How Chicken Soup for the Soul lost its soul

Sun, 03/31/2024 - 06:00

A bowl of Chicken soup overflowing into smaller bowls — "The whole point of having a brand is that it's kind of a consistent signal of something," says Americus Reed, a marketing professor at Wharton. "Why are they doing this? What's going on here?"
Tyler Le/BI

Even after everything I'd learned about Chicken Soup for the Soul, I still ended up ugly-crying in a hotel ballroom alongside 206 other sniffling adults, my mind a mess of guilt and shame, contemplating how I and I alone was to blame for every problem I've ever had.

"Everything in your life you created, promoted, or allowed," the man on stage was saying. "Everything that happens to you is for a reason. It's a gift."

Gooey bands of mucus stained my T-shirt. Everything was all my fault, I saw now. Even the drunken driver who'd left me with a brain injury I'd spent the past five years recovering from. It must have been a Lesson From The Universe, an experience I deserved.