Today’s blog post is going to explore the words MLMers
use to deceive potential recruits as they pitch their MLM “business
opportunity”. Words, at face value, are codes designed to transfer a thought
from one person’s brain to another. They are an agreed upon set of characters
in a specific order which translates into a concept. Words do not have
emotions, they do not have thoughts, they do not have tone, but rather they are
a vessel in which people can convey the aforementioned from their head to
another’s. By putting words in a specific order, and using a voice inflection,
you can make a particular word(s) have a variety of different meanings, which
is the reason language is considered an art.
Even the simplest of phrases can be interpreted in a variety of different ways, and a sentence can only make sense if both people agree upon the meaning. A basic example could be the phrase, “How are you doing today?”. Depending on the person that comes from, the voice inflection they use, and what part of the world they are from, this phrase can be interpreted many ways. If you have an intimate relationship with the other person, then you may respond in kind and tell them how you are doing that day. If you do not have an intimate relationship with the person, then you may respond with a short answer, such as, “Good”, and then move into the next subject. If the person says the phrase sarcastically, then they may not actually care to know how you are and would rather have you ask them what is wrong. Again, it is all about context with words, not the actual words themselves.
This brings me to the words
MLMers use to manipulate their downlines and potential recruits. Because MLMers
use words to obfuscate reality when they are pitching the “business
opportunity”, the obfuscation must continue throughout the duration of a person’s
involvement within the MLM. This leads to an alternate reality in which a core
MLM believer cannot relate to the reality of others and causes them to break
away from the rest of their community. A professional MLM wordsmith will be
able to spin anything to suit their narrative and will work diligently to
dispel any potential outside interference that could result in an MLMer having
doubt. MLMers use their words as a form of unrelenting control over their
members; this type of control is necessary to keep MLMers involved in the
“business”.
So, let’s review some of the ways in which MLMers use
their words to deceive people into believing their “business opportunity” is
good:
1. You can make money working MLM part-time, and it can be a great source to subsidize your monthly income.
Answer: MLM has historically been a terrible investment of time and money. Whether you work part-time or full-time at MLM, there is an over 99% chance you will not make a return on investment. For every one person that was able to accomplish this, close to a thousand were not. Therefore, it is not accurate to suggest a person can make money at MLM part-time, when, according to the statistics, it is a mathematical certainty a person will fail.
2. “Corporate America” is a pyramid. There is a CEO, then there are general managers, then there are supervisors, and finally employees.
Answer: The pyramid shape of a business does not equate to it being a pyramid scheme. The structure of the business model is not the same as the structure of a compensation plan. It is an unfortunate coincidence that the two share the same shape, but fundamentally, there is nothing else they have in common. If the money is earned through the sales of goods or services to people outside of the business, then that is a legitimate business model. If the money is earned through a series of recruiting and purchases from members within the business, then that is a pyramid scheme.
1. You can make money working MLM part-time, and it can be a great source to subsidize your monthly income.
Answer: MLM has historically been a terrible investment of time and money. Whether you work part-time or full-time at MLM, there is an over 99% chance you will not make a return on investment. For every one person that was able to accomplish this, close to a thousand were not. Therefore, it is not accurate to suggest a person can make money at MLM part-time, when, according to the statistics, it is a mathematical certainty a person will fail.
2. “Corporate America” is a pyramid. There is a CEO, then there are general managers, then there are supervisors, and finally employees.
Answer: The pyramid shape of a business does not equate to it being a pyramid scheme. The structure of the business model is not the same as the structure of a compensation plan. It is an unfortunate coincidence that the two share the same shape, but fundamentally, there is nothing else they have in common. If the money is earned through the sales of goods or services to people outside of the business, then that is a legitimate business model. If the money is earned through a series of recruiting and purchases from members within the business, then that is a pyramid scheme.
3. Running an MLM
business is easy. You will have a mentor that will teach you the process of
duplication.
Answer: This is coded language for saying you will have a member that came before you, commonly referred to as an upline, teach you the “business opportunity” pitch, then release you to the world and have you “duplicate” by finding new people to be pitched the “business opportunity”. This process will repeat ad infinitum until there are no people left, the business collapses, or the business is shut down by the law. If someone ever approaches you about a “duplication” opportunity, then they are trying to recruit you into an endless chain program (commonly referred to as a pyramid scheme).
Answer: This is coded language for saying you will have a member that came before you, commonly referred to as an upline, teach you the “business opportunity” pitch, then release you to the world and have you “duplicate” by finding new people to be pitched the “business opportunity”. This process will repeat ad infinitum until there are no people left, the business collapses, or the business is shut down by the law. If someone ever approaches you about a “duplication” opportunity, then they are trying to recruit you into an endless chain program (commonly referred to as a pyramid scheme).
These examples are just
a small portion of the many ways in which MLMers use their words to create
mental gymnastics for their recruits. MLMers will also use “buzz words”
designed to create imagery within a person’s head. Some examples include,
dreams, freedom, wealth, religion, marriage, and friendship. These words are
used as a specific tool to transport someone from the “business opportunity”
to a ideological utopian world . The relationship between these "buzz words"and MLM are antithetical,
and yet, MLMers will use language to manipulate the "buzz words" into suiting their narrative.
Here are some examples in which MLMers use "buzz words" incorrectly to create imagery of MLM that doesn't exist:
Here are some examples in which MLMers use "buzz words" incorrectly to create imagery of MLM that doesn't exist:
1. MLM will bring you closer to the dreams, freedom, and lifestyle you deserve. MLMs will give you opportunities a "traditional job" cannot.
Answer: MLMs have the highest failure rates of any business. MLMs have almost never given people their dreams, this excludes the creators and "master distributors", and the freedom MLMs give comes at a heavy cost. MLMers may be able to wake up whenever they want, but they better have a great income, or they will find that their MLM freedom will lead them to destitution.
Answer: MLMs have the highest failure rates of any business. MLMs have almost never given people their dreams, this excludes the creators and "master distributors", and the freedom MLMs give comes at a heavy cost. MLMers may be able to wake up whenever they want, but they better have a great income, or they will find that their MLM freedom will lead them to destitution.
2. MLMs hold Christian values and are able to bring more than money to members. They will have a "business" by helping others, which is both profitable and good for the community.
Answer: MLMs violate multiple commandments, and they do not help people become closer with God. MLMers will worship their uplines and MLM creators, they will not remember the Sabbath, but rather force you to attend a seminar, they will make you choose uplines over your mother and father, they will lie to you about the "business opportunity", they are covetous of others. MLM leaders are not only bad religious actors, but bad people as well.
Answer: MLMs violate multiple commandments, and they do not help people become closer with God. MLMers will worship their uplines and MLM creators, they will not remember the Sabbath, but rather force you to attend a seminar, they will make you choose uplines over your mother and father, they will lie to you about the "business opportunity", they are covetous of others. MLM leaders are not only bad religious actors, but bad people as well.
3. MLMs help keep marriages together, unlike "traditional jobs" that force spouses to be separated for many hours a day.
Answer: MLMs force marriages to go through a large number of problems. First, if only one spouse is interested in the MLM, the MLMer may suggest it is important to put the MLM before the spouse. Second, MLM is a money sink, since between 95-99% of all MLMers do not make money, and therefore can put a financial strain on a marriage. Third, MLMs require participation at odd hours and in strange places. Sure, you may both be in attendance, but you aren't focusing on your marriage, but rather recruitment of new members to the MLM. Most MLMers don't want to be spending their free time away from children to go show people the "plan", and they are not recruited based on the "opportunity" to present the "business" together.
4. MLM will introduce you to a group of people that will be your friends, family, neighbors, lovers, and anything else they need you to be.
Answer: This is the strangest part of MLM. It is supposed to be a "business opportunity" about making money, but they are heavily involved with the personal lives of their members. This is where the obfuscation between business and pleasure becomes an issue, and it is part of the reason people refer to MLMs as cults.
To reiterate, MLMers are expert wordsmiths that use language as a weapon to convert unsuspecting and uninformed people to their programs. They will approach people inappropriately, such as at a shopping mart with their family, at a restaurant or coffee shop, or at a "traditional job", and they will prey on people in vulnerable positions. They will use their words to distort the "business opportunity" and use reality-inverting jargon to create a narrative that doesn't exist. They are psychological black-belts that have been trained in the dark arts of the confidence game.
The best way to defend oneself against the linguistic weaponry of MLMers is to question them at every point. Hold them accountable for the words they use, and make sure you are understanding everything they are saying. Don't let them make claims without a form of evidence, and don't let them use rhetoric as a means of efficacy. Most MLMers will fall apart once they realize their prospect isn't going to be an unquestioning pawn for recruitment.
Dear Dr. Doe --
ReplyDeleteIt is of course true that MLM promoters misuse language, either by sugar-coating plain facts or by simple lying. No argument there.
But you are wrong to think of words as neutral carriers of meaning, like a pail that carries water. It's more complex than that. Every common word has a strictly literal and denotative meaning, to be sure. If I say "pencil," no one who speaks English is going to have any difficulty knowing what I'm talking about.
But many words have something beyond their literal or denotative meaning. This is what linguists call "connotation," or an oblique and sometimes uncertain semantic weight that impinges upon the word's actual meaning and sometimes even alters and subverts it.
A common example is the word "bitch," which in its ordinary sense refers simply to a female dog. A dog-breeder can say "I have a fine Labrador bitch for sale." But the word has taken on a very charged connotation, and is very frequently employed as a term of contempt for a nasty, unpleasant woman. Will you find that connotative meaning listed in the dictionary? Yes, sometimes. But not always.
If you learn a foreign language, you usually have to find out about a given word's connotation from a native speaker who will explain it to you. Connotations are often unspoken, hidden, or subject to dispute. It can get you into real trouble if you use a word without being aware of what connotation it might carry to native speakers of the language. My favorite example is when the head of some small African nation held a major reception for the young Queen of England, who had come with her retinue on a state visit. He vaguely remembered that when Englishmen made a toast, they said something like "Bottoms up!" However, the African didn't remember that phrase properly, and toasted the Queen by saying
"Your Majesty, up your bottom!"
The problem, of course, is that the word "bottom" doesn't just have the denotative meaning of "the lower section of an object," but also has the connotative meaning of someone's ass. But English wasn't the African's native tongue, and he didn't know this.
How does all this relate to MLMs? Well, the tendency in these rackets is to create new words (or refashion regular words) that carry an unspoken connotative weight that has a special cultic significance to members. A prime example is the horrible term "partnering," which Amway freaks use to refer to an utterly nonexistent relationship between Amway and large, prestigious corporations.
If you try to analyze it, the term "partnering" means nothing at all. If I marry a girl, am I "partnering" with her? If I share a taxicab with someone, am I "partnering" with him? No -- the word has been created purely as a form of deception. It's designed to suggest that Amway is a business partner with big corporations (corporations that merely allow Amway to sell a few of their products to IBOs).
Another term is "mentoring." The real meaning of the word is to carefully teach and watch over a disciple or apprentice, helping him to master a trade or a profession or a religious system. An older scholar mentors a young student. An experienced doctor mentors an intern. A prior in a monastery mentors young postulants who wish to enter the order. An Indian guru mentors those disciples who have come to him for religious knowledge. When Amway freaks use the word, all they are attempting is to capture the sacred aura of the word's meaning, and attach it to something stupid, like pushing soap products on your neighbors, and getting them to do the same.
To continue:
ReplyDeleteThe worst example is the completely fake and made-up word "prosuming." God only knows what it means. No one that I know has ever been able to explain it in any rational or coherent manner. But MLM devotees use it like a mantra, to refer to some revolutionary new method of buying and selling. Because the word is new, silly people think that it must be something powerful and cutting-edge.
Another is the oft-repeated phrase "Do your research!" I can't count how many times Amway and other MLM partisans have screamed that at anyone who dares to question the core assumptions of their racket. Sure, it's fine to do research -- but for Amway freaks, all the phrase means is this: "Read Amway propaganda, and nothing else!"
The language of the MLM movement deserves a full study. The misuse of words, the adroit manipulation of connotation, and the production of jargon-phrases and cultic mantras are indispensable to extended frauds and scams. Someone should start by going through the books of Kiyosaki with a red pencil, and underlining every one of these linguistic tricks.
Anonymous --
DeleteThank you for the extremely detailed critique of my post.
I'm really glad you brought up the point about words being more than, "a pail that carries water". I would have to disagree with you on this since words, by themselves, are a specifically organized grouping of symbols that people have agreed upon to form a meaning. The only reason the letters "p" "e" "n" "c" "i" "l" have any meaning in that specific order is due to English speaking people giving those characters that meaning. If you wrote "pencil" to someone in Russia, they would look at you with bewilderment. That was the point I was trying to illustrate.
The connotation part you brought up is the same point I was trying to illustrate with the phrase "How are you doing?". It seems like a simple question, but it actually means nothing until connotation is given to the phrase. Your example with the Queen and the African was perfect for explaining this phenomenon.
Thank you for your examples of words and phrases that MLMers regularly use to confuse their recruits. "Partnering" is a really bizarre concept, since MLMs try to distance themselves from "Corporate America", and yet Amway is busy partnering with them. Also, Amway is inconveniently a corporation. "Mentoring" sounds a lot better than, your teacher was brought into this two weeks before you were. "Prosuming" which is actually consuming, reminds me of this old joke, "What's the opposite of congress? Progress". "Do your research!" is an MLM favorite. I think you nailed the translation on that one.
This is an excellent analysis of MLM/Amway and how they slowly suck you in. And the ironic thing is that it works perfectly if you are a willing victim. It only gets turbulent when you start to question upline.
ReplyDeleteI recall upline telling me "love you buddy" on voicemails when I was an up and coming mover and shaker in the business. But when I started to see through the facade and started questioning some of the bad advice, I became shunned.
This kind of post is extremely valuable in helping prospects to see through the deceit and helping people to see through the scam.
Kudos Doctor Doe. I'm glad you still post articles. There will come a time soon when I will be maintaining my blog less often and I hope you will carry the torch.
If you have time, visit the "AMTHRAX" blog and see the complete brainwashed IBO I am debating these days.
Joe,
DeleteThank you for the kind words. I really appreciate the way you have fought this battle for years, without accepting a penny for your troubles, and continue to be a valuable voice for consumer advocacy. Without your blog, there probably wouldn't be this one.
I disappeared for a little bit due to an unrelated manner. I don't intend to give this up yet, especially since I think there is more I can add.
I'll definitely take a look at the debate. I'm sure it will be a good one!
'The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever.'
ReplyDeleteGeorge Orwell
The purpose of 'MLM Income Opportunity' jargon is not only to provide a medium of expression for the unquestioning world-view and mental habits proper to the core-adherents of 'Amway', 'Herbalife', ' NuSkin,' etc., but to make all other critical and evaluative modes of thought impossible. It is intended that when 'MLM Income Opportunity' jargon has been adopted once and for all and traditional language forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the 'positive' principles of 'Amway', 'Herbalife', 'NuSkin,' etc. — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary is so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every 'positive' meaning that an 'MLM Distributor' can properly wish to express, while excluding all other 'negative' meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This is done partly by the invention of new 'positive' words and phrases ('Amway', 'Herbalife', 'NuSkin', 'Multi-Level Marketing', 'Distributor' , Independent Business Owner,'), but chiefly by eliminating undesirable 'negative' words and phrases ('cult', 'totalitarian', 'fraud', 'deception', 'brainwashing', 'victims', 'exploitation' , 'de facto slaves',) and by stripping such words and phrases as remain of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever.
David --
DeleteThank you for the George Orwell reference and the amazing articulation of points I tried to make in the article. I don't have much to add to this one.
John - Orwell's great insight was that you can control humans by ritualising, and limiting, our means of thought (i.e. our imagery and vocabulary).
DeleteThus, I was able to adapt this key-passage from the Appendix to Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' in just a few minutes, because the important exposé Orwell set down in the late 1940s of his own contemporary totalitarianism dressed-up as 'extreme socialism,' applies to all forms of totalitarianism; including our own contemporary form which has been dressed up as 'MLM - American capitalism.'
Totalitarianism is enduring, but its camouflage is ephemeral.
It has never ceased to amaze me how even the most well-educated casual observers of the 'MLM' fairy story (particularly journalists) keep repeating the reality-inverting 'business' jargon in which it has been written, but without detailed qualification or heavy irony.
Fortunately, an increasing number of people are finally coming to understand that 'MLM' has had precious little to do with business (in the traditional sense of the word).
There's another very important example of MLM-Speak that ties in with Orwell's commentary.
ReplyDeleteWhen persons in Amway say that "you should never speak negative," what they are actually saying is perfectly parallel to what political leftists and liberals mean when they say that "you need to be politically correct."
In both cases, the phrases mean the shutdown of any critical thinking in favor of a mindless adherence to an accepted orthodoxy.
Amway and all MLMs are perfect examples of the totalitarian mindset, with their hatred of any kind of independent rejection of groupthink and political correctness. Idiots like Jeremy Corbyn and the Labourite back-benchers are just Amway with a socialist varnish.
Can I simply say what a relief to uncover a person that actually
ReplyDeleteunderstands what they're discussing on the web. You definitely understand how
to bring an issue to light and make it important.
A lot more people have to read this and understand this side
of your story. I can't believe you aren't more popular
because you definitely have the gift.