Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Multi-Level Marketing

Episode Date: July 13, 2021

Ask and you shall receive! This week, we’re covering our single most listener-requested topic: The “cult” of multi-level marketing (aka MLMs). Most of us have a former high school classmate or two who got sucked into a pay-and-recruit organization like Amway, Mary Kay, or Young Living. MLMs are at once the butt of countless jokes about pyramid schemes and brainwashed #girlbosses, and yet they maintain a profound hold on a certain slice of aspiring entrepreneurs, who’ve been promised that some shadily structured “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” will guarantee them the American Dream (and more). MLMs are certainly scammy, but are they culty? And if so, what kind of “cult” are they? In this episode, we attempt to find an answer...

This is Sounds Like A Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Issa Medina, a comedian and documentarian. And I'm Amanda Montell, an author and linguist. Every week here on the pod, Issa and I pick a different fanatical fringe group from the cultural zeitgeist. From Peloton to the Cult of Trader Joe's to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? This week we're going to talk about the Cult of Multilevel Marketing.

Yes, and this is by far our most highly requested topic. Everyone comments on like all of our Instagram posts. MLMs, MLMs, when are you going to do MLMs? Because everybody has at least one, if not maybe half a dozen former high school classmates who have been invagled by the Cult of Multilevel Marketing, Direct Sales, Relationship Marketing. There are so many different labels for the legally loophold close cousin of the pyramid scheme. Yes, these companies which sell all kinds of random products from diet pills to leggings

to insurance exist in the dozens, if not the hundreds, and you can probably name some of the most famous ones. Yeah, like Amway, Mary Kay, Tupperware, Avon, Lulu Rowe, ItWorks, Beachbody, Lipsense, exactly. And we're not necessarily here to talk about why multilevel marketing is silly. We're not even really here to talk about why it's scammy. We're here to talk about why it's culty, which I think might be a new idea for some people. But it's something that I looked into for my book for several months, and I can say

with some confidence that MLMs absolutely fall along the cultish spectrum, and we're here to figure out exactly what category they fall into. Yeah, I'm really excited to toot toot toot toot. I'm really excited to look into it because I feel like people always joke about it. It's like, oh, we all have that friend who does that, and there's so many memes about it. I don't know if that's just your Instagram. No, no, there are.

And like anti MLM TikTok. Welcome to anti MLM TikTok. And YouTube make up these pretty significant corners of the internet. What I don't get is like how people like fall into it. To start off, Amanda, do you want to give us a brief overview of what MLMs are, multilevel marketing? Let's do it. For some background, and I'm going to summarize this really briefly, I don't want this to

be like an MLM history lesson. That shit is incredibly interesting. If someone wants to deep dive into the origin story of the multilevel marketing industry, I highly recommend that you listen to The Dream, which is Jane Marie's podcast. It's an investigative piece about the MLM industrial complex. It's riveting. But MLMs are at once this sort of joke, but also a pretty significant fixture at the fringes of the American capitalist labor market.

They've been around in their current iterations since the World War II era, which is the time when they first started targeting non-working wives and mothers, the whole Tupperware party era, and traditionally unemployed middle-class women are still the MLM Industries main sales force. And that's why the language is so pseudo-feminist sounding, and it has been for decades. So while Tupperware was promised to be the best thing that happened to women since they got the vote, now Beachbody, let's say, is promised to give women an opportunity to empower themselves and become part of a movement.

So for those of us who don't know, let's explain how MLMs are structured. Yeah, they're basically these pay and recruit organizations where someone that you know or nowadays an influencer will get in touch with you and deliver you this speech about how you're amazing and you seem like such a boss babe, and would you want to take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a full-time income with part-time work? Like you can be a part of our dream team. You can be your own boss. You can be your own boss.

You can be your own mompreneur. You can be your own CEO. You can start a fire. I can never imagine that I would be able to afford a Chevrolet. Exactly. They'll promise you all these things that are basically the extreme almost spoofed version of the American dream. Then they'll ask you to front a buy-in fee to get in on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

to sell whatever it is. The product doesn't matter. These products almost never fill an actual market need. They don't abide by the rules of traditional economics whatsoever, but the system is guaranteed to make you money no matter what. So let's say you're selling like soap or skincare or whatever it is. You have to pay a buy-in fee in order to get involved with so-and-so's team. So-and-so being the person who recruited you.

That person is not called your boss or your employer, but your upline. And that person's team is called their downline. They have a monthly quota for how many people they have to recruit, and their recruits are called like distributors and coaches. Exactly. So they're not called employees or salespeople or anything like that. They're given these sort of highfalutin euphemisms to make them feel important. Who doesn't love to feel important?

Well, you pay this money, you sign up, you buy inventory, and it's pitched to you as an amazing opportunity to be an entrepreneur because the startup costs are comparatively lower than if you were actually to start your own business, but you're not actually starting your own business. If you're an upline, if you're a recruiter, you're going to make money every time you recruit someone new because they have to pay a buy-in fee, and you're going to make commission off of everything they sell. So the numbers are such that, and people have done these calculations.

If you sign up for an MLM, you could totally become a millionaire within a year like they promised, but guess how many people would have to be in your downline billions? Like literally billions. It does not make mathematical sense. I have an analogy in my book where I say a pyramid scheme is to an MLM what a milkshake is to a Starbucks mocha frappuccino. One is just a dignified version of the other. That's so good.

I mean, if it will avoid legal trouble, let's talk about that milkshake. Yeah. Yeah, or the Starbucks mocha frappuccino. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a whole history why MLMs are kind of legally loophold that has to do with AMWAY, which is the world's biggest MLM. But the way I think about it is that MLMs are certainly scammy, but they're not just

your average scams. They're much cultier than that. First of all, there are these complex life consuming organizations that are missionary in character and members come to revere the people at the top of these companies on the level of a spiritual leader. They also like, it's not like they gather in an office because they all work together in an office. They gather for conventions.

I've seen. Oh yeah. Oh my God. Yes. These conventions are so batshit. Something that just only made sense to me hearing you say it now was that you were like, it doesn't matter what they're selling because that's not the business. Now that I'm thinking about it, I know people who are in MLMs, but I don't know what the

product that they sell does. Some say that the difference between a pyramid scheme and a legit multi-level marketing company is that in an MLM, you primarily make money by selling product and in a pyramid scheme, you primarily make money by recruiting people. But people again have done the math and 99% of MLM recruits never make a dime. Also what doesn't make mathematical sense to me is that they're like, it's so easy. It's like when people say that becoming an influencer is easy. I'm not an influencer by any means, but it's a full-time job.

You're working like more than eight hours a day. You're working around the clock. So like once you break it down to an hourly rate, you're like, might as well work at the fucking public library. Yeah, totally. But I mean, speaking of the language of MLMs, they have all of these really lofty, grandiose stock expressions and promises that they feed you to make you forget that the numbers make no sense or to distract you from the fact that the numbers make no sense.

So they'll continue to tell you, this is an amazing system and a good system always works. If you put in enough time and dedication, if you really want this, if you're the boss babe that we think you are, you will be a millionaire in a year. That's so fucked up. They put it on you. Definitely. That's what cults do. They gas like you.

It's literally what Nixxiom used to do. It was like, you just aren't trying hard enough. Okay, but remember Keith Ranieri was a former pyramid schemer who got out of that business because he was found out to be a pyramid schemer and then went on to found Nixxiom. That type of missionary scheming was like in his soul. Yeah. It is a proven fact that ego, which literally means EGO, eking God out. And when you eke out the source of all love, the source of all creativity, the source of

all peace, the source of all kindness, the source of all generosity, the source of all finance, you think you know more. You think you know more than God. And some of you in this room may even think you know more than you're upline. No. But the truth is, is that when we don't stay in a very humble place, we run risk, folks, of building walls in relationships. Because your success as an MLMmer depends on the success of everyone in your downline,

these really codependent relationships start to form. And you're talking to your fellow MLM boss babes all the time in Facebook groups and group chats, and you probably have a team name that everybody goes by to feel that sense of solidarity and connection, but also you gaslight one another and shame one another and make one another feel like shit if you're not pulling in your quota or whatever. That reminds me of when corporations or businesses use the phrase, we are a family. Like when your personal life starts to bleed into your professional life and people use that to be like, why didn't you try harder or why aren't you putting in more hours?

And it's like, when it comes to your professional life, everything should always be in exchange for money because that's how the world works. Totally. Like I'm not going to do more work because I like you as a person. Yeah. I think it's funny that you said, oh, this reminds me of regular corporations because even though MLMs are set up to be scams, and you could argue that the regular corporate workplaces also set up to be a scam, not quite in the same way, but a lot of those values

and false promises and fosperation, even the behaviors and rituals are quite similar when you look at MLMs versus like startup culture. The MLM industry and the regular labor market are derived from the same very sort of cringy, spooky, Protestant capitalist history and ethic. So it's like we can spoof the MLM industry all day long, but our regular corporate jobs actually have the same structure, not the same structure, but the same values, meritocracy, throwing people under the bus in order to get to the top, always being promised more. Exactly.

These are very American, often toxic values. Yeah, but I feel like the one difference that I can think of, well, actually there's a lot of differences. A lot of differences. But one difference that I can think of off the top of my head is that at least corporations give you like a guaranteed base salary. Oh, 100%. And like a 1k.

Whereas like MLMs, they kind of get to avoid that. They do. And I talked to this amazing behavioral economist named Stacy Bosley, who's like the only economist who studies MLMs, which seems wacky, but the male-dominated field of economics doesn't seem to think MLMs are interesting because it's mostly women who get involved with them. How wrong can they be? We should talk about that sometime. Yeah, the cult of just men.

But Stacy Bosley was telling me how a lot of the MLM industry focuses on the purchase of hope. You're not making money, you're earning a pseudo-family, you're earning encouragement, you're being filled with the American dream and hope. And that is so predatory. You know what fosperation doesn't do? Feed the kids. Yeah.

100%. But they really do. They love bomb you in the way that cults do with these compliments and exclamation points. Like, you can clock an MLM or on social media, even if you have no idea what they're selling. Yeah. Right? We're going to talk about that. Oh, we're going to talk about that.

Because you kind of start to smell it from a distance, right? When you first come across your distant high school friends initial MLM post, you're like, oh, that's cute. They're like feeling themselves. And I don't mean that in a mean way. I'm like, that's great. Like, fuck yeah, positive vibes. The vibe is always very pseudo-feminist girlboss.

Yeah. And so at first you're like, okay, let's go. And then you'll see the second post and you start to have like a sprinkle of hashtags and some star emojis that are like, you can do this too. And I'm like, what am I doing? What can I do too? Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I'm so lazy out of the gate.

And one of the sources that I talked to for the book, an ex-high school classmate of mine was talking about how when she got involved with her MLM, which is called Optavia, which is like a diet nutrition MLM, they would tell their recruiters to like hide the name of the organization. Never say it in public until you got someone on the phone. Because they don't want people to find out it's a pyramid. They don't want people to find out it's an MLM. It's like when Republicans don't put their political party on dating apps because they

don't want you to find out that they're conservative. Oh yeah, they just say like they're moderate on their hinge profile. Yeah, exactly. Fool me once, shame on, shame on you, it fooled me, we can't get fooled again. So there are other things that MLMs have in common with cults. They create this extreme us versus them dichotomy. So like you're supposed to just believe that you can achieve anything you could possibly want by being a part of this MLM as if like the math means nothing, the economics means

nothing, all you need is again, hope and lock out those stinking thinkers. Exactly. If anybody is going to try to talk you out of it, that's stinking thinking and you need to cut them out of your life. That's, I mean, we were talking about this with anxiety before, but I feel like the cultiness of MLMs creates this anxiety of you don't see past it, like you don't see a world without it. Earlier today we were talking about anxiety and how when you wake up with anxiety you

can't imagine not waking up with anxiety because it's your whole world. And I feel like that's what MLMs do, it's like you can't imagine waking up without them. Right, because then you'll be an outsider. Yeah. And in this analogy, the anxiety doesn't have agency and intention, the anxiety doesn't care if you have it or not, you know, like your anxiety isn't going to lose money if you start going to therapy and meditating, but with MLMs there are a whole bunch of people who've led you to believe that they're your family and they love you for whom it is in

their favor to keep you sucked in even if you're going bankrupt and you're miserable. We should make merch that says anxiety is a pyramid scheme because it is. This is the impression that MLMs create over time if you leave, if you give up, you're giving up on the American dream itself, you're giving up on your family, you're giving up on God. I mean, there's a reason why so many MLMs are Christian affiliated because they've led you to believe that by you being involved with this MLM, you're serving God. Yeah, oh my gosh, that reminds me of like the entertainment industry and Los Angeles.

Like that's literally how people talk about people who leave LA, they're like they quit the industry and it's so shameful and it's like maybe they just didn't want to work a minimum way to job for a multi-billion dollar industry. Totally, that's culty. The reason why I think that in an MLM context, it's closer to a get the fuck out level is because the promises associated with MLM affiliation go to like their, yeah, they're like they're being promised an idea rather than a movie deal. The promises are beyond this human experience.

And when they do bring up like a tangible number of saying, well, you will be able to make X amount of money, it's impossible to make that much. No, it is impossible. I mean, it's only possible for people who get in at a certain time and are able to recruit and recruit and recruit and when those people become millionaires, it's all at the expense of everyone they've scammed below them, except the people below them look up to them as these like gods on earth. It's really sad, especially because everyone who gets involved with MLMs, first of all,

the stereotype is these are like desperate board housewives. And the reason why that's the stereotype is because in the fifties, when so many white suburban women were having to go back to the home after their husbands came back from war, they like weren't working anymore, they really wanted something to do to like keep them busy to make them feel empowered and the MLM industry took advantage of that. To this day, people who get involved with the MLM industry, they're not necessarily like desperate and bored, but they are folks who are vulnerable because they're locked out of the dignified labor market in some way, whether it's because they're like a Mormon

homemaker kind of a way to work without breaking the rules, or let's say that they're a college student who is hard up for cash, but has like a lot of hope for the future, or immigrant communities. MLMs prey on immigrant communities because of the language barrier and because they want to achieve the American dream. And that's what they're being promised. Yeah. So it's pretty fucked up.

When we were going to talk about MLMs, Amanda was like, well, do you know anyone? And I was like, no, I don't think so. And then later that day I went on Instagram and I was like, oh my God, I do. Yeah. No, I was like impossible. We all have a couple. I do all have a couple, so check your feeds, people. But yeah, I mean, when you were saying that they prey on people who have nontraditional

career paths that reminded me of my friend, gonna call her Nicole, or she was an aspiring singer and she worked overseas for a while, like pursuing, you know, that dream to become a singer and it didn't work out, she moved back to LA, just was doing like hole in the wall gigs. Then a year or two later, I just kind of started seeing these posts very empowering. I was like, that's amazing. I hope the best for her. I went to her profile and it had the MLM link in her bio.

So this was about a year ago? Yeah. I think maybe a year and a half, you know, you go to her profile and her posts say things like, what you are seeking is also seeking you. My experience this past weekend was an abundant community and connection. How easy it was to gather and connect with a group of humans and leaders dedicated to empowering others. It's been a year of learning and growing with the Zoom community.

I'm skipping around, but it ends so long. It's so, so long and it ends with like, I feel heard, I feel seen, I feel celebrated. This could be you. This could be us. Join me. Join me. What you're seeking is seeking you. I mean, this sounds like a scammy spiritual retreat.

It sounds like nexium. This is why MLMs are the worst is because it's not just money. It's like a religion for these people. It takes over their whole lives. And I'm like seeing the comments and it's like, yes, queen, go you, you, you, you love you. Yes, sister, goddess. After going to a convention, all of a sudden these people that are also in the MLM community

that she's in are praising her and that makes her feel like she's best friends with them. And these conventions are such a specific and strategic assault on the American human spirit. I've never been to one of these conventions, but I've looked into them enough to know that when you go to one, it's like a cross between a Tony Robbins conference, a tent revival, a family reunion, and like a fucking spring breakers party. Yeah. That is so overwhelming.

By the way, these conventions are pitched as first of all, basically mandatory if you want to succeed in this business, but do they give you any actual career or business advice? Do you have to, you have to pay to go to them? Oh yeah. And they're really expensive. So it's just more investment upfront that you're putting into the company. So I just want to reiterate that we're not bashing these people. It's just no, we're not dragging these people because it's not their fault.

They're being promised something extraordinary, not by strangers, by their friends and family because those are the people recruiting them. Yeah. And that's the problem is like they, it's people that they trust. Exactly. And you'd think these companies are such notorious scams, they would have died out by now, but the MLM industry is so nimble and so good at rebranding itself. Exactly.

Because that's all it is, is branding. Like when I look at this friend who fits the exact description of the, you know, contemporary millennial MLM or that I think of, and I have so many of those too. So it's like, while in the fifties, the typical MLM or you would think of would be sort of this like wholesome Susie homemaker. Now the MLM industry has accommodated to millennials, penchant for like natural holistic skincare and they target these wannabe micro influencers, people who have pursued a non-traditional career path and are potentially maybe like between what they want to do next.

They kind of capitalize on that situation and be like, not only will you get a community by doing this with us, but you'll also get a career. Totally. And they're looking for these incredibly optimistic people. I mean, they're looking for dreamers. At least this new generation of MLMers is looking for people who have the desire to have their 15 minutes of fame, to have their little following and who want that community. And those things are not pathetic by any means.

Like we're all dreamers. We're all seekers. Like you and I are. Yeah. It's just that we're, I don't know, for some combination of nature and nurture, we've become more skeptical to this sort of thing. Yeah. But I'm wondering like, when is that ever going to stop?

You know, like, when are people going to stop falling for scams or are scams like a eternal? No, it's actually really interesting. I mean, there's this book that I love written by this Nobel Prize winning psychologist named Daniel Kainman called Thinking Fast and Slow. I think I had to read that book for like intro to microeconomics or something. Oh, you probably did. Well, there are basically like these two thought processes that human beings use in

order to make decisions, system one and system two. And system one has been around since like the dawn of humans. It's very like quick, fast, instinctive decision making where you don't need to weigh all the pros and cons when someone tells you something to tell if it's true or not. You just know immediately that it's true. Right. Okay. I remember reading this book.

Okay. Yeah. And that type of thinking was all that our ancestors really needed because back in the day, we only ever interacted with like 10 people our whole lives as human beings, right? But now in the age of the internet, especially we interact with like millions of people a day, strangers and ideas and concepts. Exactly. So over the years, we've developed this system two thought process, which is more deliberative

and more analytical and slower. But sometimes it just like doesn't work well enough when someone that you probably know is coming to you with this promise to be your own boss and achieve the American dream and become a millionaire within a year and have a new family, you're either going to quickly decide, yes, sign me up or your system two thinking might not quite be there yet. I also feel like you could fall into it by pretending to be interested because they are your family or your friend. You're like, you know what, I'll hear them out because I don't want to insult them.

And then you're playing this role. There's a psych theory about that or something where you're like playing house and then you believe it yourself. I feel like that could apply to people who just hear a friend out about MLMs because they're like, I just want to be nice and then they kind of get convinced that they want to join. Yeah. Well, it's actually hard to resist that sort of influence, you know, it's like we want

badly to believe that these lofty promises could be true, especially when they're coming from someone we care about. It is so hard to resist bullshit and misinformation. Like we human beings are not machines, we're not robots, we're not really built to the only thing I remember about that book, Thinking Fast and Slow, was like a metaphor about buying something. If you buy something without thinking about it, you're probably going to be happier with it.

So like when you research buying a TV, you're like trying to buy the best TV in the world. So you look at all the options, but once you finally buy the TV, you're not as happy because you know that there's so many more things out there. Wow. I had no idea about that, but that makes perfect sense because I bought my TV at Best Buy in like two seconds and I'm so thrilled with it. It was my first ever TV and I bought it after I broke up with my Toxic X, who was that type of person who would read every Amazon review on the planet before buying a pair of socks

and he was the most miserable motherfucker in the entire world. Yeah, exactly. It's nice to be like a decisive, somewhat impulsive customer. But that could also lead to you falling into an LL. Yeah, no, actually that economist Stacy Bosley told me that impulsiveness can really contribute to someone's vulnerability to fraud. It's all about balance, baby. It is really, truly all about balance, baby.

I do want to say really quickly that these companies are predatory in more ways than just scamming people out of money or psychologically manipulating their recruits. For example, MLMers, from what I've observed, are willing to take any tragedy as an excuse to sell and recruit. So after the COVID pandemic broke out, it did not take long for MLM recruits to start making these public claims that their products could protect against both the virus and financial insecurity. They literally said that their products could help with COVID.

Yeah, like could boost your immunity during the time of this pandemic. It was really problematic. The FTC sent over 15 warnings to a bunch of direct sales companies because they were blowing up social media with posts like hashtag COVID, hashtag prevention. That's so dangerous. And crossing a line completely. What I just don't understand is how these companies keep getting away with this shit. Uh-huh.

So all of this goes without saying that the direct sales industry has incredibly powerful political ties in Washington, specifically the direct selling association has donated significantly to every Republican presidential candidate over the past like 30 years. And no president supported the direct sales industry more vehemently than Donald Trump. That makes so much sense why Republicans are the way they are because America loves to make it seem like success and the American dream are like this movie that it's available to anyone and equality for all and everything is so easy. If you just work hard enough, but that's not the case.

People are born into different families and different privileges and that's why we need government programs to help us out. Amway again, which is the world's largest MLM and the reason why MLMs are not all illegal, which has to do with the court case. It's a long story that I wrote about my book cultish. Anyway, Amway was founded by one of the DeVos's like Betsy DeVos, the Michigan billionaire family and the whole mission of Amway was to like return the United States to traditional Christian family values.

Psycho. Yeah. It's just it's so much more than a company, it is a religion, it is a lifestyle and it is fucked. Yeah. The more we talk about it, the more I see how like you could be left with nothing if you leave the MLM in terms of community and money. I just can't help but keep comparing it to nexium.

Yeah. Like the exit costs are really high. And just that classic thing of like the lofty promises and then the bait and switch, the love bombing and then the lies. And all of it being initiated by someone you trust. Which makes it even harder to leave because you're like, but they're still in it. And you don't want to betray them and you have this codependent relationship with everyone on your team.

Yeah. It affects every aspect of your life. And we know we've talked about that with other potential cults like what aspects does it affect? With this one, it's everything. Like it bleeds into everything. This is another reason why MLMs are like toxic relationships because a lot of the time you don't just do one MLM, you keep trying again and again and again.

Yeah. Maybe this one will work. Maybe this one will fulfill the promises. You know the cult we all need to join is the cult of therapy. It is kind of funny like at the end of a therapy session where you're like, I don't know, I cry every one every session, but at the end of a session, they're like, well, that's our time. I'm like, oh, oh, I forgot that we weren't like friends.

I know. But that's the thing. It's like, I don't condemn people having a business or whatever. Like that's chill. Just be forthright. Transparent. Yes. What does my membership require?

I think that's one thing that like MLMs lack is transparency and tangible outcomes. Yeah. And it's all your in-house linguists, but I feel like they do it all through language. It is. It's completely through language. The numbers make no sense, but the language is compelling enough that people just can't quit. Yeah.

Yeah. We should all just like stop talking. Yeah. I know. My boyfriend really wants to do a silent meditation retreat and I'm like, I probably need that, but I don't know, I'm like the most loquacious person alive. I would really suffer. Me too.

I mean, we were like hanging out the other day in like a group of people. The first couple like social interactions post COVID are so awkward. The whole group is interacting and talking and then it'll go quiet. And I'm in pain in those quiet moments. Me too. That's why we have a podcast. Exactly. No, I like feel responsible for filling the space.

Yeah. We need to work on that. Yeah, we do. Okay, so out of the three categories, live your life, watch your back or get the fuck out. What category do you think MLMs fall into? I mean, I feel like we've been leaving breadcrumbs all over this episode, but bread chunks full loaves of challah.

Yeah. Chunky. I think it's a get the fuck out. Me too. And again, I just want to reemphasize this isn't like you as a person are fucked if you're in an MLM. It's the institution. It's the industry.

Completely. If there are people listening that are in MLMs, this is not an insult. I don't know. What helps me sometimes when I'm having a lot of anxiety or tough days, like make a list of like pros and cons. Yeah. That's system to thought process. Yeah.

Yeah. And be like, what am I getting out of this? And what am I giving into it? And you know, not all MLMs are equally predatory, I will say that like there are some MLMs where the buy-in fee is significantly lower and the monthly quotas you have to meet are significantly lower and the number of people you have to recruit is significantly lower. And so you won't suffer quite as gravely as if you were to join Lularo, let's say. That said, the industry in general is quite evil.

Yeah. You yourself said it earlier that if you fail at one MLM, you're more likely to continue to another MLM. Completely. It's like, that's why it's a get the fuck out. It's like, don't even get the fuck in. That's our episode for this week. Thanks for listening.

We'll be back with a new cult next week. But in the meantime, stay culty, but not too culty. Sounds like a cult was created, produced and edited by Amanda Montell and Issa Medina. Our theme music is by Casey Colb and our production assistant slash intern is Courtney Archer. And if you liked this episode, feel free to give us a rating and review on Apple podcasts.