As Hutterites’ views on social media evolve, the world gets a fresh look at their culture on YouTube

Open this photo in gallery:

When Giselle Waldner uploaded her first video blog to YouTube in April, 2020, she wanted people to know what life looked like on her Manitoba Hutterite colony at that time. She showed her viewers a classroom: a large, deserted room with dim lighting, chairs neatly stacked on desks.

“It used to be so full of joy and laughter and fun times,” she said in the video. “But now, because of what we are going through, everything is empty. And it is sad.”

The pandemic was at its first peak then. Because COVID-19 cases were surging on some colonies, Hutterites across the Prairies were facing discrimination, with some local businesses refusing to serve them.

“I heard it over the radio,” the 25-year-old says in a video call. “People were discriminating and being mean. I just wanted to show that maybe it’s because you don’t understand us and you don’t know a lot.”

On her colony, everything was locked down at the time. “We did have church, but it was over an intercom system at home. We didn’t eat in the kitchen. When we did work, everybody was either divided into multiple rooms or more than six feet apart.”

It was this discrepancy that ultimately gave her the push to do what she had long wanted to: share videos about her life as a Hutterite. To date, 23,900 people follow her on YouTube, where she shares Hutterite hymns, explains wedding traditions, or shows how her colony cans corn.

Across the Prairies, Hutterite colonies maintain their traditional way of life, living communally, dressing modestly and eschewing many of the social norms by which they are surrounded.

Ms. Waldner’s YouTube career is unusual – she says she doesn’t know if there are others who do what she does. But social media, and the smartphones that deliver it, present a specific conundrum.

Unlike some other Anabaptist groups such as the Amish, Hutterites are not critical of technology in general. Their farming equipment is always state-of-the-art, and their farms are among the largest and most modern on the Prairies. In Alberta, Hutterite communities produce 80 per cent of the province’s eggs, 33 per cent of its hogs, and more than 10 per cent of its milk, according to an article published in the Agricultural History Society in 2019.

But smartphones are different from farming equipment. The internet is vast, much of its content at odds with the Hutterite’s values. And different colonies are responding very differently to the challenge this poses to their culture.

Open this photo in gallery:

There are three groups of Hutterites. Dariusleut and Lehrerleut have their colonies in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The Schmiedeleut have settled down in Manitoba.

They all share the same belief and live in a “community of goods,” which means that they share their possessions and own the assets of their farms collectively. To an outsider, their traditional clothing is mostly indistinguishable. Lehrerleut are considered to be the strictest group, though, and Schmiedeleut the most lenient.

On Ms. Waldner’s Schmiedeleut colony, technology is fairly open. People have laptops and smartphones, and women organize their work in a WhatsApp chat.

Ms. Waldner found YouTubers in school: “During my breaks and in my free time, I would watch other YouTubers. I was intrigued by the way they projected their lives and it sounded like so much fun.”

But when she started uploading her videos, she was met with disapproval.

“It was difficult for people to see me doing that,” she says. “I’m thinking because YouTube is such a new thing. It was like that back when people started getting cameras and taking pictures. It took people a while to grasp the concept of that.”

Open this photo in gallery:

The use of a smartphone is much more controversial in Alberta.

On Spring Point Hutterite Colony in Southern Alberta, Matilda Walter sits outside the kindergarten with her husband, George. She is skeptical of a Hutterite-run YouTube channel. “We have nothing to be ashamed of, but we’re not celebrities,” she said. “We just want to live a quiet, secluded, humble life.”

The Hutterites don’t want to be considered proud people, she explained. It’s inconsistent with their faith.

At Spring Point, a Dariusleut colony, there are rules around smartphone use. When a boy turns 18, he gets called into the minister’s office. The minister tells him the dos and donts of the device. That it should be used as a tool – for example, to organize for someone to be picked up in town. That it should not be used for entertainment – for example, to watch movies of any kind. Then the boy gets a phone for himself. It is paid for by the colony.

“Like one old minister once said: There is nothing we can do about it, the phones are here. The only thing we can do is warn our young people of the harm behind them if they are misused,” said Mr. Walter, the colony’s financial boss and a member of its council. The council makes decisions about the development of the colony – like who will get a smartphone, and when. (The girls don’t get one – “not yet.”)

“We don’t want to be left behind,” Mr. Walter said. “But we should always have the spiritual side in front of us.”

Open this photo in gallery:

The colonies try to prepare their children for the new technology. It does worry the Hutterite parents: how much easier it is for their teenagers to sneak off now that there are so many vehicles on a farm, how easy it is to come across inappropriate content on the internet, now that there are free WiFi hot spots all over town.

“Teenagers are the same in every culture,” Ms. Walter said. And that means that like in every culture, they like to break rules – for example, by sneaking in smartphones that they are not supposed to have.

Many young people leave their colonies at some point, though they have always done that. The vast majority of them return after a while.

Ms. Waldner left her colony twice, for about a year in total, and came back both times. There were a lot of things she missed, especially family. “I remember I was voice-messaging with one of our girls and then the dinner bell rang. And I was like: I wish I could come home and go to dinner.”

She doesn’t think that modern media will change the Hutterites’ traditions or their way of life. Though people on her colony own smartphones and laptops, the devices haven’t taken over social life. Evenings are spent with the community: kayaking, sledding, making bonfires.

George and Matilda Walter, too, are confident they will succeed in preserving their culture.

“Well, we were established in 1536,” said Mr. Walter. “So if it wouldn’t be the right foundation, it would have crumbled a long time ago.”

Open this photo in gallery: