Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened

[Icehaven]

I do wonder if there was a plan for it to be a success. I reckon he must have wanted to pull it off or he wouldn't have stayed around the shitshow for as Long as he did.

I was actually really surprised to see him there, standing on a table or something, literally in the middle of them all at the exact moment they realised what a total mess it was and was even the one to tell them to go and 'grab a tent' as the luxury accommodation they'd booked didn't exist. I'm not defending him of course, I think it's more that in his mind of course he'd be at his own festival, the failure wasn't his fault, and he was probably still thinking there was some infintensimal chance some more magic money would appear, it'd take a turn and be amazing and he didn't want to miss it. Of course by the next day when it was clear that wasn't going to happen and it was officially cancelled he was outta there.   

[kngen]

I've not watched the other one yet, but I can't agree with that assessment. The Netflix doc calls out his wilful fraud, several important figures call him a compulsive liar and sociopath, and it emphasises the fact that the workers in the Bahamas were the worst-affected victims of all. There is zero room for any sympathy for him by the end, IMO.

I agree that it calls him out or has some of the talking heads do that on its behalf, but the coda definitely had the air of 'he was shooting for the stars, but aimed too high ...' The Hulu one is far, far more scathing.

[Funcrusher]

I thought the Hulu one was pretty poor. Doesn't really hit the key beats in the story very well. The interview with McFarland actually had me almost feeling sympathetic with him given how utterly slanted the editing was - I find it hard to believe that he did almost nothing else throughout apart from staring nervously at his shoes.

[PlanktonSideburns]

I watched the Netflix one and thought that every white person in the documentary should be burned alive, so if they were trying to get me to sympathise it dosent matter because they fucked it up. Sometimes a bad documentary on a good subject is good enough

[Icehaven]

I watched the Netflix one and thought that every white person in the documentary should be burned alive

Can that include the non-white festival goer who slashed up and pissed on tents near his so no one would camp near him?

[up_the_hampipe]

What about Ja Rule

[kngen]

I thought the Hulu one was pretty poor. Doesn't really hit the key beats in the story very well. The interview with McFarland actually had me almost feeling sympathetic with him given how utterly slanted the editing was - I find it hard to believe that he did almost nothing else throughout apart from staring nervously at his shoes.

Oh, it's definitely the worse of the two, but - like I said - there are interesting details in there that the other doesn't cover, like how the Fuck Jerry twats were far more aware of what a disaster it was, the stuff about his corrupt sugar daddy and his dodgy fracking company and even little things like the farcical episode with everyone being forced to get off one of the flights back to the US multiple times before the flight gets eventually cancelled (which was hilarious), or the fact that Magnesis was just a copy of your debit card, but on metal, not a standalone credit card, which makes it seem all the more silly and superficial.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

When I first watched the Entertainment 720 stuff in Parks & Recreation, I must admit that I only really understood it as a basic Nathan Barley-esque satire of ridiculous hipsters. After watching the Fyre documentaries, I now realise that it was a very specific and highly accurate parody of millennial entrepreneurs with more money than sense.

[fucking ponderous]

Just watched the Netflix one and I think it def indicts Mcfarland but makes everyone else involved look a bit too innocent. I keep thinking of the Shia Lebeouf looking man they often went back to who wanted to tell the truth to the guests before they got there- he knew something was wrong, but he didn't really go out of the way to stop things did he? Just following orders?
Of course I couldn't really give a shit about the people who paid to go to this festival anyway. If you have $500 to waste on going to something like this, and you're absolutely sure that's what you want to do, then you deserve anything that happens to you imo. A lot of desperate hungry people who could use that sort of money.
They really should have talked to some of the people who spent day and night building shit for this disaster and who apparently never got paid.
I also feel like the sucking dick man is getting more viral ridicule than is deserved. It was Mcfarland's idea for him to suck dick, an idea mostly concocted because he knew the fella was gay. There any number of other figures you could ridicule here. The man called Mdavid. The man who claimed he learned how to fly a jet through Windows Flight Simulator. And yes, the prick who ran about slashing other people's tents because he "didn't want any neighbors".

[PlanktonSideburns]

Yea keanu Le beuf clearly knew it was a logistical impossibility from the get go, the documentary tries to do a number on you and try and manipulate you into thinking he is a victim of some sort of hypnotist, but it's so bad at this and transparent I didn't even feel uncomfortable with it

[Icehaven]

The bit that touched on the possibility of the models who appeared in the adverts that stoked so much interest being somehow held to account too was interesting, and even though it was quickly discounted in this case I can see similar legal cases being attempted in the future (even though it was just a blatant attempt at money grabbing from anyone involved who still had money left to grab.) Famous people/'influencers' etc. are already supposedly required to make it clear when they've been paid to post positively about something and have been ticked off when they haven't, but it's next level to start attempting to hold them accountable for the product itself. It's not likely to happen any time soon but you can bet there's some legal whizz somewhere working out exactly how it could as we speak.

[QDRPHNC]

It highlighted how it's possible to take control of social media's highly curated warping of reality, if you have enough money to throw at people with no scruples. From a marketing point of view, that orange block thing on Instagram was a stroke of genius.

[DrGreggles]

From a marketing point of view, that orange block thing on Instagram was a stroke of genius.

Yep. That EasyJet bloke must've loved it.

[Icehaven]

It highlighted how it's possible to take control of social media's highly curated warping of reality,

Quite, in fact near the end one of the Fyre Media employees was talking about what a great time they had shooting the advert, and he said something like "making the advert, that was Fyre Festival, models and beautiful beaches and everyone had so much fun, only it was for 60 people, not 6000."

[The Lurker]

It's not technically for FyreFest, but Megh Wright of Vulture is spearheading what's seeming to be a reasonably successful campaign against FuckJerry Media for their monetizing of jokes they stole:

https://news.avclub.com/surprise-the-social-media-agency-behind-fyre-festival-1832231815?utm_campaign=SF&utm_source=Twitter&utm_content=Main&utm_medium=SocialMarketing

Apparently Comedy Central has now pulled their ads from FuckJerry's Instagram.

Kind of an interesting dive into how profitable comedy plagiarism can be.

I enjoyed the Fyre documentary but yeah, fuck Fuck Jerry. I still think it's weird that the Lad Bible have offices in Manchester, UniLad nearly went into admin for debts of about £6million - imagine how shit you must be with money to get into that kind of debt for a company that copy and pastes memes and posts clickbait stories.

[steveh]

Watching this I did start to wonder if there's a wider problem with objectivity and undisclosed conflicts of interest in Netflix documentaries. There was news this week of them doing a deal with Goop which doesn't help their case either.

[Lost Oliver]

Second greatest time I had
Was when they asked me and my dad
To organise a festival
Along the lines of Donington
We took Chirk Airfield as our site
Booked the bands we thought were right
Received the long-range from the Met
They said it could be very wet
With this in mind, we thought it wise
To call the whole caboodle off
The greatest time I ever had
Was when we didn't tell the bands

Boom boom boom
Let me hear you say
Hosepipe ban

What say we go the Isle of Man?

[jenna appleseed]

Watching this I did start to wonder if there's a wider problem with objectivity and undisclosed conflicts of interest in Netflix documentaries. There was news this week of them doing a deal with Goop which doesn't help their case either.

"Fyre Festival Was a Huge Scam. Is Netflix's Fyre Documentary a Scam, Too?
The festival's marketing agency also co-produced the film, resulting in a misleading version of who bears responsibility for the fraud.
By JOSEPHINE LIVINGSTONE February 12, 2019"
https://newrepublic.com/article/153095/fyre-festival-huge-scam-netflixs-fyre-documentary-scam-too

[touchingcloth]

The dick sucking line was the apex of toxic masculinity. Imagine believing that, because you're a man, your blowjobs are worth thousands and thousands of pounds, and then imagine asking your gay mate to do it.