I have a relative who has been into various MLM schemes over the last 15 years - she is in her 40s, 7 years old than me.
Since childhood, she's always been a bit gullible - and very emotional. There was a holiday where she cried for an entire day because we found a dead baby bird that bad fallen out of a nest on the floor - she'd have been 12 at the time. Always struggled a bit with friends because she was quite gullible, easily led - people took advantage of that in her teens. She meant well but the combination of gullibility and quite showy emotional moments meant she probably tired people out quite quickly. She is the sort to post everything on social media even from its earliest days in a "OMG, can't believe some people are so rude" and hope people reply to ask "what's going on?"
She wasn't hugely academic but muddled through school ok, then went into various office admin type jobs.
Met someone, first proper boyfriend, had a kid, split up fairly quickly.
I lose track of all the MLMs but it's all the sort of herbal/health/cleanse ones.
I decided not to buy anything quite early on as it's a scam but she was very invested in them all so it falls on deaf ears. I just politely decline now and don't say why.
For her, I am sure a big part of it was the sense of belonging these MLM schemes foster. For someone who has always struggled with friends a bit, having loads of people (also MLMers) like your social media posts, comment on them is probably really gratifying so I have tried not to be too negative about it and have just avoided it as much as possible. She went on a trip to Mallorca for a MLM awards event with some of them once and posted a million photos and still talks about it now, years later.
Anyway, that's the backstory. I've usually just ignored it.
But in the last few months, she has really got into conspiracy theories. There was a bit of it during COVID (deliberately released by China, the UN knows all about it etc) but she did get vaxxed.
But she seems to have tipped fully into the new world order conspiracy that The Great Reset is coming through the medium of some restrictions on cars.
There is a low traffic neighbourhood in Oxford somewhere - a city she has never been to, neither have I - and some plan to encourage 15 min city idea in Oxford which is the idea that planning departments should encourage developments that means people able to buy their food, see a GP, go to school, visit a dentist, usual regular life tasks within a 15 min travel distance.
Apparently this is just the start of the new world order and the Great Reset and we'll soon have to get permission to leave the house.
She has made some "friends" online who are ardently pushing this idea, and spends a lot of time in private WhatsApp groups talking with them although a couple of these accounts look dubious to me and maybe sockpuppets -
Some are real people (from her MLM networks) but some are definitely not.
She is now bombarding the wider family with stuff on this. Xmas was full of it. She is filling a family whats app group with it despite being asked by other people to stop.
What do we do? I feel like trying to discuss the topic is unlikely to succeed as she isn't going to listen to facts or look at evidence.
I get that she is probably quite lonely and this gives her some status so I am trying not to be too harsh on her but it's quite trying.
She lives in NE, opposite end of country to me so my physical contact is limited to a couple of times a year at family events. But she is really alienating the family now.
Maybe we should have done something earlier with the MLM stuff but it was relatively low key compared to his. How do we pull her out of this rabbit hole?