FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened Documentary

[notorious]

Just finished watching this on Netflix. It is fascinating, yet I feel dirty watching how Billy MacFarland ****ed over so many people.

If you enjoy documentaries, watch it now.

[mikeyis4dcats.]

I thought the Hulu one was better done.

[mikeyis4dcats.]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Can't stand dude bros. Could not watch.

very little dude bro.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by notorious

Do you enjoy watching dude bros run a dead sprint into a brick wall?

Now that you put it that way...

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Here's the thing - you ALMOST want to give him credit for an absolutely brilliant marketing strategy.

The reason that guy is in prison right now and not on the cover of Wired is that he couldn't hold his wad. I guess the counter is that he could've never found the startup funds for the infrastructure, etc... that he needed to pull it off WITHOUT the buzz. But if he could have just figured out a way to start from a realistic timetable, the marketing blitz behind it was pretty damn impressive.

But the marketing blitz was really the brainchild of **** Jerry, who ALSO, had the brilliance to create their own documentary expose (the Netflix one) which basically downplays their role in the whole thing.

If you watch the Hulu one, which wasn't produced by **** Jerry, it shows that they were extremely involved in creating the whole false image that got sold to the public (of course.. that's their job).

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by TwistedChief

Exactly. Give someone an unlimited amount of money that should be used for genuine business purposes but rather is spent enInd age of the social media influencer.

I have trouble giving him credit for much of anything. Just another example of groupthink and lack of real due diligence.

If you haven't checked out the ridiculous tale of Threatin (the fake metal "star" who created an entire history and fanbase from cyber thin air then toured Europe on that), you definitely need to.

Definitely a documentary in the making.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...e-fanbase-tour

[tredadda]

What fascinated me the most about the whole scam was how he started hitting up people on the Fyre mailing list after the event bombed with his NYC VIP scam. While most ignored it some of the same people who were duped into paying for FYRE were duped into this as well. I guess the old saying “A fool and his money will soon be parted” holds true.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by NewChief

But the marketing blitz was really the brainchild of **** Jerry, who ALSO, had the brilliance to create their own documentary expose (the Netflix one) which basically downplays their role in the whole thing.

If you watch the Hulu one, which wasn't produced by **** Jerry, it shows that they were extremely involved in creating the whole false image that got sold to the public (of course.. that's their job).

Haven't gotten to the Hulu on. I did see that Jerry Marketing or whatever the hell they call themselves were named on some of those suits, so that makes sense.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Haven't gotten to the Hulu on. I did see that Jerry Marketing or whatever the hell they call themselves were named on some of those suits, so that makes sense.

It’s worth a watch IMO.

They got an interview with McFarland and it is really remarkable how badly he handled the tough questions. He’d answer some of the easy ones with his slick fast talking soft language but would totally clam up when he knew he was pinned. There was one question where he just sat in silence. LOL.

EDIT: it also goes into the fraud/shell game he failed so miserably at.

It’s worth a look.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I will say that the hurrah over this is a little outsized.

Yes, many rank/file workers in the Bahamas got ****ed, but did anyone notice the tenor of the workers? Many of them did come across as "hey, lets milk the rich Americans..." It makes for a fairly interesting argument both for and against dependency theory, but it was an interesting takeaway nontheless. And it's not as though these were folks who quit their jobs to come work for MacFarland for a year; these were mostly day laborers who lost out on a few bucks that they wouldn't have had either way had MacFarland not tried to dupe a bunch of idiots. It's a screw job, but it's no sort of tragedy writ large.

And most of those defrauded were a bunch of snobbish, rich assholes who are EXACTLY the kind of people I like seeing separated from their money - folks that largely didn't earn it anyway. A whole lot of "daddy's money" was flushed down the toilet here.

There are a handful of figures who did truly get boned. The woman who ran the restaurant and plowed all her savings into it to get the festival workers fed - that sucks hard. And yes, it always sucks to work for free. But this is more akin to a hysterically convoluted and ultimately failed Kickstarter project than it is a human tragedy.

And at the very least, the victims in this case weren't disproportionately downtrodden to begin with. A lot of fools and their money were parted here.

I watched both the Netflix and Hulu ones.

What got to me wasn’t necessarily the effect of it but how far it actually got before the wheels came off.

I barely even remembered it happening. I am so far removed from the social media culture that it totally flew right by my radar. The fact that it was such an epic ****ing disaster was entertaining for me because I was unfamiliar with the story.

The appalling thing to me was nobody anywhere was like “Nah. I’m out.” From what they were promising to what was coming together, I’d have set out to distance myself that ****fest far sooner than virtually anybody else in either production. Even beyond the employees if I was a vendor or contractor when shit started going sideways I’d have gotten my money upfront.

I’m admittedly pretty naive regarding shenanigans ****heads pull but this was obviously a ****fest far sooner than the day of and its remarkable that he kept the group together as long as he did.

That’s what was interesting to me.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

By the festival goers? No. By the people who worked for Fyre's media apparatus and got rat ****ed? Possibly. By the day laborers of an island nation? Probably don't have that luxury.

That said, both this an American Meme make a pretty compelling argument for the systematic liquidation of all social media influencers.

So I watched American Meme because of this post. Holy shit. I had no idea any of that shit is happening.

My ****ing god. People are ****ing weird.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

The appalling thing to me was nobody anywhere was like “Nah. I’m out.” From what they were promising to what was coming together, I’d have set out to distance myself that ****fest far sooner than virtually anybody else in either production. Even beyond the employees if I was a vendor or contractor when shit started going sideways I’d have gotten my money upfront.

This is why I don't feel terribly bad for any of the contractors involved in the festival. Those people were complicit. That Yoga guy spends that whole documentary trying to cover himself in glory but in the end - the dude never said "y'know what, screw this..."

Now on the flipside, there's some very very real risk involved there. What if by some unbelievable miracle MacFarland had been able to come across one last investor who chucked $5 million into the thing and allowed a hail mary contractor play and somehow pulled the thing to a disappointing show, but not actionable misconduct?

No our 'principled' Yoga teacher, who said '**** this, I'm out', is probably gonna be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for breach of contract.

I mean if you're gonna walk away from something like that, you'd better by God believe you're right. Your best bet in that case would just be loud enough and pissy enough to get yourself canned.

I did feel bad for the Fyre employees who worked on the app development teams, though. I mean what the hell? For those guys, Fyre was the app. That was the whole company. And the party was just a marketing push. They had know way to realize that this failed marketing push would end up blowing apart the whole company. They got proper rogered.

And credit to anybody on any conference call with JaRule for not telling that bumble**** to sit down and shut up. The amount of self-restraint that must have taken is truly extraordinary.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

This is why I don't feel terribly bad for any of the contractors involved in the festival. Those people were complicit. That Yoga guy spends that whole documentary trying to cover himself in glory but in the end - the dude never said "y'know what, screw this..."

Now on the flipside, there's some very very real risk involved there. What if by some unbelievable miracle MacFarland had been able to come across one last investor who chucked $5 million into the thing and allowed a hail mary contractor play and somehow pulled the thing to a disappointing show, but not actionable misconduct?

No our 'principled' Yoga teacher, who said '**** this, I'm out', is probably gonna be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for breach of contract.

I mean if you're gonna walk away from something like that, you'd better by God believe you're right. Your best bet in that case would just be loud enough and pissy enough to get yourself canned.

I did feel bad for the Fyre employees who worked on the app development teams, though. I mean what the hell? For those guys, Fyre was the app. That was the whole company. And the party was just a marketing push. They had know way to realize that this failed marketing push would end up blowing apart the whole company. They got proper rogered.

And credit to anybody on any conference call with JaRule for not telling that bumble**** to sit down and shut up. The amount of self-restraint that must have taken is truly extraordinary.

I have no idea what Yoga teachers contract said, but yeah, if he had some contingents that were breachable, but given how ****edy ****ed the **** up it was, I'd think I could find a breach on the other end. At least at the point at which they were like, "lets roll with FEMA tents." I damn sure wouldn't want to be party to defrauding customers who bought villas.

But I got the idea that he was just a standard employee. I was pushing through some return to operations calculations, so I could have easily missed something.

Yeah, the app folks got fisted. The only people in the whole damn thing that were actually doing legitimate work. And what a smarmy douche he was to be like, "yeah, there isn't going to be any payroll. So....".

You're right, the JaRule shit was hilariously... **** I don't even know... I'm not sure the English language has the proper adverb/adjective arsenal to describe it.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I have no idea what Yoga teachers contract said, but yeah, if he had some contingents that were breachable, but given how ****edy ****ed the **** up it was, I'd think I could find a breach on the other end. At least at the point at which they were like, "lets roll with FEMA tents." I damn sure wouldn't want to be party to defrauding customers who bought villas.

But I got the idea that he was just a standard employee. I was pushing through some return to operations calculations, so I could have easily missed something.

Yeah, the app folks got fisted. The only people in the whole damn thing that were actually doing legitimate work. And what a smarmy douche he was to be like, "yeah, there isn't going to be any payroll. So....".

You're right, the JaRule shit was hilariously... **** I don't even know... I'm not sure the English language has the proper adverb/adjective arsenal to describe it.

In that 'debriefing' afterwards where he's just shouting coachspeak interspersed with random swearing and the emperor has clearly been exposed as not wearing any clothes, I have no idea how nobody in that room stood up and said "Hey, maybe we don't need a rapper trying to F-Bomb his way into a corporate re-branding. Maybe instead the adults in the room should figure out how we're all gonna avoid prison time..."

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

In that 'debriefing' afterwards where he's just shouting coachspeak interspersed with random swearing and the emperor has clearly been exposed as not wearing any clothes, I have no idea how nobody in that room stood up and said "Hey, maybe we don't need a rapper trying to F-Bomb his way into a corporate re-branding. Maybe instead the adults in the room should figure out how we're all gonna avoid prison time..."

I’m going to guess it is because McFarland led with the payroll bit.

I know I would have tuned everything out except the FBI shit.

The level of ineptitude was really staggering. Although at this point it shouldn’t be. When I was growing up all I really knew was 1. Sports and 2. Farming. Both of which there is no way to hide performance.

Then I went to college and got exposed to hucksters and bullshitters and the like and really developed a decent eye for bullshit. And the longer I went the more astounded I was by the number of people getting through life without really ever being held accountable for performance. And this I suppose is just an extension of that astonishment journey I’ve been on since I was 19. Even though this idiot did it through straight up, not even creative fraud.

[BleedingRed]

Fun story,

These guy reached out to my firm to come setup networking for the whole even......

They reached out 6 months prior, to which I excitedly said "**** no".

The government charged 80,000 just to get a basic Coax out to the site, and this was going to have to be a crazy amount of networking equipment. But they wanted us to carry the cost and they would pay later. We are talking about 200k worth of Cisco/Aerohives etc....

Yeah dodged a bullet there.