To be clear, the MLM "business owners" don't actually purchase the product at a wholesale price. The actual company purchases the products at a wholesale price and sells it to their distributors for a huge profit, and then the distributor's upline also takes a large percentage of whatever sale the distributor makes. The issue here is that the distributors ARE the customer, the company survives off of turning their employees into customers, and often set a mandatory amount of stock that the distributors have to buy regularly in order to stay with the company regardless of whether they've sold their previous stock or not.
@@themagicknightress7132 If you start your own business, you would source the ingredients yourself at a wholesale price and work with a lab, a manufacturer, or create the product yourself, essentially only paying the price of these services, and then adding your own profit on top of what you spent on manufacturing before you sell it. When you work for an MLM, you're not just paying sourcing and manufacturing costs, the company's profit is included, which is often three times or more the cost of manufacturing. At that point you're literally just their customer, you're not starting your own business. It's like if I bought a lipstick from MAC and then resold it for a higher price. MLMs also have clauses that don't allow you to open your own personal website or storefront, they only let you do things through their own website or storefront where they can advertise recruitment, because they don't want actual customers, they want their employees to be their customers.
When I heard about MLM, my first thought was yours as well. I thought they meant men-loving-men but then I learned of the pyramid scheme that they meant
@@themagicknightress7132 they’re explaining how in lots of mlms, people higher in the “upline “ are making a higher profit margin on products sold than those lower in the downline.
This happens fairly regularly. It's not uncommon for gay men to think anti mlm spaces are just where homophobes congregate online and get a pleasant surprise that they are in fact anti pyramid scheme and not inherently anti queer rights.
I work in the localization industry and the amount of money these MLMs spend on hosting multilingual conventions and discussions are insane... and they never talk about their product, it's more like group pep talk sessions 😂
Even though MLM uniquely targets women, a lot of its slander end up framing women overall as naive or selfish when we completely overlook the companies’ deliberate recruitment strategies and gendered marketing. Especially with the rise of NFT and AI bros, it goes to show that although women can be more vulnerable, they’re not any more delusional than a man when it comes to get-rich-quick schemes.
I really hate how they use "feminism" as a way to convince women they are getting "empowered" by joining MLMs and make the company richer. *sits in the soap box* Which is a great example of how capitalism is damaging to any human rights movement by a way of making it into a product or a driving force to simply sell shit.
@Heleen Wolf There is gender specific dominance in those fields, but other industries (e.g. IT) also have similar problems. It's how these organisations market and WHO they market. I do feel that the video is biased, but when I look at the subject a bit more the focus is on MLMs and what tends to be in those (which happen to be women). I just take these videos as descriptive third-party analysis of how ONE group of humans behave by and remove the bias by thinking "these groups of humans do X, who's to say the OTHER group of humans don't do the same thing and maybe in different ways"? I try not to put too much pressure on content creators on their crap. They're worth listening to as much as an academic, but they're not invincible from scrutiny.
I'm from Poland and here we have a meme joke, that your friend from primary school reaches out to you to say sorry for bullying you and then they go straight to "do you want anything from avon?" xd
This happened to me except it was just an ex-friend and they wanted to sell me mushroom tea. Hurt my feelings so bad at the time. Now I feel embarrassed for him lol.
As a disabled person I feel like MLM's severely prey on my community. Many of us struggle to work outside of the home, getting disability benefits is a nightmare to go through that I would not wish on my worst enemy, and even when you do get those much needed benefits the amount still leaves you well belove the poverty level. Legitimate work from home jobs are hard to find and I feel people turn to MLM's thinking they might be "safe" option. They aren't and then people who have the most to lose end up losing what little they have. Not to mention how one of the major sections of the MLM market is sketchy health stuff that promises to make all your issues better if you only drink these oils or take this shake. I once was stuck at an MLM party at salon and the woman hosting told me that the Young Living oils would stop cancer and Ebola among other things that someone else might believe like drinking the oils would help my acid reflux. I thankfully had a mom who worked in health care and pharmaceuticals and knew right away her claims were false. Still there are many people who don't know these things and could easily fall victim in their desperation for better health.
Exactly! My mom got caught up in thrive several years back (and while it does legitimately help her with her specific disabilities) she had to stop being so involved in it because all her thrive 'friends' were coming out as anti-vax/essential oilists
@@starcasita That's so scary! It's awful how a lot of these mlm's will even intentionally go after people with health issues and disabilities claiming to have cures for all kinds of things. I hate to think of the physical, emotional, and financial harm they do. The way our culture tries to sell and brand wellness is actually a whole thing. Like look at Goop.
@@abrenn I'm glad she stepped back from them and that at least the product she was getting was helpful to her. Its scary thinking those people are selling their products as alternatives to real safe medicines.
In the list of 10 reasons why the LDS dominate pyramid schemes, there's an important omission: these companies have a stranglehold on local and state governments in Utah. Their lobbying is so intense that the representatives in these government organizations routinely push to keep them legal even while they impoverish their employees
exactly. it’s not just seeing individuals participating in MLMs, but entire institutions supporting them (i.e. university buildings donated by doTERRA). MLM culture defines *physical space*, not just social media and “hey hun!” DMs from that girl in your high school bio class.
And before it gets that big its starts off small. Teachers and moms sign up with a MLM so make more money. They push their MLM at their jobs and in their neighborhoods. MLM products then become seen as a legitimate products and even good. How bad can MLMs be if a valuable member of the neighborhood is selling them?
@sweetcherryblast7251 I'm glad I don't still live there to see that unravel, but it also makes me so sad. 90's Salt Lake County taught me to love science and that you're happier if you don't take yourself too seriously... now they have MLMs and anti-maskers...
Here's a f***ed up story: when I was 16, I enrolled in "modeling classes" (yup, big yikes), with their promise to sign me after I took the class. The class was $600-$900 I believe, and I saved up my minimum wage dollars to pay for half of it. One of the reasons why it was so expensive was that the cost included a REQUIRED purchase of $200 worth of ARBONNE makeup and skincare products. This was "to ensure you had 'model skin'". Multiply that by that by 10 girls for each class and wow---you racked up some dollars. My teacher then bragged to us she was going to Hawaii with the Agency owner because they successfully sold so much product, Arbonne was GIFTING them a trip. They weren't successful salespeople, they fed on the hopes and dreams of young girls and scammed them, by FORCING them to buy product. Love these MLMs man lmao.
girl! you don't remember the iconic scene in Edward Scissorhands where Peg goes around her neighbourhood selling Avon and then decides to go sell Avon to the creepy mansion up the hill??? that was my first introduction to Avon anyway lol
MLMs are heinous. I’m still in a Herbalife home, and my mom is very relentless when it comes to marketing. We recently moved and it’s been hard on her because she basically lost her whole down line when going from a heavy latino community to our now very white one without being able to speak English. I feel bad for her. She keeps trying to make me sell stuff with her and she’s guilting me into being part of her downline and I refuse to recruit people but it sucks. I once asked her if she wanted to donate Herbalife stuff to a high school thing and she said that I should get the names and email of anyone interested in Herbalife to sell it, which is not allowed so she refused to donate. It’s hellish. Every morning I drink a Herbalife protein shake. If your mother or father or parent in general is a MLM parent I feel your pain. This video was a nice and interesting listen and it’s nice to hear someone not disparaging the women involved, they’re pretty much victims consumed by the need to succeed and it drives them to depression and anxiety. It sucks. Thanks for the well made video :)
That sucks, imo the cruelest thing about MLMs is the way they target people who are hardworking and ambitious but the economy gives them no productive outlet for those skills. I hope things get better for both you and your mom.
@@elizabethtangora4353they also PREY on the Latino community:( which sounds like what happened with her mom too . They’re fucking evil , May they rot in hell !
MLMs oversaturate so many mediocre markets (beauty supplies, weight loss, vitamins, essential oils) these days - I'm seeing many of these "boss bapes" turn to real estate, NFTs and Crypto currency instead to try to get their friends' and online aquatainces' money. Scammers gotta scam :/
@@nathanielcraig3588 I agree - I just feel like all my former MLM hun friends are suspiciously trying (and failing) to become real estate agents. It’s not a lucrative income if everyone and their dog is trying to make it happen :)
I live in Chile and herbalife is super prevalent here, everyone has heard of it and at some point had curiosity about their shakes. Also, I have gone to "job interviews" that end up being some MLM recruiting type reunion (for Omnilife, jeunesse and other that was about perfumes or whatever). It's obvious that they take advantage of us latinamericans
I was in the military and the amount of times I had my male co-workers pressure me into going to their wives MLM parties/Facebook groups is insane. I honestly felt bad for everyone involved. Their wives just wanted to contribute to their household but can’t keep a stable job because of constantly moving or their spouse deploying. My male co-workers would always be shelling out thousands of dollars every couple of months to kickstart their wives new “business”. These companies are predatory.
Maybe you should google an ex navy vet named, Tim Sales, (bomb disposal) and figure out how he made millions in Network Marketing. He worked his MLM part time whilst serving in the Navy. Once his MLM income reached $20,000 per month he left the navy and did it full time. He earned $150,000 within his first year full time. Since then he has earned millions of dollars. This is fact. To say Network Marketing "does not work" is an uneducated lie.
It's so f*cked up that these MLMs are exploiting military couples like that! These wives want to contribute to their household, but 99% of them (according to the FTC) end up losing money overall, thus becoming a drain on their household. NO WAY the MLM corporate execs (i.e., the real bosses) don't know about and exploit this vicious cycle!
MLM culture is my true crime in that I’m obsessed with knowing everything about it lol. Last year I took a free class from an online school that talked about “how to self-publish” and while they had some good advice, they used a LOT of MLM up-selling language on a class of mostly older people who wouldn’t recognize what was going on. It made me wonder if these “successful” people made more money from selling books or selling their courses & consultations like everyone else who advocates for “financial freedom” 🙄
Same here. Anti-MLM content and Art Theft or other forgery content that harms the rich are my equivalents (I despise crime content referencing bodily harm done to others, though some MLMs get close - like Young Living's CEO doing surgery on people without a license and killing his own child.)
@@Elektrochoke blair is wonderful her videos are actually cute to me i love her little animations and sh3s been doing awesome with some of her new videos uo
I have a working theory that the money exchanged around attempts to get someone published is actually greater than in the legitimate publishing industry.
My friend: I don’t understand why people don’t discipline their cats… Me: No, no, no. You don’t understand. A dog may get yelled at and learn a thing is bad. A cat will get yelled at and just learns not to get caught…unless they want attention, in which case they get yelled at and learn that this is particularly fun because you pay attention to them when they do that and you look funny when you’re upset
I met this girl at a party once and we talked all the evening, she was really cool, at the end she told me why don't we exchange numbers so the next time I pass by I'll let you know, and I was like sure, two days later it turns out she just wanted to tell me about an "incredible business opportunity"... At the party it was all just a show, she was just fishing for people to make money off of. I was repulsed, she seemed so genuine and I thought I'd made a new friend. I've never seen her again.
A cute stylish girl approached me at the grocery store once to complement my outfit and we got into a conversation where she asked me tons of questions (but wouldn't answer any about herself) and was very flattering. I figured out why when she started asked how happy I was with my work and if I would like to make more money for less work. 🙄
I used to be a CNA, and met a lot of the resident’s children because of it. One resident’s daughter used her parent’s ill health and death to try and get me into an mlm. (Used their parent I.e made flyers with them it was nuts)
GIRL! As a stay-at-home mom with two kids, including one who is handicapped, you hit the nail on the head! You get us! Thank you for being willing and able to understand and convey our struggles without being a mother yourself. It IS a full time job and we are extremely lucky that I am able to stay home and care for our children and still afford food and clothes.
as someone who lives in Utah, it is crazy to me how many people don’t even think twice about joining an MLM. I’ve learned to believe that everything is an MLM until absolutely proven otherwise
Oh fr. Every time I go to Utah it feels like there are MLM ads left and right. It's so toxic. And it's sad seeing how it preys on the community there, set by the culture of church goers. (Not BY the church itself, the culture. Very different, and very prevalent in Utah.) It's sad to see how trust and values are taken advantage of.
The link between MLMs and people from religious communities that encourage or require proselytizing as part of their practice is really interesting. Great video, as always!
These videos explaining how Tupperware and Avon are/were mlms is giving me an existential crisis because my poor single mum used to buy products and host parties for both of those things.
I know a 15 year old who is a part of Herballife, no idea how long they've been involved in it but it's crazy how young they get people wrapped up in these schemes. I think their mum is a part of the MLM and that's how they've been basically indoctrinated into it so young. Imagine being raised in an MLM....
way back in primary school, 2 of my classmates were also in Herbalife. Their parents were in it and they were part of a religious sect that prohibits contraception so both had like 12 siblings and everyone in the family was peddling Herbalife and wearing those "Lose Weight Now Ask Me How" pins. At like 11-12 years old.
@@mundanepants this was common in my majority Latino town in Los Angeles, I remember my mom taking me to the indoctrination meetings several actually (Avon, organigold coffee, life insurance, and Herbalife) they always pushed the book called “the secret” which is terrible thinking these were rooms filled with migrants wanting the American dream but instead they fell for a pyramid scheme. I think at age 15 I made my mom aware of what was really going on.
Avon is so huge in Brasil that most people here think it's a brazilian company. It's very consolidated and since the 70s it's the standard "begginers" makeup for preteens, everyone knows someone that sells Avon and we all grew up using some Avon item. It's seen as a complementary income, not in a bad light at all... meanwhile Herbalife, a more recent company to expand to Brasil, is seen as a pyramid scheme by most people...
I think that one thing that may help Avon's reputation in Brazil is that I don't think the resellers have to buy things before they sell them, they just have the catalogue and they sell through the catalogue, at least that's what I've seen
I grew up in Romania and Avon and oriflame were prevalent. Now I realize how dumb it was, to have to browse a catalog and buy products from random people at school, when one can always go to a store. I think the assumption was that their products were high quality at a good price, which they probably weren't.
'on becoming a god in central florida' is a show about a single mom getting caught up in an mlm, shows why people join and how it ruins their lives. kirsten dunst stars in it and it is ridiculous and hilarious, highly recommend
My ex-boyfriend tried to convince me that MLMs aren’t problematic at all and that they’re actually a good business model if you want to start a business. As in start your own MLM and then go from there raking in money for basically free labor… Just one of many red flags 🙂 Edit: he also argued that the people who fall for MLM schemes are just morons who really should be using the MLM training to start their own company. I pointed out that most people who fall into it are mothers with no way to make money while still raising their children and he basically went “🤷♀️ well….. case in point”
Thats absurd because no MLM is gonna let you get "training" and then just walk away. They suck you in hard. There's plenty of ways to learn business skills besides MLM....
Haven't watched this yet but it's precisely something that has been bugging me off lately: some days after I finally received my degree my grandma passed away and since then I've had to take care of our house and also my aunt, so I don't have more options than working from home. The only jobs I've applied to and received a response are pyramid schemes :/ it's insulting in a way I can't really explain.
Mina you don't know how happy it makes me and I'm sure so many other Muslims to hear you speak about Islam's opinion on the matter (a matter) in a neutral way, just mentioning it like it's a normal occurrence. Thank you thank you thank you
I'm from Ukraine and back when I was in high school in 2014 one representative of Mary Kay would come to allegedly teach us how to do our make up for the prom😅 During the "master class" she promoted the products and convinsing us, 16y.o. girls, that we would convince our moms we need that make up. Though some products were nice I still think it was kind of scam to promote to kids, don't understand how school administration let that happen, maybe the had a share from it lol
I doubt the school knew the intent behind it and just thought it was someone trying to do something nice (rather than someone trying to make a sale...)
ооо, в мэри кей любят таким заниматься, особенно в школах, как дочь учительницы подтверждаю. хотя у нас чаще предлагали самим учительницам, но и старшеклассницам тоже hmmm
Out history teacher was trying to sell avon stuff to us every other lesson 😅 all girls was smelling perfumes samples the whole time instead of studying. No wonder our history education was so messed up
MLMs go after military wives a bunch too. When my parents were still living on base, my mom got invited to TONS of “parties.” She went to one and realized what was going on, so thankfully she didn’t get sucked in. But the amount of people in attendance was concerning.
from when I was 8 up until when I was 16, my mom was involved in so many MLMs and pyramid schemes. I remember asking my mom when she started her first one that if everyone in the world gets recruited and there's no one else to recruit, how do people at the bottom earn money and my mom went silent. MLMs have put us in debt and because of the recruiting practices, my mom continues to recruit her close friends and family, also putting them in debt. It felt like she was taking advantage of their trust. I finally sat my mom down and talked to her about and she finally stopped.
I have a memory of my Girl Scout troop having a sleep over in the late 90s and someone who knew one of the moms giving us 3rd and 4th graders a Mary Kay sample demo for facial skin care. I think they encouraged us to ask our parents to buy the product if we liked it. At 8 or 9 years old I remember thinking this feels a little… predatory. I could smell the desperation on the lady doing the demo. It was weird.
SAME!!!! I remember wondering why is this adult SOOO focused on selling these expensive products to us children.... Definitely desperate and red-flag behavior. Listen to those instincts!
My sister always struggled with anxiety and employment and this reminded me of how my mom would buy a new start up package from different MLMs for her every few months lol. Then our mom would host the parties/invite her own friends and colleagues/do all the work which probably strained some relationships she had
I remember when I was one year postpartum, with acne because that’s how hormones work, and a Mary Kay consultant said she could get me a free facial while looking at my face in judgment and disgust. I will never forget how that made me feel.
To my fellow students: there’s a company out there called vector marketing that claims to help you by training you in marketing cutlery and giving you bonuses for trying to recruit people. If your alarm bells are ringing, they should be. They don’t have your best interest in mind and are an mlm even though you can technically make money from them it’s really hard to leave and seems very predatory. I know this may seem obvious to some but I wanted to throw it out there and warn those who may not know.
One of my old friends did that for a while. They tried to recruit me because I would give her rides to the meetings. I think the only reason she quit was because she found out when she did her taxes she had to report it as self-employment income and her mom was like naw, you need to quit.
Ugh I always get those recruitment letters in the mail every summer for a 'summer work opportunity'. Thank God I did research and felt uneasy about the company even as a 16 year old cuz tbh it looked tempting at the time
I think my mom was part of almost every MLM mentioned in this video. When I was a kid, she made me help her with her Pampered Chef parties. 10 years later, there's still Pampered Chef product collecting dust in her garage.
i think my mom must have gone to one of those at some point because she has a pampered chef flour shaker that's been in use for at least 20 years now. didn't realise it was a mlm thing until just now. gotta say it works well tho, still going strong
My mom continued to use her Mary Kay mascaras for many many years after she bought the initial stock. I told her even tho they were unopened they still have a shelf life! Idk if I'm thankful or not that she eventually ran out...
When I lived in Honduras one time I went with my mom and one of her friends to this herbalife meeting at a CHURCH, they had a board with the levels of sales, they metioned trips to Islands, financial success, lots of big numbers. I was eleven at the time. Once the meeting ended they were trying to get people to buy their product ( which was a tooth paste with a fancy packaging and a price of 4x the regular one) as a kid I ate all of this up, I was totally buying it. I was wondering why my mom didn't buy one, and I got flabbergasted when she said "they're scammers, this product is too expensive to sell, we just came here to see their act" I lost a bit of faith in people that day.
my mum and stepdad were in an "mlm" when i was in highschool... embarrassing as fuck, but they were in the 1% who actually did really well, literally the most financial stability we ever had... which isnt saying much... that was until it all fell apart, when the guy at the top went to jail. wild times.
I worked at the headquarters for an MLM and it was a case study observing everything behind the scenes. It’s very off-putting how people fall into the “look at the lives being changed” narrative instead of seeing everything for what it really is. This was so informative and very well researched! ❤
Maybe you didn’t know but I’m surprised you didn’t mention that MLMs are a big thing in the US military communities. We spouses are made to move all over the world with very few job prospects of our own. We also move every few years so we have to start all over with friendships constantly. These companies seem like the perfect way for us to work and feel included.
one thing about your last point about not going on ppl's posts and calling them stupid because they're in a mlm is that the leaders of the mlm will use that to pull people further in, like "people may tell you you're crazy or stupid but they're just jealous that you're leveling up or they see you changing your life and they're stuck in their old ways" or something. so very good point! great video
i grew up in a mormon household so that hit close to home cus i have a mom who has praised dotera and mary kay and a lot of those others lol. it’s kinda shocking and sad how multiple people i know who got diagnosed with cancer are now really close to death because they refused treatment and put all their faith in dotera and other wellness companies to heal them
From what I've seen irl MLMs also target disabled women. Women who are oftentimes isolated socially and unable to work via conventional means. Offer them empowerment and community only for it to come crashing down when they're unable to keep up with the expected sales numbers/fees for products/constant advertising. [edit: Reading through all these comments makes me wonder if there's a connection between cult recruitment tactics and mlm recruitment tactics]
I once almost ended up in an MLM during my Gap Year in London. A "friend" tried recruiting me. I don't think it's her fault & I wished I knew how much she actually made with it. She successfully recruited a couple others though... One thing I'd like to stress is that MLM can literally destroy friendships. I've talked to some ex-MLMers and they all say the same... Someone I know told me another destributer told her the MLM was more important than her Mom, who had cancer at that time. Another thing that makes me mad are false advertising, that the Brand itself can't even be blamed for. Juice plus for instance tells you how you can loose weight, clear your skin, "detox" your body etc. With some dried up fruits & veggies in a capsule. This actually should be illegal, but since it's mostly what their destributers say it's hard to frame them for it...
I have a friend who was forever getting into various mlms. I would usually just shrug, buy if I wanted the stuff, ignore if I didn't. But I drew the line at Doterra, mainly because that shits DANGEROUS. She was telling people to ingest essential oils, to apply them, full strength to the skin, both of which are BIG no nos from a medical perspective. She kept telling me about her up line, and his great house and car and holidays and boys toys etc, etc. I was like, and so where's YOUR slice? And she'd just trot out some quasi religious "self help guru" line he'd given her. She genuinely believed in it but it was painfully obvious it was a scam. I made soap so she wanted me to buy oils for that. I said, lemme see your wholesale prices, she gave me the price list she paid. It was retail pricing. No wonder no one bought the crap.... Retail price to the distributor and then marked up AGAIN to the customer.... ouch. And NO provenance on the oils or their origins or production. I was like, no thanks. I can get better prices and a detailed breakdown of production standards and point of origin from a proper supplier. Mlms are vampires, and disgust me.
I was a real estate agent very briefly at 18 years old and they are set up exactly like mlm. I was saying the whole time it was a pyramid scheme. Most places are through National companies and the “top sellers” open up their own branch of the company and recruits a ton of people. They came recruit as many as possible because it’s all commission. They make those guys recruit more people for bonuses. The more mlm are explained in the video the more I think about real estate firms. And of course they always say it’s your fault you aren’t selling and recruit to your friends and family
I was born into the LDS (Mormon) Church and have never joined an MLM *thankfully* but I was recruited A LOT in my high school and young adult years! I remember going party at my friend's house and walking in and seeing lip sense everywhere! XD Honestly gave me a bad feeling right off the bat because of how quickly it can change people that you trust.
I'm a member of the church, and I haven't seen much mlm activity in my Maryland ward, but when we lived in Texas there was a good bit and it's just awful to see. I'm glad my mother is educated enough to have avoided that whole mess, even though she is a stay at home mom.
I know so many women in my ward back home who did doTERRA, Scentsy (my mom is guilty on this one lol), Pampered Chef, Melaleuca, etc. Absolutely ridiculous that women who are otherwise smart fall so easily for these schemes 😬
I am a sahm and really appreciate the sensitivity and compassion you brought to this topic. The pandemic brought both social isolation and financial hardship, and many people in my position turned to MLMs hoping for a solution. I'm thankful to be finding success on Depop but could have easily been sucked into an MLM had I not known better
25:42 This quote made me realize how similar MLM recruitment is similar to joining a cult. Especially that last part about how cult members and people who were a part of a MLM are seen to be stupid instead of venerable.
As a utah girly I loved this video and thanks for highlighting the obscene amount of mlms that are based here. I feel like certain family members have been a part of or bought products from just about all of them. And it's so frustrating to try to tell them every time that they are scammy and predatory. Also of you wanted to say Provo like a Utahn, we say it Pro (as in professional) vo (as in vouge). We tend to say all the names of towns and cities ... uniquely.
The message at the end is SUPER important, thank you so much Mina for always being gentle. I know people who are in a MLM and they actually see it as an economical asset, I know they are in a vulnerable state and they really don't have any other resource.. I really liked to hear kindl words about them, rather than the ones circulating on social media. They are NOT stupid, their countries' economy is the one to blame
The MLM girlies come into my retail job and try to get me to quit my job and join under them, it’s so annoying. I have such a distain for MLMs it’s takes advantage of so many woman. I totally understand woman wanting a “side hustle” but honestly I think my mum did it best. She wanted it to be a housewife but she helped my dad with his business when he needed it. But her job for many years was first and foremost being a house wife until my siblings and I could be fully responsible for our own needs (for reference I’m 3/4 kids and we are all about 3 years apart). Now she works a part time job at a plant nursery, which she absolutely loves. She loved the years she got to be a full time mother and homemaker, and now she loves getting to be a gardener. We are a Christian family and I know some members from my church who are apart of an MLM and they just seem so stressed, they real have far too much on their shoulders if that makes any sense.
Yeeeeeah, same here. Except my mom taught music lessons independently, which meant she ACTUALLY controlled her own work hours and gave a good product. Bleh. I only know a couple people who are Mlm's and neither have pushed it on me, but I hate socializing so I wouldn't anyways. 😅 The business model sounds like an actual nightmare to me.
My mom did real estate part time, then swapped to being a substitute teacher. She and my dad made sure they set their hours so that there was always at least one parent home when we were gonna be home. MLMs are basically all the downsides of owning your own business with none of the upsides. Hella stressful for no guaranteed paycheck.
will never forget the time in college, a family friend invited me to a mary kay party. thankfully i was able to get out of it before they gave me the recruitment spiel.... because the makeup they used on me gave me an allergic reaction 😭😭
When I worked for a legitimate insurance company I was even told it was my fault people wouldn't buy. Like I cannot make people buy things that are not a good deal. If you get bad leads, you get bad leads. That job fried my brain man. I will never do sales again.
CVS used to try and push us to sign people up for all sorts of crap… then came the vaccines… push the vaccines … oh and we already pay you too much so no raises either 🙄
My mlm cringe story 😩 when I was 18 and first out on my own there was a friend of my moms that introduced me to Mary Kay. I was the perfect person to target for it. Really unknowledgeable about finances, super bubbly, didn’t have a support system, and I was of course gullible at that age. The first thing the director talked me into was opening up my first credit card to purchase a bunch of product and then they teach you to never take no as an answer. That Mary Kay becomes your whole life and to always put on a salesman’s face wherever you go. I was in it for almost a year and cringe to think about that time! I mean what woman in her late forties talks an 18 year old into opening up a credit card with zero other credit knowing that there’s a good chance it will screw her finances up to just go up another link in the chain? Glad people seem to know better now but the women in it don’t want to hear a bad word about it. They train you to ignore all of the bad signs.
I never write comments, but this particular video, especially the part with Albania, really resonated with me. I'm from the second biggest country of the ex ussr, and my family was all about the MLMs: Mary Kay, Oriflame, Avon - you name it. I even had a Mary Kay makeup bag-turned pencil case lol. I think the worst thing that affected me specifically was when my mom tried giving me herbalife for dinner, since I gained some weight ("It tastes just like a milkshake" my ass!). I know you usually focus on America, ig due to the lack of research done in English on the specific topics of your videos, but I think it's worth bringing up that along with vulnerable US migrant communities, MLMs targeted people from ex-soviet union, as they 1. Didn't have enough knowledge of the more sinister side of modern capitalism, and 2. were in a really bad living situation with no money, so "earning something" was one of the top priorities, along with finding food to eat, in the 90s and 00s. Really happy you cover these topics, it's really rare to see people actually caring about the MLM victims. I consider my parents naive, but it doesn't excuse all the freaks who used my parents vulnerable financial positions or disabilities to make a profit. Thank you for that, Mina ^___^
I was recruit, together with my best friend, by Avon back in 1997 when we were 18. It didn't last long because we were loosing money very quickly but we both thought it was our fault because we just didn't know how to sell things. It took me many years to realise what it really was and how lucky we were to get out of it that quickly. I feel for those women that still think that anything good might come out for them from one of these MLMs. Oh yes, I'm Italian. Many of the MLMs that Mina mentioned reached us too.
I tried doing CutCo Cutlery in college and was interested in some other MLMs in the past. I never made it through because I always had this vibe in the back saying "Don't do it!" It's one of the few times I listened to it and have always been grateful for that. I love the amount of work and research you put into your videos and I always learn something new! Thanks for the great experiences!
My mom told me not to do it when I told her I got the job. I did some research and when they called the next day, I told them that I couldn’t do it. I did say pyramid scheme. He was pissed and started telling me how I wasted everyone’s time 🤣
A family member, a single mum, was sucked into Younique. She told me stories of how she would constantly buy stock to sell but it would arrive broken, and the company would never refund her for that or replace it and always told her to sell it anyway. Who wants to buy broken products? They treated her so badly until she finally stopped, and after 2 years of selling she never broke even
I do appreciate that you remind us not to blame the people who do join, to have compassion for their situation and why they choose to be a part of them. I also appreciate that you include information from other cultures and countries.
I remember attending so many of my mom's friend's mlm parties growing up 😂 I was so confused. Just go to the store. Have a party with your friends later where they aren’t trying to sell you something and just have a nice conversation. So weird!
I now understand. My mom joined this last year, and everything felt quick for her just being a new “member”. It just felt unreal and I'm thankful that she stopped, I don't care about the money we lost, as long as we're away with this industry, it's good. It's like an illusion that you could've big achievements in the future but it's taking you away from more better opportunities.
My late great auntie, retired, widow, self-sustaining, black native Texan: side hustle Watkins! Can't wait to show this astute piece in my college classes! Educational, informative, fun, useful, genius content!!! Love the brows and cat is *the accessory ... and can we just have a snap pause at Mina's outfit!!? Queening!!
My mom got convinced by an old friend to do color street for a year, and after I quickly found out it was a bad company I’ve been teaching myself about MLMs ever since. Thank you for covering this, Mina!
I appreciate you including how MLM's target christian conservatives for fleecing. Growing up in Michigan, the home of Amway, I saw first hand how they preyed on the christian community who struggled financially. It was disgusting to me. Also they've poured a lot of money into dismantling our democracy and public education. Let's not forget two Amway family members, former department of education head Betsy Devos, and Eric Prince, mercenary army owner and shady Trump organ. This family is sick.
Yeah! Recently found out about the ones putting up adds on job sites targeting students into selling life insurance under an mlm scheme. Many young men appear to be victims of this one
I live in utah and pretty much everyone I know has been in an mlm at some point or is currently in one, but I don't know one single person who ever made a living off of it. In fact, I know few people that even got back their start up fees. My mom still sells Doterra, which is an essential oil brand and she has to buy so many products a month to keep her discount. She has thousands of dollars of expired oils and boxes upon boxes of oils that just keep getting delivered that she'll never use. They keep you trapped and make you feel like a failure if you quit, or like you didn't work hard enough. Or, like in my moms case, make you think you're getting a good deal because you can get cheap product just by distributing for them. They've somehow manages to get people to work for them for free, and not only are they working for free in 99% of cases, most of them are heavily investing in the products themselves literally keeping these mlms afloat.
I used to work at ThredUp warehouse and the amount of LULAROE we used to get was insaneeeee. The clothes aren’t cute at ALL lol. But they are very stretchy 😂 My dad a Mexican man used to do Herba Life. I’m pretty sure it was because he got suckered in by some lady he had a crush on. But idk if he sold stuff or just bought it for himself. But I remember he made me drink a nasty ass smoothie because they told him it would help w my eczema. It tasted like PUKE. But they did have really good coffee & chocolate. They also sold cosmetics and I remember he gave me a lipgloss. It was actually not bad 😅 I’m pretty sure he got suckered in and just kept the inventory for himself. I don’t recall him selling to ppl.
I have 2 pairs of lularoe leggings I got at a thrift store NWT (I didn't know anything about the brand at the time). I definitely would believe it's a common occurrence when people realize they've been scammed. I really like the patterns of the ones I got, but a lot of the other stuff I've seen from them is.... questionable
Same in the Philippines. It turned into a well-loved brand with so many regional offices and celebrity advertisements. Tupperware Philippines also recently partnered with our largest department store company. I say the biggest and oldest MLMs do good outside of US.
It hurts my heart to hear this girl say she never heard of Avon.. that’s when I am reminded I’m to old for this channel 😂I can remember my Aunt had tons of Avon products- no one was trying to get her to sell Avon though back then (80s).
One more thing I've noticed about MLMs is that they tend to use social pressure and guilt to get people to buy stuff. "I hosted this party and invited you, the least you could do is buy some tupperware." My mom has bought stuff from her friends who were part of MLMs not because she wanted the stuff, but because she felt bad for them.
My mum joined an MLM once because she liked the product and wanted the "discount". She'd bulk purchase what she wanted....took a few years for her "team manager" to realise what my mum was doing 😂
I'm not from the US nor did I go to a US college, but a friend recently told me about how sororities have a mother & daughter system, which reminded me of uplines & downlines. Of course not everyone goes to college, but surely familiarity with that kind of structure would help build trust in the system, especially when they lean in to the "we're family / best friends" narrative.
Рік тому+1
Once I got a dm from an old friend from high school asking me if I wanted to earn money from home, working with social media. The thing is, I work as a full time influencer, from home…
All video i was thinking about my family's experience with herbalife and then it turns out they ARE very involved with latino communities! I'm from South America and went to a christian school. We had teachers that came from the US to teach english and do missionary work and one of them was involved in herbalife. My mom almost became part of it (she got asked to hold some reunions at our home) but cut ties with said teacher and unfortunately some of my classmates' moms when it clicked what was happening. Great video!
Many people in Russia in the 90s also suffered from such an economic system. Instead of cosmetics and clothes, frightened by the economic shock after the collapse of the Soviet Union, people began to join the pyramids, where they had to mortgage their houses and cars. The most popular was a pyramid called MMM, organized by Mavrodi. At the peak of profits, the company simply called itself bankrupt. As a result, people lost everything they had. The most unpleasant thing is that now (when Mavrodi has been released from prison) he has started giving interviews. He says it's not his fault, but people's, because they trusted him and didn't understand that he was deceiving them.
In the 90s my grandmother drove a used Mary Kay Cadillac and it was ICONIC lol -- it was a baby pink rectangle with these crazy velvet-ish red seats, I was so bummed when they sold it
With that pink Cadillac, the company requires that you hold your rank (and then they give you a monthly allotment towards the car) and that’s almost impossible. If they don’t hold their rank (and they are given 2 grace months) they are legally strapped to that full car payment.
i absolutely adore your fashion style, the editing of the videos and the scripting of the topics, everything flows so well! i just wanted to leave this comment bec i suddenly remembered how i had referenced your video essay on femme fatales in a reflection paper for my gender and society course. and ever since then, i have been in absolute awe of your work, it is so so good.
Mina - You're a gas! The "men loving men" was priceless as well as the Girl Scout cookie blurb. And, your essays are flawless. The best I've seen in the industry.
This was well-researched Mina. Thank you! 😃MLM is the only industry where the victims go on to become the villians. In 2021, I wrote an article about why MLMs are bad (literally Google 'why MLMs are bad' and I'm #1 lol) and I hope this, plus your video and many others out there, helps individuals to reconsider their involvement in these harmful schemes.
I was literally just wondering this about a friend from college who is incredibly smart and comfortably off and seems to have been devoting most of her spare time to various MLMs for the past 10 years and shows no signs of stopping
OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE MY COUNTRY WAS MENTIONED!!! Hiii Mina, I'm from Albania and I'm a big fan!! I hope you do other videos that include our area in the Balkans, we're very obscure lol. Anyway, this was off topic, but thank you for mentioning us! '90s Albania was a scary place...
Romania also had a big issue with a pyramid scheme in the 90s called Caritas. Also in the same boat, country trying to transition from communism to the free market and democracy.
With any movement like the antimlm movement there are going to be bad players. There are usual disclaimers at the beginning saying we are commenting on the behavior not the person. When it comes to very big leaders in the MLM space it does get out of hand because these leaders are fully aware what they are doing. Thank you for covering this topic to your audience. ❤
I learned so much from this video along with the podcast The Dream (specifically season 1). The hosts did an even deeper dive on all the legislation, going undercover as a sales reps and more! Highly recommend for anyone interested
I love your videos Mina and Im really glad I also learned something new about my country. I had no idea pyramid schemes were so prevalent in albania and how many people were pulled into them. I just spoke to my dad about it and he gave me a lot more information, it was really interesting. It’s times like these I really love learning, thank you.
Those house parties are still a thing. My mother worked for an MLM that sold food in the early 2000s and was actually very successful with it. She hosted parties at her and other people’s houses, cooking the food to serve the guests. It was very effective. I assume that company still does it. I don’t consider that business super shady because even though there was still risk involved, if you couldn‘t hack it as a sales person, you could just eat the food.😅
Another thing to note is that a lot of MLM products are stupid expensive for what they are. In order for the distributor, their extensive upline, and the parent company to all make money, they have to sell the assets at way above their market value. Pampered Chef has cookware that cost the same as freaking Le Cruset. Which means (1) it's super hard for your average suburban mom to sell to peers, and (2) the parent company makes BANK when distributors purchase more stock every month as part of their requirement to stay "active". If they're not super expensive, then the quality of the material is super cheap (like Papparazzi or LuLuRoe).
me thinking mina paused to elaborate more on her gay fanfic referencing but she instead is just defending her curtains
Exactly what I thought
Omg same lol
Same, I was more than ready for MLM fiction discourse!
Thisss! Would not have noticed the curtains also.
@@ThatWeirdFinn it was honestly kind of a waste of time. No one cares about the curtains, at all.
To be clear, the MLM "business owners" don't actually purchase the product at a wholesale price. The actual company purchases the products at a wholesale price and sells it to their distributors for a huge profit, and then the distributor's upline also takes a large percentage of whatever sale the distributor makes. The issue here is that the distributors ARE the customer, the company survives off of turning their employees into customers, and often set a mandatory amount of stock that the distributors have to buy regularly in order to stay with the company regardless of whether they've sold their previous stock or not.
yes, a 100% times yes. The company porfits actually come directly from the sales people themselves
But some MLMs make their own products so I’m confused what you mean. They set the price, but it is still wholesale I think
@@themagicknightress7132 If you start your own business, you would source the ingredients yourself at a wholesale price and work with a lab, a manufacturer, or create the product yourself, essentially only paying the price of these services, and then adding your own profit on top of what you spent on manufacturing before you sell it. When you work for an MLM, you're not just paying sourcing and manufacturing costs, the company's profit is included, which is often three times or more the cost of manufacturing. At that point you're literally just their customer, you're not starting your own business. It's like if I bought a lipstick from MAC and then resold it for a higher price. MLMs also have clauses that don't allow you to open your own personal website or storefront, they only let you do things through their own website or storefront where they can advertise recruitment, because they don't want actual customers, they want their employees to be their customers.
When I heard about MLM, my first thought was yours as well. I thought they meant men-loving-men but then I learned of the pyramid scheme that they meant
@@themagicknightress7132 they’re explaining how in lots of mlms, people higher in the “upline “ are making a higher profit margin on products sold than those lower in the downline.
After I read the title I spent so long wondering what man love man stories had to do with scamming and grindset culture, I feel so dumb...
HELP
Nah you just got your MLM priorities right lol
I mean they have to deal with a certain type of grinding so I guess you get half points
This happens fairly regularly. It's not uncommon for gay men to think anti mlm spaces are just where homophobes congregate online and get a pleasant surprise that they are in fact anti pyramid scheme and not inherently anti queer rights.
i came to the comments before even watching the video because of this 💀 glad i wasn’t alone
Herbalife: "We don't target the Hispanic Community"
Also Herbalife: ✨ E X T R A V A G A N Z A L A T I N A ✨
😂 that's why they're huge in south America. Fckng colonizers 😂
😂
I feel like “extravaganza laMina” is just sitting on a platter for this one Mina to coin.
Caliente, exótica, empoderada.
I work in the localization industry and the amount of money these MLMs spend on hosting multilingual conventions and discussions are insane... and they never talk about their product, it's more like group pep talk sessions 😂
Even though MLM uniquely targets women, a lot of its slander end up framing women overall as naive or selfish when we completely overlook the companies’ deliberate recruitment strategies and gendered marketing. Especially with the rise of NFT and AI bros, it goes to show that although women can be more vulnerable, they’re not any more delusional than a man when it comes to get-rich-quick schemes.
Well said!
I really hate how they use "feminism" as a way to convince women they are getting "empowered" by joining MLMs and make the company richer.
*sits in the soap box* Which is a great example of how capitalism is damaging to any human rights movement by a way of making it into a product or a driving force to simply sell shit.
@Heleen Wolf There is gender specific dominance in those fields, but other industries (e.g. IT) also have similar problems. It's how these organisations market and WHO they market. I do feel that the video is biased, but when I look at the subject a bit more the focus is on MLMs and what tends to be in those (which happen to be women). I just take these videos as descriptive third-party analysis of how ONE group of humans behave by and remove the bias by thinking "these groups of humans do X, who's to say the OTHER group of humans don't do the same thing and maybe in different ways"? I try not to put too much pressure on content creators on their crap. They're worth listening to as much as an academic, but they're not invincible from scrutiny.
@@beth-bi9yv *coffeezilla has entered the chat*
Naive and selfish? 😂 Why? Because women want to make some money for living? 😱 I didn’t know it was illegal
I'm from Poland and here we have a meme joke, that your friend from primary school reaches out to you to say sorry for bullying you and then they go straight to "do you want anything from avon?" xd
AHAHAHA HELP-
This happened to me except it was just an ex-friend and they wanted to sell me mushroom tea. Hurt my feelings so bad at the time. Now I feel embarrassed for him lol.
WOW post-soviet Avon/Oriflame/Faberlic moment xd
yeah Avon is pretty much just a meme in Poland
Moja ciocia opychała kosmetyki z avonu
As a disabled person I feel like MLM's severely prey on my community. Many of us struggle to work outside of the home, getting disability benefits is a nightmare to go through that I would not wish on my worst enemy, and even when you do get those much needed benefits the amount still leaves you well belove the poverty level. Legitimate work from home jobs are hard to find and I feel people turn to MLM's thinking they might be "safe" option. They aren't and then people who have the most to lose end up losing what little they have. Not to mention how one of the major sections of the MLM market is sketchy health stuff that promises to make all your issues better if you only drink these oils or take this shake. I once was stuck at an MLM party at salon and the woman hosting told me that the Young Living oils would stop cancer and Ebola among other things that someone else might believe like drinking the oils would help my acid reflux. I thankfully had a mom who worked in health care and pharmaceuticals and knew right away her claims were false. Still there are many people who don't know these things and could easily fall victim in their desperation for better health.
Exactly! My mom got caught up in thrive several years back (and while it does legitimately help her with her specific disabilities) she had to stop being so involved in it because all her thrive 'friends' were coming out as anti-vax/essential oilists
@@starcasita That's so scary! It's awful how a lot of these mlm's will even intentionally go after people with health issues and disabilities claiming to have cures for all kinds of things. I hate to think of the physical, emotional, and financial harm they do. The way our culture tries to sell and brand wellness is actually a whole thing. Like look at Goop.
@@abrenn I'm glad she stepped back from them and that at least the product she was getting was helpful to her. Its scary thinking those people are selling their products as alternatives to real safe medicines.
@@gigitastic90 it is scary and it’s hard to blame folks who buy into it when they’re desperate
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS. 🎉
In the list of 10 reasons why the LDS dominate pyramid schemes, there's an important omission: these companies have a stranglehold on local and state governments in Utah. Their lobbying is so intense that the representatives in these government organizations routinely push to keep them legal even while they impoverish their employees
exactly. it’s not just seeing individuals participating in MLMs, but entire institutions supporting them (i.e. university buildings donated by doTERRA). MLM culture defines *physical space*, not just social media and “hey hun!” DMs from that girl in your high school bio class.
They literally have advertisements for them at our sporting events
Oh damn that’s so interesting and so sad
And before it gets that big its starts off small. Teachers and moms sign up with a MLM so make more money. They push their MLM at their jobs and in their neighborhoods. MLM products then become seen as a legitimate products and even good.
How bad can MLMs be if a valuable member of the neighborhood is selling them?
@sweetcherryblast7251 I'm glad I don't still live there to see that unravel, but it also makes me so sad. 90's Salt Lake County taught me to love science and that you're happier if you don't take yourself too seriously... now they have MLMs and anti-maskers...
Here's a f***ed up story: when I was 16, I enrolled in "modeling classes" (yup, big yikes), with their promise to sign me after I took the class. The class was $600-$900 I believe, and I saved up my minimum wage dollars to pay for half of it. One of the reasons why it was so expensive was that the cost included a REQUIRED purchase of $200 worth of ARBONNE makeup and skincare products. This was "to ensure you had 'model skin'". Multiply that by that by 10 girls for each class and wow---you racked up some dollars. My teacher then bragged to us she was going to Hawaii with the Agency owner because they successfully sold so much product, Arbonne was GIFTING them a trip.
They weren't successful salespeople, they fed on the hopes and dreams of young girls and scammed them, by FORCING them to buy product. Love these MLMs man lmao.
That's so awful
I think I almost fell victim to this in college. It sounds way too familiar yikes
MLMs should be illegal.
girl! you don't remember the iconic scene in Edward Scissorhands where Peg goes around her neighbourhood selling Avon and then decides to go sell Avon to the creepy mansion up the hill??? that was my first introduction to Avon anyway lol
That was my first intro to Avon too 😂
MLMs are heinous. I’m still in a Herbalife home, and my mom is very relentless when it comes to marketing. We recently moved and it’s been hard on her because she basically lost her whole down line when going from a heavy latino community to our now very white one without being able to speak English. I feel bad for her. She keeps trying to make me sell stuff with her and she’s guilting me into being part of her downline and I refuse to recruit people but it sucks. I once asked her if she wanted to donate Herbalife stuff to a high school thing and she said that I should get the names and email of anyone interested in Herbalife to sell it, which is not allowed so she refused to donate. It’s hellish. Every morning I drink a Herbalife protein shake. If your mother or father or parent in general is a MLM parent I feel your pain. This video was a nice and interesting listen and it’s nice to hear someone not disparaging the women involved, they’re pretty much victims consumed by the need to succeed and it drives them to depression and anxiety. It sucks. Thanks for the well made video :)
That sucks, imo the cruelest thing about MLMs is the way they target people who are hardworking and ambitious but the economy gives them no productive outlet for those skills. I hope things get better for both you and your mom.
@@elizabethtangora4353they also PREY on the Latino community:( which sounds like what happened with her mom too . They’re fucking evil , May they rot in hell !
I'm so sorry, I hope good opportunities come along for your mother soon
i am so sorry
MLMs should be illegal.
someone should make a utah "divergent" where the coming of age ceremony involves choosing between mary kay, avon, and herbalife.
dont forget one of the essential oil MLMs
MLMs oversaturate so many mediocre markets (beauty supplies, weight loss, vitamins, essential oils) these days - I'm seeing many of these "boss bapes" turn to real estate, NFTs and Crypto currency instead to try to get their friends' and online aquatainces' money. Scammers gotta scam :/
Real estate isn't a scam unless you make it one though, that's the only one I'm willing to defend lol
@@nathanielcraig3588 I agree - I just feel like all my former MLM hun friends are suspiciously trying (and failing) to become real estate agents. It’s not a lucrative income if everyone and their dog is trying to make it happen :)
@@nathanielcraig3588
Even a shit house is overpriced.
A house is a house. No wonder the housing market is so bad
@@alohatigers1199 That depends on local markets and a lot of other factors...
A girl I know from high school went into real estate after doing an MLM for years
I live in Chile and herbalife is super prevalent here, everyone has heard of it and at some point had curiosity about their shakes. Also, I have gone to "job interviews" that end up being some MLM recruiting type reunion (for Omnilife, jeunesse and other that was about perfumes or whatever). It's obvious that they take advantage of us latinamericans
I think Vice did a whole documentary on that... or maybe it was the immigrants. Either way pretty sad to know how they essentially took their savings.
100% cierto y natura me da las mismas vibes
Muy pero muy cierto
Oh i absolutely hate those fucking smoothies
eso y las ventas por catálogo me dan malas vibras
I was in the military and the amount of times I had my male co-workers pressure me into going to their wives MLM parties/Facebook groups is insane. I honestly felt bad for everyone involved. Their wives just wanted to contribute to their household but can’t keep a stable job because of constantly moving or their spouse deploying. My male co-workers would always be shelling out thousands of dollars every couple of months to kickstart their wives new “business”. These companies are predatory.
Maybe you should google an ex navy vet named, Tim Sales, (bomb disposal) and figure out how he made millions in Network Marketing. He worked his MLM part time whilst serving in the Navy. Once his MLM income reached $20,000 per month he left the navy and did it full time. He earned $150,000 within his first year full time. Since then he has earned millions of dollars. This is fact. To say Network Marketing "does not work" is an uneducated lie.
It's so f*cked up that these MLMs are exploiting military couples like that! These wives want to contribute to their household, but 99% of them (according to the FTC) end up losing money overall, thus becoming a drain on their household. NO WAY the MLM corporate execs (i.e., the real bosses) don't know about and exploit this vicious cycle!
MLM culture is my true crime in that I’m obsessed with knowing everything about it lol. Last year I took a free class from an online school that talked about “how to self-publish” and while they had some good advice, they used a LOT of MLM up-selling language on a class of mostly older people who wouldn’t recognize what was going on. It made me wonder if these “successful” people made more money from selling books or selling their courses & consultations like everyone else who advocates for “financial freedom” 🙄
Same here. Anti-MLM content and Art Theft or other forgery content that harms the rich are my equivalents (I despise crime content referencing bodily harm done to others, though some MLMs get close - like Young Living's CEO doing surgery on people without a license and killing his own child.)
Same! Obsessed - never watched much true crime though
@@Elektrochoke blair is wonderful her videos are actually cute to me i love her little animations and sh3s been doing awesome with some of her new videos uo
@@unalivesuccubus6747 yeah I love them too 😊
I have a working theory that the money exchanged around attempts to get someone published is actually greater than in the legitimate publishing industry.
Every person who owns a cat: “Let me preface this by saying that my cat does as she wants whatever I say or do...” 😹😸 I feel ya.
❤❤❤
Absolutely guilty on this one 😟 I just kind of live here and pay the bills but the cats run the place
@@khopper2004 Same here! And loving it 😆
I’m my cat’s human slave so whatever her holiness does, I submit to her will🙇🏻♀️🙇🏻♀️🤣
My friend: I don’t understand why people don’t discipline their cats…
Me: No, no, no. You don’t understand. A dog may get yelled at and learn a thing is bad. A cat will get yelled at and just learns not to get caught…unless they want attention, in which case they get yelled at and learn that this is particularly fun because you pay attention to them when they do that and you look funny when you’re upset
I met this girl at a party once and we talked all the evening, she was really cool, at the end she told me why don't we exchange numbers so the next time I pass by I'll let you know, and I was like sure, two days later it turns out she just wanted to tell me about an "incredible business opportunity"... At the party it was all just a show, she was just fishing for people to make money off of. I was repulsed, she seemed so genuine and I thought I'd made a new friend. I've never seen her again.
A cute stylish girl approached me at the grocery store once to complement my outfit and we got into a conversation where she asked me tons of questions (but wouldn't answer any about herself) and was very flattering. I figured out why when she started asked how happy I was with my work and if I would like to make more money for less work. 🙄
Can’t trust anyone out here
I used to be a CNA, and met a lot of the resident’s children because of it. One resident’s daughter used her parent’s ill health and death to try and get me into an mlm. (Used their parent I.e made flyers with them it was nuts)
GIRL! As a stay-at-home mom with two kids, including one who is handicapped, you hit the nail on the head! You get us! Thank you for being willing and able to understand and convey our struggles without being a mother yourself. It IS a full time job and we are extremely lucky that I am able to stay home and care for our children and still afford food and clothes.
as someone who lives in Utah, it is crazy to me how many people don’t even think twice about joining an MLM. I’ve learned to believe that everything is an MLM until absolutely proven otherwise
Oh fr. Every time I go to Utah it feels like there are MLM ads left and right. It's so toxic. And it's sad seeing how it preys on the community there, set by the culture of church goers. (Not BY the church itself, the culture. Very different, and very prevalent in Utah.) It's sad to see how trust and values are taken advantage of.
Worried one day that I’ll say MLM like “mulhm” out loud like I do in my head
lmao that’s how i say it too
For me it’s “milim”
For me it's mlum
Idk what MLM stands for so I do say it like that :P
@@isabellabraganca1095 multi Level Marketing, I think
The link between MLMs and people from religious communities that encourage or require proselytizing as part of their practice is really interesting. Great video, as always!
There’s a joke that states that MLMs stand for 'Mormons Losing Money' - and Mormons are a huge demographic as Utah is the MLM capital of the world.
These videos explaining how Tupperware and Avon are/were mlms is giving me an existential crisis because my poor single mum used to buy products and host parties for both of those things.
I know a 15 year old who is a part of Herballife, no idea how long they've been involved in it but it's crazy how young they get people wrapped up in these schemes. I think their mum is a part of the MLM and that's how they've been basically indoctrinated into it so young. Imagine being raised in an MLM....
way back in primary school, 2 of my classmates were also in Herbalife. Their parents were in it and they were part of a religious sect that prohibits contraception so both had like 12 siblings and everyone in the family was peddling Herbalife and wearing those "Lose Weight Now Ask Me How" pins. At like 11-12 years old.
@@mundanepants god that's awful, i hope they're doing okay
Arbonne is notorious for this. They outright demand that their reps raise their kids in it.
@@mundanepants this was common in my majority Latino town in Los Angeles, I remember my mom taking me to the indoctrination meetings several actually (Avon, organigold coffee, life insurance, and Herbalife) they always pushed the book called “the secret” which is terrible thinking these were rooms filled with migrants wanting the American dream but instead they fell for a pyramid scheme. I think at age 15 I made my mom aware of what was really going on.
same way cults do.
Avon is so huge in Brasil that most people here think it's a brazilian company. It's very consolidated and since the 70s it's the standard "begginers" makeup for preteens, everyone knows someone that sells Avon and we all grew up using some Avon item. It's seen as a complementary income, not in a bad light at all... meanwhile Herbalife, a more recent company to expand to Brasil, is seen as a pyramid scheme by most people...
I think that one thing that may help Avon's reputation in Brazil is that I don't think the resellers have to buy things before they sell them, they just have the catalogue and they sell through the catalogue, at least that's what I've seen
I grew up in Romania and Avon and oriflame were prevalent. Now I realize how dumb it was, to have to browse a catalog and buy products from random people at school, when one can always go to a store. I think the assumption was that their products were high quality at a good price, which they probably weren't.
well now that Natura bought Avon I think we can say Avon is a Brazilian company 😁but jokes aside, Brazil is by far Avon's largest market.
Revendedoras Avon…
@@CameloSupeito they're everywhere
latino aunts all over America just clutched their Avon catalogs to their chests and gasped.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
😂
Hi hun! As a long-time subscriber obsessed with scams and MLMs, I am jazzed about this video
Same sis, same ❤
'on becoming a god in central florida' is a show about a single mom getting caught up in an mlm, shows why people join and how it ruins their lives. kirsten dunst stars in it and it is ridiculous and hilarious, highly recommend
I saw that - her husband was played by Alexander Skarsgard.
Came here to say this!
Noted!
Was looking for a comment that mentioned On becoming a god - I was so mad when they reversed the decision to renew for a second season 🫠
My ex-boyfriend tried to convince me that MLMs aren’t problematic at all and that they’re actually a good business model if you want to start a business. As in start your own MLM and then go from there raking in money for basically free labor…
Just one of many red flags 🙂
Edit: he also argued that the people who fall for MLM schemes are just morons who really should be using the MLM training to start their own company. I pointed out that most people who fall into it are mothers with no way to make money while still raising their children and he basically went “🤷♀️ well….. case in point”
BIG yikes 😬 I’m not the best person but I can’t even imagine thinking it’s okay to take advantage people and being so proud as to promote it
Lack of empathy and greed driven personality - caustic.
Never been so relieved to see the word 'ex' before boyfriend in a story. That amount of deliberate malice.. good lord
Jesus on a bike. Was this exceptional fellow also a fan of Ayn Rand?
Thats absurd because no MLM is gonna let you get "training" and then just walk away. They suck you in hard. There's plenty of ways to learn business skills besides MLM....
Haven't watched this yet but it's precisely something that has been bugging me off lately: some days after I finally received my degree my grandma passed away and since then I've had to take care of our house and also my aunt, so I don't have more options than working from home. The only jobs I've applied to and received a response are pyramid schemes :/ it's insulting in a way I can't really explain.
Mina you don't know how happy it makes me and I'm sure so many other Muslims to hear you speak about Islam's opinion on the matter (a matter) in a neutral way, just mentioning it like it's a normal occurrence. Thank you thank you thank you
I'm from Ukraine and back when I was in high school in 2014 one representative of Mary Kay would come to allegedly teach us how to do our make up for the prom😅 During the "master class" she promoted the products and convinsing us, 16y.o. girls, that we would convince our moms we need that make up. Though some products were nice I still think it was kind of scam to promote to kids, don't understand how school administration let that happen, maybe the had a share from it lol
I doubt the school knew the intent behind it and just thought it was someone trying to do something nice (rather than someone trying to make a sale...)
ооо, в мэри кей любят таким заниматься, особенно в школах, как дочь учительницы подтверждаю. хотя у нас чаще предлагали самим учительницам, но и старшеклассницам тоже hmmm
Out history teacher was trying to sell avon stuff to us every other lesson 😅 all girls was smelling perfumes samples the whole time instead of studying. No wonder our history education was so messed up
О боже, до нас у школу постійно приходили різні дивні люди, щоб щось продавати і класуха їх запрошувала сама😂
that sounds so gross though, telling teenage girls they NEED makeup. rlly reinforces negative messages to young women who dont need extra stress...
MLMs go after military wives a bunch too. When my parents were still living on base, my mom got invited to TONS of “parties.” She went to one and realized what was going on, so thankfully she didn’t get sucked in. But the amount of people in attendance was concerning.
from when I was 8 up until when I was 16, my mom was involved in so many MLMs and pyramid schemes. I remember asking my mom when she started her first one that if everyone in the world gets recruited and there's no one else to recruit, how do people at the bottom earn money and my mom went silent. MLMs have put us in debt and because of the recruiting practices, my mom continues to recruit her close friends and family, also putting them in debt. It felt like she was taking advantage of their trust. I finally sat my mom down and talked to her about and she finally stopped.
I have a memory of my Girl Scout troop having a sleep over in the late 90s and someone who knew one of the moms giving us 3rd and 4th graders a Mary Kay sample demo for facial skin care. I think they encouraged us to ask our parents to buy the product if we liked it. At 8 or 9 years old I remember thinking this feels a little… predatory. I could smell the desperation on the lady doing the demo. It was weird.
SAME!!!! I remember wondering why is this adult SOOO focused on selling these expensive products to us children.... Definitely desperate and red-flag behavior. Listen to those instincts!
Minor status aside, what 9-10 year olds wear make-up and do routine skincare?? None, at least in the 90s.
My sister always struggled with anxiety and employment and this reminded me of how my mom would buy a new start up package from different MLMs for her every few months lol. Then our mom would host the parties/invite her own friends and colleagues/do all the work which probably strained some relationships she had
Struggling with anxiety and having a sales jobs is a terrible combo.
I remember when I was one year postpartum, with acne because that’s how hormones work, and a Mary Kay consultant said she could get me a free facial while looking at my face in judgment and disgust. I will never forget how that made me feel.
To my fellow students: there’s a company out there called vector marketing that claims to help you by training you in marketing cutlery and giving you bonuses for trying to recruit people. If your alarm bells are ringing, they should be. They don’t have your best interest in mind and are an mlm even though you can technically make money from them it’s really hard to leave and seems very predatory. I know this may seem obvious to some but I wanted to throw it out there and warn those who may not know.
One of my old friends did that for a while. They tried to recruit me because I would give her rides to the meetings.
I think the only reason she quit was because she found out when she did her taxes she had to report it as self-employment income and her mom was like naw, you need to quit.
Ugh I always get those recruitment letters in the mail every summer for a 'summer work opportunity'. Thank God I did research and felt uneasy about the company even as a 16 year old cuz tbh it looked tempting at the time
I think my mom was part of almost every MLM mentioned in this video. When I was a kid, she made me help her with her Pampered Chef parties. 10 years later, there's still Pampered Chef product collecting dust in her garage.
my mom has a bunch of partylite stuff in the back of our storage unite lol
i think my mom must have gone to one of those at some point because she has a pampered chef flour shaker that's been in use for at least 20 years now. didn't realise it was a mlm thing until just now. gotta say it works well tho, still going strong
@@anha9360 sameee. We still have a garlic mincer from there. I’m pretty sure we bought it through a mom at Girl Scouts when I was younger
My mom continued to use her Mary Kay mascaras for many many years after she bought the initial stock. I told her even tho they were unopened they still have a shelf life! Idk if I'm thankful or not that she eventually ran out...
When I lived in Honduras one time I went with my mom and one of her friends to this herbalife meeting at a CHURCH, they had a board with the levels of sales, they metioned trips to Islands, financial success, lots of big numbers. I was eleven at the time. Once the meeting ended they were trying to get people to buy their product ( which was a tooth paste with a fancy packaging and a price of 4x the regular one) as a kid I ate all of this up, I was totally buying it. I was wondering why my mom didn't buy one, and I got flabbergasted when she said "they're scammers, this product is too expensive to sell, we just came here to see their act" I lost a bit of faith in people that day.
my mum and stepdad were in an "mlm" when i was in highschool... embarrassing as fuck, but they were in the 1% who actually did really well, literally the most financial stability we ever had... which isnt saying much... that was until it all fell apart, when the guy at the top went to jail. wild times.
I worked at the headquarters for an MLM and it was a case study observing everything behind the scenes. It’s very off-putting how people fall into the “look at the lives being changed” narrative instead of seeing everything for what it really is. This was so informative and very well researched! ❤
Maybe you didn’t know but I’m surprised you didn’t mention that MLMs are a big thing in the US military communities. We spouses are made to move all over the world with very few job prospects of our own. We also move every few years so we have to start all over with friendships constantly. These companies seem like the perfect way for us to work and feel included.
Thank you for your service. As an army brat mlms are my childhood nostalgia.
one thing about your last point about not going on ppl's posts and calling them stupid because they're in a mlm is that the leaders of the mlm will use that to pull people further in, like "people may tell you you're crazy or stupid but they're just jealous that you're leveling up or they see you changing your life and they're stuck in their old ways" or something. so very good point! great video
i grew up in a mormon household so that hit close to home cus i have a mom who has praised dotera and mary kay and a lot of those others lol. it’s kinda shocking and sad how multiple people i know who got diagnosed with cancer are now really close to death because they refused treatment and put all their faith in dotera and other wellness companies to heal them
From what I've seen irl MLMs also target disabled women. Women who are oftentimes isolated socially and unable to work via conventional means. Offer them empowerment and community only for it to come crashing down when they're unable to keep up with the expected sales numbers/fees for products/constant advertising.
[edit: Reading through all these comments makes me wonder if there's a connection between cult recruitment tactics and mlm recruitment tactics]
Oh, there absolutely is. That's why mom's are called "commercial cults". They are incredibly manipulative.
mlm's, not moms!
I once almost ended up in an MLM during my Gap Year in London. A "friend" tried recruiting me. I don't think it's her fault & I wished I knew how much she actually made with it. She successfully recruited a couple others though... One thing I'd like to stress is that MLM can literally destroy friendships. I've talked to some ex-MLMers and they all say the same...
Someone I know told me another destributer told her the MLM was more important than her Mom, who had cancer at that time.
Another thing that makes me mad are false advertising, that the Brand itself can't even be blamed for. Juice plus for instance tells you how you can loose weight, clear your skin, "detox" your body etc. With some dried up fruits & veggies in a capsule. This actually should be illegal, but since it's mostly what their destributers say it's hard to frame them for it...
I have a friend who was forever getting into various mlms. I would usually just shrug, buy if I wanted the stuff, ignore if I didn't. But I drew the line at Doterra, mainly because that shits DANGEROUS. She was telling people to ingest essential oils, to apply them, full strength to the skin, both of which are BIG no nos from a medical perspective. She kept telling me about her up line, and his great house and car and holidays and boys toys etc, etc. I was like, and so where's YOUR slice? And she'd just trot out some quasi religious "self help guru" line he'd given her. She genuinely believed in it but it was painfully obvious it was a scam. I made soap so she wanted me to buy oils for that. I said, lemme see your wholesale prices, she gave me the price list she paid. It was retail pricing. No wonder no one bought the crap.... Retail price to the distributor and then marked up AGAIN to the customer.... ouch. And NO provenance on the oils or their origins or production. I was like, no thanks. I can get better prices and a detailed breakdown of production standards and point of origin from a proper supplier. Mlms are vampires, and disgust me.
I was a real estate agent very briefly at 18 years old and they are set up exactly like mlm. I was saying the whole time it was a pyramid scheme. Most places are through National companies and the “top sellers” open up their own branch of the company and recruits a ton of people. They came recruit as many as possible because it’s all commission. They make those guys recruit more people for bonuses. The more mlm are explained in the video the more I think about real estate firms. And of course they always say it’s your fault you aren’t selling and recruit to your friends and family
Real estate isn’t like an MLM, though… it’s definitely sales but it’s not a pyramid scheme.
I was born into the LDS (Mormon) Church and have never joined an MLM *thankfully* but I was recruited A LOT in my high school and young adult years! I remember going party at my friend's house and walking in and seeing lip sense everywhere! XD Honestly gave me a bad feeling right off the bat because of how quickly it can change people that you trust.
I'm a member of the church, and I haven't seen much mlm activity in my Maryland ward, but when we lived in Texas there was a good bit and it's just awful to see. I'm glad my mother is educated enough to have avoided that whole mess, even though she is a stay at home mom.
I know so many women in my ward back home who did doTERRA, Scentsy (my mom is guilty on this one lol), Pampered Chef, Melaleuca, etc. Absolutely ridiculous that women who are otherwise smart fall so easily for these schemes 😬
I am a sahm and really appreciate the sensitivity and compassion you brought to this topic. The pandemic brought both social isolation and financial hardship, and many people in my position turned to MLMs hoping for a solution. I'm thankful to be finding success on Depop but could have easily been sucked into an MLM had I not known better
25:42 This quote made me realize how similar MLM recruitment is similar to joining a cult. Especially that last part about how cult members and people who were a part of a MLM are seen to be stupid instead of venerable.
As a utah girly I loved this video and thanks for highlighting the obscene amount of mlms that are based here. I feel like certain family members have been a part of or bought products from just about all of them. And it's so frustrating to try to tell them every time that they are scammy and predatory. Also of you wanted to say Provo like a Utahn, we say it Pro (as in professional) vo (as in vouge). We tend to say all the names of towns and cities ... uniquely.
Haha I kind of like Prahvo.
@@hannahchristinah me too lol
The message at the end is SUPER important, thank you so much Mina for always being gentle. I know people who are in a MLM and they actually see it as an economical asset, I know they are in a vulnerable state and they really don't have any other resource.. I really liked to hear kindl words about them, rather than the ones circulating on social media. They are NOT stupid, their countries' economy is the one to blame
The MLM girlies come into my retail job and try to get me to quit my job and join under them, it’s so annoying. I have such a distain for MLMs it’s takes advantage of so many woman. I totally understand woman wanting a “side hustle” but honestly I think my mum did it best. She wanted it to be a housewife but she helped my dad with his business when he needed it. But her job for many years was first and foremost being a house wife until my siblings and I could be fully responsible for our own needs (for reference I’m 3/4 kids and we are all about 3 years apart). Now she works a part time job at a plant nursery, which she absolutely loves. She loved the years she got to be a full time mother and homemaker, and now she loves getting to be a gardener. We are a Christian family and I know some members from my church who are apart of an MLM and they just seem so stressed, they real have far too much on their shoulders if that makes any sense.
Yeeeeeah, same here. Except my mom taught music lessons independently, which meant she ACTUALLY controlled her own work hours and gave a good product. Bleh. I only know a couple people who are Mlm's and neither have pushed it on me, but I hate socializing so I wouldn't anyways. 😅 The business model sounds like an actual nightmare to me.
My mom did real estate part time, then swapped to being a substitute teacher. She and my dad made sure they set their hours so that there was always at least one parent home when we were gonna be home.
MLMs are basically all the downsides of owning your own business with none of the upsides. Hella stressful for no guaranteed paycheck.
I grew up with female relatives of mine coming over to our house to sell us MLM products. I remember a relative of mine had the Mary Kay pink car
will never forget the time in college, a family friend invited me to a mary kay party. thankfully i was able to get out of it before they gave me the recruitment spiel.... because the makeup they used on me gave me an allergic reaction 😭😭
Same, there’s so much alcohol in their products that when they put foundation on me it started to burn lmao
When I worked for a legitimate insurance company I was even told it was my fault people wouldn't buy. Like I cannot make people buy things that are not a good deal. If you get bad leads, you get bad leads. That job fried my brain man. I will never do sales again.
Primerica?
@Chelsea the Vegan the "lizard people". I don't want to say the name they sue people a lot.
CVS used to try and push us to sign people up for all sorts of crap… then came the vaccines… push the vaccines … oh and we already pay you too much so no raises either 🙄
My mlm cringe story 😩 when I was 18 and first out on my own there was a friend of my moms that introduced me to Mary Kay. I was the perfect person to target for it. Really unknowledgeable about finances, super bubbly, didn’t have a support system, and I was of course gullible at that age. The first thing the director talked me into was opening up my first credit card to purchase a bunch of product and then they teach you to never take no as an answer. That Mary Kay becomes your whole life and to always put on a salesman’s face wherever you go. I was in it for almost a year and cringe to think about that time! I mean what woman in her late forties talks an 18 year old into opening up a credit card with zero other credit knowing that there’s a good chance it will screw her finances up to just go up another link in the chain? Glad people seem to know better now but the women in it don’t want to hear a bad word about it. They train you to ignore all of the bad signs.
I never write comments, but this particular video, especially the part with Albania, really resonated with me. I'm from the second biggest country of the ex ussr, and my family was all about the MLMs: Mary Kay, Oriflame, Avon - you name it. I even had a Mary Kay makeup bag-turned pencil case lol. I think the worst thing that affected me specifically was when my mom tried giving me herbalife for dinner, since I gained some weight ("It tastes just like a milkshake" my ass!). I know you usually focus on America, ig due to the lack of research done in English on the specific topics of your videos, but I think it's worth bringing up that along with vulnerable US migrant communities, MLMs targeted people from ex-soviet union, as they 1. Didn't have enough knowledge of the more sinister side of modern capitalism, and 2. were in a really bad living situation with no money, so "earning something" was one of the top priorities, along with finding food to eat, in the 90s and 00s.
Really happy you cover these topics, it's really rare to see people actually caring about the MLM victims. I consider my parents naive, but it doesn't excuse all the freaks who used my parents vulnerable financial positions or disabilities to make a profit. Thank you for that, Mina ^___^
I was recruit, together with my best friend, by Avon back in 1997 when we were 18.
It didn't last long because we were loosing money very quickly but we both thought it was our fault because we just didn't know how to sell things.
It took me many years to realise what it really was and how lucky we were to get out of it that quickly.
I feel for those women that still think that anything good might come out for them from one of these MLMs.
Oh yes, I'm Italian. Many of the MLMs that Mina mentioned reached us too.
I tried doing CutCo Cutlery in college and was interested in some other MLMs in the past. I never made it through because I always had this vibe in the back saying "Don't do it!" It's one of the few times I listened to it and have always been grateful for that. I love the amount of work and research you put into your videos and I always learn something new! Thanks for the great experiences!
My mom told me not to do it when I told her I got the job. I did some research and when they called the next day, I told them that I couldn’t do it. I did say pyramid scheme. He was pissed and started telling me how I wasted everyone’s time 🤣
A family member, a single mum, was sucked into Younique. She told me stories of how she would constantly buy stock to sell but it would arrive broken, and the company would never refund her for that or replace it and always told her to sell it anyway.
Who wants to buy broken products? They treated her so badly until she finally stopped, and after 2 years of selling she never broke even
I do appreciate that you remind us not to blame the people who do join, to have compassion for their situation and why they choose to be a part of them. I also appreciate that you include information from other cultures and countries.
I remember attending so many of my mom's friend's mlm parties growing up 😂 I was so confused. Just go to the store. Have a party with your friends later where they aren’t trying to sell you something and just have a nice conversation. So weird!
I now understand. My mom joined this last year, and everything felt quick for her just being a new “member”. It just felt unreal and I'm thankful that she stopped, I don't care about the money we lost, as long as we're away with this industry, it's good. It's like an illusion that you could've big achievements in the future but it's taking you away from more better opportunities.
My late great auntie, retired, widow, self-sustaining, black native Texan: side hustle Watkins! Can't wait to show this astute piece in my college classes! Educational, informative, fun, useful, genius content!!! Love the brows and cat is *the accessory ... and can we just have a snap pause at Mina's outfit!!? Queening!!
Keep an eye out and your gaurd up - there's an MLM for *every* good and service!
Thanks, Mina, for using your platform to educate about MLMs.
My mom got convinced by an old friend to do color street for a year, and after I quickly found out it was a bad company I’ve been teaching myself about MLMs ever since. Thank you for covering this, Mina!
I have a very close friend who was in the top 3% of It Works and it almost ruined our friendship so this really resonates with me
I appreciate you including how MLM's target christian conservatives for fleecing. Growing up in Michigan, the home of Amway, I saw first hand how they preyed on the christian community who struggled financially. It was disgusting to me. Also they've poured a lot of money into dismantling our democracy and public education. Let's not forget two Amway family members, former department of education head Betsy Devos, and Eric Prince, mercenary army owner and shady Trump organ. This family is sick.
As an ex Mormon, the segment on Mormon culture was spot on. I’ve known about mlm’s my whole life from Mormon moms.
There are also MLMs that are more male focused - like Prepaid Legal/Legal Shield, Cutco and ACN.
The knife selling ones come to mind as well!
Yeah! Recently found out about the ones putting up adds on job sites targeting students into selling life insurance under an mlm scheme. Many young men appear to be victims of this one
I live in utah and pretty much everyone I know has been in an mlm at some point or is currently in one, but I don't know one single person who ever made a living off of it. In fact, I know few people that even got back their start up fees. My mom still sells Doterra, which is an essential oil brand and she has to buy so many products a month to keep her discount. She has thousands of dollars of expired oils and boxes upon boxes of oils that just keep getting delivered that she'll never use. They keep you trapped and make you feel like a failure if you quit, or like you didn't work hard enough. Or, like in my moms case, make you think you're getting a good deal because you can get cheap product just by distributing for them. They've somehow manages to get people to work for them for free, and not only are they working for free in 99% of cases, most of them are heavily investing in the products themselves literally keeping these mlms afloat.
I used to work at ThredUp warehouse and the amount of LULAROE we used to get was insaneeeee. The clothes aren’t cute at ALL lol. But they are very stretchy 😂
My dad a Mexican man used to do Herba Life. I’m pretty sure it was because he got suckered in by some lady he had a crush on. But idk if he sold stuff or just bought it for himself. But I remember he made me drink a nasty ass smoothie because they told him it would help w my eczema. It tasted like PUKE. But they did have really good coffee & chocolate. They also sold cosmetics and I remember he gave me a lipgloss. It was actually not bad 😅 I’m pretty sure he got suckered in and just kept the inventory for himself. I don’t recall him selling to ppl.
LLR clothes do make good cleaning rags.
I have 2 pairs of lularoe leggings I got at a thrift store NWT (I didn't know anything about the brand at the time). I definitely would believe it's a common occurrence when people realize they've been scammed. I really like the patterns of the ones I got, but a lot of the other stuff I've seen from them is.... questionable
All of my first makeup was Avon. My mom sold it during the recession as extra income. She eventually got annoyed with the system though
Its weird how Avon works in the US. Here in Brazil its a pretty big and well known company and almost everyone has at least one item from them.
Same in the Philippines. It turned into a well-loved brand with so many regional offices and celebrity advertisements. Tupperware Philippines also recently partnered with our largest department store company. I say the biggest and oldest MLMs do good outside of US.
It's still an MLM. Avon used to be huge in America. I grew up with my great grandmother's Avon perfume bottles.
It hurts my heart to hear this girl say she never heard of Avon.. that’s when I am reminded I’m to old for this channel 😂I can remember my Aunt had tons of Avon products- no one was trying to get her to sell Avon though back then (80s).
@@ayannahendricks6266 it was definitely different. The internet definitely changed the way MLMs functioned. Much easier to recruit people.
Avon's primary product catalog is consumables (makeup, lotion, perfume, etc.) , so that really doesn't happen.
One more thing I've noticed about MLMs is that they tend to use social pressure and guilt to get people to buy stuff. "I hosted this party and invited you, the least you could do is buy some tupperware." My mom has bought stuff from her friends who were part of MLMs not because she wanted the stuff, but because she felt bad for them.
Hi Hun!!!
Sorry, I had to lol. Thanks for combining two of my favorite things, your videos and a dissection of the predatory and culty nature of MLMs.
I love that MLMs are banned on TikTok yet they’re seeing such a resurgence ❤
When I found out that they were banned I started reporting them as they came by me and TT does nothing.
@@JustHarperGray it does take down their accounts sometimes. I report every single one I see but they used to enforce it more back in 2021 :/
I really love the retro design you used for the graphics, quotes, and titles.
My mum joined an MLM once because she liked the product and wanted the "discount". She'd bulk purchase what she wanted....took a few years for her "team manager" to realise what my mum was doing 😂
I'm not from the US nor did I go to a US college, but a friend recently told me about how sororities have a mother & daughter system, which reminded me of uplines & downlines. Of course not everyone goes to college, but surely familiarity with that kind of structure would help build trust in the system, especially when they lean in to the "we're family / best friends" narrative.
Once I got a dm from an old friend from high school asking me if I wanted to earn money from home, working with social media. The thing is, I work as a full time influencer, from home…
There's nothing that makes you feel older than opening a UA-cam video and hearing "I had never heard of Avon until I watched this TV show"
All video i was thinking about my family's experience with herbalife and then it turns out they ARE very involved with latino communities! I'm from South America and went to a christian school. We had teachers that came from the US to teach english and do missionary work and one of them was involved in herbalife. My mom almost became part of it (she got asked to hold some reunions at our home) but cut ties with said teacher and unfortunately some of my classmates' moms when it clicked what was happening.
Great video!
Many people in Russia in the 90s also suffered from such an economic system. Instead of cosmetics and clothes, frightened by the economic shock after the collapse of the Soviet Union, people began to join the pyramids, where they had to mortgage their houses and cars. The most popular was a pyramid called MMM, organized by Mavrodi. At the peak of profits, the company simply called itself bankrupt. As a result, people lost everything they had. The most unpleasant thing is that now (when Mavrodi has been released from prison) he has started giving interviews. He says it's not his fault, but people's, because they trusted him and didn't understand that he was deceiving them.
In the 90s my grandmother drove a used Mary Kay Cadillac and it was ICONIC lol -- it was a baby pink rectangle with these crazy velvet-ish red seats, I was so bummed when they sold it
With that pink Cadillac, the company requires that you hold your rank (and then they give you a monthly allotment towards the car) and that’s almost impossible. If they don’t hold their rank (and they are given 2 grace months) they are legally strapped to that full car payment.
i absolutely adore your fashion style, the editing of the videos and the scripting of the topics, everything flows so well! i just wanted to leave this comment bec i suddenly remembered how i had referenced your video essay on femme fatales in a reflection paper for my gender and society course. and ever since then, i have been in absolute awe of your work, it is so so good.
Mina - You're a gas! The "men loving men" was priceless as well as the Girl Scout cookie blurb. And, your essays are flawless. The best I've seen in the industry.
This was well-researched Mina. Thank you! 😃MLM is the only industry where the victims go on to become the villians. In 2021, I wrote an article about why MLMs are bad (literally Google 'why MLMs are bad' and I'm #1 lol) and I hope this, plus your video and many others out there, helps individuals to reconsider their involvement in these harmful schemes.
I was literally just wondering this about a friend from college who is incredibly smart and comfortably off and seems to have been devoting most of her spare time to various MLMs for the past 10 years and shows no signs of stopping
OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE MY COUNTRY WAS MENTIONED!!! Hiii Mina, I'm from Albania and I'm a big fan!! I hope you do other videos that include our area in the Balkans, we're very obscure lol. Anyway, this was off topic, but thank you for mentioning us! '90s Albania was a scary place...
Romania also had a big issue with a pyramid scheme in the 90s called Caritas. Also in the same boat, country trying to transition from communism to the free market and democracy.
With any movement like the antimlm movement there are going to be bad players. There are usual disclaimers at the beginning saying we are commenting on the behavior not the person. When it comes to very big leaders in the MLM space it does get out of hand because these leaders are fully aware what they are doing. Thank you for covering this topic to your audience. ❤
I learned so much from this video along with the podcast The Dream (specifically season 1). The hosts did an even deeper dive on all the legislation, going undercover as a sales reps and more! Highly recommend for anyone interested
I love your videos Mina and Im really glad I also learned something new about my country. I had no idea pyramid schemes were so prevalent in albania and how many people were pulled into them. I just spoke to my dad about it and he gave me a lot more information, it was really interesting. It’s times like these I really love learning, thank you.
Those house parties are still a thing. My mother worked for an MLM that sold food in the early 2000s and was actually very successful with it. She hosted parties at her and other people’s houses, cooking the food to serve the guests. It was very effective. I assume that company still does it. I don’t consider that business super shady because even though there was still risk involved, if you couldn‘t hack it as a sales person, you could just eat the food.😅
really enjoyed the compassion for the people involved in mlms here
The fit is IMMACULATE this video, Mina! (Well of course they always are but especially today)
Another thing to note is that a lot of MLM products are stupid expensive for what they are. In order for the distributor, their extensive upline, and the parent company to all make money, they have to sell the assets at way above their market value. Pampered Chef has cookware that cost the same as freaking Le Cruset. Which means (1) it's super hard for your average suburban mom to sell to peers, and (2) the parent company makes BANK when distributors purchase more stock every month as part of their requirement to stay "active".
If they're not super expensive, then the quality of the material is super cheap (like Papparazzi or LuLuRoe).