Emily Floyd

“MLMs tend to be value-agnostic in this way, using any opportunity to spin someone's sob story to their advantage, even if the MLM's culture is directly related to dopamine hits and addictive behavior. I've heard keynote speeches from women who had lost children or spouses, dealt with cancer, gone through painful divorces, become paralyzed, or survived domestic-abuse situations, all spun in a way that would lead you to believe the MLM unlocked their ability to process this trauma. Indoctrination through other women's pain. And now, I am the new inspirational tale. I actually feel honored.”
― Emily Lynn Paulson, Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing

“This extends beyond MLMs, of course, to the white women wellness space. Take a gander at Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness brand. Celebrities have a knack for convincing women that they can afford the designer lifestyle and all the products that go with it, and it will make their lives better. Goop has made headlines for selling vagina crystals and co-opting controversial doctors (ones who argue that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, for example). Many find that the health benefits of their products don't quite match up to what they sell, and why would they? Goop's goal isn't health - the goal is to make Gwyneth Paltrow richer.”
― Emily Lynn Paulson, Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing

“And it feels very similar to rushing a sorority; the planned conversation with the more important sorority sisters, always pretty, usually white, who've already gone through a list of photos and have their favorites pegged and the answers to their questions preloaded. "Oh, no way! You were a cheerleader, too?! So was I! You'll fit in so well in our house!" Meanwhile, we, of source, knew she was a cheerleader because we spent days studying the rushee's photos and applications, and we already knew which ones we'd be attacking. And here I am, in my mid-thirties, re-creating the same behavior to sell a similar promise of a different sisterhood.”
― Emily Lynn Paulson, Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing

“The current scene hasn't arisen by chance. Rather, there's "a definite strategy to it," according to John Altman, who began reviving the old farm David's Folly with his wife. Like Semler and Moffet, Altman knows making a resilient alternative to the mainstream requires knowing how "to cultivate the community" as well as the land. These efforts are succeeding; this remote peninsula supports three weekly farmers' markets during the summer and one in the winter.”
― Margot Anne Kelley, Foodtopia: Communities in Pursuit of Peace, Love, & Homegrown Food - How Five Generations of Utopians Reimagined Food, Freedom, and Community