The Scammy Internet Crisis
Y'all, I need to talk about my journey through the absolute hellscape that is "making money online" education. Buckle up, because this is a cautionary tale of epic proportions.
It started innocently enough. I Googled "how to make money online" like any rational broke millennial, and suddenly my entire algorithm became a fever dream of fake gurus and get-rich-quick schemes that made my brain hurt.
First up: Chad BroPreneur, who definitely bought his followers and thinks a Lamborghini in his profile pic counts as a personality. His free webinar promised to reveal "the ONE secret banks don't want you to know!" Spoiler alert: It was affiliate marketing. Revolutionary stuff, Chad. Truly groundbreaking.
Then there was Sarah SuccessBabe, whose entire brand was pink aesthetics and vague promises about "living your dream life." Her $2,997 course was called something like "Manifest Your Million" and the sales page was longer than my college thesis. By the end of reading it, I was convinced I needed it AND completely forgot what it was actually supposed to teach me. Peak marketing psychology right there.
But the real villain in this story? The course that promised everything and delivered absolutely nothing. I'm talking about "Ultimate Online Empire Builder Mastery Intensive."
(Yes, they really needed all those words to say nothing.)
For $497 (payment plan available because they care about us broke people!), I got:
47 videos that could have been emails
A Facebook group full of people asking the same confused questions
"Bonus" PDFs that were clearly made in 2003
Access to a "private community" that was just more people selling courses to each other
The course content was basically a guy named Derek telling me I needed a mindset shift, a morning routine, and something called a "value ladder." For six hours. SIX. HOURS. I could have learned more from a Wikipedia deep dive about online business.
My favorite part? Module 3 was titled "Finding Your Profitable Niche" and literally just told me to "pick something people want to buy." Thanks, Derek. For $497, I learned that water is wet and people exchange money for goods and services. Groundbreaking insights.
The Facebook group was its own special circle of hell. Half the posts were people asking "Did anyone actually make money from this?" and the other half were Derek's fake success stories featuring stock photos and testimonials that sounded like they were written by the same person. Very convincing, Derek. Very authentic.
Then came the upsells. Oh, the beautiful, predatory upsells. Apparently, my $497 course was just the "foundation," and I needed the $1,997 "Advanced Implementation System" to actually make any money. Because of course I did.
The breaking point? When I realized I'd spent more money on courses about making money online than I'd actually made online. The irony was so thick you could cut it with a knife and serve it at Derek's next overpriced masterclass.
Plot twist: The only people consistently making money in the "make money online" space were the people selling courses about making money online. It's a beautiful, twisted ecosystem of broke people teaching other broke people how to not be broke while getting broker in the process.
After my third "game-changing" course that changed absolutely nothing except my bank account balance, I had an epiphany: Maybe the real treasure was the debt I acquired along the way.
The moral of this expensive education? If someone's entire business model is teaching you how to replicate their business model, run. Run fast. Run far. And maybe Google some actual legitimate business advice instead of trusting someone whose biggest qualification is owning a ring light and a decent microphone.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go unsubscribe from approximately 47 email lists and cleanse my algorithm of this nonsense. Character growth sometimes looks like admitting you got scammed by people with worse grammar than your high school essays.
The internet is a wild place, and apparently, I'm the target demographic for everyone selling dreams and delivering disappointment. Living my best broke life, one fake guru at a time.