Spread The Word
The oldest of messages on the newest of platforms.
I’ve always been fascinated by religion and for my Year 12 Media project went and looked at different religions for a very long article that didn’t grade very well, due to the fact I planned something and then went and did something totally different. A fact I ensure I communicate to my students, so they know the value of sticking to the plan…anyway, I digress. As a part of this project, I visited a Russian-Orthodox church who was hosting an icon which had supposedly been broken and lost countless times, only to be found whole once again. It had been found in cow fields, ruins and various places and was believed to hold incredible powers of healing. On one cold Tuesday night, I went and saw the people lining up, desperate to have their moment with the icon, and ensure that their deepest wish was fulfilled.
I was kind of spooked that night, growing up the Greek Orthodox church was a part of my culture. The Greek school I attended was attached to the local church, and we (my sisters and I) had to attend every so often. I remember many arguments about going to church and just a lot of strictness and incense.
My algorithm often presents me with memes relating to Greek Orthodox culture, probably because I often send these on to people both on and off Instagram. I am not a person of faith, but like lots of people, many of my family traditions are rooted in religion, and the Orthodox religion can generate some very funny content. Especially around Easter.
This Easter however, I started seeing videos what looked like very wealthy white women dancing and just generally jumping around because ‘he has risen’ or in some cases, ‘rizzen’ (and there’s a rap). I’ve tried to find the division of social media users by religion and it’s actually not been super easy, but this study says apparently, whilst Islam is the most searched-for religion, Christians are the most active group on social media, having shared over 11 million posts about their faith.
I’m going to be honest; I had to watch the videos multiple times to understand them (some of which I still don’t) and read lots of the comments to ascertain whether these videos were serious or not. And that’s for a few reasons, some of the behaviour is so over-the-top, I just wasn’t sure. My brain couldn’t comprehend someone feeling deeply moved by their religion and then feeling the need to post a video about it which features, the creator starting with ‘HAPPY EASTER. BEST DAY EVER Y’ALL’, high-fiving Jesus (there was a cross on the bathroom wall), saying He has risen, then dancing to a song, quick edited against some talk of what He supposedly did, some singing along and miming of drumming to a song about Jesus and ‘woos’, and wind mill arms. It finished with an ‘air drum solo for the LORD*’, right after suggesting we should be dancing like this every day.
The creator of this video, Lindsey Gurk has 2.6 million Instagram followers, and her bio reads Skits + Songs + Style, Motherhood moment, Founder of @gypbshop (which sells clothes, some of which have flamingos on them). Interestingly there is no mention of her Catholic faith in her bio, but it is present throughout her posts, sometimes in the caption but often in the hashtags. The comments are often filled with references to blessings and praying as well. It seems Gurk has found fame by leveraging the power of social media, and I admire the entrepreneurial spirit.
What struck me about Gurk’s video is that it had the same level of heightened emotion surrounding religion that I would normally associate with a religious zealot. It seemed akin to speaking in tongues/and or television evangelicalism, portraying excitement to the point of caricature.
A similar video is the rap piece by 6.lair and husband, Steven E Leazer. Captioned ‘some may say he has RIZZEN’, Lair introduces the song like a radio announcer before asking Steven for a beat and rapping about the resurrection. They take it in turns to rap, but a heavily pregnant 6.lair seems to be the star.
From Michigan, 6.lair or Blair has 197k followers but over a million on TikTok. Her bio starts with Mementos of a Midwest mother with a cherry emoji (?), her job (Paediatric Critical Care RN) and muse of @steveneleazer_ who claims to be a credit expert to his 19.5K followers. Some of his videos feature him in a faux fur coat, no shirt and giant cross around his neck providing what I imagine is meant to be positive affirmations or the message of money not being able to buy happiness whilst he laughs and slowly claps to the track of For The Love of Monday by The O’Jay’s. There was a lot to process. Again, religion is not mentioned in 6.lair or Steven’s bio and I wonder if this is a conscious decision. I would assume that rapping about Jesus and putting it on the internet would mean that your faith is a large part of your identity, but I wonder if putting it in your bio is not the way to gain followers.
Dancer Gracie Chaidez has 134 followers and does say her religion in her bio. It states ‘Hi I am Grace and I am a dancer (insert dance related emojis here) and I just did my first back tuck!!!!!! (four cross emojis) Christian. Chaidez seems to be very young but even with a smaller number of followers, her video which features her doing a box step (yeah, I did dance) with the text ‘Mood because the tomb was empty’ has been viewed over 1.5 million times and received over 75,000 likes, at the time of writing. Most of Chaidez’s posts are around dance and ‘acro’ but will sometimes mention God blessing her, especially if she is able to pull off a flip or something. Something I personally believe Chaidez should take all the credit for.
Lastly, the dance video that really started this whole deep dive, is a video by Lauren Gibson, which must have been a part of the same trend as Gracie’s because it features the same song, and a box step! The six women featured look like they could be contestants on The Bachelor and look like they’re in the mansion on the same show. Though, one of them is holding a baby. The text on the video says, ‘Oh ok bc the tomb is empty’ and is captioned with ‘Jesus rlly did that (love heart emoji) happy resurrection Sunday from the Gibsons!!’. Gibson has 699k followers on Instagram and 5.5 million on TikTok and her bio states ‘love this life <3’. From what I can understand, Lauren is a model, who has capitalised on the business social media can bring. Some of her posts are religious, for example, another Easter post features Lauren posing around a fancy house, kissing a cross and showing her highlighted bible pages. But like everyone except Chaidez, there is no mention of her faith in her bio or in many of the captions. Some of the posts state that she shouldn’t be wearing what she is because she is a follower of Jesus Christ, and this person seems to think that He wouldn’t like the Coachella outfit she was sharing. Some other comments mention praise and God but majority of comments are about her clothes or, from what I saw, abs.
The article, Faith in the Digital Era: Social Media’s Impact on Spiritual Growth, by Graceandpurposepublishing introduced me to the concept of ‘digital religion’, as well as Heidi Campbell, associate professor and editor of Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds. According to the author, digital religion is one that is created through media and the cultures which surround it.
Much can be said about the performative nature of social media in many arenas, and given how aesthetic the platform is, it’s tricky to tell how much of this faith is performance, or merely a small sample of what the daily lives of this group looks like. Maybe more people are high fiving Jesus and I just didn’t realise?
When considering the way that religion has been shaped by social media, it is hard not to make connections between these behaviours and the ancient practice of evangelism, something Jesus encouraged people to do in the bible. However, like many things online the intent isn’t explicit; the mention of Jesus is similar to the smooth product integration which many uses use to sell products on the platform.