It was impossible not to feel clean and glowing schadenfreude when the skein around the Fyrefestivalen became public in the spring of 2017. The glamorous event was created by techentreprenören Billy McFarland, frontades of rapper Ja Rule and marketed by Instagrammodeller of Bella Hadid and Kylie Jenner.
the Festival promised lyxboenden on a private island in the Bahamas, kändiskocklagad food, artists such as Major Lazer, Blink 182, and Migos, and the most expensive tickets cost over 100,000 dollars – it was a party for the rich, the beautiful and the famous.
The promised lyxmaten on Fyre was the loaf and the cheese. Photo: IBL
spread lightning-fast images on clay, katastroftält, baggage dumped in piles and loaf with sliced cheese. The artists put in and the visitors escaped in their expensive shoes.
Now has two new documentaries to come about the festival: Hulus ”Fyre fraud” and Netflix ”Fyre”, almost exactly at the same time and in competition with each other. Of course, it is a too good story to not throw himself over. It ”taps into all the relevant millennial trends”, New York Times writer Jia Tolentino puts it a few minutes into the ”Fyre fraud”.
Billy McFarland, at the time 25 years old, appears in both films as a complete sociopath with the ability to dupe everyone from venture capitalists to pop stars. At the same time it becomes obvious to the people around him can not possibly have been unaware of the gigantic fraud they were a part of. It fascinating it all is that they all seemed to be so captured by the vision, the festival that as well as would embody a whole generation to fantasy of exclusivity, that they went with on almost anything in order not to burst the bubble.
In the end is metaberättelsen around the story on Fyre almost the most samtidstypiskt dystopian with it.
A tasteless metaphor, one could be tempted to take to is horeriet – documentaries are full of people who sold soul and morals in order to save luftslottet. But the metaphor quickly becomes redundant when you have reached the memorable moment in ”Fyre” where eventproducenten Andy King, who has become a part of the Billy McFarlands inner circle, tells how McFarland calls and asks him to give the Bahamas tullchef a blowjob in exchange for four university of Evian, whereupon the King gurgles with mouthwash and bravely go to the airport. (Spoiler: King get loose, the French bottled water without having to prostitute herself.)
Fyrefestivalen was easy to laugh at when it came – someone who had the advice to put $ 12,000 on a ticket is hard to feel sorry for. But the economic tragedies in the background was invisible in the reporting on the Fyrefiaskot: all of the local contractors hired to build the entire area but never got paid, cateringkvinnan who were forced to pay their staff out of their own pocket.
These people are almost completely absent in the Hulufilmen. In the Netflix version interviewed a couple of them a little pliktskyldigt, but they are not the protagonists – it is a 20-something pr guy and bandbokarnas välgroomade face that wrinkle disappointed, to illustrate the betrayal (one of them got their wages in cash in an envelope!) they have been subjected to.
the Visitors who would have lived in luxurious bungalows ended up in katastroftält. Photo: IBL
regarding the story on Fyre almost the most samtidstypiskt dystopian with it. Everything is corrupt: Netflixdokumentären is made in cooperation with the pr agency Jerry was behind the festival’s shameless marketing campaign. Hulu, for its part, has paid Billy McFarland an unknown amount (22 million, claiming Netflix in the entertaining smutskastningskrig that have been going on between the two productions) for an interview.
All of it, the festival, the viral Instagrambilderna, documentaries, is like a great work of art a reality in the resolution. There is no substance anywhere, everything is just an endlessly fascinating area.
Read more texts by Hanna Fahl , for example, if hipstersvindlaren who took the social game to a new level
