PROVO REVEALED TO BE HUGE POTEMKIN VILLAGE

This may be little more than pasteboard and scotch tape!

Provo, UT—Tipped off by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s Priesthood session talk, officials looking into allegations have confirmed that Provo “is indeed one massive Potemkin village.” Officials said that “from the ‘mighty’ Provo river to the ‘majestic’ Utah lake, it is all one gigantic sham.”

Officials reported that they had heard rumors about Provo’s fundamental artificiality for years. “Sure,” said one unnamed source, “I had heard the first day I came to Utah that unless you are on heavy doses of anti-depressants it is physically impossible to have actual, real fun at Seven Peaks or to even happily shop at the mall, but I had no idea about the scope of the deception.”

In spite of persistent rumors, officials had never followed up on them until Uchtdorf mentioned a town specifically trying to deceive passersby. When those officials took a closer look, they found that the entire city of Provo “was as real and true as the health benefits of vitamins or aromatherapy or promises of making ‘good money’ selling Vivint security systems over the summer.”

Some of the artificiality seemed to be centered on Brigham Young University’s campus. Said one official, “we found that what were called ‘Religious Education’ classes were often little more than watered-down Sunday School lessons with a thin veneer of actual academic rigor.” Other officials noted that “while some seemed to get something like a real education at the school, the entire university seems to be little more than a massive Mormon singles meet-and-greet.” The university’s artificiality is even evident in its architecture. In the words of another official, “first, I don’t know how you call a 12 story building a ‘tower,’ second, that art building looks like a rejected Frank Lloyd Wright sham design for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and finally, that dull, boring, granite business building looks like the empty box that the Salt Lake Temple came in!”

Not all passersby were fooled by Provo’s façade. When asked about the town which many call a “city set on a hill” and a “light to the world,” Salt Lake City resident Preston Nielson said that “yah, Provo is as real as the profits generated by Nu Skin and that Noni company!” Nielson went on to allege that “the entire town seems built on the municipal equivalent of the idea that one’s obedience buys them salvation.” Nielson himself is proud to be from a “real” place and to have graduated from a “real university,” the University of Utah, famous home of Stanley Pons and cold fusion.