Good LDS Influencers are those who attempt to produce faithful content. They truly have desires to uplift others. This category includes a lot of LDS Influencers and Authors who write about a variety of subjects that affect Church members. From Polygamy to where the Book of Mormon happened. This content is interesting but ultimately fails to reach the better or best categories because it is trivial in eternal terms. It does not matter how many wives Jo had, or if the Book of Mormon took place in South America, North America, or both. What matters is gaining a testimony of the gospel and acting on it.
This content is often created by gospel hobbyists, they feel like their particular part of the gospel is sooooo important that everyone needs to focus on it more. Good content does not lead you away from the Church like the bad, but often it is used by Satan as a distraction from what matters most. If he can keep the Saints arguing about the heartland model, or being fixated on seer stones mulheres quentes italiano then they will never be a threat to his offensive against the Church. Consuming this content is like going to a Chinese Buffet and eating the small section of American food they have. Who goes to a Chinese Buffet and eats the corndogs and pizza? Children.
Better Content
Better content seeks to keep the gospel in perspective, it seeks to be faith-promoting. It points to the words of the prophets and says “Follow them!” Better content seeks to address real issues and provide gospel-oriented faith-centric ways to deal with them. These influencers truly have the desire to share the gospel. These are the influencers who follow the Spirit and write what they feel they should, even if it costs them readers and page followers.
Many Come, Follow Me podcasts, blogs, websites, and social media influencers, and authors fall into this category. I strive to fall into this category. Why don’t I strive for the best content? well, just wait a minute and you will find out. But these influencers contain many of the best people on social media. These are the influencers that the Church will periodically call together and ask for a united effort on a specific issue (like the Church’s Easter and Christmas campaigns). I have been privileged in the past to go to these meetings and rub shoulders with these influencers.
This content sounds pretty good, right? Well, it is more than good, it is better. But, it is not the best (feel free to groan at my dad joke, you’re welcome). Too many Saints spend all their time reading, listening to, and consuming this content. If you only consume better content it is like going to a Chinese Buffet and seeing someone else’s plate that looks good and asking them if you can have it.
NOTE: Rarely do content creators move up from ‘bad’ to ‘good’ to ‘better’, but sadly I have seen many amazing influencers fall from ‘better’ to ‘good’ to ‘bad’ (with some going straight to ‘bad’). Because of this, I am not listing the many of the influencers I follow and I consider as ‘better’ because they might not be that way next year.
Best Content
Ultimately, the best content is not created by LDS Influencers and Authors. The best content is the scriptures and words of the modern prophets. I hear too many Saints in gospel doctrine and on social media saying things like, “While listening to X podcast, or reading X book I learned this cool insight.” It is very rare that I hear Saints saying, “While studying the scriptures in this week’s Come, Follow Me I learned…”
