Hulu and Netflix recently released documentaries about the exclusive Fyre Festival that was scheduled to take place from April 28 to 30 and May 5to 7, 2017, in the Bahamas.
Fyre Festival’s promotion made it out to be the coolest and most insane music festival. When in reality, Instagram was its only promoter. Hiring the top Instagram influencers and supermodels of the year, the vision was to have Fyre Festival promote itself, through others who already had an abundance of followers. For example, paying Kendall Jenner nearly $300,000 for one Instagram post.
The promotion idea worked, but the festival plan didn’t. As party goers began to arrive, everything started to go to pieces. Word began to spread about how the musical calamity left participants stranded on an island, and the world tuned in.
Netflix’s documentary, “Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened” received far more hype and interest, than Hulu’s documentary, “Fyre Fraud.”
In “Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened,” the film showcased two camera crews: one for the behind the scenes, and another for the promotional video itself. Crew members described how they had no direction, no script and no real vision. The entire promotional video is a bunch of famous models on white sand beaches doing what they do best, looking pretty.
In one scene from the Netflix documentary, everyone is on the beach at what they called “Billy and Ja Rule’s Beach Party.” During the party, the film crew catches Ja Rule saying “Chanel, get in the f–king water.” Ja Rule, is speaking to Victoria Secret model Chanel Iman. Her facial expression was one of disgust and uncomfort, but, Ja Rule persists and begins to tell the rest of the models to do the same.
Ja Rule, — co-founder of Fyre Festival, — has since experienced unforgiving criticism for being complicit in the poor treatment of both staff and guests.
The devastation, absence of pay and over guarantees to Fyre employees and Bahamian locals is simply irritating.
Maryann Rolle, a Bahamian restaurant owner, who was featured in the documentary, said, “I had to feed all of the staff, basically taking over.” “ The whole Fyre operation was under my wings.”
Crying as she explains the damages the festival has cost her, Rolle said she lost her whole life savings as a result of Fyre Festival.
Rolle said, “They had every living soul on the island of Exuma who could lift a towel working.”
According to Complex magazine, at his New Jersey concert on Feb 1, Ja Rule let his fans “cuss him out.” In order to help release the anger, he encouraged concert goers to scream “f–k Ja Rule” over the Fyre Festival catastrophe, in which he jokingly responded with “f–k y’all too.”
“There was no hidden agenda,” said Fyre Festival’s founder Billy McFarland.
After articles and authories exposed the scam festival, McFarland was arrested and released on a bail of $300,000.
The Hulu documentary, “Fyre Fraud” features an exclusive interview with McFarland. At one point in the interview, he pauses and looks at the camera, almost attempting to make eye contact with the viewer for sympathy.
Netflix, on the other hand, revealed Billy McFarland was up to no good while on bail and creating new scams. He hired a brand new crew and created a new face for Fyre. Kindo Harper, McFarland’s new photographer said, “Billy was living large, the penthouse was beautiful.”
All of McFarland’s scams have been based on a whim. A whim so he can live luxurious for the moment. He had no empathy for the people he robbed.
“We spoke about my experiences in the legal system.” Kindo adds, “It was so far away from what he knew, and his life that the cognitive dissonance just lead him to say, ‘I’m not going to jail.’”
Billy McFarland has now been sentenced to six years in federal prison for money laundering, fraud and witness intimidation.
Outside of the complete confusion, absence of planning and turmoil that resulted from those 24 hours.
Overnight, Fyre ended up being social media’s number one obsession. Everybody who is anybody needed to comprehend what Fyre was, the manner by which to purchase tickets and where it was occurring.
Influencers were targeted for a reason, nobody can honestly feel sad for them. This will happen over and over, and the “influenced” will never learn.
