Everyone loves a good inside joke.
But there aren’t that many creators that cater specifically to the sometimes silly workings of Catholic internet culture. Enter Laura Horn — a mom and wife to Catholic Answers apologist Trent Horn — whose YouTube channel pokes good-natured fun at Catholicism in the digital age.
Have you ever noticed that Catholic podcasters all fall into only a few categories? Or wondered how Christian apologists would play football together? Have you ever known anyone (or you yourself) who has gotten really into G.K Chesterton? Laura Horn has, and she explores these and many other topics in her laugh-out-loud skits on her YouTube channel, “Too Far With Laura Horn.”
There’s a lot to laugh at or cry about, depending on your view, when you’re an online Catholic. Horn doesn’t consider herself “too online” — YouTube is the only social-media platform she has. But her husband is, and anytime some micro-controversy erupts, there’s high likelihood she personally knows the people involved.
That’s exactly what got her into making fun YouTube videos. Her friend Matt Fradd, the host of the popular podcast Pints With Aquinas, got in some trouble last year for a comment about how women, on the whole, aren’t as funny as men. That ticked off Catholic comedienne Jen Fulwiler, and Laura really wanted to weigh in.
“I never ended up publishing that skit,” she told the Register. “But that’s how that blossomed, because I was like, ‘What if I actually just did things like [Christian comedians] Trey Kennedy or John Crist,’ but I channeled that towards the Catholic sphere? Because there are a lot of inside jokes. So I just kind of rolled with that. It actually was meant to be a serious reaction to something, but I found that that’s not fun.”
She launched the channel last September, and it has garnered hundreds of thousands of views with only a couple dozen videos. She takes on topics ranging from Natural Family Planning to end-time prophecies with neither kid gloves nor vulgarity — though with a bit of non-G detail, at times, striking the crucial sweet spot of saying what people are thinking, but with taste.
Take, for example, a skit based on the belief in the Three Days of Darkness, which in some Catholic circles is believed to be a period of supernatural night that heralds the end times and during which blessed beeswax candles will be the only source of light. In the video, Laura runs around screaming, buying hundreds of dollars of candles and drilling the kids on how to act when the darkness falls — until Trent wonders how they’re going to light the candles if matches and lighters won’t work.
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Or take the video where she lovingly skewers the different types of chastity speakers, telling teenagers about the Catholic view of sexuality. There’s “the woman who overshares her past,” “the TMI husband,” “the awkward dad,” “the unmarried woman,” “the husband whose wife ‘has a past,’” and “the woman with weird metaphors.”
Laura’s a pretty good impressionist, as well, acting out how it might be if Catholic celebrities from Franciscan YouTuber Father Casey Cole to President Joe Biden might act at her breakfast table. She has a whole series about different Catholics at Easter and during Lent, and another imagines how different Catholic websites, including the Register, would be as your waiter.
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She does it all without a formal background in communications or acting. She’s a nurse by training but draws from her experiences in pro-life outreach and as a chastity speaker (she was the “unmarried woman” with a perhaps over-idealized vision of the marriage bed.)
“I’ve been in one play, and I was, I think, the Munchkin mayor. Not to brag or anything. So, no, I was not in theater or anything,” she said of her acting. “But, luckily, Trent does have a background in film, so he’s able to edit the videos to help.”
In addition to his behind-the-scenes expertise, Trent also makes frequent guest appearances in her videos. No one could ever call him dour, but as an apologist, his typical content requires a logical and mostly reserved approach. Together, the bubbly-and-upbeat Laura says they make a good team.
“Trent loves that I bring levity to our marriage,” she said. “People meet me and Trent, and they’re like, ‘You’re very different.’ And I think he loves that. So I think he’s very grateful that he didn’t marry someone overly serious, especially given his profession. It’s kind of depressing at times.”
As the wife of a Catholic who has lots of internet presence, Laura was well-prepared for the nastiness that can come with the role. And the last thing she wants is to add to the division.
“I used to consider everything that Trent did fair game for people to respond to because he’s an online person. And now, I’m like, that would be hypocritical of me to not say that people can also respond to me.”
It will come as no surprise to anyone who has spent time online that there are deep and sometimes toxic divisions between the very-online Catholic crowd. TradCaths, LeftCaths, Father James Martin devotees, conspiratorial sedevacantists — it only ever seems to spiral into more factions that all declare the others to be in or near schism. That’s the hardest part of being Catholic online, Horn said.
“People forget that we’re on the same team. While our differences do have to be worked out, it’s like if your friends get in a fight on a text thread. And it’s very awkward, but then you send a GIF of maybe a nervous person laughing, and people calm down. Some people might be mad that you did it, but it makes me feel better.”
That’s what she did in response to one online feud, and in that case, it contributed to some healing. Taylor Marshall, a very traditionalist Catholic commentator who recently announced that he’s running for president (yes, of the United States), blocked her husband Trent on Twitter during a squabble. But after Laura posted a parody rap in the style of Eminem about him, Marshall commented on the video, “This is hilarious! I have to admit that you roasted me good. Solid bars. This track was straight fire.” He has since unblocked Trent.
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Threading the fine line between poking fun and making fun is something Laura thinks about a lot and tries to be very careful with. She doesn’t want to embarrass anyone or make fun of other Catholics. She gets around that by making some of the videos riffing off of how certain people act, such as those who believe in the Three Days of Darkness, and makes them about how she would react if she was in their position.
“I asked my spiritual director about this, as in, when does it go into sin? Because I am worried if I’m sinning if I make fun of these particular people,” she said. “He said it just can’t be malicious, or it has to be based on public knowledge.”
Her friends and family in the business, including Pints With Aquinas host Matt Fradd, all warned her against reading the comments. That doesn’t mean she hasn’t taken a peek.
“People were commenting on my voice being annoying or my laugh being annoying,” she said. “And I was like, I feel like this is the devil because God gave me the gift of joy. And that’s a gift from him. And it’s not mine; God gave that to me. And so, if the internet makes you feel bad about things that are a gift, then it’s time to step back.”
Step back from the comments, that is, not back from her channel. She has got big plans for it as she tries to put out about a video a week — less than the three a week she initially planned. She said she would love to collaborate with other YouTubers, up her production quality, and start making shorts (YouTube’s version of TikTok). She’s deciding if she wants to keep it specifically Catholic or branch out with more general Christian content.
Overall, she mused, “I think everybody loves a good inside joke.”
