An ex-Mormon-turned-YouTuber is sharing why so many members of her former church look alike.
Alyssa Grenfell, 31, left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah to start a new life in New York City in 2017. Since then, she has been detailing the church’s inner workings on YouTube — including the rules she had to follow, like not having coffee.
In a recent minute-long video, Grenfell said she noticed on social media that many were curious why members of the Mormon Church tend to have a physical resemblance — in other words, “why certain people look Mormon.”
Grenfell pointed out that Ryan Gosling, 43, was born Mormon, noting in her video caption that “he has Mormon face.”
Grenfell’s lookalike theory isn’t salacious, rather, it comes down to community.
“Mormons really only marry other Mormons,” Grenfell reasoned. “You can’t marry in a Mormon temple unless it’s two Mormons getting married, this in large part has made it so that the gene pool is actually very small — especially in a place like Utah, where Mormons fled and went to Utah to be able to practice polygamy in peace.”
Grenfell delved further, saying that those church members were procreating only with other Mormons “for a very long time.”
“The only opportunity to make the gene pool a little larger is to convert people,” she explained.
Grenfell added that it’s more than just an outward appearance.
“I think another reason for this is not just the way Mormons look, but it’s also the Mormon vibe, which is often super hyper-friendly, almost too friendly,” she said.
“Mormons are taught to proselytize and share their religion,” she continued. “I think that Mormon culture is very copycat.”
Perhaps that’s why a 2017 study from Utah Valley University found that “homogenous societies such as Utah … pressure individuals into cosmetic surgery.”
“Many Utah mothers respond to cultural pressure to undergo the Mommy Makeover, which local doctors advertise as a solution to young mothers’ bodies ‘trashed’ by motherhood,” the report reads.
The Latter-day Saints church website even offers beauty tutorials.
There’s also some science to back Grenfell’s claims.
A 2010 research paper found that non-Mormons can properly identify Mormons 60% of the time, thanks mostly to a common skin texture shared among members.
“People make inferences about group membership based on how healthy someone looks, and some see spirituality in that,” the study author said at the time.
