now before we begin we have a very special film brought to you all the way from the capital hello hello if you are new here welcome my name is Dove and I really love the Hunger Games I've been talking about it on Tik Tok for the past two years or so but with everything going on over there thought I'd go ahead and make the jump to long form content I obviously have a lot to say anyways don't I you know how long this video is you clicked on it so I studied cultural geography rhy in college and I find the Frameworks within the field to be so interesting and applicable to so many different situations when I reread the Hunger Games for the first time as an adult which was in March of 2023 Netflix put all of the movies on there and all of a sudden everybody was talking about the series again as much as I loved it when I was a kid nothing compared to how much I love it now being an adult and fully understanding the entire context and all of the Nuance that's included in the story but when I was doing that reread I was fascinated by all of the ways that place and identity are intertwined throughout it and I was like man I really want to read a paper on that surely somebody has already written it they hadn't so then I spent the next 6 months of my life compiling all of that together into what is essentially a mini thesis this is about 22,000 words um but there's a lot of stuff that I couldn't fit into that this video is going to be the first and what I L on on being a 14-part series that focuses specifically on each district and the capital and it will cover the human and cultural and physical geography of panm now obviously this video is super long so I'm going to go ahead and put time stamps in the description so you can jump around to different sections if you want to watch it in more than one sitting it is a lot longer than I had initially intended but the reason for that is as I was doing research for this video I just kept finding more interesting connections and it felt silly to not include them for time's sake that's why I'm coming to YouTube there's no time limit in this video you're going to get a sampling of Salt Lake City's most impressive tourist attractions as well as their City Planning considerations multiple lessons in Utah history a biography of Corola Snow's long ago ancestor and narrative twin a crash course on Mormon values and sens ities a Fun With Flags segment an analysis of capital style and culture and a quick lesson on folk Linguistics there's probably more that I'm missing but we're going to do it together if you like this kind of content please be sure to like this video And subscribe it really helps me out um and I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments if you want to go ahead and let me know which district you think I should do next I would also love to hear that we need to address the elephant in the room which is the Canon map that's used in the movies I kind of hate this map I not kind of I do I do hate this map um if you're looking at panm textually the information that's included in the books shows so much care and consideration for where each district is placed it overlaps a lot with current day industry culture and historical context and while it's clear Suzanne Collins put a lot of thought into that placement um I find it incredibly frustrating how clear it is that the maps that were given to represent it did not have that kind of care in consideration I am a graphic designer as my day job and I know exactly what happened which is whoever was working then for various promotional stuff was simply tasked with creating a map they were given the general location of each district and then told that this is an eroded future North America and they heard eroded and they said okay cool let's just take it about an inch off all coastlines which is not how that would happen I am planning to eventually make a video where I redesign this map with like cartography principles actually included but in the meantime this is what we have so if you look at this map you will see that the capital is located in current day Wyoming it's not it's not act but when we're talking about where the capital is there is one fan theory that has just completely taken over and it has taken over to the point that people are like correcting other people as if it's Canon it isn't okay but a lot of people think that the capital is located in Denver specifically I've seen a lot of arguments that it's the Denver International Airport so the reasoning for this is typically twofold number one propos of this head Cannon site that the airport already serves as a shelter for catastrophic events and is somewhere people would flock to in Fallout be it meteorological or political and then they also use the airport's existing and extensive network of underground tunnels as additional evidence I'm going to be honest here I think the argument about the tunnels is a little bit silly just because it's mot like most cities in the US and worldwide already have an existing network of tunnels like there are lots of reasons to have tunnels like you can even book tours to explore a lot of them obviously there's the infamous Paris Catacombs but like even here in Portland you can tour the Shanghai Tunnels Seattle has the Seattle Underground there are catacombs in Indianapolis of all places there's extensive tunnel systems in Kansas City LA Boston Chicago Las Vegas and literally so many other places it's not like special or uncommon and then I also think that a lot of people who really push this Theory just haven't read the books in a long time and are misremembering information that's presented in the text yes katna says that the capital is located in what used to be known as the Rocky Mountains and for a lot of people when they think of the Rockies they think of Denver and this is enough for them to take that idea and run with it one new argument I had not heard until I started talking about it on Tik Tok recently was a grow body of people who do really seem to believe that the capital is located in Wyoming I had one commenter that was like it has to be laramy has to be laramy so I Googled laramy because I've never heard of it before it has a population of 32,000 people I don't think that's I don't think that's going to be a major urban center now I don't want to fully dismiss people's ideas that are different than mine but still technically fall within the realm of possibility but at the end of this video I do hope that you're going to be pretty convinced that the capital is in fact the future of what we now call Salt Lake City so before we fully dive in we are going to discuss what we know from the text as you can see I have lots of little Flags here this is the copy that I annotated when I was writing this so so this is from page 59 in the first book as the door swing shuts behind him the car goes dark there are still a few lights inside but outside it's as if night has fallen again I realize we must be in the tunnels that run through the mountains into the capital the mountains form a natural barrier between the capital and Eastern districts it's almost impossible to enter from the East except through the tunnels this geographical advantage was a major factor in the district's losing the war that led to my being a tribute today since the rebels had to scale the mountains they were easy targets for Capital Air Forces so starting off there's the simple fact that the capital is pretty far west in fact there are only two districts that are further west than it and one that is immediately South which are districts 7 4 and then District 5 so the vast majority of people who would have been fighting in this war had no choice but to come from the East and then on top of that there's the added issue that the two districts directly east of the capital are loyalist districts one and two where the citizens aren't unilaterally siding with the Rebels the rail system that would have granted access wasn't a feasible point of entry because Capital sympathizers had it locked down but all this to say the capital cannnot possibly be Denver because Denver is east of the Rocky Mountains I know people think of Denver as being in the mountains because it has a very high elevation but it's not the mountains are like an hour away an hour and a half I don't remember um really Denver is high because it's on a high elevation Plateau but it's on a flat Plateau but Salt Lake City Salt Lake City is pretty comfortable at the base of the valley forgive me if I say this wrong let me know Salt Lake City has the wasach mountains directly to the north and east which is a sub range of the Rockies and then to the West is the ochre mountains that one I know I said right because it automatically gave me a pronunciation and then on top of that there are plenty of details revealed within ballad that do support my theory that we're going to get into but before we do that let's get some basic info laid out about the Salt Lake City of today before I start talking about the Salt Lake City of [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] tomorrow so present day Salt Lake City's identity and physical attributes are in separate able from the proliferation of Mormon culture in the region it was settled by Mormons built by and for Mormons and serves as mormonism's primary cultural Hub Temple Square is a 10 acre complex in the heart of downtown with a host of facilities used by church members and it's also a popular tourist destination due to its ornate white marel and granite buildings so twice each year Mormon leaders and church members from across the the globe meet for the LDS General Conference held in the relatively newly renovated Salt Lake City Conference Center along with Visitor Center there's the family history Library the Salt Lake Tabernacle which honestly looks quite a bit like the uh Arena that's used in the ballot of song birds and snakes movie but I'm actually just going to ignore that entirely cuz we have too much to talk about already and then most grand of all is the opulent salt Lake City Temple and then just a few extra large blocks away is the Utah State Capital which resembles the present day US capital in DC but it's definitely The Shining Jewel at the end of Salt Lake City's equivalent of a main street called State Street and by extra- large blocks I mean extra- large blocks Salt Lake city has the largest city blocks in the country with an area of over 435,000 Square ft for comparison the blocks in Manhattan are about 237,000 ft that is over 200,000 Square ft bigger here in Portland Oregon our blocks are about 40,000 so yeah those are some big blocks and it's not even just the blocks it's the streets too at 130 ft wide they are double the width of those in Manhattan or Portland and it isn't just some odd coincidence that it's like this the layout is a byproduct of the city's Mormon Heritage in 1833 a few years after starting the religion Joseph Smith outlined how Mormon cities should look and feel the plan Drew from that era's East Coast design principles as well as the church's desire for order Smith called for a temple at the center of a grid and for large blocks that would enable family farming when Mormons finally entered Utah in 1847 the church's then president Brigham Young applied Smith's principle to Salt Lake City's City Planning Temple Square which is the current headquarters of the Mormon church is the center of the city and while Smith's plan didn't call for wide streets Brigham Young added them claiming that it would allow Farmers to easily turn their cattle without quote resorting to profanity in the first Hunger Games book Katniss mentions the streets of the capital a total of seven times and three out of those seven times she specifically uses the word wide to describe them if you listen to Suzanne Collins in interviews she has said that Katniss only notices and observes things that she thinks matter so those streets must be pretty notable for us to know that they're so wide also if you want to talk tunnels let's talk tunnels because Salt Lake City is notorious for its underground tunnel system steeped in mystery and Intrigue by the shroud of secrecy around the Mormon use of it all but it's not all secrets and a lot of the system is relative ly well documented publicly um this photo is from the book The House of the Lord by James E Talmage with a caption that reads two of the three skylights above the 90t long underground passage leading from the old Annex into the basement of the temple the tunnels were once not a secret and their use was commonly known today the LDS church prefers to not publicly mention their tunnels nor their use some of the tunnels are open to Temple patrons many more mormans have walked the tunnels in route to baptisms weddings Etc most describe them as wide well- lit ventilated comfortably heated carpeted and boring in the book Salt Lake City underfoot Mark Angus writes just past the Tabernacle is an entrance to the underground tunnels where LDS Security offices are located and church leaders are provided safe passage among downtown buildings surely the tunnels have expanded as time and construction went on rumors mention the tunnels to the Z CMI Center the new Conference Center the genealogical center and the city county building Utah stories contacted the church to tour some of these tunnels but the church maintains its silence and quote doesn't contribute to this story tunnels also emanate from the city county building on Washington Square the most famous is a tunnel between the city library and the city county building the site of the current library is where the Salt Lake jail used to be and the tunnel was used to transport prison ERS between the buildings according to the old who showed me the tunnels Ted Bundy was the last prisoner to walk it and then above all else I need you guys to understand that these buildings were made to last okay uh recent renovations to the temple were explained in an article from the Deseret News the seismic upgrade requires excavation to between 40 and 60 ft below ground which is underway on the Temple's north side where a smaller town train will be installed Crews continue to place steel and concrete pillars called Soldier piles deep underground to support a retaining wall for the work all the underground work is intended to help fulfill president Young's bold statement in 1862 when he ordered the 16t thick footings of the Granite for the foundation I want to see the temple built in a manner that will endure through the Millennium he said and he didn't mean the year 2000 he was referring to thousand years after Christ's Second Coming the goal was reiterated back in the spring of 1993 in a first presidency message written by President Gordon B hinley for the 100th anniversary of the Temple's dedication may it stand as it was built to stand through the Millennium yet to come and serve the needs for our father's children those in this life and those Beyond so all of this leads me back to the capital that we learn about in Ballad of song birds and snakes Coro describes his home in the opening chapter so this is from page 12 his front door opened onto the Corso an Avenue so wide that eight chariots had comfortably ridden side by side on it in the old days when the capital had put on displays of military pomp for the crowds corol lenus could remember hanging out the apartment Windows as a young child party guests bragging that they had front row seats to the parades then the bombers arrived and for a long time his block was impassible now the streets were finally clear Rebels still laying in piles on the sidewalks and whole buildings were as gutted as the day they'd been struck 10 years after the victory and he was dodging between chunks of marble and granite as he wo his way to the academy just there within the first few pages we have marble we have granite and we have extra extra wide streets so I am convinced that at least a few of the buildings that coriolanus talks about within ballad as being part of the academy system on the Corso are in fact buildings that were initially built by the Mormons now it does get a little bit tricky because I have examples of something that could fit the description from this little complex for every single description the problem is that they don't always overlap with like everything being in the same building for example Heavens be Hall the way that it's described which I'm going to do it in a a second sounds a lot like it is the auditorium for the convention center versus things that we know are in the same Academy building other parts of it sounds like it could be the capital building a few blocks away so things don't line up perfectly but I still think it's within the realm of possibility Renovations happen obviously it's been renovated multiple times since it was initially built so here are some more examples of those descriptions and then photos of their equivalent current day existing place in Salt Lake City coriolanus made his way through an entry draped in Black banners down a vaulted passage and into the cavernous Heavens be Hall where they would watch the broadcast of the reaping Ceremony this is from page 84 some of the tributes drooped in their seats chins almost on their chests but the more defiant ones tilted their heads back and surveyed the hall it was one of the more impressive Chambers in the capital and several mouths gaped open awed by the Grandeur of the marble col the arched Windows the vaed ceiling Cory elanus thought it must be a Marvel to them compared to the flat ugly structures that were the signature style in many of the districts the grand staircase up to the academy could hold the entire student body so it easily accommodated the stream of officials professors and students okay now going back to some of the things that were given in the movie again I say the Tabernacle looks a lot like the arena that is used in the movie however ever from the text the description of the Arena sounds a lot more like a football field and I also have a location for the football field that makes sense so this is from page 133 the mentors piled into a few Academy Vans and headed for the capital Arena which had been built across the river to prevent crowds from swamping the downtown in its day the huge state-of-the-art Amphitheater had been the site of many an exciting sporting entertainment or military event high-profile executions of the enemy were staged there during the war making it a target for Rebel Rebel bombers while the original structure stood it was battered and unstable Now useful only as a venue for The Hunger Games the Lush field of meticulously tended grass had died from neglect it was riddled with bomb craters weeds providing only Greenery on the expanse of dirt rubble from the explosions chunks of metal and stone lay everywhere and the 15-t wall that encircled the field was fissured and Pock marked from the shrapnel each year tributes would be locked in with nothing but an arsenal of knives swords maces and the like to facilitate the Bloodshed while the audience watched from home at the end of the games the one who had managed to survive would be shipped back to their District the bodies removed the weapons collected and the doors locked until the following year no maintenance no cleanup Wind and Rain might wash away the blood stains but Capital hands would not the venue is far enough away that the capital has to haul them over there in Vans it is stated to be on the other side of the river so it it's not the clog up downtown the river that's in Salt Lake City is closer towards the airport it is further west of the city center that we're talking about however there is a creek that runs directly parallel to the Capitol Building and then basically down the blocks that end up at the Temple Square and then it kind of like disappears so there is this Creek and so on the other side of this Creek a couple miles east is the rice eckle Stadium within the Olympic cauldron Plaza this is where the opening and closing ceremonies were held for the 2002 Winter Olympics all right we're about to switch topics here we're going to set away the physical geography for a moment because it only scratches the surf and now we are going to talk about the cultural geography and there's a lot to cover so when I first began speaking on this link between Mormonism and the capital on Tik Tok I got a ton of support from Mormons ex Mormons and people local to the Salt Lake City area there were quite a few people who mentioned how they always thought that the capital was in Salt Lake City some hadn't thought about it before but in retrospect they think it makes a ton of sense and then I even got comments from people who were excited knowing I was in the process of making this video and offering themselves as a resource for any questions I have which is so kind I wasn't expecting that at all I'm sorry I didn't take any of you up on it but I was trying to pump this out but it was one comment on the first video that I made about the capitals location that took me beyond the physical reasoning and into the cultural reasoning and down the Mormonism Rabbit Hole this was their comment it says snow is also the last name of one of our early prophets it would make sense for Coro to be a descendant of Mormon royalty huh what do you mean snow is the surname of one of your prophets hold on pause so we all know the significance of names within the series right I need to make a whole video on that but like general knowledge names carry meaning suanne Collins chooses them very deliberately and let be real she does most things very deliberately so why would snow be any different throughout the series there are plenty of examples where people's names denote their place of origin names that relate to their respective District industry include things like blight who's Joan's District partner in Catching Fire glimmer and Kashmere and gloss from the luxurious District 1 but there's also names that speak more to a character's narrative Arc than it does to their place of origin prime example being senica crane senica crane was named after senica the younger a philosopher from ancient Rome now senica the younger unwittingly got caught up in the aftermath of the poonian conspiracy which was the plot to kill Nero the emperor though historians say that it was highly unlikely senica actively participated in the conspiracy he was still ultimately ordered by Nero to kill himself I think we've heard that story before [Music] so using that as our Baseline surely corus's name has some intentional meaning behind it he is the big bad villain of the entire Series so something that you need to know about Mormons for this part is that they place a huge huge emphasis on family history and are very proud of their bloodlines per the church's own website latterday saint believe families can be together after this life therefore it is essential to strengthen relationships with all family members both those who are alive and those who have died Latter-Day Saints believe that the Eternal joining of families is possible through sacred cealing ceremonies that take place in the temple these Temple rights may be performed by proxy for those who have died since 1894 the Mormon church has dedicated time and resources to collecting and Shar sharing records of genealogical importance due to cooperation from government archives churches and libraries the church has created the largest collection of family records in the world with information on more than three billion deceased people this effort was originally facilit facilitated through the genealogical Society of Utah and now through family search a nonprofit organization sponsored by the church if you have done any genealogical research at all before you have definitely used family search and all of those records are there thanks to the Mormons so thank you Mormons so corol lenus is obviously very proud of his family's Legacy and history he has been brought up to be proud of it very specifically by grandm and we have examples of this throughout the text corol lenus had been in a state of denial about the taxes but now the reality of his family's displacement hit him like a truck how could he say goodbye to the only home he'd ever known to his mother to his childhood to those sweet memories of his life before the war those four walls not only kept his family safe from the world they kept protected the legend of Snow's wealth he would be losing his residence his history and his identity in one Fell Swoop and we have another example as he's about to be Shi off to District 12 tiger says remember corol lenus that wherever you go you will always be a snow no one can ever take that from you he wondered if that wasn't the problem the impossibility of being a snow in this postwar world what it had driven him to do but he only said I'll try one day to be worthy of it but I promised you a quick little biography of one of corus's ancestors so enter Lorenzo Snow since the establishment of the LDS church in 1830 there have been 7 men who have served as president Mormons consider each of these men to be prophets who received Revelations from God which don't get me started on the political implications of that cuz we're going to go into it more later but anyways Lorenzo Snow was the fifth President of the church and before that he held a few different offices within the church hierarchy he was also a politician elected to and eventually becoming the president of the Utah territorial Council as a sidebar he did have a pretty high-profile legal case that made it all the way to the Supreme Court regarding his practice of polygamy the man had nine wives and 42 children 42 children that's almost enough for the second quarter quell uh a few but not all of his convictions were eventually overturned and then president Grover Cleveland actually pardoned him so that's just a fun little nugget so early on in his career uh he was called to serve on something called the Quorum of 12 and eventually became the quorum's president I'm going to quote Wiki here because I'm going to be honest my grasp is still a little bit slippery on what it is exactly that they do there's a lot of very similar names and titles uh but basically they have a lot of power so quote the group normally has a leadership role in the church that a second only to the church's first presidency the Quorum implicitly follows the first presidency's policies and pronouncements and its members are chosen by the first presidency however when the first presidency is dissolved which occurs upon the death of the president of the church the Quorum of the TW Apostles becomes the church's governing body led by the president of the Quorum until they ordain a new president of the church and he chooses his counselors which completes the reorganization of the first presidency membership in the Quorum is a lifelong calling so yeah I'm going to leave it there I don't I think they're second in command I got really confused about the difference between the first presidency and the president of the church because I thought it was the same thing but then they kind of talk about it like it's different so I don't know point is snow was there the crazy part is that one of the first things that he did was to reorganize the first presidency almost immediately after he took office rather than waiting years like his predecessors had so snow inherited his presidency as the church was facing severe financial difficulties he worked on fixing these problems with two strategies and they might sound a little bit familiar the first one was by issuing short-term bonds that totaled over a million dollars but the real the big one was his long game plan which is he was the first person to emphatically encourage the concept of tithing as an expected contribution from church members so in layman's terms they were basically like hey if you don't give us 10% of your income are you even with us do you even rock with us do you even know that guy up there yeah um there are implications but the tithing thing is obviously very successful and the church was fully out of debt less than 10 years later and they have still been collecting tithing ever since so do that what you will so this comes from page 104 as snow is writing up his proposal to uh change up the games reflecting on the classroom discussion with Dr Gaul and the electricity in the audience when they fed the starving tributes at the zoo he focused on the Food For the First Time sponsors would be able to buy items a piece of bread a chunk of cheese to be delivered by drones to a specific tribute a panel would be established to review the nature and value of each item a sponsor would have to be a capital citizen in good standing who was not directly related to the games this ruled out game makers mentors peacekeepers assigned to guard the tributes and any of the aformentioned party's immediate family members when it came to his idea of the betting he suggested a second panel to create a venue that would allow Capital citizens to officially wager on the Victor establish the odds and oversee those payments to the winners proceeds from either program would be funneled towards the cost of the games making them essentially free and I'm going to be honest I think the money went to more than just the games but the immediate success of their early changes that they implemented in those structures is actually not the only place that we can draw parallels between the two cuz they both spent their final days rearranging the line of presidential succession about a year before Lorenzo Snow died he worked with other church leaders to change the existing hierarchy the person meant to inherit his position was someone many of the general authorities felt would be a disaster for the church they put together a proposal that changed the person in line of succession from the one who had been an ordained Apostle the longest to the one who had been on the Quorum the longest effectively cutting his wouldbe successor out of the equation entirely as he'd never been one of the 12 on April 5th of 1900 the first presidency and the Quorum unanimously approved the new policy imagine being so bad at your job that they completely change the laws of government and succession because they don't want you to have it embarrassing had snow not had the conversation that he had with Katniss in the greenhouse coin would have instituted herself as president and the cycle would have started over again in an odd way Snow's final Act was a strange sort of kindness but only because it brought his own satisfaction he gave Katniss the tools that she needed to put the pieces together and end it all but Katniss was never his true enemy his true enemy was the threat to his own power which for a time that was Katniss but at this point was coin once he had accepted his loss he realized that he could still win by making sure that coins would be Empire never Rose and that it fell with him I always found the scene in the movies where Katniss shoots coin instead of snow and he starts laughing very REM of the scene that is not in the movies but is in the books where Foxface discovers that the food has been blown up and starts hysterically laughing the enemy of my enemy is my friend and just to really drive home the point of the two's similarity Lorenzo Snow is also credited with succinctly summarizing the Mormon doctrine of exaltation and eternal progression in his often repeated couplet quote as man now is God once was as God now is man may be in this context it's really giving the whole world is an arena and I'm the Victor I used to think that the Hunger Games Were punishment for the district and I thought they served as a warning to us here in the capital now I know the whole world is an arena and we need the Hunger Games to remind us all who we truly are and who are you do you deter the victor okay at this point we're going to sort of switch gears again and talk about the theoretical future in which the descendants of Mormons become the ruling class how did they get that way while the established hierarchy within the religion isn't the only reason that I could see it going that way it is certainly one of them um that combined with some of the core tenants of the belief system creates an organized population primed for Cooperative longevity which is something that most other people don't have or if they do it's just not to the scale of the Mormon Church Mormonism is a high control religious environment to exist within and children are conditioned from birth to stay within their rightful place in the hierarchy not to question the actions or the words of those above you and I mean this as no offense if you're Mormon like I am not here to give commentary on what's real what's not um but a lot of the traditions and ceremonies that take place within the temple are strange enough to the general public that they would not be so easily accepted by members without the social and hierarchal conditioning leading up to it strong foundational family relationships are one of the core values of their beliefs to the degree that they have literally made family time a weekly holiday family home evening is held one night per week usually Monday and families are encouraged to spend time together in religious instruction prayer and other activities according to the LDS church the purpose of family home evening is to help families strengthen bonds of love with each other as well as provide an atmosphere where parents can teach their children principles of the Gospel family home evening includes a game or fun activity treats and a short lesson the responsibilities for each are often rotated among family members so that even the youngest may be assisted in presenting a short lesson or devotional on give on a given topic family business for the week may be addressed and the family schedule also reviewed and they've got you covered if you're single because in places with a high density of single adult members of the LDS church local Wards or Stakes May organize home evening groups the purpose of these meetings is the same as that that of the family- based home evenings but groups are composed of peers rather than family members home evening groups are most common near colleges and universities including but not limited to LDS universities such as pram Young University in Provo as a sidebar I am a huge Dancing with the Stars fan I have been for like 15 years at this point this does make me wonder was this a factor that was considered when Dancing with the Stars moved from Monday to Tuesday night I'm sure most of it was for Network reasons it was out of their control but I would be surprised if this wasn't at least a consideration during that conversation given that about half of the professional dancers on that show are all from the same studio in Utah also huge huge asteris here for the pro family values because while I'm sure that many many individual Mormon families are genuinely wonderful and they love each other unconditionally that is certainly not the structural expectation per the church a lot of people have been shunned abused or otherwise mistreated by those who are supposed to love them for a lot of stupid reasons in my opinion like being gay or having premarital sex of course this is the case with all abrahamic religions physical and emotional abuse can and is perpetrated by almost anyone almost anywhere but I'm pointing it out here specifically because we're talking about more min I'm not saying Mormons are the only ones who do this rather we are talking about Mormons and they also do this sometimes and I would argue that this aspect is also something that you can observe in the text through the Schism of Tigress and Snow's relationship towards the end of ballad and then comparing that to when we meet Tigris again in mocking jay and she is fully on board to help the rebels to kill her cousin so just like many Evangelical communities there is a strong emphasis on apocalyptic narratives but unlike most of those Evangelical communities that have the same emphasis the Mormons are actually structurally prepared to take the apocalypse head on they aren't called the latterday Saints for nothing right it's literally in the names they are prepared for the end of days and this link is strong enough there is an entire Wikipedia page about it you can look it up it's called Mormons in the apocalypse so from that page Mormons are well known for storing food and emergency supplies Latter-Day Saint leaders have instructed their members to prepare themselves such that they could survive without government Aid in studying the scriptures members believe the Earth will suffer famines like those that occurred in ancient times they also believe imminent natural disasters will take place in the last days leaving them without access to basic necessities it has been recommended that members store up to onee food water and other supplies members of often dedicate a room in their home for storing extra food and emergency supplies there are also specific companies in Utah and Idaho that are dedicated to providing food storage supplies for purchase now I have to say good for the Mormons okay because I got into some weird arguments on Tik Tok when I was telling people that they should have an emergency kit I got called a prepper and a conspiracy theorist meanwhile I'm like half of this is just my backpacking supplies all I'm saying here is like have a first aid kid in water and shelf staple food and maybe a little camp stove and a weather radio that's literally all I said you would have thought I was losing my mind from the way people responded to it so there are plenty of apocalyptic prophecies that do take place within the religious Cannon of Mormonism but the one that I'm going to talk about is not one of them okay it's called The White Horse prophecy to be clear this prophecy specifically is highly contested and not considered accurate church doctrine by most Mormons that said we're talking in theoreticals here so there's one specific piece of it that I think makes it a really interesting um thing to add to this conversation regarding the present day Mormons eventually becoming the future of the capital so the White Horse prophecy was shared by Edwin rushon in 1900 but supposedly made back in 1843 by Joseph Smith and the prophecy is as follows the latterday Saints would go to the Rocky Mountains and be a Great and Mighty people the US Constitution will one day hang like a thread but be saved by church members and by the efforts of the White Horse the white horse in question is referring to one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse so basically the prophecy is saying that one day the United States will be a Mormon theocracy a theod democracy is a theoretical political system proposed by none other than Joseph Smith he defines a theod democracy as a fusion of traditional democratic Republican principles under the US Constitution with Theocratic rule he first coined the term theod democracy when he was running for president by the way Joseph Smith ran for president in 1844 and he was killed during his campaign okay getting that out of the way it's unclear whether or not he believed he could or should form his Theocratic government before the soon to be second coming and the destruction of worldly political systems but either way he did teach that what was considered to be the kingdom of God would hold Dominion in the last days over all other kingdoms as foretold in the Book of Daniel there is a quote from him in May of 1844 that he quote calculates to be one of the instruments of setting up the kingdom of Daniel by the word of the Lord and in tends to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the world it will not be by sword or guns that this Kingdom will roll on the power of Truth is such that all nations will be under the necessity of obeying the gospel make no mistake panm as it stands is absolutely a theocracy it's just a theocracy where snow is God and Thomas H the Leviathan is the gospel so if you don't know what Leviathan is it was written by Thomas Hobbs in the 16 00s and is essentially meant to be political and philosophical theory about the nature of man the most famous quote from that text what Hobbs describes as the state of nature is essentially the conclusion that g leads snow to by the end of the book that without government to control them and keep them in line humans are violent and vicious without exception so to quote the text in such condition there is no place for industry because the fruit thereof is uncertain and cons quently no culture of the earth no navigation nor use of the Commodities that may be imported by sea no commodious building no instruments of moving and removing such as things require much force no knowledge of the face of the Earth no account of time no Arts no letters no society and which is worst of all continual fear and danger of violent death and the life of man solitary poor nasty brutish and short I'm sure the guy was great at parties so next we're going to talk about panm as it exists in the series as the fully realized state of desert and if you don't know what that is it's okay I didn't either remember how I said I learned a lot of stuff so Mormonism specifically is inherently based in the Americas just like the Hunger Game series the story is inextricably linked to North American geography history and culture Mormon theology teaches that the United States is a unique place and that Mormons are God's chosen people selected for a singular Destiny the Book of Mormon alludes to the United States as being the new biblical promised land with the constitution of the us being divinely inspired and argues that America is an exceptional Nation where the holy city of New Jerusalem will be built for the second coming and that's not the only way that Mormonism is inherently tied to North America there is also including but not limited to the fact that the Garden of Eden was supposedly in Missouri I'm not sure exactly how that works but I'm not here to judge so the state of Desire was a proposed US state promoted by leaders of the LDS church who had already founded settlements in what is present day Utah a provisional state government was operating for nearly 2 years from 1849 to 1850 but it was never officially recognized by the the US government the land included in the original proposal was incredibly strategic in an effort to step on as few toes as possible and increase the likelihood that the state would be accepted so here is a map of the originally proposed territory and the reasoning behind where these borders are is as follows at the time of its proposal the existing population of the desert area including Southern California was sparse since most of the California settlement had been in Northern California Gold Rush areas of 1848 to 1849 around San Francisco Bay and Sacramento likewise the border with New Mexico did not reach the Rio Grand in order to avoid becoming entangled in the existing disputes of Western and Northwestern borders of Texas after the old expansive Republic of Texas was admitted as the 28th state in 1846 the Deseret State also avoided encroaching on the fertile wamit Valley further north in Western Oregon which had been heavily traveled and settled by Legions of wagon trains since the 1840s with the famous Oregon Trail because this proposal encompassed lands that were largely considered inhospitable for farming or cultivation they hoped that they would avoid conflict over the issue of the expansion of slavery which was a hot button Topic at the time while Mormon scripture spoke against slavery both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young made it very clear that Mormons were not abolitionists Joseph Smith even went so far as to to publish a piece in 1836 stating that slavery was quote God's will oh brother this guy stinks he said that Northerners had no right to tell Southerners whether they could enslave individuals and that if slavery were evil Southern men of piety would have objected which is no no man he expressed concern that freed former slaves would overrun the United States and violate Chasity and virtue he pointed to biblical stories of slavery arguing that the prophets who enslaved people were inspired by God and knew more than the abolitionists which is actually insane when you remember that the guy saying this literally wrote the book but he was saying all of this in the 1830s when the Mormons were still based out of Missouri where slavery was legal he changed his tune during his presidential campaign in 1844 when the Mormons were largely based out of Illinois where slavery wasn't legal and he actually went so far as to start campaigning with the idea that he would immediately abolish slavery upon being elected so when he was killed during this campaign there was a Schism between the church and people sort of went in two directions so a small group that later became the Community of Christ upheld these more recent abolitionist beliefs while the Latter Day Saints who went with ram young to Utah territory uh embraced slavery again and they like it's God's Will and then Brigham Young went so far as to be the person that helped Institute slavery in the Utah territory so not great not awesome don't love thaton the point that I want you to take away from this part is the enduring Narrative of being chosen people who are destined to lead per God's will young people born within the church are even referred to as youth of noble Birthright compare that sentiment to to this quote taken from the first chapter of ballad on page 16 to 17 SJ janus's father was a district 2 manufacturer who had sided with the president he had made such a fortune off of Munitions that he'd been able to buy his family's way into a life in the capital the plint now enjoy the Privileges that the oldest most powerful families had earned over Generations it was unprecedented that sanus a district born boy was a student at the Academy but his father's lavish donation had allowed much of the school's post-war reconstruction a capital born citizen would have expected a building to be renamed for them so janus's father had only requested an education to his son for corol Linus the plint and their kind were a threat to all he held dear the newly Rich climbers in the capital were chipping away at the old order simply by virtue of their presence so yeah he's like I should be in charge what what's with these guys oh no they're getting right but what really ties all of this together is the concept of blood atonement so blood atonement was a practice in the history of Mormonism still adhered to by some fundamentalist Splinter groups where Jesus's sacrifice was not considered enough to cover the worst sins to atone for those sins The Sinner should be killed in a way that allows his blood to be shed upon the ground as a sacrificial offering the doctrine arose among early Mormon leaders and it was heavily promoted during the Mormon Reformation when Brigham Young governed Utah territory as a near theocracy in Young's view in a full Mormon theocracy the practice would be implemented by the state as a penal measure the blood atonement Doctrine was the inspiration that led to laws that allowed capital punishment to be administered by firing squad by The Noose or by decapitation in both the territory and the state of Utah in 1850 people sentenced to death could choose between being hanged or the firing squad and in 1851 is when they added the the beheading as a third option there was not a single person who chose to go out that way nobody was beheaded by the state of Utah as their capital punishment so in 1888 it was taken off the books and I mean are we surprised who would ever choose such a violent and bloody means of death when you could just be hanged I'm sorry that's how I would do it I don't want to shot either you guys can see the patterns right you can see how these type of deeply held cultural and religious beliefs could have evolved into the structure of government that we see in panm so the Apostle Bruce R mcon speaking on behalf of LDS church leadership wrote In 1978 that while he still believed that certain sins are beyond the atoning power of the blood of Christ the doctrine of blood atonement is only applicable to a theocracy which the state of Utah is not nevertheless given its long history up until at least 1994 potential jurors in Utah were questioned on their beliefs regarding blood atonement before they were assigned to trials where the death penalty might have been considered hello I'm Dr Sheldon Cooper and welcome to the premier episode of Sheldon Cooper presents Fun With Flags okay this section might seem like a tangent but stick with me because I promise you it's not and your jaw is going to be on the floor just like mine was I have always been interested in flags and flag design and specifically the movie Cannon's interpretation of PM's flag I do appreciate number one it's very sensible use of a by color design we got gold we got red reasonable okay and number two I also really like just how much resemblance it has to the present day seal of the United States so both of these flags include the eagle imagery with the bird clutching a collection of arrows in its Talon and the inclusion of a plant of some kind but for the Seal of the USA the eagle holds the arrows in one foot and an olive branch in the other acknowledging the power in both War and Peace the bird looks towards the Olive Branch signaling the desire to pursue peace when possible and I'm not just making this up by the way I am reading this directly from the government diplomacy website so then above it there is a constellation of 13 stars representing the original 13 colonies can you guys see the vision now because I'm going to be so real with you it's so obvious that I missed it for years that the story is literally about 13 districts rebelling and overthrowing a corrupt government system in the pursuit of democracy it's so obvious I missed it I only noticed like a year ago so if this is the first time you were putting two and two together zero judgment from me so compare the seal to the flag that is used in the original four movies where the eagle clutches only the arrows and the olive branch is omitted entirely in its place the eagle is encircled by wheat signifying the cultural significance of food and the power that it holds the way that it determines War the original flag is particularly interesting in the expanded context of ballad which has a slightly different flag it has the same Eagle design but instead of wheat it's circled by 12 Stars representing 12 districts this implies that the flag design was changed after the Hunger Games Were reformed by Snow's Vision but when The Illustrated addition of The Hunger Games came out a couple of months ago I decided I liked this flag design even more and maybe I can show you on camera I'll insert a clip so just like in the flag of the movie The 12 districts are represented by small figures around a central object but in this case in The Illustrated Edition those objects are centered around a star when I first saw it I liked it for two reasons number one again the lack of complex elements made the central figure more apparent as representing the capital and the capital alone they are the center of their own Universe around which all the other districts are forced to resolve and then number two I liked it because it visually reminded me of the original Betsy Ross flag again the Divergence emphasized the self-importance of the capital but it also evoked visual cues that point towards the 13 colonies 13 districts connection but then here's the tea cuz as I was doing research for this video I happened upon the flag that was used by the provisional government of the state of desert do you you want to guess what that flag looks like cuz I just about fell out of my chair yeah I don't feel like I need to say anything I you guys get [Applause] it all right we have made it to the final big section where we're going to start applying all of this context to the evolved behaviors and sensibilities of the people of panum's capital but before I do that I need to make it so clear to you guys okay panan is a post religious North America I am not on any level saying that the capital citizens are Mormon okay they most certainly are not rather this has been an exploration of how the cultural and physical remnants of Mormon culture and influence have survived and developed into other things over time so now we're going to apply all this context and analyze Capital behaviors while there is a smattering of folk Traditions that still exist throughout the districts they don't seem to be linked to any type of deity only steeped in ritual and ritual is simply a part of human existence if we don't have religion we find ritual in other ways so we do know about some marriage rituals from districts 4 and 12 and we know about ferary rights from District 2 thanks to ballad but neither of these things necessitate any type of worship or belief only respect and appreciation for the other person and then the only two official like Countrywide holidays that we know about are reaping day on July 4th excellent detail by the way Suzanne thank you for revealing that one in Ballad um and then new years's is like their official winter holiday that they celebrate and neither of those things have any type of religious affiliation within the capital any and all types of spiritual and ritual beliefs have not only disappeared but they're also now subject to mockery on page 224 when sanus has just been discovered in the arena that's your son in there what's he doing asked the grand man a gast he's putting breadcrumbs on the body said Ma so Marcus has food on his journey his journey where asked Grand man he's dead back to wherever he came from said ma it's what we do back home when someone dies Cory elanus couldn't help feeling embarrassed for her if you ever need proof of the district's backwards there you had it primitive people with primitive Customs how much bread had they wasted with this nonsense oh no he starved death somebody get the bread he had a sinking feeling that his supposed friendship was going to come back and haunt him as if on H the phone rang so clearly uh snow thinks you're idiot stupid dumbass if you believe in literally anything at all so like I said I've been talking about this on Tik Tok a little bit and somebody asked me in a comment how do I think that Mormons of all people lost their Faith to end up as staunchly anti-religious as they are and to that I say what else is there to do like when your beliefs are steeped so deeply in the idea that the apocalypse is coming but that you don't need to be scared because God's going to save you and then God never comes to save you I don't know I'd lose my religion too but again the key Point here is that they never lost the hierarchy or the religious structure only the belief in a deity snow very much still subscribes to a set of beliefs about how humans should act what they owe to a higher being in this case himself and how they should atone for their sins and what is that if not essentially still religion in which God walks on Earth and is the president so Capital accents this is a funny one because I like how it's done in the movies okay I like the accents that the actors use the marmalade that is mahogany but I also like how Tatiana Manali does the Accents in the audio books even better I hear Effie trinkets voice calling me to rise up up up it's going to be a big big big day they're described as silly and funny within the first few pages of the book but the best description comes when Katniss is preparing to meet sinna um and her prep tetine is doing stuff with her so this is from page 61 in the first book I grip my teeth as Venia a woman with aqua hair and gold tattoos above her eyebrows Yanks a strip of fabric from my leg tearing out the hair beneath it sorry she pipes in her silly Capital accent you're just so hairy why do these people speak in such a high pitch why do their jaws barely open when they talk why do the ends of their sentences go up as if they're asking a question odd vowels clipped words and always a hiss on the letter S no wonder it's impossible not to mimic them have you guys ever heard a Utah accent specifically have youever heard a Mormon Utah accent what are some of the Utah isms that you've seen anything in particular Utah isms yeah when we just say stuff different like praise the Lord so I found this study by BYU graduate Joshua Stevenson who was studying Linguistics and he did a test to see if people could reliably distinguish the perceived linguistic phenomenon of what he referred to as missionary voice so in his paper he explains that this kind of linguistic research falls under the the sociolinguistics subdiscipline of per perceptual dialectology which is also sometimes considered a branch of folk Linguistics that is the study of how non-linguists perceive and process variation in language although listeners judgments don't always correspond with scientific linguistic realities an underlying Assumption of perceptual dialectology is that folk beliefs about linguage matter the inclusion of folk beliefs in linguistic studies can offer important insights into the realities of language variation and change so even though his study ended without showing any type of statistical significance the patterns can very much still be observed with the qualitative responses that he got many participants refer to a rehearsed quality in missionary speech Sometimes using terms like storytelling or planned to describe it they have a more rehearsed quality also the positivity feels a bit forced wrote One survey respondent hello oh there she is my greatest trial others noted that missionaries tended to repeat words randomly generally spoke at a slower rate and paused more frequently oh dear he's a fashion star you're his Muse everyone in the capital is wearing him everyone everyone still another respondent singled out sister missionaries noting their enthusiasm and smiling voice for women there was a specific Cadence that made it sound like they were intentionally smiling and trying to be Peppy smile smile smile smile smile stand up straight you're on camera continuing on this thread of perceived gender differences two other study participants observed respectively that sisters seem to have it worse and I feel like sister missionaries also get this accent where they move their mouths differently there were nine specific mentions of the word intonation as well as many other responses that touched on the same concept without including the term for example respondents Noti that missionaries end each phrase with a high pitch instead of a US usual lower pitch speak with Rising intonations slightly adopt the rising tone of questions sometimes go up and Pitch at the end of their sentences and phrases like they are asking a questions but honestly like you don't really need a scientific study to know that this is an observable phenomenon among many different socioeconomic and cultural groups a lot of people have different accents that are unique to their own little group again most Americans can identify over the phone if they are talking to to a black American people can identify gay voice like I can't imagine a world where such a distinct and virtually contained cultural group not have a specific sound to them but we always have to ask why do people speak differently from one another and what we understand is that having group differences makes us who we are if we're proud to be from Utah sounding like they're from Utah is a very powerful way of telling other people that you're proud of your identity of course there's a Mormon voice and the internet agrees I'm just going to throw up some of my favorite comments I've seen on Reddit while I was looking stuff up are you referring to the unusual sing song dialect if so it's actually a regional dialect out west and I think it stems from Swedish this is terrible but think about the muffet the Swedish Chef same Cadence English Swedish [Music] me I first noticed the Borman ACC on my mission when missionaries started teaching they adopted a sing songy voice where every sentence seemed to end as a question the inflection at the end of the sentence would turn up that coupled with the rote phrases felt like there was a Mormon accent it's not as common in normal conversation but once a person starts to give a talk or share their testimony it starts to become more [Music] apparent hello hi sister kick this is Sister Jansen do you have a minute oh hi sister Jansen of course I have a minute and then these last two I actually got from like some Forum group specifically for ex Mormons they both cracked me up shame and denial is what I'm hearing in some of these replies Mormons do have an accent it's similar to the midwestern or Southern draw but it's much more sing song and self-conscious I think it expresses the Mormon personality of saying I am humble and above the fry I am a shining example to draw in others and make them admire me it comes off as a bit passive aggressive to outsiders with a faster more clipped speech Mormons need not feel embarrassed by their speech patterns which reflect their culture and their pride in who they are in my opinion the most telling element of the Utah accent which can also be heard in large parts of Idaho Arizona Wyoming and Nevada is the shift of the long a as inail to short e as inail Beyond actual pronunciation what stands out to me when I hear people from Utah is their inflection I have a hard time listening to to the sing songy half whispered Bear My Testimony voice with its overemphasized ess's and Reliance on cliches like tender meres take it all in this is sacred ground history was made here so yeah I feel like we can safely say the accent stuck around well I can't personally comment on the food in Salt Lake City or how it might evolve I have seen Interest being spread over the Mormons one permissible Vice and the only place they can get caffeine which is soda so they're forbidden from drinking tea and coffee and it has something to do with the fact that they're hot drinks not that it has caffeine but they also can't have them iced so I don't really know the official rules but they can't do drugs or smoke or do really anything that the rest of us turn to when we need something to help us stay sane so they really took soda and ran with it into a very unique dry drink culture now listen I am not personally a soda person it it feels slimy to me I don't like the syrup so while I am not personally interested in trying the infamous dirty soda I'm also not here to yuck somebody's yum you guys love it that's great I love that for you that said a lot of people are here to do that um can I do a 32 o Texas tab Utah is like land of the bar which are all the soda shops that we have there's one on every corner we don't drink alcohol or do drugs and so it's kind of our advice in an article that I found interesting but also mildly amusing even though it was definitely not meant to be amusing it's just because it it was very it's a very defensive article I feel anyways it was published in Michigan Daily and it reads until the Advent of short form video sharing on social media the Mormon Corridor remained relatively lowprofile the Mormon corridor's anonymity however was broken when dirty soda a mix of Diet Coke half and half coconut syrup and lime took Tik to by storm residents of the Mormon Corridor began sharing their favorite soda variations and the topic began trending dirty soda shops such as thirst and Swig began heavily promoting the drink in conjunction with users atome soda recipes which garnered shock revulsion and disgust from people around the world soda is already super sweet I can't imagine adding syrup reads one comment whose sentiment is echoed by almost 2,000 likes it's not gross yeah okay chimes in another user however the flurry of angry Tik Tock comments and blog posts criticizing diry sodas is more than just a response to Breaking culinary norms for those outside the Mormon Community dirty soda hatred has become a conduit for critiquing the Church of the Latter-Day Saints by altering the fundamental nature of something so Universal as soda the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ asserts itself beyond the narrow social and Geographic boundary in which it has operated for centuries dirty soda directly reflects Mormon values in so far as they act as an alternative to the status quo and represent the restored gospels distinct scripture a uniquely Mormon Coffee and Tea band inspired the unique drink which changes how soda is conventionally consumed just as the restored gospel itself acts as an alternative reshaping of mainstream Christianity the proliferation of Utah soda shops is accompanied by a spread of Mormon culture forly contained within a thin strip of Western Land internet users revile dirty soda for many of the same reasons they critique the tenants of the restored gospel a quick glance at the comment section on a soda themed Tik Tok reveals that most users are criticizing the soda's taste and appearance as a means of criticizing Mormon culture itself chiefly comments accuse Mormons of being out of touch unhealthy and guilty of perpetrating outdated values that was a mouthful so I do believe that this article brings up a really interesting perspective though and one that ties in well with Katniss's view of the capital because as much as Katniss does genuinely enjoy the culinary experiences that she's afforded in the capital she also can't separate their consumption habits from their wider impact she can't deny that it's delicious because it is but she also can't deny that it's excessive because it is there's a whole section in the first book where she mentally parses out just how much work it would take for her to make a dupe of the meal that's in front of her and how unaware where people are of that labor so this is from page 64 sinate invites me to sit on one of the couches and takes his place across from me he presses a button on the side of the table the top splits and From Below Rises a second table top that holds our lunch chicken and chunks of oranges cooked in a creamy sauce laid on a bed of pearly white grain tiny green peas and onions rolls shaped like flowers and for dessert a pudding the color of honey I try to imagine assembling this meal by myself back home chickens are too expensive but I can make do with a wild turkey I need to shoot a second turkey to trade for an orange goats milk would have to substitute for cream we can grow peas in the garden but I'd have to get wild onions from the woods I don't recognize the grain our own Tess rations Cooks down to an unattractive Brown mush fancy rolls would mean another trade with the baker perhaps for two or three squirrels as for the pudding I can't even guess what's in it days of hunting and gathering for this one meal and even then it would be a poor substitute for the Capital version excuse me so Mormons turn to their dirty sodas for a caffeine fix because their sacred text deny them coffee and tea people in the capital take an Elixir that allows them to vomit so they can keep eating because their cultural beliefs teach them that they are deserving of and entitled to those Delicacies when you're coming at it from the capital citizens perspective and and you take away all of this extra context that we have and you think about their very limited worldview they believe that it would be wasteful for them not to enjoy the spread to the full extent and to be fair if they didn't if that food went to waste and nobody ate it do you really think that it would be given to somebody who needs it because I don't and I I do think that maybe they're not as like quite as far off base as our gut reactions are because obviously yeah they're off base okay there is no need to have that much excess when other people people in the districts are starving but their individual actions aren't really making an impact on that but my point with this is that Salt Lake City already has what Outsiders people who are not from there would consider a bit of an over-the-top drink culture so I don't really see why that would change or why it wouldn't then extend into food over hundreds of years to have been used to having these privileges and wealth and resources to then going without them and really really struggling for those years to then getting your abundance back after the war has been won by the capital that's how you get a really crazy food culture cuz sure I I'm sure that they had good food before the Rebellion but after it after they were without for so long I bet that food is crazy good we know it's crazy good Katniss tells us it is and then our final final little piece here is going to be fashion and body modification I actually think that the fashion within the capital is probably the most well-known aspect of the series for anybody who hasn't read or watched it even if they don't know the premise they probably know some of the outfits at least fe's butterfly dress from Catching Fire iconic iconic love that dress but it's interesting because Mormon doctrines do have an emphasis on presenting as your best selves and the value of Keeping Up Appearances so Brigham Young the second President of the LDS church instructed his followers to beautify your Gardens your houses your Farms the city this will make us happy and produce plenty the direction was an early example of an animating Mormon sentiment that still plays out today outward appearances matter your dress and grooming will influence the way you and others act reads for the strength of Youth a widely distributed Mormon pamphlet tattoos are discouraged as are multiple piercings the LDS Church website has an entire section devoted to grooming and dress complete with makeup tutorials you are not required to wear makeup up however wearing makeup can help you look your best it reads to minimize the appearance of dark circles under your eyes use a yellow or pink tone concealer lighter than your skin tone use your fingers to gently apply and blend the color under your eyes along the Lash line having Church sanctioned makeup tutorials on their own website is actually wild like even with the religious aspects of these teachings diminished it's really easy to see how the sentiments morphed into the self- expression obsessed Trend seeking population that is highly concerned with presentation again all it's really doing is taking God out of it then there's the popularity of body modification within the capital to the point that it's basically ubiquitous something else that I accidentally stumbled on in my research for this video is Utah's crazy billboard culture so many of them have cosmetic surgery ads or other like Beauty services and some of them are really unhinged one ad for a Day Spa says weart soaking too which which is crazy and then another one says God's remodeling his Temple isn't it time to remodel yours wild so according to two people from BYU about 14% of LDS members have had major cosmetic surgery including breast augmentations tummy tuck and liposuction and 20% have undergone cosmetic enhancements so such as laser hair removal Botox injections or skin procedures the national average is less than 4% 14 and 20% compared to 4% an article from the Salt Lake Tribune writes coin and Barnes discovered a subtle religious impulse in individual's decisions to enhance their bodies the need for Perfection respondents who were most likely to have cosmetic surgery were those who were wealthy since such procedures can be costly and those who had the highest religious salience these individ uals were highly religious however they may erroneously believe that religion is tied to perfection in a variety of ways including physical appearance or finances and they may attempt to conform to what is referred to as the Thin ideal in the United States culture for them appearing to be a perfect worthy righteous member of the church means looking the part as well it might be what some call Utah's Perfection culture that quietly Whispers you aren't good enough the way you are another article this one from the daily Utah Chronicle expands on this idea ironically Mormon Doctrine says the body is a temple and that it doesn't need to change but Utah's culture tells a different story and so does the state's plastic surgery rates there is a specific tie in Utah culture that is not said but felt the way that you appear on the outside is a reflection of how your soul is doing according to Conley a reason for that could be traced back to Mormon cultures desire to assimilate in the 1950s as Mormons assimilate and they're converted to the American dream and all that jazz it's no longer building a community that's like heaven it's making your home like heaven and wouldn't a goddess have a small waste and big boobs in this Society yes pregnancy is another factor in Mormon culture that may be influencing plastic surgery rates Mormon women are taught from a young age that their purpose is to have children Mormons have more children than any other us religious group because of the cultural emphasis on childbearing many young women have children at a young age before they themselves are really grown up commonly these women aren't having one or two children but three or four in quick succession multiple pregnancies in a short period of time affect the body leaving breasts saggy and stomachs that aren't flat this leads to what a lot of people in the Plastic Surgery industry refer to as mommy makeovers and because there are so many Mormon mommies it's unsurprising that plastic surgery is popular Abraham is telling me that he's really really hungry and do please finish filming the video so that he can eat and to that I say great timing buddy because that was the end of my outline this was crazy this was crazy I had so much fun uh putting this video together I it also took a lot of time I was researching for like a solid week and I am off of work right now so I was putting in hours um but I hope you guys had a fun time I know I did did I convince you are you a convert do you believe that the capital is in Sal Lake City please let me know either way if you think it's somewhere else I would love to hear uh why you think that and yeah let me please like this video subscribe if you enjoyed your time here you can turn on notifications to know when I release a new one and if you want to stick around for the next 13 of these videos in this series let me know which district you want me to cover next again most of them will not be this long but who knows maybe I'll fall down more rabbit holes in fact I'll probably fall down more rabbit holes will it be this long of a rabbit hole this deep of one that remains to be seen okay anyways I really am going to finish up it has gotten dark since I started this and now I have to edit it so much work but I think it'll be worth it I really hope you guys enjoyed this okay I'm going to go for real bye