So a weekend or two ago I had the liberty of attending something of which I hold a deep-seated hatred of: A motivational conference. Coming from someone who finds a chirpy, optimistic and insanely happy presentation designed to make you feel better about the direction you will be taking your life in and yourself as a whole, you'd think I wouldn't be like that in person. Alas, the dry, sarcastic and cynical side of me prevails in these situations, reaffirming my belief that moderation is always the key in these scenarios, rather than mindless smiles on mindless people.
But what made this gathering of dogs being thrown bones even more intolerable was that it was dedicatedto Amway.
A little background in is order here. A nostalgic acoustic guitar or piano accompanied by a quiet string quartet should be played as this part is read out loud in Christopher Lee's voice. a couple of months ago I was approached by a close friend talking of a business proposal he wanted to put forward to me. At this point, I was blinded by my respect for my friend, and initially thought this was an enterprising small business that he wanted to start, perhaps a show shop that sells accompanying, stylish pants for the shoes you buy, or maybe a new bar with a theme of an olden-style viking longhouse, complete with dead bodies and large-breasted maidens.
Alas, no, and I could tell that as soon as he produced a little pamphlet where a few young, multicultural people were all giggling at me like I'd just peed myself in second grade, I knew this was a preemptive strike at something bigger.
I have had experience with Amway before, as I believe many people have, but that was through my friend, who did his background research on the company and all it's dealings. I would recommend reading this:, for an overall point of view outside the one you will hear from Amway, explained in much finer detail than I can manage.
So, armed with this skeptical, and by the sound of it, sensible perspective, I went to this conference to have a bit of fun and brighten my otherwise pointless and expensive, Amway-less existence. The sad thing was my friend knew me well enough that a presentation designed to suck me off in the hopes that I will further myself for the good of the Amway Idols would in fact just make me slap them and call them dirty little minxes, he made me come anyway. This was, of course, the first pitfall.
Now before I go on, I should first give praise to Amway for doing two things right. Number one: The guy that started this foundation is a godamn genius. I tip my hat to you, good sir, because you have done it. You literally have to do no work and you have conned other people into thinking you're a magnificent, benevolent and loving king when in reality you sit on a throne made of slaves wearing pants with railroad spikes on the outside, and they thank you for the gaping holes you leave as you kick them in the frontal lobe. Number two is the fact regardless of evidence, fact and logic, you can still convince people, through sheer marketing brilliance, that this is the only way to live. Freaking fluff on a stick, mate, you must be made of charisma to get away with this.
Returning now to my intrepid adventure, as I walked through the doors of a large hall and into a crowd to match, we found seats about the or fours rows away from the front of the stage, close enough that my embarrassing shenanigans would be easily detected, but far away enough to reassure the masses I was no-one of importance, and thus not a representative of the audience's thought pattern. Which, I can assure you, if they even had one, it was being controlled the moment they entered the hall. Good thing I brought my tin hat and alfoil underpants, or I would've been sucked in as well.
As the first speaker came onto the podium, between the initial rounds of bizarrely enthusiastic applause and an unnecessary standing ovation (good sweet thundering messiah, did you see him walk up those steps?! It was like sex with a thousand virgins just witnessing that majesty!), there came a sound of bad, beat-driven music. This is one thing I had been afraid of happening, never have I sen a truer representation of a mass being pulled along by their ears than with rhythmic clapping along to the revoltingly uplifting pop song like "Lift" or some other turd in a speaker system. Fortunately, I fixed this burning hatred into a riotous activity when I started picturing the rabble as trained seals with the people on stage throwing buckets of fish into the audience.
Then came the introductory speaker, who looked a lot like Ted from the TV Series Better Off Ted. Shameless advertising, the show's hilarious.
The resemblance is striking, he just needs a bad tie and they're identical.
So, in a relatable, heartwarming tale of how he achieved ultimate stardom, became a household name in politics and film, saved Africa from AIDS and resuscitated a drowning elephant calf, all thanks to the glory and beauty that is Amway, he then went on to put things in a little perspective. Imagine you were french kissed by your local Woolworths manager. Wait, that's what I wished I heard, he mentioned something about kissing, though, and I liked to imagine the Woolworths manager a large, hairy Italian who smelled of off tomatoes and sweaty meatballs, who then offered you discounts for being a loyal customer at service counter 11. The dialog went as such:
Handsome dipstick: "I dunno about you, but I'd go to counter 11 no matter what!"
Me: "Money is indeed a driving force."
Handsome dipstick: "Even if I saw my best mate in counter 10, I'd go to counter 11!"
Me: "Wait, what?"
Handsome dipstick: "Even if there was a hot girl at counter 12, I'd go to counter 11!"
Me: "I wouldn't, I'd use it as a pickup line. 'Hey, I paid an extra twenty bucks just so I could come talk to you.'"
Handsome dipstick: "Even my beautiful amazing wife at counter 9 wouldn't stop me going to counter 11!"
Me: "So you're just a greedy prick, essentially?"
Safe to say that particular argument didn't swing the odds round much. So, possibly seeing me slouched over in my seat trying to steal someone's hat, he avoids my eye contact and tries another approach. He says that this was a tiny, inconsequential decision that changed his life forever. Inside my head, I heard the little voice of logic, saying: "Well, if it's tiny and inconsequential, no point in it, is there?" By his logic, having a drunken one-night stand, a tiny, inconsequential decision, will turn me into a serial rapist-murderer hybrid. And whilst yes, my body count is high, this is not a road I can backtrack from.
Still unconvinced, but with the hivemind firmly in his grasp, he surrenders it to a couple who I really wish weren't a couple, because that girl was stunning. However, knowing their conniving, insidious ways I steeled my heart and removed my hands from my genitals to determinedly undermine them with an open mind.
I was prepared for a story about how these two, through compassion, friendship and love, managed to convert an entire nation, overthrow it's oppressive dictator and established Amway as the saviour of the people, but instead, they acknowledge the people who work tirelessly to line the pockets of them. Much like a dictator saying: "I could never mine all this uranium by myself! Thank God for peasants and whips, this is for you!" and then gives them all a little medal made of their own dried shit.
So my friend, amongst roughly 50 others receiving the highest of honours (they have recruited under ten people, it's the newbie appreciation time of the day) are met with a round of applause and occasional cheers for every freaking name called out. This drained roughly 45 minutes of my life until the announcers decided that individuality be damned and that they'd only applaud the group's efforts, much like communism. That and I think I got roughly half the hall looking at me when my friend announced himself, phrases like: "Oh, Sweet Jesus Mary, yes!" and "You make me so moist!" are not widely encouraged as statements of appreciation.
So thus we made our way up the pyramid to those who exploited so many idiots that they are now classed as role models and people's whose words you should hang upon. Now, I should mention these people all seem lovely, and I daresay if I met them in a pub or local gambling den or cock fighting arena, I would be able to have a pleasant conversation with them and even make a new friend. But since all these suited monkey's could talk about was that they were successful because of how many people they bent over and took in the anal caves like the bitches they were (not in as many words), so successful were they, precious stones are used to denote how unique, special, and wondrous they are, and of course why they should be fed through a laser cutting machine and bound to a ring of molten gold.
They're still too thick around the head area, give them another go.
After this barrage of bullshit, throughout which I squirmed like a tapeworm crawling out of a butthole, we finally came crawling, kicking and screaming (the screaming may have been internal, purely so I didn't get kicked out and miss out on any mocking) to the end. But alas, the handsome dipstick who valued number crushing over family and friends just had to get back on his high horse and tell us how wonderful it all is. Again.
This time, he said something that genuinely brought a tear to my eye. Unfortunately, not in a sense of hope. More in a sense of a man who has seen small children pushed into a deep black void full of crocodile's made of dynamite, where everyone else around him seems delighted by this fact.
He told me how his daughters, six and three, had found their heroes, role models and idols in Amway.
Great golden gravy guts, these people were so happy to see two children condemned to death. They are growing up learning so many awful, awful things. Taking advantage of people's gullibility and using their efforts to fuel your retirement at 25 is something to be admired! Listening to CD's and tapes of successful and rich people, in other words, the 2% of the entire world upon which rests 98% of the economy, means that you too could become them, even though this scheme means that no matter how good you are at tricking retards into online shopping, you will NEVER reach their wealth, because YOUR hard earned cash is lining THEIR pockets! Please be tuned by the nearest position as you are being fucking PLAYED!
What's even worse is that the vast majority of the people sitting around me, clapping and squawking and kicking up a ruckus at every possible achievement in this lecherous community doesn't realise this. They can't understand that Amway is a scheme that is designed to milk the gullible out of money by masquerading as a gimmick that saves it.Building up manipulators, bullshitters and con artists (yes, this is a legitimate business, it's just political in it's informational provisions: Very good at avoiding the direct truth) to a status where they are idolised by future generations means that this place has proven to me to be what I always expected it to be.
A goddamn cult.
I bring you discounted ETERNAL SUFFERING, MORTALS!
There can be no other explanation. Cults are no longer built on religion, because it's no longer a driving force in our world, like it used to be way back when a few hundred years ago where nothing was explained. The only thing now in this world that requires our ever-loving devotion is the economy. You simply cannot survive in our modern day of living without a source of income, the greater it is, the higher in the pack you're placed because you have more power. It's no longer who you're born to, how many animals you can kill with your bare fists or even how many goddamn allies you have, it's all about the money. So of course people are going to turn and worship these people, they're the lucky ones, touched personally by their false idol, preaching the word about how all should serve the almighty Dollar. It brings salvation, glory, redemption and boxes of Favourites. Without its guidance, we would surely shrivel into tiny dick mollusks and suffer the pain of living in a wet cardboard box dressed in last years fashion mixed with whiskey, piss and dirt stains. This is the only way to reach the true pinnacle of existence: Wealthy and free!
I have heard more convincing talk coming from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. At least their argument can't be countered by the cold steel of numbers and evidence. Evidence that they are doing an excellent job of covering up, but it's still there, and it's still condemning. But unfortunately, it's still legal, too. They will do anything to get you to join, they will prey upon your insecurities, tell you that you're beautiful from your bald head to your tiny penis all the way down to your hairy hobbit feet, they will dazzle you like a magician does, making you try to find something that just isn't there.
But they also hate it when you use this analogy to describe them. Even though having this dick-sucking seminars, essentially employing people to be their advertising department, rhythmic clapping and mass pandering to the chosen disciples who have earned a high income for doing bugger-all suggest otherwise. I did manage to ask one of the shining avatar's of wealth what they thought about being a head figure in a cult, and they replied with, and I will back this with my life, "I think that term paints us in a negative light."
AH-HAH, BUT YOU DON'T DENY IT, I KNEW IT, YOU'RE OUT TO REPLACE ALL THE PROPER RELIGIONS LIKE COLES OR ALDI, YOU SICKEN ME TO MY CORE!
Perhaps they just don't like the term cult anymore. It doesn't matter, I have my own, anyway. Praise be to Korrok (more shameless advertising, the book is called "John Dies at the End", read it, it's hilarious).
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