The Pyramid Scheme and Me

The text messages flooded my phone at 2 AM.

"U HAVE to see this opportunity"

"Multi-level marketing but make it ✨aesthetic✨"

"My friend's cousin made 5k last MONTH fr fr"

I should've known better. But I was fifteen, broke, and desperately trying to save up for concert tickets to see—don't judge me—Midnight Eclipse. So when Jenna slid into my DMs about this "wellness empire" I could build from my phone, I was lowkey sold.

Turns out, it was a classic pyramid scheme wrapped in Instagram aesthetics and motivational quotes.

The product? These neon-green vitamin supplements that smelled like lawn clippings and cost forty dollars a bottle. Jenna swore they'd "change my life," which in teenager language meant I'd finally have clear skin and enough money to upgrade my wardrobe.

The worst part wasn't losing two weeks of babysitting money. It was the cafeteria incident.

I was trying to be all healthy and adult, packing myself a salad with actual spinach instead of my usual chicken nuggets. I sat down with my bottle of fake vitamins, feeling like I had my life together. Then Marcus—this absolute fox of a junior I'd been crushing on forever—walked by and my bottle literally exploded. Green powder everywhere. Like, I looked like I'd been photoshopped into a salad bar.

Marcus didn't even notice. Too busy talking to some sophomore whose highlight game was significantly stronger than mine.

But here's the thing about hitting rock bottom: you figure out who your actual friends are. The ones who helped me clean green powder off my backpack? The ones who bought me actual food from the vending machine because they knew I was too embarrassed to go through the lunch line? Not Jenna. Not the people in her "wellness empire."

I learned two things that semester:

First, if it sounds like you can make thousands of dollars from your phone in a week, it's sus.

Second, real friends don't make you buy things. They just laugh with you when you're covered in exploded vitamin powder and help you move on.

Okay, three things. Spinach is gross, and I'm never pretending otherwise again.