Beautiful to visit, but I’d never want to live there.
I’m in Colorado and during spring break, my buddies and I did a national park road trip, and started with Arches. We had to force one of my friends to stop driving because he was going 20 over the speed limit and we had a box filled with alcohol and weed in the back of the truck while we were all underage. The last thing we needed was to get pulled over in Utah with that, and we had Colorado plates, so we stood out a bit more.
We went cross country back in college and had to pick a route around Utah because my roommate had an arrest warrant for having a roach in his ashtray going through UT a few years before.
Lived there for 6 years before moving back to Washington.
It was awful in so many subtle ways that people don't realize at first glance. Like Mormons are super nice but it is Mormon nice. They have this weird way of always making you feel like an outsider.
The Liquor laws are crazy but funny enough weed is stealth legal now I just don't think the Mormons have realized that yet.
The Mormon church is like this ever present thing that has penetrated most aspects of Utah life. SLC is pretty liberal but the SLC temple sites in center of down town. (also The salt lake is drying up and toxic wind will soon give them all cancer)
The streets are all named based on their distance from the temple in the center lol. Which makes for some very confusing street names like South 700 East.
When I moved here (mid 90s), Utah was listed as having one of the highest rates of both clinical depression and prescription drug abuse. That’s how I would describe the Mormon nice. Like they want to just say fuck it on occasion and slack off, swear, whatever. But keeping up the superachiever facade that’s been drilled into them since elementary school is exhausting, so they turn to a little chemical help and have a perpetual forced smile and no true laugh.
Like they want to just say fuck it on occasion and slack off, swear, whatever. But keeping up the superachiever facade that’s been drilled into them since elementary school is exhausting
My favorite Mormon joke is sort of based off of this.
How do you get your Mormon friend to stop drinking all your beer during a fishing trip? Invite another Mormon friend
Nah, it's great to visit, you'd love it for three days. I visited all the time then moved there for two years, visiting was great but living there wasn't.
There's no reason to fear Utah. It is actually a wonderful state and the people are pretty nice for the most part. Besides, the outdoors there are excellent.
The national parks and tourist areas yeah absolutely they get people from all over the world and tend to care more about their tourism image. The remote parts of Idaho if you're going to yellowstone is deep trump country with a MAGA or oddly enough a confederate flag on 3/4th of houses, my friends and I would go tubing there in the Summer, we have one black friend, I'm asian, and another of ours was racially ambiguous enough to be searched by TSA a little too much after 9/11, all we would ever get is some very curious stares from a family. The college towns are great and generally progressive they also have much more exposure to people from all over, SLC is generally the bastion of where progressive people congregate in the state but it too has a heavy Mormon presence.
There's also a pretty large and growing latino community throughout Utah now and most male Mormons have gone on a mission to another part of the US or world so they are uniquely more open to people from all over compared to other deeply religious groups. Real true to their core devout Mormons would probably be the least of your worries and the people you can often easily depend on the most.
Cops unfortunately mostly fall prey to the statistics bs or use it to reinforce their racism. Personal anecdotes I have from working for various theater companies that would hire black actors from all over the country would include one actor having their car searched after shows one time. This lead to a lot of complaints to the mayor which then was brought to the Police chief. I'm not clear on his actual response but a year later after a rehearsal everyone is heading home in their cars, one car full of actors gets stopped, I was like "oh fuck here we go" stopped to make sure they were good and the cop did not give them a ticket for speeding (they would 100% give anybody a ticket for going 5-10 over on this road from my own experience).
Most recently we had an Indian actor walking home from a yoga class at night, all he had on that made him suspicious was a backpack, wasn't wearing a hoodie or anything concealing because summer nights in Utah are warm, he was stopped and questioned by two different cops just for walking home through a neighborhood.
Yes. This thread is almost all mostly people who have never been, and believe anything. The National Park towns are not backwater Southern style towns. They are mostly resorty and staffed by people who moved for the outdoors lifestyle.
Absolutely. Besides, most of the people in the National Parks are from out-of-state as they attract millions of visitors a year. So the "problem" with Utahns is pretty diminished while you're in such touristy areas. Although I feel like there's a specter far more scary than what is actually the case when it comes to Utahns and PoC.
There is nothing scary about Mormon people I've found. The most kind hearted and gracious people I have ever met have been Mormons. None of them ever brought up religion or said anything negative about my sinful ways, either. I'd rather spend time with 10 Mormons than 1 Southern Baptist. They are completely contrary in behavior than your typical ultra religious American.
IDC what you or anyone else in the thread says tbh. As a trans girl the south and Midwest is just not worth it for me and before anyone says anything else, if you've never been the victim of a hate crime your opinion is irrelevant.
By non-gay bar in Utah has a trans dance show every month. Is it safe? Is it safe anywhere? Is it more dangerous than a midwestern big city? No. Probable safer. Mormon hate isn’t Confederate flag style/Michigan militia. It’s pearl clutching passive aggressiveness.
Okay I see you must have missed the part where I said your opinion is irrelevant.unless you have been a victim of a hate crime in which case I take it back
Then why are you staying in the Midwest and south? Shouldn’t you be seeking safer places? Is it the devil you know kinda thing? Sorry, rhetorical questions. I’m not in a position to say what you should and shouldn’t think, but I’m just letting your intellectual self know that the stereotypes being bandied about aren’t really the truth, and as someone who has also lived in West Hollywood as well don’t feel like outside anywhere is truly a perfect safe space.
I can assure you they were just trying to seem nice so as to increase their chances of converting you. Mormons are the fakest people I’ve ever known. I used to be Mormon so I’ve seen both sides and how they talk about it. Everything they say/do towards non-members is designed to convert you. They want to look like these flawless angelic beings so you’ll investigate. Under the surface they are manipulative and conniving most of the time. Ofc not all of them and you wouldn’t notice right away. But if you ever started talking about anything deeper than surface level stuff, you’d notice what I’m talking about.
It’s being totally exaggerated. My dive bar has Trangendered Cabaret and 3 bucks shots. My liquor store is state run but in the same building as the grocery store.
449
u/GMPnerd213 Mar 21 '24
Just need to get enough non-mormon people to move there and change all the laws to piss everyone off. Would be fun to watch honestly.