Have you noticed that an awful lot of TBMS seem to have an excessive need to be or become famous, well known or highly regarded?

Many appear to be ultra successful but have noticed a lot of it is faked or at least highly exaggerated. They seem to be really good at appearing to be but it's often just appearances.

Same could be said of anyone really but since this is an exmo forum, am referring to it within "the church." Probably trying to assert legitimacy a priority since the Net has led to a lot of negative publicity for them?

Actually, yes. I wrote about this the other day. I read this story about Mormon parents, now divorced, who sent their daughter to a Mormon run WWASPS school (basically a teen boot camp) back in 1997. The female half of this couple had written a very long, involved story about recruiting other parents to send their kids to what turned out to be abusive schools that did nothing more than give kids PTSD.

I looked her up the other day. She and her ex husband-- he's a somewhat noted concert pianist-- run a business selling pianos. A lot of their stock comes from famous people. They don't mind mentioning that. Mom is also a contributor to some sailing magazine, and mentions her third or fourth generation San Franciscan heritage and all of the famous people her uncle or grandfather worked with in Hollywood.

Meanwhile, I have found their daughter's blog. She's now in her late 30s, and still writing about her experiences at Tranquility Bay in Jamaica, even though she left there over two decades ago. And she also writes about her relationship with a narcissistic ex... I would say her ex is not the only narcissistic person in her life. Looks like she did, at least, ditch Mormonism.

Mormons have always been about building testimonies by famous people "they know" because they have no real gospel knowledge worth sharing to convert people to their religion.

This is why they used to show Steve Young, Marriott, Covey in missionary open house videos. Why they continue to bring up famous people today who clearly aren't mormon anymore - Paul Walker, Matthew Modine, Imagine Dragons, Katherine Heigl.

I guess we can't blame them when their founder claimed to hang out with no one more famous than just God and Jesus along with John the Baptist, Elijah, Peter James John pretty much anybody biblically famous. I hear they even do this practice today except with fewer members of the Jesus Entourage.

"In order to maintain the illusion, the symbol
and the attached belief require continuous support
by the group of people.
That continuous support is the very fuel
that increases an individual's attachment to a belief."
- The Five Levels of Attachment by don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

We don't have a whole lot of contact with them other than the ocassional visit (by us of course, they can't be bothered travelling to see their grandkids). But what I see every day of them on social media shows they devote much of their time putting on a visual show-off of how wonderful they are.