Utah MomTok

Submission 11,740

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About

Utah MomTok or Utah MomTok Drama refers to a group of female Mormon TikTokers who make content-house style videos, beginning in early 2020. In May 2022, they were accused by their lead creator, Taylor Frankie Paul, of being "soft swingers" following the divorce of Paul and her husband. The controversy led to multiple memes, tweets and viral discussions about the group of creators going into mid-2022.

History

The history of Utah MomTok starts with a TikToker named Taylor Frankie Paul, also known by her handle @taylorfrankiepaul. On January 3rd, 2020, Paul posted her first TikTok^[1] showing her with a baby bump and stating that she was four months pregnant. Over the course of two years, the video received roughly 168,300 plays and 3,500 likes (shown below). Paul already had a baby girl when she was pregnant in early 2020 and gave birth to her new child, her second daughter,^[2] in June 2020.

On August 20th, 2020, Paul posted a video^[3] where she's featured in a trio of her fellow mom friends — TikTokers miranda__mcw and camille_munday. Text overlay was written on that video stating, "Moms taking over tiktok," and the caption read, "Should we make a mommy content house?" Over the course of two years, the video received roughly 1.8 million plays and 341,700 likes (shown below, left). The trio posted content across all of their channels starting in August 2020. For instance, on August 20th, 2020, TikToker^[4] miranda__mcw posted a video of them all, earning roughly 107,600 plays and 3,100 likes in the same amount of time (shown below, right).

On October 18th, 2020, TikToker^[5] taylorfrankiepaul posted a video of her and the other moms of TikTok with the respective husbands, stating in the caption, "Utah content house is coming soon," earning roughly 194,300 plays and 8,800 likes in two years (shown below, left). This video started a history of the couple trio posting videos about their lives being Mormon, living in Utah and being mothers. Additionally, more and more moms started to join the group, whereby 2021 and 2022, some of their videos resembled the aesthetics of Door Stack Sorority Chants (example shown below, right).

Within taylorfrankiepaul's videos, she started to post humorous content about being Mormon. For instance, on July 23rd, 2021, she posted a video^[6] with the fellow "Blonde Mormon Moms of TikTok," earning roughly 3.9 million plays and 121,300 likes in 11 months (shown below, left). On August 5th, 2021, she posted a video^[7] that received roughly 3.7 million views and 116,300 likes in one year (shown below, right).

Taylor Frankie Paul's "Soft Swingers" Accusation

Prior to the May 2022 accusations, TikToker taylorfrankiepaul posted a video about followers of hers ironically asking if she and her friends were swingers, meaning that they swapped partners and had sex parties. The TikTok^[8] was posted on March 6th, 2021, and received roughly 763,200 plays and 27,400 likes in one year (shown below, left). On April 30th, 2022, she posted a humorous video^[9] regarding her husband's prior divorce, earning roughly 917,900 plays and 37,000 likes in one year (shown below, right).

On May 20th, 2022, TikToker^[10] taylorfrankiepaul posted a video that announced she and her husband were getting a divorce, earning roughly 11.1 million plays and 631,000 likes in 11 days. On May 25th, 2022, taylorfrankiepaul went Live on TikTok to talk about the divorce, wherein, she stated that she, her husband and the majority of their friend group were "soft swingers," which ultimately led to tension in the friend group and caused a "huge blow up." ^[11] On May 25th, 2022, a reupload of the Live was posted to YouTube by the channel Audrey, where it received roughly 102,600 likes over the course of six days (shown below).

Reactions

TikTokers started reacting to the drama surrounding the friend group going into the end of May 2022. For instance, on May 27th, 2022, TikToker^[12] jennaleahy posted a video that used audio from the livestream, earning roughly 500,200 plays and 24,800 likes in four days (shown below, left). Also on May 27th, TikToker^[13] gossipingviv posted a video that earned roughly 162,800 plays and 2,600 likes in four days (shown below, right). More TikToks^[14] surfaced as well.