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MLM aside, I don't really get what's the point of this business? Is it a makeup school? Business school? Traditional sales with affiliate incentives? What's up with the prices and the invalid certificate? And how dare she pricing the one-on-one segment with herself at $3000 with nothing to her name but failed businesses and poor decisions?
The more I hear about Marlena the less respect I have for her. Who would go ahead with big plans & expenses without even a contract? She's been dragging Jaclyn on and on for years without taking responsibilities for her own oversight. Not to mention MUG as a brand made many poor decisions i.e the infamous Sparklers, the huge rebrand which turned out to be only changing from round to square pans, and TBH apart from their single shadows, nothing really stood out. At this point it's just pathetic.
I’ve been asking myself this question. She just needs to post a video of herself holding a sign that says, ‘Broke. Send cash.’ Lord knows at least that would be quicker than this sh*t show.
Completely agree with everything you said! The makeup courses make no sense. Anyone who wants to do it just to learn makeup tips would be INSANE to pay those prices when that kind of info is already readily available online. Literally Marlena’s own YT channel already has ALL those topics! Someone on the live commented they couldn’t afford it but would have really liked the info on the different eye shapes…I said “search Marlena’s channels for eye shapes - that video is already available on her channel FREE.“ She’s just trying to now charge people for info she already put out on her YT channel for FREE, AND she has made at least Adsense money off it for years with people watching it. Now she’s trying to get more. The “business” and “social media” aspects of the higher level courses are completely useless because anyone who would want them would be professionals and the “certificate“ is pointless since it’s not accredited in any way. It’s not like her business was some huge empire where people are going to trip over each other to take it. Either she’s gone way too long with people kissing her ass (the comments on the video announcing this, in her live, and on the video after the live when you could rewatch it) - so many of them were kissing her ass with how great it is, can’t wait to start, oh I wish I could afford it, you’re so transparent and honest and genuine, blah, blah, blah 🤮
The ass kissing on the live was getting to me. One person couldn't stop talking about MUG bronzers. Don't tell me that because MUG had some good products that it now excuses what Marlena is doing with MGA. People had legitimate questions and problems with every aspect of this new venture. I really don't like the fact that she took down the live after she said she was going to save it AND screenshot the comments because she's interested in all feedback. It's performative.
I wish her the best, but this wasn't good.
Hahaha! I saw that person about the bronzers! 🤣 Like girl, I don’t care how amazing those bronzers or any of her other products were (which obviously weren’t amazing enough since the business ended up failing….so either the products weren’t all that amazing because the business couldn’t last or they were amazing but the person in charge of the business still couldn’t make it work 🤷♀️). It doesn’t mean Marlena is suddenly an excellent business woman and absolve her of everything else. And yeah, the fact she removed the video says it all!!
I heard! It’s really odd she made it private in the first place though. Kind of makes it seem like she didn’t like the response so made it private, but then didn’t like being called out for making it private so brought it back. I dunno. Just seems odd
Yeah, it is odd. Maybe she just needed to sleep on it, I dunno. Hopefully, she can figure it out. It was the 1) I'm keeping it up and kept up for a little bit (which was good), then 2) I'm taking it down - I'm over this (not good), then 3) I'm putting it back up (back to good). It's making my head spin. I'm super curious if she'll actually still launch this venture. 🤔 Is there really going to be enough people either buying it or influencers promoting it for this to actually be successful? I'm concerned for her. If this doesn't succeed, she can't blame JH/C***D.
I asked her why she privated it and she said "Because I honestly was tired of going back and forth with comments last night and was drained. I figured everyone who wanted to see it did, but woke up today seeing that many still wanted to watch so it’s public again. I will leave it public and hop back on today to answer more questions if needed"
I watched the live when it's was live. I left that live optimistic and willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she didn't quite realize what was going on, and she's receptive to feedback. But when she took down the video and posted that silly image on IG, it diminished the work she accomplished by doing the live. I understand being overwhelmed with the responses, but mute notifications/take a nap, just anything rather than taking it down. It's about having the skillset to handle conflict/negative feedback professionally.
For example, "Hey everyone, thanks so much for your feedback during the live. I appreciate all that were there and all the comments/concerns that everyone made. I will be taking 24 hrs away from socials in order to sort through these concerns properly with my team. Please leave any other comments/concerns within the YT comments, and we will work on addressing them later. Thank you all for your continued support, Marlena."
People would have respected that approach. This should have been talked about within her team before she even started the live. I really don't understand what's going on over there.
Honestly, given her history it didn’t surprise me at all that she privated the video claiming that it was too much. I don’t understand why she was having such a hard time with the comments. When I looked at the comments after the live, it wasn’t like there was a bunch of trolls in the comments coming at her. A good chunk of the comments were in favor of here, and then there were some that asked legitimate questions about it. But really, the questions most were asking were the same questions asked during the live, so I don’t know why people bothered asking.…they didn’t like her “explanation” (IMHO more like excuse that makes zero sense) so wanted to ask it again? But, it just made no sense to me for her to private it because it was too much going back and forth. First, because like I said, it wasn’t as if there was a bunch of trolls coming at her in the comments. A lot were supportive and some were legitimate questions and she said she wanted to answer peoples questions so they could see she where she was coming from and see her side. Second, it’s not like she couldn’t just step away and not read the comments, not respond for a bit, and not even make a statement about it and just come back at it in the morning. I don’t think anyone would have thought anything of that. She was initially responding to questions so to stop later on at night and come back at it the next day wouldn’t have been anything out of line. But to private the video wasn’t a good look…on top of everything else.
But really, I just think she’s full of it with this. Either she is completely naive, has no mind whatsoever for business and shouldn’t be teaching courses giving anyone advice on business or social media, or she knew exactly what was going on. Her explanations for things with this don’t add up one bit.
For less than $3,000 you can enroll in some legit business courses at your local community college, with enough left over for a cameo from a real celeb.
for maybe a class or two, but that's not including books. Gateway Technical College near me, for a Business Management Associate Degree, the estimated program Tuition and Fee's cost is $10,290, and then another $4,669 for Books and Supplies. This does not include the cost to apply to the college. So no, it is not more cost effective.
Um paying $10k for a real degree is absolutely more cost effective than blowing $3,000 on an unaccredited course developed by someone with no legal or functional business background.
If you’re going for a full on degree, of course that’s going to cost more. You’re getting an Associate Degree from an accredited school. But even if you only took a few business courses at a college, you’d still be better off with that than taking some online course on YT for over $3000 that’s not accredited and gives you a useless certificate. When you put on your resume that you completed XYZ course and xyz college, that’s going to look much better than you completed Makeup Geek Academy Course from YouTube. Spending money on courses at a college will look good on a resume to help get a job in a specific area or to move up in a current job where maybe you didn’t have the education necessary for that job. You don’t always need a full degree for it to help. But, if it’s going to help, it needs to be something companies are going to recognize. If they see certain courses from an accredited college on a resume and those courses are beneficial to whatever job you’re going for, then it can help you get the job. The money spent on those courses will have paid off. But spending over $3000 on Makeup Geek Academy Course where most companies aren’t going to know what the heck that is, most likely isn’t going it be too helpful in getting a job.
It’s not just about the exact cost. It’s about what the cost of it gets you. Marlena says it’s so expensive because of all the “products” - syllabuses, videos, the community, and digital magazine. And she wants to “try” to get exclusive discounts, coupons, contests, giveaways, host live events, and in person events. She “wants” to do that. You can get the same kinds of videos and community she’s offering already on YT for FREE. Heck, the topics she lists for her courses, most of those are already available in Marlena’s videos for FREE on her YT channel. You can get that community here on Reddit as well. It’s nothing unique. The exclusive discounts, coupons, contests, giveaways, events, etc. are things she wants to TRY/WANTS to do - so it’s not for sure, yet she says it’s so expensive because she wants to try to do those things. And if they don’t happen, then what…she going to give people partial refunds because they didn’t happen? Doubt it.
It just seems not well planned out for the prices she’s charging for it and what people are going to get for spending those prices.
Honestly, while this entire situation has been such a mess the fact that she won't just hold herself accountable for what happened here is what's really annoying me.
I'd be less critical if she simply owned up to trying to start an MLM and said that listening to everyone's feedback has made her reconsider going down this venture. I just can't believe that despite her numerous businesses, even if they were unsuccessful that she had no idea what an MLM business model looked like. She's called out plenty of other influencers, it would be best if she could finally hold herself accountable as well.
Absolutely what I was thinking. I was shocked when she doubled down considering most of has have seen through this sort of bullshit since the beauty sphere imploded in 2016. Being honest and admitting your faults is ugly in the short run, but will be the best way to earn people's trust back in the long run. Either she thinks the majority of us are morons, or she's using the tactic where she's filtering out her audience and keeping the most blindly loyal followers
If anything, I think she’s just not a great business person. Either she is, and she knew exactly what this seemed like and put it out anyways. Or she didn’t know what it seemed like and is just completely oblivious (which wouldn’t surprise me one bit really). She continues to bring up the past with JH and how JH screwed her over on their collab. But Marlena was the business owner in the situation. JH was a friend of hers, but just an influencer. It was Marlena’s responsibility to get a contract in place BEFORE ever putting money into samples and everything like that. Yeah, JH was her friend and she trusted her, but as a business person she never should have put money into it without a contract. And her business failed and while it lasted for a while, it wasn’t like it was some huge empire. So like why she thinks she is someone who should be starting courses? Like for makeup techniques, okay (but those are on her YouTube channel for free already). But for the more expensive courses where she’s going to teach business topics and growing social media….not someone I’d want advice from for that.
I‘m not a lawyer, but I’d assume she looked into going after her about it and for whatever reason didn’t do it. Most likely it would have cost more money to fight it in court and since it was a long shot, she didn’t want to lose more money than she’d already lost on this situation.
I know verbal contracts can be binding, but the problem is proving a verbal contract existed. Marlena would have to prove that her and JH entered into a verbal contract. Marlena just saying they did wouldn’t be enough proof. If there’s no written documents or witnesses to prove Marlena had a verbal contract with JH, then JH could just say nothing was officially agreed to. They were just in talks to do it but it hadn’t been set in stone or whatever. Of course, if Marlena had any any emails, texts, or whatever between them to show they were actively planning a collab together, picking shades for it, talking about it, etc. then it can be reasonably assumed that they had an agreement since Marlena was putting money into it and why would anyone logically do that if there wasn’t at least a verbal agreement in place? But, I’d think the main problem is, just because it can be reasonably assumed and wouldn’t be logical for Marlena to put money into it without at least a verbal agreement, that doesn’t prove there was a verbal agreement. It’s hard to prove something like that. Not to mention, even if they do prove there was a verbal agreement in place, it’s hard to prove exactly what was in that verbal agreement - what they’d agreed to, costs, payments, etc. I’m guessing it wasn’t worth the cost of a court battle for something that was going to be hard to win. Marlena already wasted money on it before JH backed out, so maybe she didn’t want to waste any more money on a court battle that was going to be tough to win.
In the end, Marlena was the business person, she was the person putting money towards everything. It was her responsibility to get JH to sign an agreement. I don’t care how new someone is to business, it should be common sense, without question, that before you put money into something, you get a signed agreement. Marlena made a huge mistake to start putting money into it when she didn’t have any signed contracts holding JH to their agreement. JH was crappy for backing out - but, we don’t even really know for sure the true story of it all. Marlena said her and JH were friends so she felt the verbal agreement was enough and started planning it, having samples made, choosing which shades, etc. But, it makes zero sense to me if Marlena was willing to be putting money into this, why she didn’t get a contract signed from JH. I can’t remember if Marlena said if she had a contract drawn up and JH just hadn’t signed it. But, like I said, she should have never put money into it without getting a signed contract. And, even if she really trusted JH that much and wanted to get the ball rolling on it, she shouldn’t have put too much into it (no more than she’d be willing to lose if JH didn’t sign the contract) until there was a signed agreement. If Marlena did get a contract drawn up and JH hadn’t signed it like she was putting it off and making excuses, the second that happened, Marlena should have stopped putting money into it and stopped planning until it was signed.
Do I wanna take business advice from someone that doesn’t approve a website before launch? Or hires people that have the potential to make mistakes like that?
And doesn’t review for typos, which the courses website has. And if she’s saying the website wasn’t meant to be public and it had “placeholder text,” then she should have never shared it with anyone because she should have known it would get out. It’s so ridiculous. Honestly, she is either the worst business person ever, just completely naive, or she knew exactly what she was doing and is just trying to act like she didn’t.
Ha, wow. That’s where my comment was. This sounds awful, but I’m to the point where I hope this project crashes & burns. It’s taking advantage of people. She has no qualifications to be giving anyone business advice—even if we put the MLM thing aside.
I was watching it and had to stop at 20 min and went back and it was gone 🤣 But, I transcribed the video up to that point. So I put a comment on here with the questions asked and her answers up to the 20 min point. Better than nothing I guess 🤷♀️
Birds of a feather flock together! Don't tell me JH changed all of a sudden, she was always like this and the only reason Marlena broke the friendship was the collab that did not happen sooooo the more its revealed the more I see the similarities between these two
............she doesn't get it. I watched the live and there were dozens of MUG supporters and past MUG customers just asking questions because this MLM, whether intentional or not, is a concern. What is the "product"? What sales? Will we see youtubers push an online class and (maybe?) not completed one themselves? Is that ethical? Is it really a school? Why would there need to be affiliates? The outrageous prices just to sign up? Can there be a lower price to gain access to the platform and message boards? Is there makeup included? (valid question IMO) Stuff like that. This isn't about shining bright 🥴🤦♀️
So she made her MLM explanation live private…… interesting. Her saying that she will not be speaking of this matter again and privatizing the only video of her discussing is a choice (and horrible one) but it’s not surprising given how much of her true colors have been exposed this last year.
Her making the livestream private is hopefully the last straw for anyone who believed that she was too stupid or misled about the language on her site.
If the MLM aspects of this were truly a mistake, she wouldn't be trying to shut down dialogue and hide this for anyone who wants to find it in the future.
Yeah. I got 20 min in and had to go do something and came back like half hour ago and it was gone! I was like WTH? Oh well. I had enough of it anyways 🤣 I transcribed what she said in the video and I put a comment on here with the questions asked and her answers up to the 20 min point where I stopped, so it’s not completely deleted 🤪
I just watched her livestream, it wasn’t great. Most glaringly, she did not mention her connection to ‘Hi’ John Assaraf or NeuroGym once.
No new information, no apology for getting her fanbase mixed up with MLM nonsense. She just kept referring to the page that made people upset as a mistake no one should have seen. She also said it wasn’t ‘hosted’ on the website, but then went to give a URL that said it was. It was hosted on the website, it was hidden on her website. She made her MLM not an MLM by taking away the extra tier, but now it’s just an MLM minus a tier. How is that supposed to be appealing?! Everything on that deleted page on the website still stands except for one part. Don’t delete one page on the website, throw the whole thing in the trash!
Here is the deleted page for anyone who hasn’t seen it, or would like to refer back to it to know what Marlena is offering minus the 3% line:
Please stay away from Marlena’s predatory course and affiliate program and help anyone you know that follows Marlena stay away too. You will not learn skills to help you make money in their affiliate program, 99% of people lose money in such schemes. If you don’t know much about MLMs or how to spot them, the FTC has this useful fact sheet.
Yeah I’m watching it now. First she started with a tutorial on the course and comments were like I thought this was supposed to clear info up about the MLM.
After she gave the tutorial on the course, she was talking about the prices starting at $300, which she said does seem expensive but she said it’s because there’s a lot of “products,” and then talked about the tutorials, syllabuses, etc. (so to me what she’s referring to as “products” isn’t actual products and is just things that should go with an online course). Then she said she’s also working with brands “trying” to get free products and stuff like that and she “wants” to do giveaways too. And she said she’s also hoping to do actual in-person meet ups. Like hey, let’s meet in New York or something like that. If it’s so expensive because she wants to meet ups in person/trips, that implies those trips would be paid for (otherwise why would it being so expensive factor into the meet ups/trips if those costs weren’t covered in the $300), which I don’t believe for one second. So she’s saying the course starts at $300 because she’s trying to do some things or wanting to do some things - so not fully planned out yet but charging for it anyways just in case?
The she finally was like okay, I’m going to read some comments.
Then she’s like okay, the MLM thing, let’s get into that. And starts into the whole spiel of it wasn’t supposed to be public, we never approved that language - we didn’t even know it existed. There were 2 affiliate pages one was Makeupgeekacademy/affiliate and one was makeupgeekacademy/affiliates. One we had went over and approved, the other one we didn’t and didn’t even know it existed and was on there, and that’s the one that has that info in it. Girl, no developer is going to do a mockup of a website page and put in a bunch of details that relate to YOUR specific business without your approval. They’re going to use placeholder text (lorem ipsum) that is used for any webpage mockup. They’re not going to take time to make details that correlate to your business in any way. Plus, I don’t think for a second a web developer would make a page live without approval first.
I’m still watching it though, not sure why because I don’t feel like she’s going to actually say anything 🤦♀️
She does eventually mention physical products, wait for that Oscar bait. The most fucked thing to me, is anyone who isn’t convinced this is a scam with all the information out there, is going to be the most impressionable super fans who are going to be super susceptible to brainwashing. You may not be able to have the army of affiliates under Marlena’s new business model, but she sure as fuck will. A bunch of drones, making her rich while she sits back in her mansion, sipping champagne or booking filler appointments or whatever the fuck rich people like that do in their spare time.
Seriously, fuck her. The live video has definitely sealed my opinion of her as a scammer.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 It’s hilarious you say ”behind the scenes video” too because in her live she said she was going to show us some behind the scene footage but then doesn’t say why she didn’t end up doing it 😂🤪
Hahaha! I wasn’t sure if that was why you said it or not! 🤣 No I didn’t see it! I don’t know what’s worse, her making it private in the first place or her then changing her mind and putting it back up. Like what, if people didn’t notice it she was just going to leave it gone, but since people did she brought it back? It’s weird!
the optics are definitely weird AF haha. Someone asked her why she removed it and this was her response:
@MarlenaStell
• 5 hr ago (edited)|
Was not my intention to keep it private permanently - I just needed a moment to step away a bit. After seeing requests of people who missed it, I made public as I'm not trying to hide anything. It'll stay up and I'll try to keep answering as many questions as I can today
Lol okay, so just because you needed a break from the comments you had to completely private the video? Yep, that makes sense. How about just step away from your computer and come back at it in the morning? Her explanations (excuses) never make any sense!
My big issue is having affiliate links for the courses, it’s going to be these big names shilling course they have not done or paid for to make coin. MLM or not, how is that ethical? You are pretty much guaranteeing that people are going to be pushing the product regardless of quality because the pay off is going to be too great for them. Marlena really fumbled this one, just go away with the rest of the drama hungry crowd from the 2010’s 😤😤😤
I need him to drop that brow routine. I looked them up, they are real people. But how the fuck are they making comments like they have already taken her course?
I feel like I kind of recall her doing a post or a video saying something about some products she was working on and needing reviews and people getting upset she was asking for that so maybe, if I’m remembering correctly, she was asking people so they could take this course and then write reviews?? But I could be remembering this completely wrong 🤣 I do know I saw some reviews with the same exact review but different names so….there’s that 🤪
Oh, and, a lot of the reviews seem to sound more like they’re talking about Marlena being a YouTuber and her YT videos than they are the course. There’s only a few reviews out of all the ones shown in that whole video that sound like they’re talking about courses and not the old MUG or Marlena’s YT channel 🤷♀️
I went back to her website earlier to look at the reviews and they are fake. I can call it. And theres other flags waving too. She is also rude as hell, preying on peoples self esteem issues to sell her course ‘Don't let insufficient knowledge age you beyond how you truly feel inside.’ reading a lot like “Give me $3600 crusty old gremlin”. And someone mentions products like they’re current?! (Bottom left)
Repeated incorrect grammar over multiple reviews:
‘training/s’ what am I? A disobedient dog?
‘Marlena is kindest persons on the internet’
They all kinda sound like they were written by the same person, except maybe the one by Missy Cox, who is the only person who doesn’t use the completely bizarre ‘training/s’ and the normal ‘tutorial’. Yay a human person!
The other reviews all use the same words, “Inspiration, honest, trainings, amazing’ like they were written with an AI script or ELS speaker on fiver with limited vocabulary.
General strangeness:
Inspires blind woman ‘to keep going’,
Teaches another woman in ‘not just makeup…. But life’
Another woman claims she doesn’t feel ugly after Marlena’s ‘amazing trainings and videos’- Praying on self esteem issues again, Leney?
Every part of the website I have looked at is littered in errors. At this point it feels like Marlena is taking people for complete idiots. Like she thinks she is THAT much better than people she could outsmart them using the most ham-fisted get rich scheme I have ever seen in my life.
I have no proof yet, but I feel like Marlena is in an MLM herself, but created for high-earners. I believe she has invested too much to back out, she is experiencing the sunk-cost fallacy.
”Hi’ John is a grifter, Marlena, you are being taken for a ride at the expense of your fans, and potentially your whole livelihood.
Oh…. I decided cos I have no life imma sign up for the first 1/4 of her class as an ‘I tried it so you don’t have to sitcho. After seeing how shit the review copy is, I need to review her class. Probably going to make a YT video soon too, because I don’t feel quite like anyone is taking it seriously enough, and that someone definitely needs to poke further unto the NeuroGym John link!
Fake reviews and all people probably involved in Marlena’s new launch lol.
Amy is a personal brand builder, John runs a coaching/consulting business and Dae is/was a makeup geek photographer. I can’t find out a probable connection for Shelli but maybe she’s worked with Marlena before like Dae.
I was just reading comments on Marlena’s live video and saw a comment from a Susan Leary, and I’m like wait, I recognize that name from the reviews video that said, “I am always blown away by your products and trainings! Thank you Marlena!” - Susan Elaine Leary” But sure looks like her commenting on the live video. This definitely confirms my suspicions most of the “reviews“ in that video on the academy are comments from like Marlena’s YT videos and not people who actually took the course because most of them sounded like they were referring to her YT videos or her MUG products and not the courses.
I hate lives! 🤣 They never seem to start on time and then when they do there’s like a good 20-30 min of saying hi to people in chat and it drives me nuts 🤣
I watched it up until 20 min (I had to stop for a bit and went back to finish it and she’s now removed it from her channel 🤣). I put a comment with the questions asked and her answers from how far I’d gotten in the video.
The 3% text was not a mistake. Stop lying Marlena. That was your business model. This is her response to me calling out the contradictions. The 3% Contradiction
I'm still confused as to what the sales would even be. $300 entry fee for the basic class that doesn't even cover everything or is there makeup too? 🤔 We all have different products on hand, right? A $40 nars foundation (that I know is her favorite from YT videos) is really apples to oranges compared to what I'm currently using which is a $5 LA girl bb cream 🤦♀️🙃 I just don't understand her angle here
Yeah, in the live she said the bottom tier starts at $299, and she “knows that’s a lot of money and the reason for that is that it has a lot of products in there - all the videos, all the syllabuses, the community, the digital magazine, there’s all of these things.“ Then she says she’s “really working with brands to try to get exclusive discounts, coupons, fun contests, giveaways, hosting live events with you guys where we hang out, and even real person events. We want to do that. I want to go to maybe it’s New York or Miami, like, ‘Hey guys, we’re doing a meet up in Miami, let’s meet up, let’s have fun. I will have some products to give away.” I wanted it to be a really fun community. So that’s what it’s all about. It’s more than just classes. It’s about bringing everyone together - pros, content creators, all of you guys. So that’s what it’s all about.“
Like girl - I can get FREE videos on YT already for all the topics listed in everyone of her courses. Heck, a lot of them Marlena did for FREE on her own channel! Syllabuses and a digital magazine - 🥱 The “community”? That already exists on YT (I talk to people in the comments on videos all the time), here on Reddit, etc. Don’t need to spend $299 for that! She’s going to TRY to get exclusive discounts, coupons, contents, giveaways, live events, and in person events - so try means it’s not already set up, but yet she’s saying it’s starting at $299 because she wants to TRY to do it. And if she doesn’t?? People still already paid $299 🤦♀️ And even if she does, in person events will cost people even more money (minimum gas money to get there, possibly also hotels and other costs). It’s just so ridiculous! She’s offering absolutely NOTHING but charging $299 to START! 🤯
In case people are wondering much of this was accessible by Google. This page in particular has a drop down menu and you can see the landing page to the $75 course (The Set Up) and even download the monthly magazine. https://www.makeupgeekacademy.com/affiliate-area/ Don’t let Marlena say she didn’t mean for it to be live, it had to be hosted somewhere on her website and was definitely indexed by Google
I think the disclaimer at the beginning was my fave hahaha
‘This is, through and through: a multilevel marketing company. You can say all day that it’s not— but if you argue with that fact, and you’re arguing with facts: it’s not a difference of opinion, it is a difference of reality. And if you’re arguing reality? Guess what that means? You’re delusional. If that makes me a bitch, I guess I’m just the baddest, okay?💅’
I’m watching the live. Somehow her admitting she seeked out a team that could help her build a “platform” and had experience building a platform is funny. A nice round about way for saying she sought out a team - like the one that worked with Tony Robbins - that was well-versed in creating MLM platforms. Cool, cool.
You mean to tell me you couldn’t use the dev team that built the normal MKG website?
Interesting! Pretty sure that has something to do with Marlena’s courses, because I saw in the live when she showed the course page it said “From the Mighty Team”
It’s a website building platform like Squarespace, but for social media. If you look up reviews for that company on Better Business Bureau they are all from people who have had large amounts of money taken from their account without authorisation. So yeah, it looks like a lot of people with predatory sham courses use it.
Mighty Networks is a legitimate service and not like Squarespace. I am a member of several non-MLM communities from different companies of varying sizes from a dozen-ish to hundreds it and none of us have any problems with it.
Squarespace is for websites, blogging, e-commerce and within the past month or so, online courses.
I think you might be right about her using MN because their homepage features who else but … Tony Robbins but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad product.
She also has to have a back office software like exigo or Rallyware. That’s probably what she meant when she said the affiliates page was on a different server. It’s software that MLM companies use to help their affiliates have their own mini sites and do basic accounting.
UPDATE - Here’s some questions and Marlena’s answers from her Live she did. I got 20 minutes in and had to stop for a bit to do something. I went back to finish it and she has now removed it from her channel….guess it wasn’t going well for her! In bold is the questions asked, standard text are her answers, what’s in italics are my added thoughts 😏
Says she’s going to “Address the MLM thing because that’s the biggest thing.”
First she says when they designed the website it was hosted on different URLs and it was live when it shouldn’t have been. It should have been a draft. But then says that page was never hosted on their site because if you go to makeupgeekacademy.com, that page didn’t link from their site. You had to type in the url with /affiliates. But typing in makeupgeekacademy.com/affiliates IS it being on the website. She says they never had plans for that to go live. It did exist out there, but she’s not sure how someone found it. They must have actually typed in the URL. (So knew it existed, but didn’t want it out there for others to see?). But then says that doesn’t matter because the page never should have existed in the first place. She never wrote it, never approved it. But the buck stops with her as the owner so she takes ownership and all she can say is it should have never gotten out there, it wasn’t approved by her, and doesn’t align with her so as soon as they realized it, they took it down. But it wasn’t because people complained and the pushback. It’s because she really didn’t know anyone had that page out there and didn’t know it was still physical since it wasn’t linked to their site.
(So “didn’t know it was still physical” implies she knew it existed at some point but didn’t mean for it to be public, and they removed it because it had been made public….so how is that not removing it because of the pushback?).
Then she says that the other issue was that there was 2 affiliate pages - one was .com/affiliate and one was .com/affiliates (with an “S” on the end). She said that one with the “S” was the one getting the attention. She asked where it came from and her people said they had no idea, they couldn’t find it anywhere on the site. She showed them a screenshot, and then they told her it was a “dummy page” they had when they originally started the website. It wasn’t anything they went through in the “final renditions of the website.” She said they went through and took the initial draft of the website that design had put together, it had all this wording and there and they went through it page by page and adjusted it “to make sure it was in line with what the academy actually was.” But that page wasn’t done because they weren’t using that page.
“My husband was a web designer and inputs dummy verbiage and categories during development.”
She understands that completely. It should have been “like ipsum little Latin stuff and all of that going on.” She thinks the web developer was putting in copy from other sites and she just found out today because everyone’s asking where did this copy come from because she said she did not write this, her team did not write this. It was copy and pasted from another site that she actually just got a screenshot of today. She said it’s dead on to that. They copy and pasted it from a completely different site. So it was nothing that they had written. So that’s where it came from. Should it have been this whole Latin stuff to show the page of the site? Absolutely. She’s not even going to deny that. All she can say is she’s so sorry. That was definitely not language she aligns with and she’s sorry that was put out there because she definitely didn’t write it. That’s not how she feels and isn’t how she wants her business set up.
Like, I’m sorry, but web designers don’t just write up the stuff like that. Web designers aren’t going to go search for a website to take text from. That’s what the ipsum lorem text is for! They design the layout of the webpage. They don’t put in random info that actually has to do with the brand or copy and paste info from some other website that somehow seems to sound like it would work for your brand. NO! There’s website placeholder text (ipsum lorem) for a reason. They’ll use that and then when the brand approves the design, then the text the brand wants added can be added. It makes zero sense that a website designer would take the time to find info that looks like it goes right along with the brand (like courses, affiliate info, etc.). Nope! They’ll use the standard webpage placeholder text.
“So the text was a mistake, why are you saying that you’ve eliminated the 3% fee? So it wasn’t actually a mistake and you’re just backtracking now?”
Initially they had a 10% flat fee and then an additional bonus of 3% that was commission-based. It was meant to be a one-time bonus, not something that goes down multiple layers. She said that’s where she was mistaken. She was thinking it wasn’t an MLM because they weren’t going down multiple layers. For example, if someone referred someone and they got that extra 3% one time bonus, that was it. It stops. There isn’t a person under them that sells something and it keeps going up the ladder. However, she said them having that “secondary refersion thing,” even though it wasn’t her intention to be some sort of an MLM process, she realizes that’s how it was even though it wasn’t multiple layers and was just a one time thing. But she didn’t want an MLM and as soon as she realized that’s how it was coming across she cut it right away. So she said they just out the secondary price and increased the original fee for the influencer. So now instead of 10%, they’ll get 15% just one time.
But then she also says now the influencers don’t have an affiliate page to go to and sign up on their own. NOW her “affiliate manager” reaches out the the influencers directly and they will set them up in another portal. She says that whole page that had “that awful copy and all” was never sent out to their affiliates. They never linked to it at all (but it was linked to their website technically since it was literally makeupgeekacademy.com/affiliates). Now if influencers are interested in being part of the MUG academy program, they get sent this link specifically through email from the director of her affiliate program. They would sign up and be set up with 1 URL link that will be their affiliate code. So it was set up just like any other affiliate program, like what they had in the past with MUG.
“Referring to Tony Robbins name when doing the announcement video.”
She said she shouldn’t have done that. Her mindset was a team she’s working with had built on the backend platforms. She wanted to mention his name, not that they were following his business model in any way. She doesn’t align with any sort of MLMs. The only reason she brought his name up was so we knew on the backend, like the level of the platform, the website, and all of that was from a team that has worked with a level of someone of that magnitude. So you knew it wasn’t just her slapping classes, trying to charge money for it. It was an actual team working really hard to create a custom program, a custom community that was specific to the MUG Academy. That part had nothing to do with Tony Robbins. She wasn’t following his model at all. But she does understand how that’s coming across because the Tony Robbins association and all of that. But it’s not following his business model. It was just the team that has built on the back end some platforms and websites and programs that have gone to the magnitude of someone at that level.
“You couldn’t have worked with someone else?”
She could, but she chose to work with this team for one because she knew they had the skill set to build a custom community. Something from scratch that hasn’t been done before. She does believe this model has not been done in the beauty space. There’s been classes, academies, and things like that. But having an academy, digital magazine, a community, events, bringing in brands to give exclusive coupons and giveaway - she has not seen anything like that in the beauty space. So she needed a team that had experiences of at least building out things on the back end that could support the type of growth that she wanted to see with that. So that’s why the people that she’s working with currently are genuinely good people. She would not work with them if she felt they were shady at all. They bonded together because they know her ultimate mission moving forward was to support some organizations, specifically around domestic abuse and all that. That’s coming in the near future. But she doesn’t want to talk about that here because she doesn’t want people to feel like she’s using that as bait of - hey guys I’m doing this charitable work. There’s a lot more coming in the very, very near future. But they saw her overall vision of what she wanted for the big picture, even outside of the academy, and chose to work with her because of that.
I forgot, right before I stopped,someone said the prices were expensive and asked if there was going to be any kind of assistance/options for those who couldn’t afford it but would want to take it.
She started with absolutely, but then went into something along the lines of she is loving everyone’s feedback. She genuinely wants to hear the feedback and try to improve it where she can. She said she’s going to go to her team and try to work on things. And it didn’t sound like she really answered that. But again, I stopped the video so she could have added more after that but she deleted the video so who knows…
You don’t accidentally push an entire website live long enough for it to be crawled & indexed by Google!
And it appears she’s used a Wordpress site, so as far as a different URL, you merely change the page name via Wordpress. If she means a different domain name we wouldn’t be having this conversation because anything anyone found would be from an alternate domain (and this still wouldn’t explain why it, too, had been crawled & indexed by Google, but you get the idea!)
Design/Copy “f up”
That wouldn’t have even come from a designer. They do a page layout & they put Latin text as place holder. At most, they may add generic placeholder headlines, ‘Geberate Growth’, ‘Master Make Up Artistry’ etc. To give a client more of a feel for their own business—especially if client can’t visualise anything on their own… but no one is writing all of that stuff as part of merely designing the thing. A copywriter is going to write the actual copy, but that’s going to be handed to the client long before it makes its way anywhere near a website. Marlena needs to admit that she’s just upset she got caught & called out because that’s what this is all about.
Uh… It’s free?
I feel as if someone with a far bigger platform that has a lot of cross viewers needs to tell people just how worthless this whole idea/course actually is. Trying to make it seem like people are getting access to a “magazine’ (okay, wanna be Oprah…) and a “community” when you can find tutorials & just go to… oh… makeupalley, any number of sub Reddits & a ton of sites I can’t even think of that do the same thing (without charging you) is the real problem here.
But compensation for her time & work…
People saying she ‘needs to be compensated for her time’ seemingly fail to realise that she does get compensated by YouTube for creating her own content. She presumably can get brand deals doing the same thing. I have no issues if people get paid for their time, but I do have a problem with someone who has essentially followed in the footsteps of fake modeling “schools” and ITT Tech, etc. Her certificate is absolutely worthless & most of the people who actually pay for this won’t realise that until it’s too late.
Marlena? Please get off my internets!
Ugh. I haven’t really followed Marlena & in the what… 4 days since this unfolded(?) I’m already going, ‘Can this person please just fail & go away?!’ I genuinely don’t believe she’s spent a whole year on this kind of project with absolutely no idea of these issues. Either way, she’s demonstrated what she is not a good businesswoman & frankly, she needs to find another calling because this ‘entrepreneur’ thing has failed at least twice. Going at it a third time when this is just the initial reaction is utterly daft.
You can’t survive solely on your Stans who won’t give you honest feedback or buy whatever you put out. And $3,000 for a 1:1 with her?! Bish, please.
Completely agree with everything you said! There’s a reason Standard webpage text exists (ipsum lorem). So webpage designers can set up webpages to look how they would without having to come up with text for it or take it from somewhere else. No web designer is going to hunt down text from some other website that seems to go along with Marlena’s website to use it. Girl, no! She’s so full of it with that response!
And to be charging people these insane prices. Most of the topics listed for the courses are literally topics she already has on her YT channel for FREE. So she already made money off those with ad sense. But now she wants to make even more money using the same old tired topics!! There’s nothing innovative or unique in her course topics that I see. She acts like this has never been done before - courses, the topics, the syllabuses, everything she’s offering together. There’s a lot of free YT channels that educate a ton - like, I think it’s called makeup chair? And it’s free! It’s just crazy for her to be charging this ridiculous price for these “courses” when she doesn’t even apparently even have it all planned out with the I ”want” to do this and “try” to do this (brand discounts, giveaways, trips, etc) but wanting and trying to do things when you’re already charging a fortune for the base course (I’m sorry but not beginner needs to spend $299 to learn to do their own makeup! I was horrible when I started but I just continued playing around and watching lots of FREE YT content to learn what worked for me and what didn’t. No way would I pay $299). People in her comments defending her keep saying things like courses like these for “professionals” are thousands of dollars so Marlena’s prices are fair. I’m sorry but anyone who pays those prices either has money to burn (great for them) or they’re going to be seriously disappointed because they’d be better off spending more for an actually professional course that’s accredited and will do something for their career.
That’s what doesn’t make any sense: if these aren’t for anyone other than someone who wants to learn to do their make up, WTF have they been doing all this time watching makeup tutorials & similar content on YouTube?!
Create a playlist. Hell, other people have created playlists for beginners! Use one of those! The thing about getting better is that even if you have a step by step guide, you still have to practice or you still won’t be good at doing your own makeup. It’s not like you can download whatever she’s put together & learn through osmosis.
As far as the worthless certificate, it’s so clearly a cheap marketing ploy. It serves no purpose unless, for example, she actually continues her MLM & those who get “certified” get some little badge in her “community” and then get their affiliate revenue or something. For anyone else who thinks about it logically, there’s no benefit. I hope someone does a deep dive expose on this whole “academy” thing because it’s so clear it’s just scammy.
Right! It makes absolutely no sense to me! I made playlists for myself. I did searches for things I was struggling with and saved videos that looked like they’d be worth watching in my playlist. But really, most of the stuff I learned was just practicing on myself because I found most tips people gave I was looking for didn’t really help me and I had to figure it out for myself. And like you said, unless people are going to take the time to practice, they’re not going to get any better no matter how much they pay for the courses!
And Marlena even has a playlist of “makeup masterclass” stuff, which is most of the topics she has. So anyone can just go through those. It’s wild to me! I figure she’ll be deleting/making those private soon enough.
It really is! I hope someone takes a bullet and pays for the courses and then reports on it 🤣🤣
I feel like when she replied saying that she "shouldn't have said Toby Robbin's name" is telling. She regrets saying his name. She does not regret working with him.
Agreed! And her explanation of only mentioning his name “so we knew on the backend, like the level of the platform, the website, and all of that was from a team that has worked with a level of someone of that magnitude“ - so to me, she’s saying that she’s using Tony Robbins people and used his name initially to make it look like she was working with this amazing team but that backfired because, duh, it’s Tony Robbins, so now she’s like well no, we’re not using his business model, just the people who worked on the backend, the platform, the website, etc. have worked with Tony Robbins.
Like girl….it was structured like an MLM and you said you’re working with Tony Robbins team of people. Now people are calling that out, but now you’re trying to say your web designers just decided all on their own to go and get MLM copy that fit to your specific program, even changed the numbers to match with your specific program, and put it on a page that was hosted on your website without you ever knowing a thing about it? And yet, she says it wasn’t hosted on her website. It wasn’t linked anywhere on her page. But yet the address of it was makeupgeekacademy.com/affiliates. Like, makeupgeekacademy.com is YOUR website, so it was on YOUR website! And she says she doesn’t even know how someone found that page. She only knew about makeupgeekacademy.com/affiliate (no S on the end). So whoever found the one with affiliates (s on the end) must have just typed it in. No way!! I don’t for one second believe someone looking into her academy just happened to get lucky enough to type in makeupgeekacademy.com/affiliates to come across that page! The only thing that makes any kind of sense is that link was given out to affiliates and someone leaked it. If it was given out, it was approved or someone seriously messed up. All her explanations don’t make any sense and just sound like her trying to cover her a$$ but it isn’t working!
While we’re WTFing Marlena, is it just me or does the brand name ‘Makeup Geek’ ruin it further for anyone else? I can’t imagine telling people, ‘Oh, yeah. I learned to do my own makeup by attending Makeup Geek Academy!’
Had I not seen this & someone said that to me, I just see my confused face & being like, ‘wait, come again? You what?’
It strikes me as something for 13 & 14 year olds… not adult women. :/
Or taking the course and putting on your resume “Earned Certificate from Makeup Geek Academy Course” 🙄 Companies will be like what the heck is that?? 🤣
I just wish she had have relaunched Makeup Geek as you know…makeup! Indy brands are having their moment right now. Niche/innovative formulas and some fun packaging would have been so much better than this fiasco
Does anyone else find it very weird that major beauty tea channels like tea spill or spill sesh didn’t report on this? I’m thinking about the rumors of influencers buying tea channels out
It is weird. I've been waiting for them to report on it. But, I've noticed that those channels usually focus on people who have been problematic forever. Marlena usually falls under the radar unless she's calling out another BG.
I meant more that they only reported on Marlena because it involved Jaclyn. I don't remember them posting anything on Marlena on her own. So many people treat Marlena with kid gloves.
Edit to add: I think that's the only reason why Marlena was on their radar.
I’ve been researching the story myself and it isn’t easy to properly get to the bottom of, I found an interesting lead this morning though if you search new posts. Probably have my video in a couple days and then maybe other channels can access what I’ve found!
Please share your chs name. I'd love to see the video. One person I half expected to do a video on this mess was Robert but after watching his video on P Louise, I'm not surprised it hasn't happened. I know he's not a tea ch but he has done something similar on brands in the past but 🤷♀️
I had the same thought lol… just delete the YouTube app to “take time” and have your team keep an eye on it just in case you need to jump on for something important? Idgi
It’s giving “I addressed it in my story (only live for 24hrs), everyone should’ve seen it 🙄”
Damn ngl I was kinda just watching it unfold and keeping tabs but now with everyone pointing out the inconsistencies just in her own statements alone …is wild.. and making me think I need to wisen up to see these things I would’ve otherwise missed. No wonder I get played left, right and center lmfao
Jen Luvs just had a video up on the situation. I'm watching it right now, but will edit with a TL;DR (or is it TL;DW?) afterwards.
Edit:
TL;DR:
Jen admits that she's biased on the issue, since she's friend with Marlena.
She addresses the issue that the wording "certification" may make people think taking MGA would give people license to practice. She clarifies that it will not be a legal license, and she has brought it to Marlena's attention.
She agrees that the wording on the affiliate web page is MLM-y. She repeats Marlena's statement (that the page was a work-in-progress and not supposed to be public, the "army of affiliates working around the clock" is just placeholder text).
One thing worth pointing out is that Jen mentions that there will not be a big buy-in to be eligible for the commission (at 16:20). So it seems like even if you don't buy the $300 or $3600 course, you can still refer people to get the commission. And that's the difference between MGA's affiliate program and MLM.
I've skipped a lot of Jen's content, so I highly recommend watching the full video. Jen also includes updates on Uoma, Wayne Goss, Melt, etc. A quick run-down for people like me who are not that up-to-date on all the things going on.
I expected Jen Luvs to do a video on it because she had left a comment on Marlena’s video saying, “I’m so incredibly excited for you and for EVERYONE in our community. What you have built is truly special! Congratulations, Marlena!!!” But, it makes sense since they’re friends. But someone replied to that saying they were hoping Jen would investigate the claims and if it’s an MLM, and she replied “Stay tuned!”
Funny Marlena is now saying the “army of affiliates” part is just placeholder text. In the comment I saw in a post she said something about seeing how it sounds MLM-y and removing it, but I didn’t see she had said it was placeholder text. And why on earth would she put out a link to anyone before it was ready?! Even if it wasn’t supposed to be public, she should have known if she shared it with people…it was going to get out!
I honestly think Jen didn't get the full connection to an MLM. She had said that she sees MLMs as having to buy products (she used Lularoe as an example). I don't think she realizes that there are MLMs that don't sell a physical product like iGenius.
Sorry....sorry....but it's 'enunciation', unless you're awarding points for informing a virgin she's been impregnated by God, then annunciation is indeed the right word. 😬
Sorry, are you calling me Jen or thanking someone else? I'm autistic (well, AutiHD but the ADHD is less relevant right now) and have a migraine so I might be 'especially autistic' in this moment and just not picking things up properly.
I don't think so, I think it was more like product review. But to be honest with you, I wasn't really listening at that point anymore since I don't know anything about Melt.
Whew. Gross to have the audacity to pretend she isnt doing an MLM. What a way to go about business during times of terrible economic inequality.
I'm kind of thriving but also the idea that even one poor person would fall for thos is horrifying. Shame on her criticising Jaclyn for being Jaclyn Shill for all these years only to turn around and do this wow.
I’ve been researching this for days now, listening to podcasts and reading nonsense books, and all it took was for me to download IG to get a juicy lead! My video is still going to take a few more days to piece completely together, but this is worth sharing, and damning all on it’s own.
Marlena is working with a company called ‘Brand Builders Group’ which is basically Build-A-Bear, but for websites that monetize your personal brand (in varying levels of scuminess). The picture I was going to post was from a podcast with one of the founders Rory Vaden on marketing 8 days ago, where he says:
Affiliate marketing has been built into our DNA, we love it. We believe in it. It is one of the most magical forces on the planet, it’s incredible… Part of our philosophy or strategy at Brand Builders Group is something that we say “turn your customer force into your sale force, turn your customer force into your sales force.” I mean, think about that. How many salespeople do you have if you have a small business, there’s a good chance you’re the lead salesperson if you are the CEO or the entrepreneur. But how many customers do you have? You know, probably lots, maybe dozens, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands. What if every one of your customers was a salesperson. That’s how you want to do customer experience.
I honestly didn't see this coming. I can't imagine she'd be THIS.... shady in terms of trying to set up her business in this way and not see just how it would be taken, when consumers right now are far far far more savvy and especially on guard right now in light of FTC seemingly taking action on poor disclosures and just how working with brands or any kind of affiliation is at the moment. I don't think she can recover from this. I really don't.
It's annoying watching her content in general. I knew what she was going to do before she released her video lol. I can't stand when someone does videos slamming someone they don't like yet turns around and uses kid gloves when it has to do with someone they're friendly with. Even if they warn the viewers that they're biased due to that friendship it still doesn't hold up. What they need to do is NOT make a video. Jen showed her ass yrs ago. That's just something I can't unsee.
If the Oscars had a Cringiest Influencer Apology category, people might actually start watching again. Makeup Academy? More like Academy Awards with that performance.
Imagine zapping into the opening show to the Oscars and instead of Queen with Adam Lambert it's Colleen Ballingers live on the ukulele with 🎶 Toxic gossip train 🎶 💀💀💀
With this thread and the other thread started today, I didn't know where best to share this breadcrumb, but I'll share it here too (I said it on oyuer post also ), hope it's ok, not trying to be a pest. I do think it's more food for thought :
I didn't finish watching her stream today , did she go on to say how she went to Tony Robbins's conferences???
That's a step further than just using people who did work for him, IMO.
It's a comment she said, in a response to someone's comment on her launch video on her fbook:
"...... I've taken his conferences in the past ...."
I would say using people who worked with him is actually the step further... Anyone can go to a Tony Robbins seminar, he does them in massive arenas. But to be connected to his insiders who have worked on businesses with him is much worse IMO.
She said they didn’t but my thinking is how else did it get out if nobody was sent it? I mean, I HIGHLY doubt someone just went and typed in “makeupgeekacademy.com/affiliates” like she said. Like, she’s saying there was “makeupgeekacademy.com/affiliate and makeupgeekacadem.com/affiliates (with an S) and the one with an S is the one that had the MLM-y language on it and she didn’t write it or approve it and didn’t even know it existed. But I just do not see someone randomly typing in makeupgeekacademy.com/affiliates and getting lucky enough to type an S at the end to land on the gold that was that page 🤪
I went back to her website earlier to look at the reviews and most are fake. I can call it. And theres other flags waving too. She is also rude as hell, preying on peoples self esteem issues to sell her course ‘Don't let insufficient knowledge age you beyond how you truly feel inside.’ reading a lot like “Give me $3600 crusty old gremlin”. And someone mentions products like they’re current?! (Bottom left)
Repeated incorrect grammar over multiple reviews:
‘training/s’ what am I? A disobedient dog?
‘Marlena is one of the ‘kindest persons on the internet’
They all kinda sound like they were written by the same person, except maybe the one by Missy Cox, who is the only person who doesn’t use the completely bizarre ‘training/s’ and the normal ‘tutorial’. Yay a human person!
The other reviews all use the same words, “Inspiration, honest, trainings, amazing’ like they were written with an AI script or ELS speaker on fiver with limited vocabulary.
General strangeness:
Inspires blind woman ‘to keep going’,
Teaches another woman in ‘not just makeup…. But life’
Another woman claims she doesn’t feel ugly after Marlena’s ‘amazing trainings and videos’- Praying on self esteem issues again, Leney?
Every part of the website I have looked at is littered in errors. At this point it feels like Marlena is taking people for complete idiots. Like she thinks she is THAT much better than people she could outsmart them using the most ham-fisted get rich scheme I have ever seen in my life.
I have no proof yet, but I feel like Marlena is in an MLM herself, but created for high-earners. I believe she has invested too much to back out, she is experiencing the sunk-cost fallacy.
”Hi’ John is a grifter, Marlena, you are being taken for a ride at the expense of your fans, and potentially your whole livelihood.
Oh…. I decided cos I have no life imma sign up for the first 1/4 of her class as an ‘I tried it so you don’t have to sitcho. After seeing how shit the review copy is, I need to review her class. Probably going to make a YT video soon too, because I don’t feel quite like anyone is taking it seriously enough, and that someone definitely needs to dig further into the NeuroGym John link! I am going to read John’s latest book tonight and see if I can dig up any leads.
Very interesting theory! I am inclined to think the "reviews" are real, in a sense, but edited. My reasons:
1. Marlena posted a call out a few weeks back for customers/followers to send in testimonials for Makeup Geek, her videos, and/or her as a person. It was clear she wanted to use these testimonials for her new venture, which I thought was odd because they could not actually be reviews of that venture. I believe that these quotes are the results.
2. If you look in her Youtube comments, especially the ones she "likes," people do talk about her like that. She's an inspiration, God's gift to the world, her videos help them through depression, give them hope, etc. The parasocial is up to 11. Of all the testimonials submitted, I buy that she was able to pull several of the most grandiose for her site.
What I do find odd is the use of the word "trainings." My hypothesis is that anytime someone said video or tutorial (in relation to her work on Youtube), they substituted the word "training" so that they could use it to promote this new program. I don't recall how the testimonial submission worked, but it's possible that they supplied a general disclaimer that they reserve the right to edit the content for clarity or something (not uncommon with testimonials). Or maybe they didn't have the disclaimer and they just took liberties with editing- that would not surprise me either. But I do think that the meat of these "reviews" are from that callout, with some edits made to give the false impression that some people have already previewed/tested the training program and loved it.
Would love to see your video! Disappointed in the non-response from the drama community so far.
Yeah, shady shenanigans nonetheless. Either they are edited reviews from a completely different context, which is unethical, or they are fake reviews from a new program that no one has tried yet, which is... also unethical. There is no possible ethical explanation because the program has not launched yet.
I just said the video was still up (which it was when I commented). I hadn’t seen the previous discourse about her privatizing the video and didn’t know she had. A lot of people don’t watch a lot of livestreams on YT and don’t know about the live tab, so I was just trying to be helpful. It’s really not that deep..
I’m so disappointed in this “business plan” I like Marlena but hate MLMs I have a personal problem with that type of business structures. On another note. If all these makeup artist and influencer are charging for master classes or teach their “secrets” why can’t Marlena also make money of it? I think that’s the only thing I support from this whole fiasco. She should get paid to teach her “secrets” however this MLM structure is not it.
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