I understand back in the day during the great depression it was the bored house wife. But what's the reasoning behind these days? Most of these aren't the usual solo mum either. Alot of these women have grown children In adulthood.
Yep. Maybe it depends on the mlm but most of the ones I see are millennial women.
Yeah I think it’s super dependent on the mlm, but I agree, I see a lot of millennials in the ones I watch.
They aren't mostly boomers, where did you come up with that? The average age is 29.
All the huns I know are in their late 20's, early 30's.
Wait. Bored Boomer housewives were doing Tupperware...during the great depression? What
Math ain’t mathin’
Reddit kids have a nebulous understanding of history.
Yeah, I don’t think they’re very clear on generational labels…. Anyway, I can see the lineage going back to Avon & Tupperware. They’ve just shifted the fantasy from “efficient, happy housewife” to “boss babe”.
I think OP just doesn't understand math or time, it's okay
They were born just after the depression (approx 1945-1965). They started slinging it in the sixties and seventies
My mother and Mother in Law both had some tupperware from 1970s parties they went to. I think maybe the 80s. By the 90s, I saw tupperware stores at the malls
Quit using "boomer" as a catch-all phrase for anyone older than you; it's grossly incorrect and makes you sound childish. Most MLM women are in their 20's-40's. Boomers weren't around during the Great Depression, that generation starts after WWII. MLMs weren't around during the Great Depression anyway.
MLMs weren't around during the Great Depression anyway.
That's what I assumed, but I did some googling and it seems they might have been. According to Wikipedia they started in the 20's and 30's, although when they were created is disputed. California Perfume Company was one of the first and would later become Avon.
I think the difference is that the ones from the old days weren't predatory back then, and didn't get money from downlines, they got money from actual direct sales.
Back in the 80s my mom had an Avon lady who came by the house every once in a while to show us new stuff and see if we wanted anything. There was no "must be a member to save!" It was just sales, like she was the shopkeeper and we were the customers.
I don't know when the switch to aggressive, downline-fetching, "the bottom rung is always a failure" system happened, but I miss our little Avon lady. 😢
Nutrilite too, founded in the 30’s. I know the founders of Amway sold Nutrilite, then they founded Amway and bought Nutrilite, and it’s now an Amway product line.
As a late boomer (1959), I know growing up MLMs were different. Avon, Tupperware, etc were big, but recruiting was minimal. In my 20s we all held parties- Jafra, Princess House, Mary Kay, Queensway... it was more a fun excuse to have a couple of drinks and laugh and shop. Usually the rep was just using the parties as an excuse to get out of the house and meet people. I think if you see Boomers involved in MLMs (And honestly I don't) it's probably because they grew up with them and don't realize how they've changed. That being said, the women I know involved in MLMs are millennials.
Yes! Back when the focus wasn’t recruiting. I pointed that out once in an anti-MLM group when someone had a nostalgic response due to their mom being a Tupperware lady back in the day. While the business model has never been sustainable, these companies weren’t toxic recruitment tools… well, that got me kicked out. I certainly wasn’t praising them, but let people have a little happy memory to share.
It seems like back then we all knew the reps weren't making a ton of money. I think t was more a way to get out of the house for stay-at-home moms. When our Avon lady came by with a new book the coffee poured and my mom and the Avon lady chatted for a good long while. It's hard for people who didn't live through it to understand how innocuous MLMs were in the day. I remember the emphasis being on booking parties rather than recruiting. I feel like that's more how money was made.
When I was a kid in the 80’s and 90’s I used to love when the Avon lady came by! My mom and I would leaf through the newest catalogue together. I used to love their collectable perfume bottles - I had two different cat perfumes. Avon and Tupperware definitely used to hit a little different back then.
I always looked forward to the Avon Christmas collectibles!! My dad had the after shave in the bottle shaped like a car.
Boomer women weren't even born during The Great Depression...
I would imagine during the depression the main demographic was less "bored house wife" and more "desperate to make money".
I don't think there were MLM's during the depression. You do know that people had no money then.
There definitely was MLMs then.
Which ones?
Nutrilite, Fuller Brush, Avon, several more. The MLM model goes back into the 1800’s.
Thank you! I had no idea those were so old, that's wild.
And it wasn’t really acceptable for women to work any jobs but secretarial back then so there wasn’t the kind of opportunities women have now
The youngest Boomers are 60 this year.
Are the MLMs really being sold by that generation?
MLMs are marketed to women in general. Women have worse job opportunities, and tend to be the ones to lose their jobs if they have kids. Boomers are fairly recent empty nesters (they’re as young as 60 right now), so women who were SAHMs are now ready for a part time job, but if they haven’t been in the workforce for decades, there’s often little they’re qualified for.
They're not. It's mostly millennials hawking that crap these days. Probably some Xers too, but not a lot of boomers.
20 years ago it was definitely Xers, from firsthand experience. I think the very nature of the pyramid means the active participants are relatively young, as it chews up and spits out the "failures".
Uhh, I think you mean Millennials and Gen X.
Open a history book. The Great Depression was 80-90 years ago, which is prior to when so-called boomers were born. Your "boomers" or baby boomers, were born in the late 1940 and 1950s after WW2 was over and things were prospering.
I'm not sure where you're getting your data from, but I've never been sold to or recruited to an MLM by a woman her 70s. There definitely isn't an abundance of them in the lifestyle forums.
"Boomer" has apparently stopped meaning "Americans born between 1946 and 1964" and now means "cringe person who's older than me"
I weep that we're undergoing this semantic shift
Actually, women were targeted for the first mlm’s because it was more socially accepted for a woman home alone to invite a female stranger in. Men wouldn’t make it past the doorstep- they’d have the door shut in their face with a “my husband handles the financial decisions”. But a friendly lady? Different story, she’d likely be invited in for tea (and gossip) and would have more of an opportunity to convince the housewife to spend her pin money on her product.
MLM’s have always targeted women
I’d argue it’s “motherhood age” women, and right now that happens to be Gen X & Millennials. I see Boomers, too, but the truly thirsty ones are X/Millennials
Most isn’t accurate. But older MLMers are often looking for ways to build/earn money for retirement from their traditional jobs. The weirdest pressure points for them are “legacy for my grandchildren to take pressure off my daughter” kind of thing. Legacy is a big buzzword right now and helps push the idea that the specific MLM is going to be around forever, spewing money like a fountain. 🤦🏼♀️
Much depends on where you live as well. Having money for retirement is a giant issue. In the US it is possible that “govt retirement benefits” could be as low as $50/mo (amt depends on lifetime earnings). Talk about a fixed income!! Seeing endless videos of “I get paid 3x/week!” Is probably more meaningful to this group than “My hair is so soft”. This age group is out of time to build retirement savings and looking for a Hail Mary rescue… if it’s olive oil or snake oil, it looks good.
Tbh I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a boomer mlm rep. It’s mostly either been hippie-esque millennials (insert pictures of them on beaches or mountains), or it’s been stay at home millennial moms.
Do...do you understand that the "bored housewife" you're taking about is the 1950's? When all those Boomers were children, and their MOTHERS were the women of the Greatest Generation who themselves were born DURING the Great Depression?
Can you draw me a timeline of the 20th Century and tell me about when various historical events happened?
Not really true anymore,
Not sure if most are boomers but most seem very religious.
Are they though? All the MLM people in my life are millennials.
I think every generation has its vulnerabilities, and MLMs will continuously adapt to exploit those vulnerabilities as long as they are permitted to do so. I don’t agree that it’s mostly Boomers getting recruited, but perhaps certain MLMs appeal more to particular generations.
I didnt realize growing up but my mom was THE mlm lady, or at least one of many. She was a very religious, outgoing stay at home mom whose entire personality was being a mom, and she felt unfulfilled.
Unfortunately, MLMs came along with the promise of "riches" and the conventions/mlm parties fulfilled her desire to be social with others.
Boomer here, me and my friends all had real jobs. Stop generalizing that anyone older than you is a boomer. I’m 64, and I know no one that ever worked as an MLM, we needed real jobs to feed our families. Boomer women were the first in the workforce enmasse , we worked full time jobs, raised kids, kept the house in order, we didn’t have time for MLM shit. If any boomer did a side job it was usually Avon which wasn’t an MLM
I think every office I’ve worked in during last 25 years has had its own Boomer Avon lady. Who also worked there.
I don't know if this will make sense how I say it, but I think maybe women in that demographic were trying to prove their worth when the MLM thing started and it targeted that vulnerability to feel like they were worthy?
My mother is an older boomer and she has that need, it's all about appearance, looking and acting better than things actually are. Like god love my poor mother, she struggles with her skin so she just wears more makeup to compensate, the same makup that broke her skin down! But beauty is important in her generation, even if the makeup looks clownish to be frank. That kind of example though, is how the MLM world sucked them in.
I think now it's still rooted in the same principles, the greed of looking like you have figured out how to have an easier life or having it all "figured out".
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Gen x here, I knew a lot of people in MLM when I was younger. Nowadays I don't see my peers or older millennials in MLM. Nobody I know in the younger genx, older millennial group supports the MLM model.
For the record, I'm not religious and pretty left wing so that may be why I don't associate with anyone in the MLM world so my own experience is a small sample size. It may be really big for others who are on the other side of the spectrum in my age range.
They're the ones most active doom scrolling shit tier platforms such as facebook, they are the ones most likely to fall for scams and bullshit sales tactics, in short, easy,dumb prey, just like the old "As seen on TV" sales every bored housewife would fall for, it's just changed from the TV to the phone in their hand.
The average age is 29, not boomers.
Then the whole post is wrong, boomer is just a term that gets thrown around from moronic people.
I see a lot of millennials too actually!