certain folks would like you to believe Amber Heard was doing on the stand.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: That is one of the many theories that make the least amount of sense. But we don’t have time to get into that because all we’re all we’re talking about, very briefly is the fact that after six health filled weeks of testimony, the jury came back with the finding that Amber Heard defamed Johnny Depp in a 2018 Washington Post piece that did not name him. She now owes him $10.35 million. But in a weirdly paradoxical twist, that makes no sense if you think about it. They also found that one of Depp’s lawyers defamed heard when they called her allegations a hoax, and so she was awarded $2 million. So does this make sense to me? No. Am I a lawyer also? No. Are any of the people on the jury also know.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: The jury, which we didn’t actually mention this in our our last episode, the jury which was not sequestered. So keep in mind that this jury was able to see all of the shit on the Internet that you all saw day after day. Tick tock after. Tick tock after. Paid far right Facebook post.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: As soon as the verdict was read, as I said, most my social media feeds turned into a grim place to be. There was and continues to be a disgusting amount of pro Depp content celebrating his win, including my favorite and my favorite. I mean, the one I would like to be launched into the sun. A Tweet from the House Judiciary GOP that was just a gif of Jack Sparrow. In case you were wondering who exactly is siding with Depp, i.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: When the verdict came in, tweeted logging off and I meant it. So I actually hadn’t seen this. Thank you so much.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: I’m so sorry. I thought about tweeting logging off, but I knew that I wasn’t going to log off, so I was like, Let me not lie.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Something I did see, however, is Kelsey Wickman over at BuzzFeed, is compiling a list of celebrities who have liked Amber Heard in Johnny Depp’s respective Instagram posts following the verdict. Yeah, it’s telling. It’s informative, I might say shocking.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: I was shook to my core. I love Kelsey, but also Kelsey. Why did you make me have to see this? I’m upset.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: I you know, there were some people that were unsurprising. Let’s say Ryan Adams, the person who has faced similarly terrible allegations from women, you know, but there were some people on there who just surprised me. Jennifer Aniston.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Amanda Knox.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Suni Lee, the gymnast. Bella Hadid. Naomi Campbell. Amy Sedaris.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Halle Bailey of Chloe X. Halle not Halle Berry, which was a brief mistake that I made. And I was like, Girl, but I’m still like, Girl.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: The list is longer than the one for Amber Heard, shall we say. But you know who’s on both?
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Tell me.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Jason Momoa, who starred in Aquaman with Amber Heard.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: The woman was too stunned and too tired to speak.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: At any rate, you know who we can keep. Selma Blair.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Honestly, I love Selma Blair. She will always be my favorite person. Legally Blonde. Legally Blonde two should have had her in it. That was a travesty. Like speaking of crimes, that was a crime.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: I mean, the larger crime is that clearly Vivienne and Elle Woods should have gotten together. They are each other’s point.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Yes. Yes. Madison, this is the pride content we need. I say, is the straight woman in the room. But yes, clearly, clearly Luke Wilson did not need to fucking be there. Also, it took me years to realize that was a pun on Legally Blind Years years.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: And as you can tell with Rachel and I just grasping at anything to make levity, don’t think we can talk about this trial very much more, but if you are still looking for information or want to hear more about it or the chilling effect that it is very much going to have on survivors in the future, we definitely recommend you go back and listen to our episode from Wednesday. It’s called How Depp v Heard Broke the Internet. And it’s a good one if we say so. It’s terrible, but it’s good. That makes sense, right?
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: It does. It does. And what also makes sense is that we have spent too much time on this trial and don’t want to keep us or y’all living in it for too long, at least on this show. Unfortunately, the impacts will be with us and will be a part of the larger discourse for much longer, not least because Marilyn Manson is now suing Evan Rachel Wood on some of their grounds. But we are pivoting, we’re hard pivoting. We are turning so fast to the right that it might cause a traffic jam, because I can’t I can’t think about this anymore.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: We’re going to take a quick break. But when we come back, we’re going to talk about a revealing and dramatic and potentially delusional interview with former One Direction member Liam Payne. He gave in on Logan Paul’s podcast. LP, LP, maybe some there. And after that we’ve got high speed downloads on YouTubers who are embracing colonial living. Question Mark And one of our most requested, I believe most requested topic of all time.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Oh, without a doubt.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: The Mormon mommy influencers who are swinging with each other’s husbands sometimes. I really do love this job.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: And we’re back listening to One Direction, as I was from the years 2013 to 2016. Yes, I’m outing myself as a former directioners.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Oh, Rachel, are you saying you didn’t know you were beautiful?
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: I was not around for that era. That was the baby area. That was the Take Me Home era. And I was not into that.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Mm hmm. Sure. Jan.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Wow. Anyway, I would like to shout out one of my listeners, Ruth, who asked us what the fuck is going on with Liam Payne, who, for the perhaps many of you who skipped the One Direction era, is a former member of the now defunct boyband, One Direction.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: They’ve gone in several directions since.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Earlier this week. Liam, the fifth member the I don’t know what a member of one direction.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Wait, did they actually have numerical distinctions?
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: No, no, no. I’m just thinking of in the lineup of members that most people know, I do actually feel like Liam might be the least well known. That used to be Niall, but he’s come out with some BOPs and I think more people know him now. Anyway, Liam decided to get just spicy on Logan Paul’s podcast, impulsive and share some gossip about his former bandmates.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: I do love that this is once again a the middle of a Venn diagram of our interests. We’ve got one direction on one side for you and against me. Well, we have Logan Paul’s podcast, which I have listened to many an episode of.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: You know, it’s awesome for everybody.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: What did Liam Payne say to Logan Paul?
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: So I will start off by saying, as a former One Direction or I keep up with their news. And the thing.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: About Brady is it’s not former.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: No, it’s like when you when you have a high school best friend that you’re no longer friends with, but you peek in on their Instagram every once in a while to see if they’re, like, married or broken up with their boyfriend. Like, we’re not friends anymore, but I’m still checking in. That’s how I feel about One Direction.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Okay.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: So this being said, they all individually rarely talk about One Direction as a band or the break up. So any news that comes out immediately makes the fandom like sit up and their little ears perked up. So Liam starts out on this podcast by basically claiming and I am saying claiming with a capital C because what follows is inaccurate. He claims that Simon Cowell created one direction because of and for him because and again, you would not know this unless you were one direction or Liam had actually failed out of X Factor a few years before he was on the season that created One Direction.
Speaker 3: Part of the reason One Direction was made was because of Simon’s promise to me that in two years, I’ll make this work for you. Wow. So he kind of started with my face and then worked around the rest of them. Never told us.
Speaker 4: You were that you were the inception.
Speaker 3: I was the honorary member of One Direction. Yes. And he told me that story himself in his house while.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: In his house.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: I don’t know what’s more unbelievable about this story, Simon telling Liam about this in his house or that he would say this. But, you know, Simon was like the godfather of One Direction. And this sounds like something that you might say to talent to kind of make them feel special, given the fact that we all know who the true star of One Direction is and was and continues to be Harry Edward Styles.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Liam also decides that this interview with Logan Paul is a great place to air One Direction’s dirty laundry, which is really what got the girls going. Like, no one cares about his delusions. They really care about the T because again, none of them ever really bad mouth each other. I don’t know if that’s like an NDA. I don’t know if that’s like a maybe in 20 years when we’re all irrelevant, we might want to do a comeback tour, I don’t really know. But at one point he talks about the tensions between him and fellow bandmate Louis Tomlinson.
Speaker 3: Louis was wild and he wanted to be wild and that’s his spirit. And also he’s my best mate. Nobody in the band, we hated each other, like to come to blows, hate each other like he was like it was.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: So here he’s talking about the fact that he and Louis were very different in the band. He says Louis is kind of a person who really loves the party and Liam isn’t. It’s honestly somewhat troubling to hear how casually he speaks about violence to his bandmates. But also it’s important to remember that I don’t think any of them were over the age of like 25 and they were in one direction, which is not an excuse for violence. But also if you get a bunch of under 25 year old boys together and give them a shit ton of money and attention and alcohol, i this is not surprising to me at this point. Liam says the thing that actually gets the Internet buzzing, which is at one point in this interview, Logan asks about his own brother Jake’s interactions with Zayn Malik.
Speaker 4: He said, Hi, design and like Zayn. Jake felt like saying was disrespectful to him and he wanted to like say, what’s up? And so Jake tweeted at him and then he was screaming in his hotel room because the rooms were right next to each other. He was he was he was there was a video of it online screaming in his hotel rooms like, I thought my brother was about to fire Zayn. And then Gigi tweeted AJ calling like ugly and irrelevant and that went crazy viral. And you know, Jake is so great, she tweets, but he’s not irrelevant.
Speaker 3: Then she tweeted. She tweeted something about Get yourself like a respectful man or something. Yeah. Yes. I didn’t age very well.
Speaker 4: Didn’t age.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Oh, okay. This this is the part of the story I do actually know. What Liam here is referring to is an incident last year where Zayn allegedly assaulted Yolanda Hadid, the mother of his then partner, supermodel Gigi Hadid. Zayn denied those allegations, but also plead no contest to four counts of harassment. Not funny. Not just not funny.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: It’s not. And Liam seemed to realize that because he was pretty clear to try and walk back what he said.
Speaker 3: Listen, listen, listen, listen. Before you go, we got before we got too deeply into this, there’s this many reasons why I dislike Zayn in as many reasons why I’ll always, always be on his side.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Let me guess. Liam’s really sorry now.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Mm hmm. He is. Not least because these comments are some of the most explicit comments he’s ever made about his former bandmates. Again, all five of these guys are really careful about what they say usually. And there’s a reason because Liam very quickly came under fire for these comments and tweeted an apology the following day that says, Guys, I wouldn’t normally comment on this stuff, but when it’s your family, it’s hard to let it slide. They mentioned a specific incident involving Zayn, which I responded to, but listening back, maybe I didn’t articulate myself as well as I could have. I was saying there will always be things we disagree on, but that I will always, always be on his side. That’s family. Zayn is my brother and I will stand by him forever.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Well, too bad.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Liam. Too bad because yeah, this joke was already on the record. And, you know, the internet does what it will with sound bites. One of I think the more I’m not going to say surprising because I could have seen this coming. But interesting things here is that a whole lot of the reactions to this interview had to do with calling him out on his delusions of grandeur. But there was another strain that popped up from One Direction fans who have now managed to get the phrase, We will stand by Zayn and Liam trending on Twitter. That is in all caps. Just so you know, the topic is filled with spam tweets, sharing photos of the two over the years and rallying around both of these men. Because, again, this is one of the most kind of explicit mentions of the breakdown of that friend group.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Zayn left the band about a year before it officially stopped putting out music before they went on a hiatus. They, I don’t think, have ever officially broken up. Him leaving in the middle of a tour was one of the biggest riffs to ever happen in boyband history. It was wild watching this happen, and even when he left, the way this group messaged his leaving was very clearly kind of just PR like they were clearly dealing with this loss and this rift and didn’t really know how to talk about it.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: What this means is that the fandom has stepped in and kind of interpreted any comments over the past few years in whatever light they want to. This specific light is a ship. Everybody I think, who knows about One Direction is about Larry silencing, which is this ship between Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles. But it was five fairly attractive boys in a band constantly like roughhousing with each other and doing vaguely homoerotic things. So like, obviously there were other ships involved. One of the most popular ones, obviously, Larry, silence and eclipses all of this was what is called ZM, which is Zane and Liam.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: You could have like learned Mandarin.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Why would I actually did try to learn Mandarin at some point? It took five.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Years. That’s why in high school you could be better at it.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: I don’t have a mind for languages. I do have a mind for interesting fandom politics. But so beyond the ships, there are a lot of directioners who are holding out hope for a union at some point. And so every single time these little tensions make their way out into the public, it’s kind of taken as catastrophic. And so you have this combination of people who love Zayn and Liam’s friendship slash potential relationship, whatever that was, and then people who are just really holding on tightly to the idea that at some point one direction will make a comeback. And taking Liam’s comments as a dagger to the heart.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Ruth, to your original question, you did also ask us what the hell this has to do with Dixie D’amelio. And the best I can offer you is that Dixie and Liam put out a song together, a Christmas Christmas tune several years ago, and that’s why. So people are now like, Yeah, okay. Like, Liam made a song with Dixie D’amelio. They made a song with Taylor Swift.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Yeah, very different leagues, some might say.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: I think that’s perhaps. Rachel, I’m sorry. All the time we have left to commit to the mind, the thoughts, the heart of Liam Payne.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: No, I think that’s accurate though. If any of you are former directioners and wish to hop into our mentions and talk about your favorite theories and back in the day, feel free.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: All right. We’re going to take a quick break. And when we come back, it is time for high speed downloads, about 19th century YouTubers and the Mormon mommy influencers whose swinging lives are simply falling apart, swinging out of control.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: More on that after the break.
Speaker 5: This photo was taken so baby saver is now not.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Hi. Ah, I hope you’re enjoying today’s show. If this is your first time listening then welcome. We are so happy to have you here joining the ICU. I and my family, we promise we’re not a cult. In case you missed it, yes. I make that joke every single week. Our show comes out twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. So make sure you never miss an episode like this. Past Wednesday is Butch is all about how the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial took over the Internet. You don’t want to miss it. Check it out.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: All right. We are back with high speed downloads. In case you’re new here, high speed downloads are a segment where Rachel and I have 60 seconds to summarize a topic, trend or story that is all over the Internet. And did I mention we do it at top speed? Basically, if you don’t like listening to people talk really, really fast, we recommend you change your podcast playback speed to like half. Now, Rachel, you are up first. What do you have for us today?
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: I have something that is so aggressively me, if you know anything about me, that it is stunning. I’m obsessed with this YouTube channel. It’s literally just called and I quote, early American.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Oh, boy. All right. Can’t wait. You have approximately 60 seconds on the clock. Three, two, one, go. Okay.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: This channel is created October 2020, which was a dark time for all of us. So This Makes Sense by Ron Drake Field and Justin Jordan, the members of the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, which sounds racist, but they’re not. They’re really big history buffs. Actually, I don’t know if there are racist. Don’t don’t quote me on that. It’s just follow the daily lives of Ron and Justine as they manage through 1820s Missouri. So picture like the game, the Oregon Trail, but like only the part in town where you buy supplies for you to paradise. Dysentery. No one’s dying of dysentery. In fact, they’re all about making these incredibly intricate period based cooking like barley and leek and mincemeat pie. They’re literally non narrated, so all you hear is the process sounds. It’s like old Asmar. The first video features a recipe for funeral cook you. The most popular video has 5.4 million views and features 1807 macaroni and cheese. They also have more England scenes of 19th century gentlemen and working class people and these incredibly elaborate imagine scenes like Tea with Meg, which are basically.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Hilarious action.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Films with capsule dialogue slash commentary so ensue. Meg literally on. Meg start feeling silverware from the house. There are actual reenact improvised dialogue like Justine’s new job is already getting her.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: I was really good. I’m sorry. I absolutely lost it at Ye Olde Asmar.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: That’s what it is. You just see her, like, meeting Joe and, like, chopping shit and it is so elaborate and makes you realize how incredible the invention of electricity was.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Rachel in time honored. High speed download tradition.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: You do get one more sentence to finish your thoughts. What do you got?
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: I must say that this is an extremely white endeavor, which I appreciate it. I don’t want to think about how American settlers interacted with indigenous or black people. And B, they recently bought a 200 year old rope bed and stuffed the mattress full of straw. And this is just fascinating to me. I don’t know if you could tell, but history is my favorite subject in school. All right. Now in it, we are finally at the topic that our listeners are actually dying to hear about. Though I know at least three of you out there are excited to learn about the early American YouTube channel. For the rest of you who emailed tweeted, DM’d us about this. Here it is.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: I am back on my Mormon bullshit.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Incredible. Godspeed. Three, two, one. Go.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Okay. The story starts with Taylor, Frankie, Paul. No relation to Jake or Logan, a mormon mom on TikTok. She’s an influencer. She lives in Draper, Utah. She’s been making contact with her other mom, phones her neighbors is the Utah Content House. So picture like generically hot women with matching long hair, matching barley. I’ve watched way too many of these videos because if you know, you know, TikTok thinks I was once upon a time a member of the Church of the Latter day Saints. There’s this one where they’re like, they use that like, I want a ride. I want to ride video about like Dick I watched two times.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: She recently split from her husband, Tate Taylor. She has two kids, Indian Ocean, and she’s been posting videos and passions about moving out. Becoming a single mom sent her followers into a spiral, wondering what’s going on there. Turns out her relationship allegedly ended because she cheated on her husband with another friend’s husband. Some of the influencers allegedly unfollowed her. They like comments about her cheating. Here’s where things get weird here. Not only that, but as I just said, Taylor Post Live, which isn’t available where she reveals that she and her husband were allegedly, quote unquote, soft swingers. And the Cheetah Friend Group implied to be the other mom who answers or stops swinging together. The agreement was they could hook up with each other spouses as long as their partners were in the room, but not going all the way, which I guess means checking up on the mouth stuff seeking. The reason they’re getting divorced is because Taylor’s talking with a friend’s husband without her partner present breaking the rules. The thing is, half of Taylor stick is lying for clout. Like she at one point was pretending to be a 50 year old with 25 year old twins on TikTok.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Oh, that was really impressive, Madison. Like you got, I think, more than I expected in that one minute. But in time honored tradition, you get one more sentence.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Well, my first sentence is mom. Full answers. So hard to say fast.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Yeah, there’s a lot of confidence in there.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: So, like I said, lying on Tik Tok for clout is not even an original bit, but it’s one that Taylor Frank. Paul Sorry. It’s just so many first names. It’s one that TFP has used before, so it is unclear about how much of this is actually true.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: What kind of lies?
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Like I said, like she would post videos about how she was 50 years old. This woman is not 50.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Why would it that such an easily provable lie? What’s the point?
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Rachel, I watched the video. Now I’m talking about it with you. She wins. We lose.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Damn. So this isn’t true. This isn’t real.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: We don’t know. But, you know, there’s one thing we know for certain, that it’s nothing like Mormons and sex to get people on TikTok interested in watching.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: You’re right. But one more. I have one more question. Madison, what is soft swinging?
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: I think this is not to swing shame. It’s just truly not a community. I am familiar with my understanding of soft swinging is the partner in a room.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: That feels to me like a difference without a distinction, but like, okay.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: You know, I don’t know what it all is. I don’t have the answers. Listeners, I’m sorry. The best I can offer you is what I have given you. And with that, I think it’s time for us to soft swing on out of here. But all right. That’s the show. We’ll be back in your feed on Wednesday, so please subscribe. It is the best way to make sure you never miss an episode. I can’t promise that Rachel won’t go off on one direction again. But hey, a girl can hope. Please leave a rating and review an Apple or Spotify and tell your friends about us. Follow us on Twitter we are at. I see. Why am I underscore pod or email us? ICYMI At Slate.com case, this episode wasn’t obvious. We really do love hearing from y’all and we take everything you send us into consideration.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: I see why my is produced by Daniel Schroeder Madison Malone Kircher and me Rachel Hampton Alicia montgomery as VP of Slate Audio see online.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: Or in a bedroom somewhere in Utah.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Or like 1.75 x 1.5.
Madison Malone, Maddison Malone: That’s still faster.
Rachel Martin, Rachel Hampton: Oops.
