Don’t oversimplify Mormon history | Response to Johnny Harris

I got excited when Johnny Harris made a couple episodes about Mormon history. He is a former Latter Day Saint (LDS for short), so I kinda expected a unique perspective that’s useful for prospective learners. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed a downward trend on his channel and these were exemplary of that, making for something that will hurt viewers’ understanding of this history. So this is a response video. I want to show what went wrong here, not to berate Harris, but to illustrate the disservice this narrative does for people who seek education on this topic, along with perhaps showing a means to improve.

16:40 Should be the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, not Land Ordinance of 1785 (thx @Yannis1a)
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*Bibliography*

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[CynicalHistorian]

Click "read more" for corrections and bibliography. First, here are some related videos:

*Errata*
16:40 Should be the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, not Land Ordinance of 1785 (thx @Yannis1a)

*Bibliography*

[phoenixshadow]

Leave the oversimplifying to the professionals, Oversimplified.

[woodsmand]

Johnny Harris oversimplifies every topic he covers. I stopped watching him when he made a whole video about how America only has sandwich bread. Dude go to the bakery at a grocery store instead of buying the bread next to the ding dongs.

[plussum]

The video by Harris that really kicked it for me was his video on the cultural identity of "Chinese" where he claimed that this begun with the CCP which is not true.

It begun with the Qing dynasty and was recognised by the ROC even before the CCP became prominent.

[ZornOfZorna]

Not officially a Mormon scholar but I have published a paper on the early history of the movement. And it is pretty fair to say that treasure digging/divination was common in rural up State New York. It was illegal but the Smiths were far from the only people in the Manchester/Palmyra area that were doing it. Early Mormonism and the Magic World View by D. Michael Quinn is a good examination of the state of folk magic at the time.

[uninstaller]

I trust Sam O'Nella more than Johnny Harris

[nachoolo]

The use of AI art makes me extremely suspicious of any edutainment video that uses them.

They are already lazy when it comes to finding footage for the video, they are probably also lazy when it comes to the information as well...

[Faustobellissimo]

What I regret is that Harris didn't talk about the negative aspects of 19th century Mormonism and of those few Fundamentalist Mormon sects that still remains today, like for example the lost boys, the violence, the brain washing, the power dynamics, the financial assets, etc...
He just talked about polygamy, superficially.

[JakeBolt]

Johnny Harris made a two part video about Breakfast that reads like a spoiled upper middle class kid discovering that other people in other countries have breakfast.

Not once, during this entire two part video, did he ever consider the fact that most adults do not eat breakfast. Not only that, he tried to claim that Eggs could only be scrambled, like… what?

[lutomlinson]

I used to be a Johnny Walker fan, but the moment you do any deep research or examine his sources you begin to understand how much and how often he simplifies and dumbs down history. I like his style of videos but he needs to do deeper research and analysis.

[jeremiasrobinson]

There are so many videos from so many channels about why Johnny Harris is wrong about so many topics.

[soryabuscompany]

15:10 The Salt Lake Temple was built over a period of 40 years, it was one of the first buildings planned in Salt Lake. So even though it wasn't the first finished temple in Utah, it was the first to start construction.

[haroldoftherock]

I've been skeptical of Harris's content since Tom Nicholas called him out for propaganda, and I take his videos with a mountain of salt

I was optimistic about a former LDS member making a video on the history of the mormon "church" and wanted to contrast it to Knowing Better's video. But yeah I found Harris's videos to be lacking.

[adam-obaseball]

I've looked at Johnny Harris's sources in the past. It's a huge portion (not all) of why I unsubscribed from his channel.

[Walzian]

I’m an ex-Mormon and so much of what Johnny over simplifies is likely a remnant of how he was taught Mormon history within the church.

For example, Joseph Smith’s “treasure hunting” and other folk practices are taught as normal for the time. The narrative of Mormon persecution is over inflated to obscure the dissent and violence that existed within the early church. And the downplaying of violence as isolated events caused by rogue actors.

Just a reminder of the importance of good history, as lack of nuance is used as a method of control.

[thepeasantsofdithmarschen]

I’ve always kinda found Johnny Harris to be in the similar sphere of misinformation channels that leaves out a lot of info or weaponizes language to give the audience the wrong idea of whatever they’re talking about. But he got cut a lot of slack because it’s harder to point out or not as obviously malicious as the more conservative channels. Honestly I feel you went too easy on him here

[mosscow]

1:27 Hey, look, tis me!
In all seriousness, I very much enjoyed this video, as always. I have seen more and more critiques of Harris from the history Youtubers that I enjoy, you among them. And, your reasoning that those with larger audiences and budgets should be held to a higher standard is one that I don't think many of us consider too often. Really appreciate your efforts and message. Please keep doing what you are doing.

[Crimsonrain]

All I've learned about LDS I've learned from the YouTube channel Knowing Better.

So far I haven't learned anything to the contrary.

[dragonviruz]

@26:03 As a multidisciplinary Historian and scholar who has to juggle between styles, I 100% agree with this take. Based C.M.S. Supremacy over virgin MLA/APA 'Soy-tation'!

[MI-wcnk]

Johnny Harris is and was a clickbait non-accurate channel, nothing new. unfortunately most are not aware/care, as long as it has nice graphics and attractive voice :/