Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Introducing： The Rise and Fall of LulaRoe

00:00:00.000 Hello, hello, hello. Today I'm just dropping a podcast that I think you'll love into the feed.

00:00:09.840 It is called The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe. I'm doing it because one, it is very good,

00:00:16.480 and two, because women need to support other women's podcasts and work. We do. We don't

00:00:21.440 have a choice. And I am a big fan of Steph McNeil's reporting on the Influencer Industrial

00:00:26.620 Complex on BuzzFeed. She's one of the few reporters that takes this world seriously,

00:00:31.200 and she's a frickin' rock star. And Steph recently created a new podcast all about the

00:00:37.180 LuLaRoe scandal. By now, you've probably heard the LuLaRoe story. Quick recap if you haven't.

00:00:43.480 In 2015, thousands of hopeful retailers bought into LuLaRoe. It was one of the largest MLM

00:00:48.620 clothing companies in the world. Before long, lawsuits and allegations that LuLaRoe was

00:00:53.960 operating a pyramid scheme started filing in from retailers, many of them women and stay-at-home moms

00:01:00.740 who had risked their homes, their bank accounts, and their relationships with close family and

00:01:04.960 friends in an effort to be their own boss by selling LuLaRoe leggings. I just happened to be

00:01:11.780 on this particular episode talking about the big fat intersection between MLMs and influencers.

00:01:23.960 Hi, everyone. This is the Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe. I'm your host, Stephanie McNeil,

00:01:35.200 and I'm a senior culture reporter at BuzzFeed News. In this podcast, we are diving deep into

00:01:40.680 the world of LuLaRoe. We speak with retailers whose lives were turned upside down. We also

00:01:47.060 talk to experts who can shed light on how these MLMs really work, including the red flags you

00:01:53.460 should keep an eye out for. This week, I'm talking to author, reporter, and podcaster,

00:01:59.500 Joe Piazza, about influencers and LuLaRoe. Joe has written for the New York Times, the Wall

00:02:04.940 Street Journal, Elle, and more. Her latest podcast, Under the Influence, documented the history of

00:02:10.760 influencer culture, and particularly mom influencers, which we'll see has some overlaps

00:02:16.680 with how LuLaRoe consultants built their brands. Let's get into it.

00:02:23.460 Hi, thanks for joining us. We're so excited to have you, Jo, especially as an expert on all

00:02:32.720 things mom influencers, which is definitely my cup of tea as well. So thank you so much for coming on.

00:02:39.360 I love talking to a fellow influencer expert. We are few and far between.

00:02:43.560 So this is an absolute joy for me. I'm so excited to dig into influencers in general,

00:02:49.100 but also, of course, all about their role in LuLaRoe, because I think when a lot of people

00:02:55.260 hear the LuLaRoe story, they don't think influencers off the top of their head,

00:02:59.980 but actually social media played such a big role in LuLaRoe. And your podcast,

00:03:06.740 Under the Influence, is all about the rise of mom influencers. I found it fascinating.

00:03:12.500 So how did you get interested in reporting on this topic?

00:03:16.680 Oh my gosh, it is definitely not something

00:03:18.660 that I ever thought I would be reporting on.

00:03:21.740 But then I became a mom for a second time.

00:03:24.460 And when you have a newborn,

00:03:26.560 you're holding them in one hand.

00:03:28.280 There's very little that you can do

00:03:29.980 except scroll Instagram.

00:03:31.580 The only appendage you have is a thumb.

00:03:33.640 And so I was on Instagram more than ever.

00:03:35.840 And because I believe our phones are listening to us,

00:03:38.600 they 100% knew that I had a baby,

00:03:41.080 that she was very, very little.

00:03:42.820 And I just kept getting served up. 0.98

00:03:44.380 mom content after mom content, all of these women in like long flowing Laura Ingalls Wilder style 1.00

00:03:52.000 prairie dresses in their very clean white homes and their white kitchens with their organic 0.99

00:03:57.140 bottle nipples and organic baby outfits, organic everything. And I didn't know what to make of it.

00:04:03.600 And as a journalist, when I don't understand something about the world, I just start reporting

00:04:08.580 the hell out of it. So originally Under the Influence was going to be kind of an expose

00:04:12.980 Jose of the world of mom influencers. I was like, who the hell are these women? And why is everyone

00:04:18.980 trying to sell me something? Why is every mom I see on Instagram trying to sell me something?

00:04:23.000 But when I got deeper into it, I just realized that the world of influencing is so much more

00:04:29.000 complex that really the history of mom influencers is the history of women. And if you look at it as

00:04:37.220 how women have been treated in the world and in business and marginalized in so many aspects

00:04:42.740 of human life, it really does mirror directly the world of influencing. So it went from what I

00:04:48.640 thought was going to be a saucy, sassy takedown to a really intensely reported look at the world

00:04:55.640 of influencing and how that relates to what it means to be a woman in the world today.

00:04:59.600 I love that so much because I cover influencers as part of my day job. And I think we need people

00:05:06.640 who are actually taking a serious look at this culture, at this industry. This is a

00:05:12.620 multi-billion dollar industry that most of the time in the mainstream media really only gets

00:05:16.880 mocked. Totally. We cannot ignore the creators who are creating this content because they're

00:05:21.740 also creating the content that is propping up multi-billion dollar, gazillion dollar social

00:05:27.740 media platforms. And so by ignoring it and not taking it seriously, mostly because it is mostly

00:05:33.260 created by women, I think that we're doing a huge economic disservice pretty much to the entire 0.99

00:05:39.280 country. Every Fortune 500 company is paying so much money. That's the one thing that people 1.00

00:05:46.180 always are surprised by. But you actually tried to become an influencer on your podcast.

00:05:53.120 What was that experience like? It was a really special version of hell,

00:05:57.200 to be honest. I'm a journalist. I'm so used to writing things. I also write books. I thought

00:06:03.540 that this would be incredibly easy. I'm like, you just take a picture and you write a caption

00:06:07.860 and you hashtag it and then people pay you for it. It was so hard. The gain in audience

00:06:15.120 is ridiculously difficult these days. But to have that drive to photograph every aspect of your life,

00:06:24.360 to put it out there, and then to craft these captions, which are unlike anything I'd ever

00:06:29.440 written, that have to be vaguely relatable, but also aspirational, but also confessional,

00:06:37.700 and to do that every single day, while putting out content that is mostly just your face

00:06:43.820 and your kids' faces. It's difficult, but it's also demoralizing. It makes you question

00:06:50.740 everything about who you are. And I just didn't, I didn't have it in me to try to sell my life

00:06:55.740 to the masses. That said, I gained a tremendous respect for what influencers do. They are not

00:07:01.680 just taking a picture and posting a quick caption, you know, for a couple minutes of work a day. 1.00

00:07:06.920 They're essentially creating multimedia brands, good on the women that can do it and do it well,

00:07:12.400 because it is not me. So a lot of people don't know all the intricacies of how social media 0.84

00:07:20.040 really helped fuel LuLaRoe's rise and how big of an impact MLMs have in the influencer industry as

00:07:28.280 a whole. There are a lot of top influencers who are actually MLM sellers and they do both and

00:07:36.580 they have really lucrative careers because of it. But with LuLaRoe specifically, I'm curious,

00:07:42.600 what is your impression of LuLaRoe? When did you first hear of LuLaRoe?

00:07:46.880 So I only first heard of LuLaRoe, oh, maybe a couple years ago, but only once I really started

00:07:53.440 paying a lot more attention to what was happening on Instagram. And I think it's because they were

00:07:58.360 such genius early adopters of how influencer marketing works. And frankly, so many influencers,

00:08:06.560 really the top influencers, almost all of them are working or have worked with some MLM or another,

00:08:13.940 Because frankly, when you're in it early and you're able to be one of the top sellers,

00:08:20.080 it's a really easy way to make money if you get in at the right time, right?

00:08:26.180 And I think because a lot of the bigger influencers, they're showing you so many different aspects

00:08:32.140 of their lives that you don't think about it as if they're participating in an MLM or

00:08:37.100 you're being sold into an MLM.

00:08:39.280 And I think that's what makes influencing the best kind of marketing for a company like that.

00:08:45.200 And I think one thing with LuLaRoe in particular is they were able to harness the power of social media, honestly, really before Instagram influencing was even close to what it is now.

00:08:58.020 I mean, we're talking 2014, 2015, and this was all happening on Facebook, but they were able to do

00:09:06.700 this intense influencer style marketing of their brand through these interconnected Facebook groups.

00:09:16.140 And I always found that so interesting because it is, it's selling your lifestyle. You know,

00:09:22.720 if you follow this woman on Facebook and she's posting every single day, wow, look at this

00:09:28.780 beautiful house I just built. Look at all of my nice things. Look at my Louis Vuitton. Look at my

00:09:36.220 car, you know, all of this stuff. And you follow her on Facebook and you're in her LuLaRoe group.

00:09:43.620 Why would you not join? Of course, someone is going to feel a connection that makes them

00:09:50.480 want to purchase what these people have. It's really a tale as old as time. Why have companies

00:09:56.560 used celebrities in marketing for so long? It's because people admire celebrities and want to

00:10:03.120 feel like those people are their friends. What has replaced celebrities in those advertisements

00:10:07.340 are influencers. And it's so much more intimate. They're not on your TV. They're on a screen that

00:10:12.280 lives in your pocket that you reach for when you're in the bathroom or when you're rocking

00:10:16.460 your baby to sleep. There's actually not a more intimate moment than that. And that's why you feel

00:10:22.520 such a connection to these people selling you these things. It doesn't seem crazy to me at all.

00:10:27.800 Yeah, I think a lot about LuLaRoe's aspirational lifestyle. What do you think that LuLaRoe or any

00:10:36.140 MLM is selling? Because they're not just selling power and money. They're also selling a sense of

00:10:42.640 friendship and community. LuLaRoe and a lot of the other MLMs that are very successful right now,

00:10:50.320 they're not just selling the idea of an aspirational lifestyle as we used to think of it

00:10:54.380 in terms of, oh my gosh, like look at that beautiful house, that car, I want to live that

00:10:58.360 fancy life. They're selling the idea of community and friendship and comfort and also wellness with

00:11:08.280 a capital W, all of those things, connection, things that I think women are desperately,

00:11:15.260 desperately craving today. And millennial women feel very disconnected despite being so connected

00:11:22.240 on social media because, you know, job prospects are pretty terrible these days. It's harder to

00:11:28.920 live in the same neighborhoods as your friends. You're talking to so many friends only on text

00:11:34.180 and not seeing them face to face.

00:11:36.000 And then you jump up, you know, an age group

00:11:38.840 and you have moms who are feeling more disconnected than ever

00:11:42.620 because they're stuck at home with their babies.

00:11:45.500 We have such a, you know, lack of community these days. 1.00

00:11:48.880 And so I think these women are hungry

00:11:52.300 for what LuLaRoe tried to represent

00:11:54.920 in so many of their marketing campaigns,

00:11:58.860 which is community, connection, comfort, wellness,

00:12:04.180 and friendship. I think that a lot of times when this LuLaRoe story is being told,

00:12:09.240 people just focus so much on the monetary aspect of it, and they don't talk about the lifestyle

00:12:15.380 aspect. And that's something that a lot of the women that I have interviewed always talk a lot

00:12:21.180 about to me is, you know, when I joined XYZ's LuLaRoe team, I had 50 girlfriends who I could

00:12:29.340 call up and hang out with virtually or then eventually in real life. I would do my lives

00:12:37.100 on Facebook and all of these comments would pour in from my teammates being like, you look so

00:12:42.460 amazing. And that is like so powerful. I think that is one thing that I wish people were getting

00:12:49.660 out of the LuLaRoe story a little bit more, to be honest, is it wasn't just about scamming and

00:12:55.500 money. It was about community and, you know, kind of taking advantage of this thing that people

00:13:02.240 really, really needed. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And yes, there has been a crisis of community. And

00:13:08.080 when people are able to get connected in a way that does feel organic, they're excited about it.

00:13:15.700 People ask me this a lot, too. They're like, it just seems crazy. Like LuLaRoe was a cult for

00:13:21.180 these women. I'm like, oh yeah? How many Peloton Facebook groups are you a part of, my friend? 0.99

00:13:27.080 Because I think Peloton, well, it's a totally different company, right? But they were also

00:13:33.520 marketing geniuses in saying, this isn't just an exercise bike. You're joining a community of

00:13:39.380 like-minded people. And these instructors, they care about you. They're going to do shout outs

00:13:43.920 during the ride. They're your friends. And you can ride along with your friends and then talk to

00:13:48.440 them in Instagram groups and on Facebook groups. And it's that same hunger that has driven the

00:13:54.340 success of Peloton that I think drove people to join LuLaRoe. That is so spot on. There is no

00:14:01.960 parasocial relationship like the ones I have with the Peloton instructors. I honestly sometimes

00:14:08.300 think they're actually talking to me a hundred percent. So let's talk about everyone's favorite

00:14:14.540 topic, Instagram versus reality. So one thing that I think people are always really fascinated

00:14:19.960 by with MLMs and LuLaRoe in particular, is a lot of the women were kind of faking it till they make 0.80

00:14:26.640 it and putting these veneers on Facebook being like, I love LuLaRoe, everything's great. And then 1.00

00:14:32.540 when I talked to them after they gotten out of LuLaRoe, they're like, Oh, yeah, actually,

00:14:38.200 I was miserable. When I was on the cruise, you know, posting about how much I love LuLaRoe.

00:14:42.600 I was crying in my room every single night. And you know, that kind of speaks to the whole

00:14:47.500 criticism of social media in general, which is that people can kind of only show the good side

00:14:52.920 of it. So how do you think this social media flexing kind of drove people astray to join

00:15:00.740 something that maybe they weren't prepared for? Well, the trends in social media are constantly

00:15:06.800 shifting. And until pretty recently, perfection was the name of the game on Instagram. The most

00:15:14.060 popular accounts, and frankly, still the most popular accounts, are very pristine and beautiful.

00:15:21.700 And even if sometimes the captions are confessional, I like to say it's like, you know,

00:15:27.180 they're like ugly beautiful. Like it still looks really good. You might be crying, but you have

00:15:32.540 really great fake eyelashes on while you're doing it. And your mascara definitely isn't running.

00:15:37.980 So perfection has long been the key to getting more followers and building a big brand on

00:15:46.160 Instagram. It is a fake it until you make it. And when a lot of these women were buying into

00:15:53.100 the LuLaRoe lifestyle and growing their personal brands, frankly, it's I don't think it's just a

00:15:58.860 LuLaRoe thing. It's just, do you want to grow your personal brand on Instagram? Because that will be

00:16:04.120 a way for you to make money in this brave new world of the social media economy. Okay, well,

00:16:10.560 then you have to put your best foot forward and show off your beautiful house and beautiful car

00:16:15.900 and beautiful family and beautiful body. And so I think a lot of women were driven to the brink, 0.97

00:16:22.940 trying to show off a perfect life that they definitely didn't have, because no one's life 1.00

00:16:27.800 is perfect. But, you know, the flip side of that is, again, like, I think we make it sound like so

00:16:33.140 like crazy, like, there's this fake it till you make it lifestyle. That's also all of Silicon

00:16:37.440 Valley. Look what Elizabeth Holmes just got convicted for. Like every company out there 1.00

00:16:43.500 has been like, we're gonna pretend that we are amazing until we are. And a lot of times you fail

00:16:53.360 at that. And a lot of influencers failed at that. One final thing on the fake it till you make it

00:16:57.700 thing. There's been a lot of talk and thought about this hashtag because of LuLaRoe. And it's

00:17:04.340 such an interesting social media thing that LuLaRoe rather geniusly implemented that whenever

00:17:11.260 you posted something that was a huge win in your financial or emotional or personal life

00:17:16.760 that you felt like was because of your LuLaRoe business, you would put this hashtag on it. So

00:17:21.660 then if you scroll the hashtag because of LuLaRoe on Instagram or Facebook, it's just cars and

00:17:28.180 clothes and houses. I saw one woman posted that she felt like she only was able to adopt her

00:17:34.100 daughter because of LuLaRoe. What do you think about the marketing genius of this hashtag and

00:17:41.160 what it sold to women? It is honestly one of the best marketing hashtags that a company has ever

00:17:50.140 created. It really is. They were doing it long before I think a lot of other companies were

00:17:55.180 doing it. That created such an aspirational tsunami for so many women. And again, two groups 0.96

00:18:04.460 of women that I want to say I think were very vulnerable to this company and to this kind of

00:18:11.020 MLM. We're looking at millennial women who, as I said before, the job market has been terrible

00:18:17.460 for the past few years. 0.98

00:18:20.020 Getting a job is awful, and then rising in a job

00:18:23.580 and making a living wage these days,

00:18:26.900 even with a college degree, 1.00

00:18:28.300 has been so hard for millennial women. 1.00

00:18:31.620 And then you have the other group of women, 0.94

00:18:33.080 which is youngish moms, both millennial 1.00

00:18:36.340 and a little bit of Gen X, 1.00

00:18:38.540 who it's real hard to work when you're a mom. 0.93

00:18:41.100 It is really hard to support your family and make money,

00:18:43.420 and you still want to contribute,

00:18:45.160 but society doesn't make that entirely easy

00:18:48.240 when you look at the cost of childcare.

00:18:50.280 So of course they're like, oh my gosh, 1.00

00:18:52.860 look at these other women doing it. 1.00

00:18:54.200 I can do it too. 0.97

00:18:55.520 It's so brilliant because it was not the company

00:18:57.840 getting up there and saying,

00:18:59.280 if you work for us, you'll get a car

00:19:01.920 and you'll get a car and you'll get a house. 0.97

00:19:03.580 They got the other women to say it.

00:19:06.180 And that is what made it feel so intimate

00:19:08.880 and so accessible.

00:19:15.160 I always think a lot about how MLMs have been so supercharged with social media.

00:19:37.080 Obviously, MLM has been around for a long time, right?

00:19:40.140 Avon Lady, all of that kind of stuff.

00:19:42.040 but it wasn't until they really started taking off on Facebook that I feel like they really got

00:19:49.040 their foothold into my generation. How do you think social media platforms really just lit a

00:19:56.480 fire for MLMs among young Gen X and millennial women? I think that for a long time, MLMs seemed

00:20:04.160 like something in the not so distant past. It seemed like something, oh, maybe I know someone's

00:20:11.320 older mom or grandma that did that, that sold Avon or Mary Kay or Tupperware. But they just

00:20:17.980 did not seem to be a big part of my consciousness. I'm a 41 year old woman until they really caught

00:20:25.040 fire on social media. And I think that's because they really evolved from something that felt like

00:20:31.700 a lot of housewives sitting around having a party talking about, you know, what containers would

00:20:37.500 keep what food as fresh as you wanted it for as long as possible into the more visual sexier medium 1.00

00:20:46.420 on social media. But also social media is where so many people were going to connect for the past

00:20:53.620 15 years. It's where you were having your book club. It's where PTA moms would get together,

00:21:00.800 but then also where dudes would get together to talk about Dungeons and Dragons or women would 0.99

00:21:05.800 go to get beauty tips or watch tutorials on how to bake something, how to put on a certain kind

00:21:12.140 of eye makeup. It's where we're going for everything else. And the fact that MLMs figure

00:21:17.080 that out really early on and got in and got in with, you know, also figuring out how to exploit

00:21:25.400 this demand and need for community, I think is what made them start to take off again recently,

00:21:32.560 just in the past decade. Yeah, I think we all have been on the receiving end of a Facebook

00:21:39.000 message from a random person from high school asking us to join. Did you see any of that in

00:21:44.760 your personal life? What are some other MLMs that you've seen really supercharged by Facebook?

00:21:49.860 Oh, yeah, yeah. The ones I saw the most on Facebook, probably, and I'm not on Facebook

00:21:54.220 as much except for work now. But I do remember about five years ago, it was by these vitamin

00:22:01.860 supplements or this belly fat buster. And then really, my feed was mostly and still is a lot

00:22:09.960 of beauty counter. And I cannot tell you how many women reach out to me on a very regular basis, 0.98

00:22:15.720 women that either still have or did have very high powered jobs that are like, I'm a beauty

00:22:21.180 counter rep. And at first, it's like, I think you'll love these things. And then it starts to

00:22:25.020 get desperate. It's like, I have to make my quota for this month, you have to buy this from me. And

00:22:28.540 I'm like, oh my God, I don't want this tinted moisturizer.

00:22:32.060 I'm all filled up on tinted moisturizer,

00:22:34.000 but then I feel so guilty.

00:22:35.920 Yeah, for me, it was Rodan and Fields.

00:22:39.220 There was a lot of skincare selling coming my way. 1.00

00:22:42.700 So let's move on to moms specifically

00:22:46.260 because we've been talking about them a little bit,

00:22:49.060 but moms were obviously a huge demographic for LuLaRoe.

00:22:53.340 I think you really hit the nail on the head

00:22:56.020 when you said these are young moms who are looking for a way to bring an income. Because 0.99

00:23:01.800 unfortunately, a lot of times when people have their first baby, they crunch the numbers,

00:23:07.880 they look at their paycheck, and then they look at the cost of daycare. And they say,

00:23:12.180 wow, I'm only bringing in $100 a month, or I'm actually losing money because I'm not making

00:23:18.720 enough to even pay for daycare. And so one thing that LuLaRoe really did emphasize was you're not

00:23:26.940 gonna be working full time. And when you are working, you know, you can watch your kids

00:23:31.640 simultaneously, you know, your, your child can be in their bouncer, they can be watching

00:23:36.940 Cocoa Melon or something while you are doing your work. And so you won't need to pay for

00:23:42.960 childcare, but you will still be making that money. And it's interesting and really dovetails

00:23:49.160 with your work. So I'm curious why you focused on moms and what was your biggest surprise you

00:23:57.440 found in your reporting on mom and mom influencers? You know, I chose to focus on mom influencers

00:24:02.840 for a lot of reasons. One, I was a new mom. It felt like something that was very, very close to

00:24:10.960 my life at the time. Two, it felt way more ignored than other aspects of influencing like beauty

00:24:18.440 and fashion influencing. Again, because I think that our society tends to write off women, 0.92

00:24:24.760 but particularly women once they've had children. And three, because I feel like there's such a

00:24:29.980 vulnerable population to get sucked into the world of influencing. And when I say that,

00:24:36.160 I also mean into the world of MLMs. Moms are treated terribly in our society. We've seen that 1.00

00:24:43.640 during the pandemic. We're not given the social support system that we need. And the majority of

00:24:50.220 jobs are not set up so that moms can do their work, but also care for their children or pay

00:24:58.320 the astronomical cost of childcare in this country, in a country where childcare is neither

00:25:05.060 subsidized nor tax deductible. So I know so many women, so many women who had climbed to the top

00:25:11.740 of their damn careers, who after they had a child, one, realized that they would be making no money 0.87

00:25:19.020 once they deducted daycare costs, but two, realized that very few companies are at all 0.99

00:25:26.740 conducive or flexible when it comes to caring for a child. It's such an antiquated working system

00:25:33.880 that was created for men with wives who stayed at home. 1.00

00:25:37.580 So moms are particularly vulnerable 1.00

00:25:40.720 and desperate to find ways, not just to make money. 1.00

00:25:44.500 Like, yes, moms want to help support their families. 1.00

00:25:47.520 A lot of moms have to support their families.

00:25:49.700 But also to find a new sense of purpose. 1.00

00:25:53.960 Women want to work. 1.00

00:25:55.260 They want to feel like they're doing something productive. 1.00

00:25:58.060 So if someone comes along and says,

00:26:00.800 hey, you can still make really great money, but you've got flexible hours and you can do it from

00:26:07.400 home and you can do it when your kids are around. It feels like an angel has come down directly from

00:26:12.460 heaven. And that is why so many moms are very sucked into the world of influencing, but also 1.00

00:26:18.660 very vulnerable when an MLM like Lula Rowe comes knocking. And that's kind of, you know, what we 1.00

00:26:23.960 were saying before, which is I get why you would be sucked in. You know, you see everything on

00:26:29.120 social media. And then you believe in yourself. You believe that you can do it. You believe that,

00:26:35.340 you know, if you just try hard enough that you'll be a success. And it's really, it's really sad

00:26:41.980 because I think it is preying on this really impossible situation that women today are in.

00:26:49.760 And it really puts the onus too on the woman where it's like, if you can't do this, it's your fault.

00:26:55.660 It's not fair at all. It's terrible. And the onus is always on the woman. It's like,

00:26:59.520 if you can't do it, it's not because society doesn't provide subsidized child care or because

00:27:05.380 absolutely no careers are flexible to a mother's needs. No, you are just a failure. 0.99

00:27:12.320 One of the phenomenons that I'm really, really interested in, which I have a feeling that you

00:27:15.980 might be interested in too, are these MLM sellers who are at the top of their MLM. You know,

00:27:24.640 there are women who have half a million followers and they really kind of came up as the same time

00:27:32.160 as skyrocketing to the top of their MLM and also skyrocketing to kind of the pinnacle of becoming 0.98

00:27:39.220 a mom influencer. And I find it so fascinating because they're kind of the pinnacle of what

00:27:46.680 we're talking about, where they're able to use their lifestyle as an influencer to make

00:27:52.240 $2 million a year, I think, with some of them off of their MLM company. And I'm curious if you think

00:28:00.480 that this is going to become a bigger thing where even more influencers are going to have these two

00:28:06.340 revenue streams where they can do both at the same time. And what are the pressures involved in,

00:28:12.980 you know, running an MLM and running an influencer career? Because it seems like a lot to me.

00:28:18.400 I actually don't know if you can be incredibly successful anymore or if you'll continue to be

00:28:25.580 successful running an MLM if you don't have a great social media following. I think that so

00:28:32.460 much of this marketing and the direct to consumer selling is done on social media now that you have

00:28:40.200 to build a really strong personal brand on social media in order to be successful at an MLM. I think

00:28:48.360 that that's now, but really becoming a prerequisite. But it is a lot of pressure to grow, but then

00:28:55.440 also to keep followers. I talk to influencers all the time who say, I just edit the hell out of

00:29:01.920 myself. I can't post what my life is really like or what I really think, or I'm going to lose

00:29:07.800 followers. I talked to a woman yesterday who said, I can't post what I really think about people

00:29:13.920 getting vaccinated or about COVID. When I did, I lost 10,000 followers in a single day.

00:29:20.900 And so I think that that's exhausting. And it's so much pressure to constantly be putting only

00:29:27.780 your best face forward, which is just incredibly psychologically damaging. I've talked to so many

00:29:35.020 influencers who have had their mental health deteriorate, who've had intense weight loss

00:29:41.600 and eating disorders, all from trying to create the perfection needed to keep their brand going

00:29:47.380 in order to then work with other brands or to sell products for an MLM to keep the money coming in.

00:29:53.860 It's all a house of cards is what it is. I always say that it's not hard to get followers. It is

00:30:00.860 hard to get followers. Don't get me wrong, but it's way harder to maintain them. So I'm curious

00:30:06.820 if you have any thoughts on the future of MLMs when it comes to social media, because

00:30:12.320 basically right after there was this huge push for MLMs on social media, we got the anti-MLM

00:30:18.620 campaign. And now, you know, Gen Z is very attuned to MLMs. It's very mocked on TikTok.

00:30:25.880 How do you think social media will continue to evolve in selling this stuff? Or do you think

00:30:31.340 that eventually people aren't going to buy into it anymore? I think that MLM has kind of become

00:30:37.520 a dirty word, especially in the past year. And influencers are absolutely downplaying

00:30:42.960 how much what they're selling is involved in an MLM. Companies don't want to be called an MLM,

00:30:49.380 obviously, but I think that they're just going to find ways to get around that, you know,

00:30:54.540 to skirt the fact that that is what they are and find new buzzwords and new codes to

00:31:00.520 get these products in consumers' hands and get the influencers getting these products in consumers'

00:31:05.040 hands. But I absolutely think that there is huge backlash against appearing that you're this kind

00:31:11.440 of company and that brands will do anything that they can to try to dissuade people from believing

00:31:18.280 that they're buying into an MLM. Yeah, you mentioned Beauty Counter earlier, and I've

00:31:23.000 actually written a piece about how a lot of kind of old school, like healthy living bloggers were

00:31:30.960 selling beauty counter at one point. And I was like, this is just out of left field, but it was

00:31:36.340 very different than what you would see with say a LuLaRoe five years ago. You know, it was very

00:31:42.360 subtle. There was not a lot of recruiting going on. There wasn't a lot of people saying,

00:31:47.300 Hey, join my team. It was more of just like, I love these products that, you know, like a typical

00:31:51.160 influencer. And then, you know, you kind of have to go on the website and look around and see and

00:31:55.600 be like, Oh, wow, this is this is a multiple marketing company. I had no idea. One final

00:32:00.240 thought I have here is I keep thinking about how you've said so many things about how easy it is

00:32:06.080 to fall into this multiple marketing lifestyle. If you are a woman who wants to have it all who 0.94

00:32:11.540 wants to stay home, and I can't help thinking about the pandemic and how it's been so hard on

00:32:17.480 mothers, especially our primary caregivers, especially, do you think that we're going to

00:32:21.820 see even more of these companies targeting moms who are in this situation? And what can moms do 1.00

00:32:28.000 to kind of make sure that these business opportunities that they're getting are actually 1.00

00:32:31.940 legit? There's a lot more companies emerging right now, mostly women run that are trying 1.00

00:32:38.300 to help regulate the industry. Fuck you, pay me is trying to be the glass door of the influencing 1.00

00:32:44.420 world, but so much of the onus is always going to fall on women to do their due diligence and 1.00

00:32:50.620 find out who they're working for, what their background is, and what their motivations are 1.00

00:32:56.240 before they commit to working with them. It's on you. You have to do that research and you have to

00:33:02.420 reach down deep inside you and think about who do I want to be working for? We're talking a lot

00:33:07.460 about this on the new season of Under the Influence. Influencers make a lot of money on Instagram.

00:33:13.020 Some of them do.

00:33:13.940 Some of them make no money.

00:33:15.300 But the people that are really getting rich

00:33:17.160 are the investors and executives at Facebook and Instagram.

00:33:23.400 Most of them are men,

00:33:24.780 and they're getting rich on the backs 0.99

00:33:26.880 of millions of women creators. 1.00

00:33:30.140 And that's wrong. 1.00

00:33:31.200 And frankly, women need to think about 1.00

00:33:33.460 what power they do have 1.00

00:33:36.120 and who's making money off what they're creating

00:33:38.740 and their power.

00:33:39.760 And that's one of the things

00:33:40.440 that we're hoping to help people realize.

00:33:42.760 Absolutely.

00:33:43.620 And I think the only way that people are going to be able to have that knowledge is journalists

00:33:49.420 like yourself who are actually thinking critically about these issues and who are reporting on

00:33:54.520 them and putting media out about them.

00:33:56.820 So I really appreciate the work that you're doing and really appreciate you coming on.

00:34:00.940 So thank you so much for sharing with us.

00:34:03.380 And thank you for having me.

00:34:04.300 This has been so much fun.

00:34:05.400 the rise and fall of lula row is a discovery plus podcast from discovery our executive producer is

00:34:15.700 michael de salvo from buzzfeed our executive producer is carolina butzlaviak special thanks

00:34:22.200 to shelly sinha at discovery samantha hennig and richard allen reed at buzzfeed and pete ross at

00:34:28.240 left, right. Our show is produced by Neon Hum Media. Jonathan Hirsch and Sharon Morris are

00:34:35.420 the executive producers. Our lead producer is Muna Danish. Associate producer is Rufaro Faith.

00:34:42.680 Our production manager is Samantha Allison. Sound design and engineering from Mark Bush.

00:34:48.100 Our theme music is from Epidemic Sound. See you next week.

00:34:58.240 Thank you.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - March 06, 2022

Introducing： The Rise and Fall of LulaRoe

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