Everyone’s losing their goddamn minds about the Rapture happening on September 23rd or 24th.
And by everyone I mean a metric shit ton of TikTok prophets who’ve apparently received direct downloads from Jesus himself about when the sky hoovering begins.
Good news is. These evangelical influencers have accidentally stumbled onto the most brilliant audience retention strategy in human history.
These pastors. Led by one Joshua Mhlakela from South Africa who claims Jesus slid into his DMs three months ago, have created the most exclusive, time sensitive, FOMO inducing content drop of all time.
It’s like a Netflix series finale, Black Friday sale, and apocalyptic death cult all rolled into one irresistible package.
The direct response copywriter in me is genuinely annoyed I didn’t see this any sooner.
But here we are.
This is the thing they’re selling and honestly it’s just pure infotainement as my boy Ben Settle would say:
Exclusive insider information (Jesus told ME personally!)
Urgency (IT’S HAPPENING THIS WEEK!)
Community belonging (WE’RE the chosen ones!)
Practical advice (Leave your phone unlocked for the heathens!)
Fear based engagement (Seven years of tribulation await the unsubscribed!)
And their audience? They’re preparing to literally die for this content. (Which I’m really not hoping is the case, cause if the rapture does happen, well. We’re screwed anyways…)
That’s some next-level parasocial relationship building right there too, considering I wrote about that a few days ago too.
But from a content creation “system” or whatever. This is what makes it so damn interesting. It’s a helluva perspective as well.
American Evangelicalism has built something content creators can only dream of. A completely self contained media universe where their audience never needs to look anywhere else for information, entertainment, or validation.
They’ve got origin stories (Genesis through Revelation), Character development (Jesus’s hero’s journey), Mythology (angels, demons, prophecy), Current events interpretation (everything through Biblical lens), Future predictions (detailed end-times theology), Community guidelines (Biblical morality), Exclusive content (personal revelations from pastors), Merchandise (Christian bookstores, music, movies), Live events (church services, conferences), Social media presence (ChristianTikTok is WILD)
I spent an hour just going through TikTok and it felt like all of this wrapped together was Marvel, but with more guilt and better music.
But if you try and break down this theological masterpiece like it’s a content marketing strategy.
It’s the Premillennial dispensationalism that divides all of human history into neat, digestible “eras” or “dispensations.”
Think of it like phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe if you’re a nerd like me.
It’s can broken down to chapters or phases…
Phase 1: Pre-Christ Era (God’s Old Testament content)
Phase 2: Christ Era (The Jesus trilogy)
Phase 3: Church Age (Current ongoing series)
Phase 4: The Rapture (Avengers: Endgame but for Christians)
Phase 5: Seven Years of Tribulation (The apocalypse spinoff series)
Phase 6: Millennium Reign (The happy ending season)
Phase 7: Eternal Heaven/Hell (The franchise finale)
Each phase has its own rules, characters, and plot points. Your audience always knows what’s coming next, but never exactly when. It’s appointment television for eternity.
The genius part? They’ve made the transition between Phase 3 and Phase 4 completely unpredictable. Could happen any second. Better keep watching.
I stopped paying attention to rapture predictions back in 2011.
I didn’t really want to speak on this bit next, but I’m going to give it a little nudge just because…
Now here’s where this gets really fucking dark and brilliant. Charlie Kirk gets assassinated, and suddenly every evangelical content creator is using his death as proof that Phase 4 is imminent…
J.D. Vance calls him a “martyr for the Christian faith” at his funeral. Boom. Instant content validation. Kirk’s death goes from being tragic to prophetic proof, that their entire worldview is correct and the Rapture predictions are on schedule.
This is how you turn current events into content gold. Every bad thing that happens proves your worldview. Every good thing that happens is God’s blessing before the end. Every neutral thing that happens is a sign you’re not paying attention.
It’s all just confirmation bias heavily disguised as some weird content delivery system, which would make QAnon look like amateur hour…
Anyways. That’s enough of this thought loop.
So tomorrow or whenever, when millions of evangelicals don’t get raptured into the sky, they won’t abandon their content creators. They’ll double down. Find new explanations. New dates. New reasons to keep watching.
And honestly? That’s both the most brilliant and most terrifying thing about content creation in 2025.
If I could predict what was happening next, I’d be on to a winner.
I’m uninstalling Tiktok right now.
Stephen Walker.
P.S. This be the article that sparked this email. It’s a wild ride.