In the past two months I’ve noticed a handful of people posting before-and-after photos of their AMAZING weight loss transformation. “Now you see fat? *VIOLA!* Now you don’t!” But being the hardcore skeptic that I am, I started to look into all these overnight skinnies and wondered, “what the hell are they doing to lose this weight?”
Apparently, there’s a homeopathic “product” being used called “Slenderiix” where all you need to do is plop a few drops of magic water on your tongue, follow a specific diet and POOF! You’ll go from Gary Busey to George Clooney in snap. Yet for some odd reason, all of the people who have lost weight from using this “product” seem to be losing it at an ALARMINGLY FAST rate. Now, I wasn’t born yesterday so I understand the ploy behind many of these bullshit products:
1. Create a product that does NOTHING to the user. No risks involved/no benefits
2. Say that in order for the product to work, you MUST FOLLOW A STRICT DIET, as if the diet will somehow team-up with the product to create a SUPER PRODUCT!
3. Restrict the calorie intake to concerning levels, bordering on malnutrition
4. Make exercising OPTIONAL
5. Stick finger up asses of customers
6. Make it rain.
But the more I tried to research “Slenderiix” (or the company that makes it, Ariix) the more I noticed how UNANIMOUSLY POSITIVE all the reviews were. There’s hardly a negative comment in existence. Now, I’ve been using the INTERNETZ for quite some time and from my experience, there is NOTHING in this world that is that loved and cherished on the internet. Hell, even the beloved Cat picture has its share of haters — so why does this “product” seem invincible from the gamma rays of the almighty trolls of the internet?
Then, a burst of light gleamed from a crack in the system and revealed the ugly truth:
This is another one of those bullshit multi-level marketing companies that sells to their customers while “recruiting” them to sell to their friends. Because of course, if you’re buying into a pile of bullshit you might as well pull your friends into the mess so you can all enjoy, right? Ignorance loves company and this Ariix crap is no different from the phony shit sold from USANA or scAMWAY.
Look, at the end of the day, we are all free to consume whatever Chinese medicine/homeopathic infused moon crystals we desire. If it makes you skinnier, great; If it gives you a full head of luscious hair, fantastic; If it makes you feel like your dick is growing 12 inches a month, hooray! However, I do think there’s a greater issue at hand that does need to be addressed and that is the deformed relationship between greed and insecurity.
You see, there’s nothing wrong with your pot belly and man boobs. If that’s who you are, then embrace it. If you want to change it, go for it. Go for a nice jog around the park, start lifting weights and quit sneaking into Carls Jr late at night to have a midnight rendezvous with a double western cheeseburger (which I admit to doing more than once.) But when companies like Ariix or USANA try to sell you unregulated products — most of which aren’t FDA approved or doctor approved — you have to ask yourself, “what am I getting myself into? What are the long term ramifications of taking this thing?” I mean honestly, most of these weight loss miracles are probably 99% water and 1% 7-UP so I don’t think you’ll be growing tentacle arms any time soon, but you should still wonder…
I guess my problem with these companies is that they’re selling you a product that claims to help you lose weight yet in reality, its the dieting and exercise that does the work — not the product. They’re not selling miracle drugs, they’re selling lies . Bold face lies. And although the alternative of eating well and working out simply cannot be bundled into an effective advertisement, I somehow find myself strangely in approval of these products. Maybe they work because they employ the same tactics that are used by parents everywhere to convince their children to eat more veggies: by hiding the peas and carrots inside the mashed potatoes and pizza, the kids THINK they’re getting something fantastic when in reality, the truth is burried underneath. And though we are old enough to do our research and figure out what is in these products that we’re buying, like that ignorant child we once were, we choose to believe that we’re eating magic mashed potatoes and gravy that our parents claim will make us run faster and jump higher. We choose to not question what we’re given because we want to believe that miracles do exist and that there is hope somewhere beneath our flabby stomach.
In this crushing economy where graduate students with Masters degrees on top of Masters degrees can’t get a job flipping burgers to save their broke ass, sometimes you need that boost in confidence. And you know what? Perhaps that is all Slenderiix does. It’s the confidence that if I take this miracle water, I’ll succeed in losing this weight and maybe, just maybe, I might look good enough to be hired for a job… or find a girlfriend… or feel like I love myself. Perhaps these are the things that we need most in times of uncertainty: a little bit of hope, a few cups of confidence and a gallon of disregard.
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