October 21, 2021 • 21 mins
In 2013, Mark and DeAnne Stidham founded LuLaRoe, a multi-level marketing firm that still sells women's clothing today. Pushing a feminist image, the company claims to give women the opportunity to become independent retailers. But it's faced plenty of lawsuits, including one from the state of Washington accusing it of operating a pyramid scheme. Amazon's documentary series "LuLaRich" uncovers the company's glamorous rise and empty promises, including through a sit-down interview with the founders themselves. Directors Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason join The Recount Daily Pod to tell the story.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
From the recount on Marina nine in and you're listening
to the Recount Daily Pod Today's Thursday, October one. The
business itself is more about recruiting than it is about
selling a product. And what we know and our American
history of businesses like that, is that they're often called
pyramid schemes. That was Jenner One, co director of the
(00:27):
Amazon documentary series Lula Rich, which tells the story of
an alleged pyramid scheme at the company lu La Row.
The two directors of the series joined me a bit
later in the show. But first Your Morning headlines. President
Biden's signature plan to spend big on infrastructure, education, and
climate keeps shrinking in the face of compromise and the
(00:50):
slim Democratic majority in Congress. Free community college gone, a
permanent child tax credit gone, funding for universal K scale back,
but Democratic lawmakers are hopeful they're close to a deal
on this build back better plan. Biden himself is getting
involved in discussions with party moderates and progressives on the
(01:11):
proposal that now figures in the one point seventy five
to one point nine trillion dollar range across ten years
of spending. That's down from the original three point five trillion.
The White House released a plan to vaccinate kids between
the ages of five and eleven. That's pending authorization from
the FDA, which meanwhile has authorized booster shots of Maderna
(01:34):
and Johnson and Johnson vaccines, as well as mixing and
matching shots. In terms of logistics for giving kids their
first shot, the White House says it has enough supply
to equip thousands of health care facilities, schools, and pharmacies.
Vaccination for young kids can curb transmission of the virus
and of course save young lives. As we heard yesterday
(01:55):
from Dr Eric Feigel Dane on the podcast, there's been
a lot of missive nation that kids are practically immune. Oh,
don't worry about kids. Kids death rates are so low,
twenty kids per week. Dying of COVID is not morally acceptable.
Climate change isn't just disastrous, it's bad for your health.
(02:16):
That's the focus of a new report from the medical
journal The Lancet. It details the growing dangers to help
caused by wildfire, smoke, heat waves, disease carrying insects, droughts
and floods, all worsened by man made carbon emissions, and
now to our interview. In two thousand thirteen, Mark and
(02:38):
Danne Stidham founded Lula Row, a multi level marketing firm
that sells clothing. The company says it gave independent retailers
the opportunity to become business owners, but dozens of lawsuits
accused of operating a pyramid scheme. Documentary series Lula Rich,
available on Amazon Prime Video, shows the company's meteoric rise
and spectacular downfall. Directors jenner One and Julia Willoughby Mason
(03:03):
join me today to share their story. General's talk about
lular Row. What is it? Lular Row is a multi
level marketing company that sells leggings women's accessories. The company
started with Modesty dresses and the way it works is
that a new retailer gets a amount of clothing it's
(03:25):
essentially a wholesale purchase, and that they're responsible for selling
the leggings. But what we discovered in our series is
that the way that most people made explosive amounts of
money was to recruit people. And that's the controversy is
that the business itself is more about recruiting than it
(03:46):
is about selling a product. And what we know and
our American history of businesses like that is that they're
often called pyramid schemes. Julia, how did you first come
across the story? It seemed very off the Coffitt first
it was a story about this legging company. Kind of
heard of it for me, like being a woman and
being oversaturated in social media at this at leisure era,
(04:10):
and so we looked a little further into this company
and we just saw all these allegations. We saw all
this ethos behind the company's message. That seemed a little tricky.
So Jenner and I, in all our work like to
see how something something in our world where can really
crack open a bigger thesis of the systemic issues that
(04:32):
impinge upon our daily life. You talk about systemic issues,
I want to see the stage a little. The boom
of Lula Row had this incredible mix of the post
two thousand and eight recession, the rise of social media,
specifically Facebook Live, and then this faux women's empowerment message.
How did all of that sort of affect their ability
(04:53):
to have this medeorc rise. I think it was a
perfect storm. Just as you laid out all of those elements,
one building upon the other, and this happens, you know,
I think from time to time society, there's just the
perfect elements, the perfect ingredients for an alchemy to occur.
And I think that multi level marketing as it is
(05:14):
not new, you know, it's been around for decades. I
think what was new here was the way that social
media could be used to explosively grow recruits and the
way in which a message of women's empowerment could be
used to disguise what essentially was subjugation and patriarchy. Let's
(05:34):
take into the recession a little bit more. How did
this stidhem couple harness economic insecurities to recruit these independent sellers.
I think after the crash in two thousand and eight,
it exposed the lack of privilege that we all have,
and it showed that there's a really corrosive system of
(05:54):
power dynamics and social control with men in this country,
especially white men in this country, making decisions. And I
think that when our country, you know, had an economic fall,
it exposed that we didn't have enough resources to cover
that up as well as America usually does to a
certain extent. I mean, their boom was really into thousand
(06:16):
and sixteen. But I think that Lula Row could see
that women are a huge underutilized economic force in our country,
and what better people and group of society to tap
into to really say that, hey, you're underutilized and work
come to us, and here's how you can build off
(06:36):
of this void essentially, And at first it seemed to
work in terms of like people joining people making a
little bit of money. But then as we see it
in the structure of a pyramid, you know, if you
don't get in right at the top, there's really not
enough people to sell the product as it trickles down.
Similar to regular economics, Derry, I actually want to ask you,
(06:58):
how would you define what an lems? I think multi
level marketing has a lot of complexities that have been
baked in to obscure how simple it is. But how
simple it is. You join the company at this place,
and everybody underneath you that you are able to recruit
(07:19):
and that they're able to recruit, and that those recruits
are able to recruit, will all flow back to you,
and you'll get to the point where you no longer
need to sell any of the products because you will
eventually become wealthy off of your down line and your
upline has become wealthy off of you and the issue
with multi level marketing and the issue with pyramid schemes
(07:43):
is that after the layer, there are not enough human
beings on planet Earth for you to create a down
line with, and so therefore prosperity cannot be delivered to
all who take part. But why I think it's so
touching for all of us is that a multi level
marketing is not new and be so many aspects of
(08:05):
society mirror multi level marketing, including social media, And I
think that's what's sticky about the story. It's not pointing
the finger at Lula and like this one company did
something so wrong. No, it's the system. It's the whole
thing that we take part in. And that's the big takeaway.
You mentioned the role of social media and all of this.
(08:27):
How did tools like Facebook Live contribute to the boom
of Lula ro. There's a timely quality of our story,
but with all of our stories, there's a timeless quality.
And I think the timeless quality is that people are
searching for significance. You know, they're in this kind of
maze and cloud forest of life, and it's very hard
(08:50):
to see the forest through the trees. We have to
look a certain way. Our kids have to look a
certain way, we have to talk a certain way. And
social media allows you to curate that and create that world.
And somehow the effect of it, you know, is very rewarding,
and people get to click through and they get some dopamine.
Then they get to feel like it's real and it's
(09:12):
actually not real. And so you take that and you
layer it on top of commerce, and you layer it
on top of salesmanship, and you have uh sort of
a runaway train where now all of a sudden, people
get to sell things and this sort of unreal space
that society is accepted as real. And so you have
again a perfect storm where you have multi level marketing
(09:35):
that required people to go door to door. You have
to have a human connection, You have to let that
person into your home. How many people shut the door
on the vacuum salesman or shut the door on the
woman selling tupp aware in the past, and now all
of a sudden they are on social media. They look
a certain way, they look like you want to look.
They're saying the things you want to hear, and you
(09:56):
want to have the same followers that they have, and
you want to be part of that commun unity because
of the alienation of women who are in a role
of taking care of children and who have been essentially
edged out of the rest of society, and that they're
viewed to stay at home mothers. Their husbands are viewed
as the breadwinner quote unquote, and that search for significance
(10:19):
takes on this kind of patriarchal quality, and I think
it really played at the psychological component to how this
could become such a huge company. We've got to take
a quick break, but will be right back with Lula
Rich directors Jennifer One and Julia Willoughby Nason on the
Recount Daily Pod. Welcome back to the Recount Daily Pod,
(10:44):
a podcast from the Recount and I Heart Radio. I'm
here with Lula Rich documentary directors Jenner One and Julia
Willoby Mason. According to Direct Selling Organization, of people who
were in direct retail sale were women, eighty seven percent
(11:04):
were white. What is it that LULUO was able to
capitalize on with this particular group of women who signed up.
I think white women in general have always been groomed
as products. Like all women in our society, but especially
white women, they have this trophy mentality of being on
stage essentially as a performer in an objectified role. There's
(11:28):
an obsession over white women. There's an obsession over white
women's victimhood compared to people of color. I think MLM's
really target white women more because there's like this salesmanship
quality that white women are closer in uh patriarchal, sexist, misogynistic,
(11:49):
racist system, gender based system to a man to a
white man. So they're almost have to replicate what's right
above them on the tote um pole of a societal success.
So in fourteen months from two thousand fifteen to two
thousand sixteen, the company grew from seventy million in sales
(12:09):
to over a billion. For those at the top, they
reported receiving bonus checks anywhere from twenty thousand seventy thousand
a month. Tell me a little bit about this financial
discrepancy between the people at the top and the people
at the bottom. Well, I think it's very simple. The
way the business model was set up was that those
at the top would be perpetually rewarded, and if you
(12:30):
were able to get in close to where they were,
if you were able to get in early, you would
be perpetually rewarded to But if you got in at
the middle. It's gonna be a little bit hard to
make those profits and probably impossible. And in the end
they're looking at a convention where Dan's holding up a
check for one point four million dollars and they're not
(12:50):
even explaining to the folks that the one point four
million is their bonuses, not the products they sold. And
that was one of the most sticky moments in the
film is when Julia asked Danne how that check even
came to be, and Danne initially lied and said that
it was from parties, and Mark interjected and corrected her
and said it was from bonuses. So if you're telling
(13:12):
a new person that they can make one point four
million dollars and not telling them how, and it's absolutely
impossible for them to make it, then that looks a
lot more like a pyramid scheme. Jenner, I'm curious. When
I was watching this, I was like, I cannot believe
they got Mark and Deanne to sit down for an interview.
How are you able to land the founders of Lularoe.
Mark and Deanne are running a company that's still in business.
(13:35):
It's still in business. You know, if you watch this
series and you're baffled by all the things that happened.
Go on the website. You can order a start up pack.
So if they're still in business and they've faced all
of these lawsuits, to me and to Julia, it seemed
very simple, and in fact it was. It was very direct.
A lot of people have one story about you. You
must have a story about you. We're going to give
(13:57):
the opportunity to tell your story about you. And we're
gonna make this film one way or the other. And
if you choose to be part of it, we're gonna
honor the story you tell us, and we're gonna give
you an opportunity to respond to allegations. If you decline
to be part of it, other people will do that
for you. And I think that was a pitch that
made a lot of sense to them, because they're still
(14:18):
in business and if they claim that they've done nothing
truly wrong other than settling lawsuits. Because I think Mark's
attitude was, yeah, we did something wrong and we're gonna
fix it. Not we set out to do wrong. And
I think that's the big question of the film. Did
these folks set out to do wrong? Did they know
better from day one? We're gonna break for a secondly.
(14:41):
Right back with Lula Rich, directors Jenner One and Julia
Willoughby Mason on the Recount Daily Pod. Welcome back to
the Recount Daily Pod, a podcast from the Recount and
I Heart Radio. I'm here with Lula Rich documentary directors
Jenner One, and we have would be Nassan. There was
(15:05):
a study conducted by Truth in Advertising and they found
more than a hundred Lularo consultants have personally filed for
bankruptcy since two thousand sixteen, Yet, as you mentioned, Lularo
remains in business. Are you guys surprised that they haven't
shut down. I'm not so surprised they haven't shut down
because they have the financial wherewithal to settle cases over
(15:28):
and over and over again and do clean up jobs.
And I think that just to touch on the type
of demographic of their company, you know, they have white
privilege to use an apology as a form of their laurels,
and I think that a lot of people wouldn't have
that privilege. Do we really think that if Mark and
Dann or Latino or African American or Muslim American or
(15:50):
Asian American, that the you know, Department of Justice would
have opened up a case against them. Do we really
think that this in our system of justice or in America?
You know the fact that they're gleaming the dazzled white
established people that it hasn't, as Julia said, allowed their
apology to become part of their kind of resume. Why
(16:12):
do you guys think that this documentary has resonated with
so many people in this moment because it's entertaining and
it's fun to watch, and behind the entertainment is a
real story. We like to talk about the real issues,
you know, because if viewers are really fascinated to click
through and want to hear us talk about it, they'll
see that behind an entertaining piece of premium content, there's
(16:35):
a message that's, in a way what we've strived for
from day one. And so I think why it's resonating
with people is because you enjoy watching it, you know,
and all the other things that come up in this
series that are truly entertaining. You know, But after the
water cooler about those moments is done, you're left with
a bigger question about patriarchy, or about late stage capitalism,
(17:00):
or about race and entrepreneurial ship and how it factors
in the things we discussed today, and we don't hammer
those things over people's heads there there though, you can
continue to discuss that, and we try to leave the
viewer wanting more. Instead of packing that all into the show,
we leave it as a conversation starter, and that's what
I think has made it such an impactful event for
(17:22):
people around the world. Jenny, you were also the creator
of Who Lose Fire Fraud? It's about the infamous two
thousand seventeen music festival. What do you think the parallels
are between Fire Fraud and this series. I think the
parallels are very clear. You know, it's about the corrosive
quality of social media, it's about greed, and they're both
(17:43):
about millennials. But this is a different take on millennials.
This is Middle American white millennials who are not so
much after being on a yacht with with Kendall Jenner.
They're more after a white picket and you know of
prosperity and two Chevy Tahoe's and all of that. You know,
(18:05):
their kids going to good schools and a bunch of
big sale photos that show happiness and prosperity. And I
think that based on the economic hardships that the generation
has faced, there's a lot of parallels between the two stories.
What do you think the big takeaway is from this series?
Hopefully people can understand what m lms are a little
(18:27):
bit more because I think that they're very under the radar.
There's so many companies that have potentially good products that
slightly engage people on becoming their own entrepreneurial within them.
And hopefully that this series can just say, wait a second,
let me just look a little deeper into this company
before investing my time in my life into it with
my family. The documentary is called Lula Rich Julia Willoughby,
(18:51):
Mason Jennifer Want thank you both for joining us. Thank you,
thank you for having us. Thank you so much for
having us. La Rich can be streamed on Amazon Prime Video.
And now let's look ahead. Here's what else we're watching.
Today marks ten years since the Martin Luther King Junior
Memorial opened in Washington. D C President Joe Biden is
expected to make remarks along with d C Mayor Muriel
(19:14):
Bowser and Martin Luther King the Third, The Order's son,
Vice President Kamala Harris will also be in attendance. The
thirty foot granite statue of Dr King is based on
a line from King's famous I Have a Dream speech,
where he said, quote out of the mountain of despair
a stone of hope. The House of Representatives is expected
(19:36):
to vote on charging former Trump White House adviser Steve
Bannon with criminal contempt of Congress for defying its subpoena
over the January six riot at the Capitol. The case
could lead to a major test of executive privilege, which
both Trump and Bannon site. No court has settled weather
executive privilege covers conversations between sitting presidents and private citizens.
(20:00):
Bannon was originally sought out because of his apparent knowledge
of the riot before it happened. On January He said
this on a podcast he hosts, All hell is going
to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. All hell is
going to break loose tomorrow. The Chamber is expected to
give its approval and send the case on to the
Department of Justice for prosecution. So how about a free
(20:23):
concert to end the week. The world's first net zero
carbon arena holds its grand opening in Seattle on Friday.
Coldplay will be performing their first arena concert in five years,
which will also be streaming on Amazon Music and Twitch.
The arena, which the brand new NHL team Seattle Kraken
calls Home, runs entirely on renewable energy and produces zero waste.
(20:48):
I have a great morning, everyone, I'll see you back
on Monday. This is a Recount Daily Pod, a podcast
from the Recount Our. Thanks to Jenner One and Julia
Willoughby Nason for being on the show. And if you
like this episode, I hope you'll subscribe to the Recount
Daily Pod. And do you leave us a rating on
the Apple podcast app. I'm your Host. Rena Nina, Alexis
(21:09):
ramdaw and Corey Wara engineered and produced this podcast. Arilla
Martin also produced Vandamani did the research. We also had
production help this week from Logan rom Jew. Our senior
producer is Pierre Biena May and our executive producer is
Laura Beatty.
From the recount on Marina nine in and you're listening
to the Recount Daily Pod Today's Thursday, October one. The
business itself is more about recruiting than it is about
selling a product. And what we know and our American
history of businesses like that, is that they're often called
pyramid schemes. That was Jenner One, co director of the
(00:27):
Amazon documentary series Lula Rich, which tells the story of
an alleged pyramid scheme at the company lu La Row.
The two directors of the series joined me a bit
later in the show. But first Your Morning headlines. President
Biden's signature plan to spend big on infrastructure, education, and
climate keeps shrinking in the face of compromise and the
(00:50):
slim Democratic majority in Congress. Free community college gone, a
permanent child tax credit gone, funding for universal K scale back,
but Democratic lawmakers are hopeful they're close to a deal
on this build back better plan. Biden himself is getting
involved in discussions with party moderates and progressives on the
(01:11):
proposal that now figures in the one point seventy five
to one point nine trillion dollar range across ten years
of spending. That's down from the original three point five trillion.
The White House released a plan to vaccinate kids between
the ages of five and eleven. That's pending authorization from
the FDA, which meanwhile has authorized booster shots of Maderna
(01:34):
and Johnson and Johnson vaccines, as well as mixing and
matching shots. In terms of logistics for giving kids their
first shot, the White House says it has enough supply
to equip thousands of health care facilities, schools, and pharmacies.
Vaccination for young kids can curb transmission of the virus
and of course save young lives. As we heard yesterday
(01:55):
from Dr Eric Feigel Dane on the podcast, there's been
a lot of missive nation that kids are practically immune. Oh,
don't worry about kids. Kids death rates are so low,
twenty kids per week. Dying of COVID is not morally acceptable.
Climate change isn't just disastrous, it's bad for your health.
(02:16):
That's the focus of a new report from the medical
journal The Lancet. It details the growing dangers to help
caused by wildfire, smoke, heat waves, disease carrying insects, droughts
and floods, all worsened by man made carbon emissions, and
now to our interview. In two thousand thirteen, Mark and
(02:38):
Danne Stidham founded Lula Row, a multi level marketing firm
that sells clothing. The company says it gave independent retailers
the opportunity to become business owners, but dozens of lawsuits
accused of operating a pyramid scheme. Documentary series Lula Rich,
available on Amazon Prime Video, shows the company's meteoric rise
and spectacular downfall. Directors jenner One and Julia Willoughby Mason
(03:03):
join me today to share their story. General's talk about
lular Row. What is it? Lular Row is a multi
level marketing company that sells leggings women's accessories. The company
started with Modesty dresses and the way it works is
that a new retailer gets a amount of clothing it's
(03:25):
essentially a wholesale purchase, and that they're responsible for selling
the leggings. But what we discovered in our series is
that the way that most people made explosive amounts of
money was to recruit people. And that's the controversy is
that the business itself is more about recruiting than it
(03:46):
is about selling a product. And what we know and
our American history of businesses like that is that they're
often called pyramid schemes. Julia, how did you first come
across the story? It seemed very off the Coffitt first
it was a story about this legging company. Kind of
heard of it for me, like being a woman and
being oversaturated in social media at this at leisure era,
(04:10):
and so we looked a little further into this company
and we just saw all these allegations. We saw all
this ethos behind the company's message. That seemed a little tricky.
So Jenner and I, in all our work like to
see how something something in our world where can really
crack open a bigger thesis of the systemic issues that
(04:32):
impinge upon our daily life. You talk about systemic issues,
I want to see the stage a little. The boom
of Lula Row had this incredible mix of the post
two thousand and eight recession, the rise of social media,
specifically Facebook Live, and then this faux women's empowerment message.
How did all of that sort of affect their ability
(04:53):
to have this medeorc rise. I think it was a
perfect storm. Just as you laid out all of those elements,
one building upon the other, and this happens, you know,
I think from time to time society, there's just the
perfect elements, the perfect ingredients for an alchemy to occur.
And I think that multi level marketing as it is
(05:14):
not new, you know, it's been around for decades. I
think what was new here was the way that social
media could be used to explosively grow recruits and the
way in which a message of women's empowerment could be
used to disguise what essentially was subjugation and patriarchy. Let's
(05:34):
take into the recession a little bit more. How did
this stidhem couple harness economic insecurities to recruit these independent sellers.
I think after the crash in two thousand and eight,
it exposed the lack of privilege that we all have,
and it showed that there's a really corrosive system of
(05:54):
power dynamics and social control with men in this country,
especially white men in this country, making decisions. And I
think that when our country, you know, had an economic fall,
it exposed that we didn't have enough resources to cover
that up as well as America usually does to a
certain extent. I mean, their boom was really into thousand
(06:16):
and sixteen. But I think that Lula Row could see
that women are a huge underutilized economic force in our country,
and what better people and group of society to tap
into to really say that, hey, you're underutilized and work
come to us, and here's how you can build off
(06:36):
of this void essentially, And at first it seemed to
work in terms of like people joining people making a
little bit of money. But then as we see it
in the structure of a pyramid, you know, if you
don't get in right at the top, there's really not
enough people to sell the product as it trickles down.
Similar to regular economics, Derry, I actually want to ask you,
(06:58):
how would you define what an lems? I think multi
level marketing has a lot of complexities that have been
baked in to obscure how simple it is. But how
simple it is. You join the company at this place,
and everybody underneath you that you are able to recruit
(07:19):
and that they're able to recruit, and that those recruits
are able to recruit, will all flow back to you,
and you'll get to the point where you no longer
need to sell any of the products because you will
eventually become wealthy off of your down line and your
upline has become wealthy off of you and the issue
with multi level marketing and the issue with pyramid schemes
(07:43):
is that after the layer, there are not enough human
beings on planet Earth for you to create a down
line with, and so therefore prosperity cannot be delivered to
all who take part. But why I think it's so
touching for all of us is that a multi level
marketing is not new and be so many aspects of
(08:05):
society mirror multi level marketing, including social media, And I
think that's what's sticky about the story. It's not pointing
the finger at Lula and like this one company did
something so wrong. No, it's the system. It's the whole
thing that we take part in. And that's the big takeaway.
You mentioned the role of social media and all of this.
(08:27):
How did tools like Facebook Live contribute to the boom
of Lula ro. There's a timely quality of our story,
but with all of our stories, there's a timeless quality.
And I think the timeless quality is that people are
searching for significance. You know, they're in this kind of
maze and cloud forest of life, and it's very hard
(08:50):
to see the forest through the trees. We have to
look a certain way. Our kids have to look a
certain way, we have to talk a certain way. And
social media allows you to curate that and create that world.
And somehow the effect of it, you know, is very rewarding,
and people get to click through and they get some dopamine.
Then they get to feel like it's real and it's
(09:12):
actually not real. And so you take that and you
layer it on top of commerce, and you layer it
on top of salesmanship, and you have uh sort of
a runaway train where now all of a sudden, people
get to sell things and this sort of unreal space
that society is accepted as real. And so you have
again a perfect storm where you have multi level marketing
(09:35):
that required people to go door to door. You have
to have a human connection, You have to let that
person into your home. How many people shut the door
on the vacuum salesman or shut the door on the
woman selling tupp aware in the past, and now all
of a sudden they are on social media. They look
a certain way, they look like you want to look.
They're saying the things you want to hear, and you
(09:56):
want to have the same followers that they have, and
you want to be part of that commun unity because
of the alienation of women who are in a role
of taking care of children and who have been essentially
edged out of the rest of society, and that they're
viewed to stay at home mothers. Their husbands are viewed
as the breadwinner quote unquote, and that search for significance
(10:19):
takes on this kind of patriarchal quality, and I think
it really played at the psychological component to how this
could become such a huge company. We've got to take
a quick break, but will be right back with Lula
Rich directors Jennifer One and Julia Willoughby Nason on the
Recount Daily Pod. Welcome back to the Recount Daily Pod,
(10:44):
a podcast from the Recount and I Heart Radio. I'm
here with Lula Rich documentary directors Jenner One and Julia
Willoby Mason. According to Direct Selling Organization, of people who
were in direct retail sale were women, eighty seven percent
(11:04):
were white. What is it that LULUO was able to
capitalize on with this particular group of women who signed up.
I think white women in general have always been groomed
as products. Like all women in our society, but especially
white women, they have this trophy mentality of being on
stage essentially as a performer in an objectified role. There's
(11:28):
an obsession over white women. There's an obsession over white
women's victimhood compared to people of color. I think MLM's
really target white women more because there's like this salesmanship
quality that white women are closer in uh patriarchal, sexist, misogynistic,
(11:49):
racist system, gender based system to a man to a
white man. So they're almost have to replicate what's right
above them on the tote um pole of a societal success.
So in fourteen months from two thousand fifteen to two
thousand sixteen, the company grew from seventy million in sales
(12:09):
to over a billion. For those at the top, they
reported receiving bonus checks anywhere from twenty thousand seventy thousand
a month. Tell me a little bit about this financial
discrepancy between the people at the top and the people
at the bottom. Well, I think it's very simple. The
way the business model was set up was that those
at the top would be perpetually rewarded, and if you
(12:30):
were able to get in close to where they were,
if you were able to get in early, you would
be perpetually rewarded to But if you got in at
the middle. It's gonna be a little bit hard to
make those profits and probably impossible. And in the end
they're looking at a convention where Dan's holding up a
check for one point four million dollars and they're not
(12:50):
even explaining to the folks that the one point four
million is their bonuses, not the products they sold. And
that was one of the most sticky moments in the
film is when Julia asked Danne how that check even
came to be, and Danne initially lied and said that
it was from parties, and Mark interjected and corrected her
and said it was from bonuses. So if you're telling
(13:12):
a new person that they can make one point four
million dollars and not telling them how, and it's absolutely
impossible for them to make it, then that looks a
lot more like a pyramid scheme. Jenner, I'm curious. When
I was watching this, I was like, I cannot believe
they got Mark and Deanne to sit down for an interview.
How are you able to land the founders of Lularoe.
Mark and Deanne are running a company that's still in business.
(13:35):
It's still in business. You know, if you watch this
series and you're baffled by all the things that happened.
Go on the website. You can order a start up pack.
So if they're still in business and they've faced all
of these lawsuits, to me and to Julia, it seemed
very simple, and in fact it was. It was very direct.
A lot of people have one story about you. You
must have a story about you. We're going to give
(13:57):
the opportunity to tell your story about you. And we're
gonna make this film one way or the other. And
if you choose to be part of it, we're gonna
honor the story you tell us, and we're gonna give
you an opportunity to respond to allegations. If you decline
to be part of it, other people will do that
for you. And I think that was a pitch that
made a lot of sense to them, because they're still
(14:18):
in business and if they claim that they've done nothing
truly wrong other than settling lawsuits. Because I think Mark's
attitude was, yeah, we did something wrong and we're gonna
fix it. Not we set out to do wrong. And
I think that's the big question of the film. Did
these folks set out to do wrong? Did they know
better from day one? We're gonna break for a secondly.
(14:41):
Right back with Lula Rich, directors Jenner One and Julia
Willoughby Mason on the Recount Daily Pod. Welcome back to
the Recount Daily Pod, a podcast from the Recount and
I Heart Radio. I'm here with Lula Rich documentary directors
Jenner One, and we have would be Nassan. There was
(15:05):
a study conducted by Truth in Advertising and they found
more than a hundred Lularo consultants have personally filed for
bankruptcy since two thousand sixteen, Yet, as you mentioned, Lularo
remains in business. Are you guys surprised that they haven't
shut down. I'm not so surprised they haven't shut down
because they have the financial wherewithal to settle cases over
(15:28):
and over and over again and do clean up jobs.
And I think that just to touch on the type
of demographic of their company, you know, they have white
privilege to use an apology as a form of their laurels,
and I think that a lot of people wouldn't have
that privilege. Do we really think that if Mark and
Dann or Latino or African American or Muslim American or
(15:50):
Asian American, that the you know, Department of Justice would
have opened up a case against them. Do we really
think that this in our system of justice or in America?
You know the fact that they're gleaming the dazzled white
established people that it hasn't, as Julia said, allowed their
apology to become part of their kind of resume. Why
(16:12):
do you guys think that this documentary has resonated with
so many people in this moment because it's entertaining and
it's fun to watch, and behind the entertainment is a
real story. We like to talk about the real issues,
you know, because if viewers are really fascinated to click
through and want to hear us talk about it, they'll
see that behind an entertaining piece of premium content, there's
(16:35):
a message that's, in a way what we've strived for
from day one. And so I think why it's resonating
with people is because you enjoy watching it, you know,
and all the other things that come up in this
series that are truly entertaining. You know, But after the
water cooler about those moments is done, you're left with
a bigger question about patriarchy, or about late stage capitalism,
(17:00):
or about race and entrepreneurial ship and how it factors
in the things we discussed today, and we don't hammer
those things over people's heads there there though, you can
continue to discuss that, and we try to leave the
viewer wanting more. Instead of packing that all into the show,
we leave it as a conversation starter, and that's what
I think has made it such an impactful event for
(17:22):
people around the world. Jenny, you were also the creator
of Who Lose Fire Fraud? It's about the infamous two
thousand seventeen music festival. What do you think the parallels
are between Fire Fraud and this series. I think the
parallels are very clear. You know, it's about the corrosive
quality of social media, it's about greed, and they're both
(17:43):
about millennials. But this is a different take on millennials.
This is Middle American white millennials who are not so
much after being on a yacht with with Kendall Jenner.
They're more after a white picket and you know of
prosperity and two Chevy Tahoe's and all of that. You know,
(18:05):
their kids going to good schools and a bunch of
big sale photos that show happiness and prosperity. And I
think that based on the economic hardships that the generation
has faced, there's a lot of parallels between the two stories.
What do you think the big takeaway is from this series?
Hopefully people can understand what m lms are a little
(18:27):
bit more because I think that they're very under the radar.
There's so many companies that have potentially good products that
slightly engage people on becoming their own entrepreneurial within them.
And hopefully that this series can just say, wait a second,
let me just look a little deeper into this company
before investing my time in my life into it with
my family. The documentary is called Lula Rich Julia Willoughby,
(18:51):
Mason Jennifer Want thank you both for joining us. Thank you,
thank you for having us. Thank you so much for
having us. La Rich can be streamed on Amazon Prime Video.
And now let's look ahead. Here's what else we're watching.
Today marks ten years since the Martin Luther King Junior
Memorial opened in Washington. D C President Joe Biden is
expected to make remarks along with d C Mayor Muriel
(19:14):
Bowser and Martin Luther King the Third, The Order's son,
Vice President Kamala Harris will also be in attendance. The
thirty foot granite statue of Dr King is based on
a line from King's famous I Have a Dream speech,
where he said, quote out of the mountain of despair
a stone of hope. The House of Representatives is expected
(19:36):
to vote on charging former Trump White House adviser Steve
Bannon with criminal contempt of Congress for defying its subpoena
over the January six riot at the Capitol. The case
could lead to a major test of executive privilege, which
both Trump and Bannon site. No court has settled weather
executive privilege covers conversations between sitting presidents and private citizens.
(20:00):
Bannon was originally sought out because of his apparent knowledge
of the riot before it happened. On January He said
this on a podcast he hosts, All hell is going
to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. All hell is
going to break loose tomorrow. The Chamber is expected to
give its approval and send the case on to the
Department of Justice for prosecution. So how about a free
(20:23):
concert to end the week. The world's first net zero
carbon arena holds its grand opening in Seattle on Friday.
Coldplay will be performing their first arena concert in five years,
which will also be streaming on Amazon Music and Twitch.
The arena, which the brand new NHL team Seattle Kraken
calls Home, runs entirely on renewable energy and produces zero waste.
(20:48):
I have a great morning, everyone, I'll see you back
on Monday. This is a Recount Daily Pod, a podcast
from the Recount Our. Thanks to Jenner One and Julia
Willoughby Nason for being on the show. And if you
like this episode, I hope you'll subscribe to the Recount
Daily Pod. And do you leave us a rating on
the Apple podcast app. I'm your Host. Rena Nina, Alexis
(21:09):
ramdaw and Corey Wara engineered and produced this podcast. Arilla
Martin also produced Vandamani did the research. We also had
production help this week from Logan rom Jew. Our senior
producer is Pierre Biena May and our executive producer is
Laura Beatty.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!