The Cruel Optimism of Multi-Level Marketing
Behind the Material Girls Episode: Tupperware Parties x Cruel Optimism
from Marcelle
In Season 1 Episode 8 of Schitt’s Creek, two of the show’s main characters (Moira and her (adult) son David) attempt to boost their family’s precarious finances by buying into Allez-Vous cosmetics, a multilevel marketing “opportunity” introduced to Moira by a friend from her former life as super-rich socialite. To be clear, Moira and David aren’t duped by Allez-Vous; they recognize the tell-tale signs of a pyramid scheme five minutes into the introductory video, like the vague and misleading income math and circular talking points. “It’s because it’s a scam,” asserts Moira. “But if your father’s willing to go out there and sell his soul, dear, the least we can do is try to sell this garbage.”
Like savvy entrepreneurs, Moira and David invite the women of Schitt’s Creek for champagne and hors d'oeuvres in an effort to dupe them into buying Allez-Vous cosmetics. After all, the first step in any multilevel marketing scheme is duping someone into buying the “garbage.” Unfortunately for Moira and David, Allez-Vous had already swept through Schitt’s Creek several years earlier and according to Jocelyn (an “executive area manager” for Allez-Vous), so many people in the community got on board that “it became literally impossible to climb the ladder.” Moira and David thus find themselves trying to sell Allez-Vous cosmetics to a room full of existing Allez-Vous “consultants.”
This episode draws the viewer’s attention to what Lauren Berlant would describe as a scene of cruel optimism. Berlant writes that “optimism is cruel when the object/scene that ignites a sense of possibility actually makes it impossible to attain the expansive transformation for which a person … risks striving” (2). Even though Moira recognizes Allez-Vous as a scam, the multilevel marketing scheme ignites a feeling of possibility for her and David; it is possible, they are told, to become rich selling these cosmetics. But because the conditions necessary to become rich by selling Allez-Vous are impossible to meet, Moira and David’s efforts are futile.
The humour of the episode rests in the fact that the entire town has already learned its lesson about (or rather, experienced the cruel optimism of) Allez-Vous, and Moira and David find themselves learning it in front of an audience. What I appreciate about the episode, as with the series in general, is that it doesn’t seek to humiliate viewers who have themselves been duped by such a scene of cruel optimism. Jocelyn, the aforementioned “executive area manager” level consultant, is warm and empathetic as she cautions Moira and David about getting involved with Allez-Vous. Neither she, nor any of the other attendees, appear angry that Moira and David would try to recruit them into the Allez-Vous scam. Their compassion throughout the exchange suggests to me that they understand the allure of the pyramid scheme, having all fallen victim to it themselves, and do not begrudge the mother and son for trying to pull themselves out of their new and bewildering poverty as quickly as possible.
We have probably all encountered a multilevel marketing firm (hereafter MLM) at some point or another. I certainly grew up using my grandma’s Tupperware; I remember my mom hosting at least one Pampered Chef party; and, as you’ll hear in our episode (and our Coach’s Corner bonus on Patreon), sex toy parties were in vogue when I was an undergrad. As a potential customer, the direct-sales of Tupperware, Pampered Chef, and especially sex toys can be a great way to examine products in person, in the comfort of a living room, and make an informed purchase. To be honest, I have one MLM sourced product that I still use almost daily (it’s a can opener, you perverts). The problem with MLMs isn’t necessarily the products (though they can certainly be a huge problem). According to Jane Marie, whose book on the topic Selling the Dream: The Billion-Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans I absolutely devoured, the problem is that the pyramidal structure of MLMs makes it virtually impossible for sellers to earn a stable income—let alone a living wage—unless they are at the top of the pyramid. But as Marie explains, the people at the top are typically the owners and very early registrants” (7), not the folks passing a glass dildo around a room full of twenty-year-olds. That’s because with MLMs you don’t make money selling products; you make money by recruiting other sales people.
Let’s use Tupperware as an example. The chart below is the company’s income disclosure from 2022—it’s the same chart we discussed in our episode. Let’s suspend our disbelief and imagine that $38,000 (I’m guessing CAD) is a fair annual income. In order to make that approximate income, a “consultant” for Tupperware would need to level up to “Director” status; looking at the chart, how realistic is that degree of advancement?
I may have only gotten a B- in my undergraduate statistics class (maybe I should have skipped some of those sex toy parties and stayed home to study), but I’m pretty confident that omitting 57.87% of Tupperware consultant income is a wildly misleading way to analyze this data. So, for this exercise, I insist that we use the inclusive numbers I’ve highlighted in the column labeled “Percent of Participants.” According to Tupperware’s own income disclosure for 2022, less than a quarter of one percent of salespeople reached the “Director” level. In real numbers, that means 211 people earned an average of $38,000. By contrast, 54,190 people (that’s more than half of Tupperware’s 91,647 “consultants”) didn’t even earn enough money to be counted as “active.” And Tupperware, I can’t stress this enough, is considered a successful and legitimate MLM.
Our Material Girls episode focused specifically on Tupperware rather than on the ubiquity of MLMs, but it’s worth noting that MLMs are everywhere and the harm they cause is something of a cultural trope. In addition to the Schitt’s Creek episode I discussed above, you might have seen the show On Becoming a God in Central Florida, or read the novel Pebble and Dove, or seen the pyramid scheme episodes of King of the Hill (“Bill of Sales”), Bob’s Burgers (“Lorenzo's Oil? No, Linda's”), or any of the multiple references on The Simpsons (for example, see the episodes “I Married Marge”; “Werking Mom”; and “Bart’s in Jail”). Hannah and I even talked in our episode about the ways academia has taken on a pyramidal structure—like, who decided it was acceptable to saddle multiple generations with tens (sometimes hundreds!) of thousands of dollars of debt before age thirty?
There are supposed to be legal distinctions between MLMs and their fraudulent siblings known as pyramid schemes. But Marie (and again I simply must beg you to read her book) makes the very helpful point that, since they all work in the same way, an MLM is taken for granted to be a legitimate business unless the Federal Trade Commission rules its business practice to be fraudulent, and only then is an MLM relabeled a pyramid scheme (256). That’s outrageous, right? The difference between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” MLM models is non-existent!
Hannah and I talked about this in our episode, too. I tried to find clear language around the legal distinction(s) between pyramid schemes and “legitimate” MLMs. The Office of the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, has an entire page dedicated to this and seemed like a legit source. The page’s headline, “Don't Get Caught in a Pyramid Scheme,” suggested to me that therein I would find clear distinctions, or at least tips that potential recruits should watch for. I was unsatisfied. You can visit the page yourself, but here is a chunk that I asked Hannah to read for the episode [MY INTERJECTIONS ARE IN ALL-CAPS]:
A legitimate multi-level marketing company emphasizes reliable products or services [BUT THEY ALL CLAIM THEIR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES ARE RELIABLE]. A pyramid scheme uses products or services to disguise its quest for collecting money from the investors on the bottom levels to pay other investors further up the pyramid.
In a typical pyramid scheme, new investors must pay a fee for the right to sell the products or services as well as for the right to recruit others into the pyramid for rewards unrelated to product sales or services [BUT TO JOIN AN MLM YOU MAY HAVE TO BUY “STARTER KITS” OR SOME AMOUNT OF PRODUCT TO USE IN YOUR OWN SALES]. Very often the products or services the victim must buy are unsalable, and the pyramid's promoters refuse to repurchase them. On the other hand, legitimate multi-level marketing companies will buy back unsold merchandise, although often at a discount from the original price.
Success in multi-level marketing is based on two factors: product and service quality, and the hard work involved in being able to sell the products or services. Recruitment of new investors is secondary. [THIS IS AMERICAN-DREAM HOT NONSENSE!!!]
Remember that in order to advance your career level selling Tupperware, an iconic example of a legitimate MLM selling a quality product, you need to recruit more sellers. The income disclosure chart shows us that you cannot make “Director”-level income selling the products alone. To suggest that “Recruitment of new investors is secondary” for Tupperware career advancement is laughable. Alternatively, are we really expected to believe that the six “Executive Directors” of Tupperware earned an average of $355,000 by selling food storage containers? How many Thirst 'N Go Flip Tumblers does that work out to?
I just… I just think MLMs are fundamentally exploitative businesses that use manipulative tactics (like calling their employees “consultants”) to get around basic labour laws. I know this isn’t a particularly hot take because capitalism is itself a fundamentally exploitative mode of production, but oh my god the pyramidal structure requires that new employees (“consultants”) lose money—that’s actually how the business model is designed! How is this allowed?
Marie’s book goes into rich (pun intended!) detail about the power of the MLM lobby in the US. She carefully illustrates the relationships between powerful politicians in the American government with some of the country’s most influential MLMs. The chapter “Why Isn’t Anyone Doing Anything” is a splendid example of investigative journalism and if you only read one chapter of the book, you should read that one.
I really want to believe that as a society we’re getting close to pulling the clown mask off of capitalism and revealing it for the monstrous system of exploitation that it is—but the ease with which people are drawn to MLMs, and the absolute lack of recourse for those who get swindled, tells me that we’re far from there. It seems appropriate, then, to close with another quote from Berlant that causes me to reflect on my paltry hope for an economic revolution: “optimism might not feel optimistic,” they write.
Because optimism is ambitious, at any moment it might feel like anything, including nothing: dread, anxiety, hunger, curiosity, … excitement at the prospect of “the change that’s gonna come.” … Whatever the experience of optimism is in particular, then, the affective structure of an optimistic attachment involves a sustaining inclination to return to the scene of fantasy that enables you to expect that this time, nearness to this thing will help you or a world to become different in just the right way. (2)
Works Cited
Berlant, Lauren. Cruel Optimism. Duke University Press, 2011.
Fox, Paul, dir. 2015. Schitt’s Creek. Season 1, episode 8, "Allez-Vous." March 25 2015, on CBC Television.
Marie, Jane. 2024. Selling the Dream: The Billion-Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans. Atria Books.
Morgon, Brittany. 2023. “Herbalife: Dangerous Products and Deceptive Marketing Practices.” June 17, 2023. https://www.brittanymorgon.com/blog/herbalife-honest-review.
“Pyramid Schemes.” 2024. New York State Attorney General. https://ag.ny.gov/pyramid-schemes. Accessed May 30, 2024.