After seeing several discussions on the “Lularich” documentary, I watched it and I have many thoughts.

WHAT IS LULARICH?

Lularich is a docu series on Amazon about Lularoe. Lularoe was founded by DeAnne and Mark Stidham.

WHAT IS LULAROE?

Lularoe is a United States-based multi-level marketing company that sells women’s clothing. It was founded in 2012 by DeAnne Brady and her husband Mark Stidman.

I would like to first start by saying, the level of scamming I saw in this docuseries was A LOT. Throughout, I was like “you people are thieves”.

Let me go into a proper breakdown of my thoughts

GOOD STORYTELLING/STORYTELLERS

DeAnne and Mark are really good at crafting a good background story to attract people to their business. They even admitted to being storytellers. There was a huge difference between the confidence they had in selling their stories to customers compared to their humility in court.

There was a lot of motivational and fluffy stuff but not enough practical skills to run a business that sells products from lularoe to retailers.

They successfully weaved words to build a fantasy world and it honestly doesn’t shock me that people fell for it. I know I am saying there were “good storytellers”, what I actually mean is that there were good liars.

FEEDING OF THE NEED FOR SELF SUSTENANCE

One thing I have noticed is how they preyed on people’s desire to be their own boss. Their target was people looking to increase their income. Hence, why their emphasis was on pitching Lularoe as “an opportunity to work part-time for full-time pay”.

MLMS ARE A SCAM

I am starting this paragraph by saying multi-level marketing is a scam. The model of the business is basically a pyramid scheme. This is a category Lularoe falls in.

If you are wondering “WHY IS LULAROE A MLM?”

Unlike franchises where the franchisee at least determines some aspects of the business, these retailers have no say in anything. No control over the type of product, the quality of the product, etc.

In Lularoe, you make money in two ways: you either sell the product or recruit people to sell the product. You make commissions from people you recruit and the person that recruits you makes money from you. Over time the business became more about building a team based on recruiting members than selling products. If you are beginning to think “Isn’t this like a pyramid scheme?”, you are right. It is we just don’t call it that. We call it “Multi-level marketing”. LMAO.

USE OF “FEMINIST” SOUNDING TALKING POINTS

 They built a story with fluffy sounding “feminist” talking points. There was heavy leaning into the “be a boss babe” rhetoric. It was clear with their shallow level of marketing that they were trying to reach women, especially stay-at-home women.  Touting women empowerment and also asking for submission to men (husbands). If you are confused by the messaging, I guess that shows how shallow the marketing was.

Side note: Lashae Kimbrough (the black customer service lady turned retailer was one of the funniest and most honest people on this series.

THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

I don’t think LULAROE would be the successful company it is today without the help of social media. The first set of retailers were using social media to drive sales and that increased the buzz about LULAROE. I don’t see how Lularoe becomes the Lularoe we know without social media especially Facebook live.

PERSUADING THE EARNERS TO LOOK THE PART

If you managed to earn a substantial income from this, you would be persuaded to spend. Either while looking like a certain level of rich to recruit people or going for the cruises that were compulsory if you got a stage. It looks like some of these women were spending money as fast as they were making them.

SLOWLY DEVOLVING INTO A CULT

While watching this docuseries, I noticed how it went from a business to multi-level marketing to something like a cult with the cult of personality, similar outfits, etc. I am not entirely sure my assessment is correct but there was this creepy feeling. I was like “All these for a leggings company?”.

USING HUSTLE CULTURE TO EXCUSE PROBLEMS WITH THE SYSTEMS

Like all pyramid schemes, the people at the bottom barely made a profit. When people complained, the reply was to say “You aren’t working hard enough”. Hustle culture became a way to blame the retailers instead of admitting the system is flawed.

I feel immense empathy for the victims/retailers. Also, I think this documentary gave a good insight into the dangers of multi-level marketing.

HAVE YOU WATCHED LULARICH?

IF YES, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

IF NO, WILL YOU WATCH IT AFTER READING THIS?