Sounds Like A Cult

By Amanda Montell & Isa Medina

The Cult of Multi-Level Marketing

S1 E7

Published July 13, 2021 7:00am

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...