Reflection on Social Media Case 9: Ponderize

Ponderize is a term created by a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) named Devin Durrant. He gave a talk at the Church's General Conference in April 2015 about how one should ponder and memorize their scriptures, hence the word Ponderize. After the Church's General Conference, Durant released a website with merchandise with the word Ponderize on it. In theory, this was a good idea, but Durant and his family couldn't account for the backlash they were going to get from this. 

People immediately ripped on Durant and his family and said that they were abusing the power of the Church to make money for themselves. What these people didn't listen to was that all of the proceeds were going to the missionary fund for the Church, it wasn't for a personal gain. Instead, they voiced their opinions on numerous channels, Facebook being one of them. 

I can see both sides of this. Originally it wasn't explicitly stated that proceeds were going to the missionary fund until Durant was criticized for it. So I can see where people would be mad and or confused by that. However, I can see Durant's point of view as well, as the fact that he was just trying to promote the talk that he gave and give people a constant reminder of it. Where the funds were going was beside the point, but when you look at this from a Christlike point of view I can see where Durant went wrong. He should have explicitly stated at the beginning where these funds were going and 1) his sales probably would have increased and 2) he could have avoided all of this backlash. Just like the case last week about Pastor Bell of the Christian Church, She said that she shouldn't tip because she gives God 10%; this isn't very Christlike. 

Overall, this could have all been avoided if he just thought about what the right thing to do in this situation was and how people would react. A trend I see in a lot of these cases is that people don't think about the repercussions of their actions --and that is a flaw in today's society.