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We’re only two episodes into On Becoming a God in Central Florida and it’s already clear that Kirsten Dunst’s Krystal isn’t playing around. From shooting gators and losing her husband to arguing with the woman trying to foreclose on her house, Krystal has already had a hell of a time. But she still has one big foe lurking over her: the MLM company FAM.
But what exactly is FAM? Is it based on a real company, and are these network marketing companies truly as devastating as Showtime is making them seem? The answer to that involves far fewer shotguns, but it’s still not great. Here’s your quick guide to the world of MLMs and why this story about remortgaging a house for a company you don’t even own is so depressingly common.
Is On Becoming a God in Central Florida based on a real story?
Kirsten Dunst’s Showtime series is all fictional, but it’s based on a very real trend. On Becoming a God in Central Florida was created by Robert Funke and Matt Lutsky. It was originally set to be an AMC production in 2017 before it moved to YouTube Premium. After that Showtime acquired the rights to it.
Is FAM a real company?
Everything about this series revolves around FAM, or Founders American Merchandise, a direct sales company that sells household goods, supplies, and microwavable meals. Though these types of companies were incredibly popular during the ’90s, FAM is fiction. But it does have a real-life counterpart — Amway.
Similar to FAM, Amway sells a wide array of health and homegood products, which is a bit of an anomaly in the modern world of MLMs. Most of these companies now focus on a single product or a specific line of products, whether they be essential oils, yoga pants, acai juice, or vitamins. Conversely Amway and its fictional counterpart FAM are positioned to sell absolutely everything a family would need.
Amway has been labelled as “cult-like” by its critics and has been investigated by the Federal Trade Commission on at least one occasion. In 1979 the FTC ruled that Amway did not meet the definition of a pyramid scheme. That same ruling found the company guilty of price-fixing and making exaggerated claims about its representatives’ earning potential. Amway was also the focus of two class action lawsuits, one in Canada in 2009 and one in America in 2010. The 2010 lawsuit and subsequent payout was for racketeering, alleged fraud, and operating as a pyramid scheme. But despite its legal woes, Amway is still going strong. The company reported $8.8 billion in sales for 2018.
What is an MLM? Is an MLM a pyramid scheme?
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On Becoming a God in Central Florida
Multi-level marketing companies are a sort of tricky area. Rather than operating like a traditional business these non-salaried companies are entirely reliant on their direct sales force. Once a person is recruited to sell for an MLM company, they’re expected to recruit new people to their team. The sales of those new people will then benefit the first recruit as well as whoever recruited that first recruit, creating an upline. They’re basically companies that rely on salespeople but rather than selling the product the best way to make money is often on selling the company to others. Where a person is in their upline and how financially successful that upline is determines a representative’s rank and how much they will get paid.
Technically MLMs are not pyramid schemes though they follow similar sales patterns. This distinction is largely because MLMs have an actual product they’re selling whereas pyramid schemes typically do not. But that doesn’t mean these companies aren’t problematic. As On Becoming a God in Central Florida shows, it’s not uncommon for representatives to buy large quantities of their product on their own dime so that they can maintain their status at a certain rank. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver did an excellent deep dive into these companies, explaining how they have pressured their representatives into serious debt all while promising them they’ll make money.
That’s the situation Krystal finds herself in as part of Showtime’s new series. But if there’s one thing we know about this Florida girl it’s that she’ll find a way out.
