Christian YouTubers react to Amazon Prime's 'Shiny Happy People' docuseries about Duggar family: 'We have a right to share our perspective'
Weeks after the premiere of Amazon Prime’s four-part docuseries Shiny Happy People, YouTube couple Paul and Morgan Olliges uploaded a response. The Olligeses were featured briefly in one of the episodes that examined the Duggar family — famous for their TLC reality show 19 Kids & Counting — and the Christian organization Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP).
The documentary focuses on how the IBLP impacted the Duggar family and other families within the same movement and alleged that IBLP teachings and leaders contributed to the normalization of abuse within the community.
Some of IBLP’s rules, which were highlighted in the documentary, include asking women to submit to male authority, wear modest clothing and makeup, not use birth control and thus have as many children as possible and then educate the children by homeschooling with IBLP’s curriculum.
The documentary interviewed former members of IBLP who further accused IBLP of abusing and mistreating them. In 2014, IBLP founder Bill Gothard stepped down after being accused of abusing young girls and women.
The Duggar family, who are members of IBLP, in response to Gothard’s departure, issued a statement that said, “We do not agree with everything taught by Dr. Bill Gothard or IBLP, but some of the life-changing Biblical principles we learned through IBLP’s ministry have helped us deepen our personal walks with God.”
The Duggars’ son Josh was accused of sexually abusing his sisters and convicted of downloading and possessing child pornography. He started serving his 12-year sentence in December 2021 in Texas. Jill Duggar, who was interviewed in Shiny Happy People, confirmed in a 2015 interview with Megyn Kelly that she was one of her brother’s victims.
The Olligeses are only in Shiny Happy People for a few minutes and talk about what drove them to start making YouTube videos about their faith. The documentary frames the couple as part of the “new generation” of conservative Christians, although neither Paul nor Morgan ever explicitly name IBLP in their videos. However, a lot of the teachings they discuss on YouTube overlap with fundamentalist beliefs — like their video titled “What It Looks Like for a Wife to Submit and a Husband to Lead.”
The couple spent the majority of their 42-minute response video trying to distance themselves from what they perceived as the overall message of Shiny Happy People.
“We do believe there’s been serious wrongdoings in the IBLP; we do believe that it deserved to be brought to light,” Morgan said. “We believe that this docuseries and many alike — like Secrets of Hillsong on Hulu, the Discovery+ on Hillsong and many others — all have a purpose.”
But Morgan said she and Paul felt that these documentaries “completely failed.”
“Because they are made by people who are not Christians, who maybe even have a vendetta against Christianity, every single one of these docuseries has some major problems,” she continued. “One being they almost never interview people who are still firmly walking in faith with the Lord. Or, if they do interview those people, like they interviewed us, they do not allow them to share that faith.”
In The Know reached out to Amazon Prime video team for comment and did not hear back.
Paul said while they were watching the series, he kept wondering how the documentary was going to bring him and Morgan in. Ultimately, he said he felt that it was a “hit piece” against them.
“Suddenly we realize where we’re gonna fit,” Paul said. “Ultimately we’re going to fit as a hit piece of literally being lumped in with the IBLP, with extremism, with cultism.”
Paul pointed out that the couple made a video condemning Josh Duggar in 2021 before they were asked to be involved with the documentary.
“And then, what do you know, what happens? They put us smack dab in the middle of the episode where Josh Duggar [is] exposed for all this evil and we were dropped in the middle,” he said.
Toward the end of the video, the two started challenging the idea of religious extremism as a negative lifestyle, as they said it was portrayed in the documentary. Paul said that while watching the series, he started to ask himself, “Where are areas where Christians should be extreme or will be seen as extreme by non-Christians?”
“Where do I just want to embrace — if you want to call it — ‘extremism’? Where do I want to embrace it and just wear it proudly?” he asked. “Sometimes extremism is simple, biblical obedience.”
Some commenters were frustrated with the reaction video.
“It is also painful to hear the two of you spending 42 minutes defending your reputation as if that is the most important issue at hand following the release of such heavy revelations as we’re brought to light in the series,” one user wrote. “Our first question should not be, ‘How can they portray Christianity in such a detrimental way?!’ but rather ‘What have we done to get here where our religious organizations and churches have in so many cases caused hurt and paved the way for unthinkable abuse?!'”
“I’m a Bible-believing Christian and most of what I believe would align with a more conservative Christian worldview,” another commenter said. “But as I watched the documentary, instead of feeling like I needed to defend Christians, I found myself asking instead, ‘How did we get here? How can we make sure this doesn’t happen again?'”
The couple posted another response video, this time reacting to the responses they were getting on the original video.
“We know, you guys, this isn’t all about us, obviously,” Paul said in the second video. “But we have a right to share our perspective. … There are people who are gonna watch this documentary that are kind of sitting in the middle, maybe they’re young in their faith or whatever, and they’re just going to be like, ‘Oh my goodness, homeschooling is — Christianity is awful, homeschooling is awful.”
Paul was homeschooled and grew up Christian, which he mentioned in the original response video. Morgan attended school until seventh grade and then was homeschooled. The Atlantic reported that nearly two-thirds of homeschooled children in the U.S. are from Christian households and “nonreligious families often find it difficult to educate their children without relying on conservative Christian curricula and communities.”
“We have a chance to balance out the tides here,” Paul argued toward the end of the video. “[We’re] kind of exposing the documentary, if you will.”
“Still have yet to see exactly where the documentary said that Christianity was bad,” a commenter argued. “I’m a Christian and I loved the documentary.”
While co-directors and executive producers Olivia Crist and Julia Willoughby Nason have not responded to the Olliges videos, Nason said during a podcast interview on May 23 that the documentary specifically explores the IBLP.
“What we ultimately explore in the show is: There’s the shiny, happy facade, and then beneath the surface is this insidious cult behind the family, called IBLP,” she said. “The Duggars are a jumping-off point for us for a much, much larger story.”
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