Watched them both and honestly they were pretty overrated for documentaries. The Hulu one was especially roughshod in that it had so many fucking random people that they told us hardly anything about so we don't even know why they're commenting on it. And so much tangential bullshit (oh he grew up with the internet; social media! blah blah blah, ignoring that scam artists like this douchebage existed before social media and the internet, they're not even the first major fraud shit like this what was enabled due to the internet and social media and influencers). I also didn't get much schadenfraude as I don't feel like hardly any of the people really suffered. Seems like most of the people, while obviously not pleased with the disparity in what they got versus what they paid for, didn't actually have a bad time. Maybe some discomfort for a few nights, but since they got to post on social media about it, it was likely a net gain, and they'll have a great story. The influencers probably didn't learn a damn thing and will still shill for anything as long as they're paid. The only people that really suffered were the ones that busted their asses to try and set things up just prior to it, which was mostly the local Bahamian people that never got paid, and then the Fyre people that had nothing to do with it that were then completely fucked over by it and possibly investigated by the FBI and probably will be audited for years because of they worked for this startup but didn't really have much of anything to do with this guy or the other shitheads that had enabled him so much prior. The ones around Billy should have done something before then so I really don't find much sympathy for them, and seems like few of them got any trouble and just corroborated what they knew to the FBI. Several of them were aware of the outright scam manner in which he was operating his other businesses and did nothing too. And the ones that knew about the outright lies needed to to put their food own and say "no, let's call this off, or delay it until we can actually get this stuff in place" but no one would tell that asshole no.
The Netflix one was like half just fluffing the stupid production of the promo trying to act like it was ever legitimate (probably to cop plausibility for fuckjerry's marketing shit).
Early on in the Hulu one I thought it was shitty and was trying to defend Billy McFarland in a similar way (seemed like they were trying to legitimize it and defend him as it just being ambition that didn't work out), but then as it went on it was hilarious watching as he was laughing one second and then they'd ask him something and he had deer in the headlights look as he tried to figure out what to say to explain some of the shit and knew he couldn't. I don't know if he thought he'd be able to just bullshit his way through, or didn't think they knew about all the shit or what, but he clearly went in expecting that he'd be able to spin it and was in over his head. I almost can't blame him though, he'd been so used to having yes men enable his bullshit and kicking the scam down the road, that I bet he thought this would help him clear his name.
The Netflix one had issues as well, but it was worth it just for the end, when Billy asked the one guy (that had shot the promo stuff for them?) to come to his hotel and then did the fucking ticket scams right in front of him...just holy shit. I don't know why he felt the need to have them record him in the first place, nor can I fathom why he would do that shit so brazenly knowing they were recording. People ask why these scummy assholes get caught, and its because they can't help it. Its a full on compulsion, and they're probably psychopathic so they genuinely don't understand how the rest of the world views them and think they're getting away with stuff because they're not facing immediate reprimands for it.
I think combined, they'd make for a solid single documentary, edited down. I really don't need to see the produced promo shit (just show the promo and point out how they used that with their other marketing, we don't need all the shit of them hanging out while they were shooting that stuff). I honestly believe both documentaries fluffed McFarland too much, as they kept having people going "I think Billy just dreams too big and then couldn't make it work out, but I think he genuinely tried" as though he wasn't blatantly scamming from the start with all of his ventures as they're finding out after investigating him. So many delusional people that want to believe in these charismatic liars.
And the one guy talking about how he was prepared to go suck the guy's dick to free up their imported booze or whatever...just what the fuck. I think that guy was in both docs but he looked totally different in the Hulu one? He was only in the Hulu one for just a moment, but he had darker gray hair that was shorter and I don't think had his glasses on, but I think that was the same guy (maybe I'm wrong though).
The most overwhelming thing I took from the documentary is how they kept acting like "well duh, this is gonna make people want to go to this like crazy, its like Woodstock but with Super Models on a private island in the Caribbean, not some disgusting muddy field in rural New York" and that it'll entice poor schmucks living with their parents, and how even if I had the disposable money I'd have zero interest in even the situation they promised in the promo (because it would obviously be incredibly fake, the rich people and models wouldn't actually give a shit about you, they'd just be nice because you're paying them stupid amounts of money for a limited amount of their time; I just don't get the appeal of living a total lie for a moment of your life - and holy shit at the Russian company that sets up the glamorous photo shoot of you in a private jet that doesn't even get in the air).
And then Ja Rule...hahahahahahaha what a fucking dipshit. I thought he was a dipshit as a rapper. I'm not surprised that he'd be involved in something like this, and he came off as a dipshit in every clip he was in.
Jerry Media produced the Netflix doc. They shifted all the blame on Billy.
Yeah. Plus uh, isn't it "fuckjerry"? Fuck those douchebags, they definitely deserve blame because they should have realized it was an outright scam and reported them to authorities instead of trying to help cover up for them on social media. They were also the assholes that pushed it to all the influencers (which, didn't they scam those people too? weren't they promising them a bunch of perks that they knew even after they were still recruiting those people did not exist and that the entire even was nothing like the promo shit they were still putting out?).
I laughed in the Hulu one when they talked to the one guy that left fuckjerry and they told him that they basically were trying to say they were only doing what Fyre told them to, and he was just incredulous that they'd cop that and then said "yeah, fuck those guys". But then I'm not sure he has room to talk as didn't he leave well after that shit went on? Maybe he didn't know but I find that difficult to believe.
watched the netflix documentary.
I think the biggest problem here is that, despite the news being literally filled with bad things everyday, there's still a fuckload of people in America who honestly believe the world is just one giant party and there's nothing wrong and bad things never happen and every human is honest and just wants to show you a good time for no reason at all.
Fun Fact: Not all of those people are rich millennials. But they tend to get the most shit for having such a mindset.
I don't even think it was that (that people view everything as a party). I'd guess the average person that bought into the Fyre Festival just saw an opportunity for a cool trip (that they were probably doing in lieu of their vacation, which some of them probably were already planning on a similar trip to the Bahamas or something and figured, hey, might as well pony up for this festival, could be once in a lifetime thing to say I was there).
I think most of them thought it'd be like Coachella and other events, where yes they're monetizing the hell out of it and it wasn't cheap (so the weren't under any delusions other than they thought it was legit, that they'd be at some music festival and there would be lots of models and other famous people there and they could pony up to hang out with them in exclusive VIP type stuff).
Fyre and fuckjerry leveraged all the vapid Instagram people pushing their fake lives (that are also tied with other stuff like Coachella and a bunch of other legit stuff), and that duped others like some of the bands and other people into believing it was all legit, so few people questioned it. They didn't have any of that shit actually in place though, so it was a total out and out scam and Billy knew it and the people around him did but had that weird cult-like blindness where they know things are wrong but their minds are like locked down to where they can't actively alter their actions.
Oh absolutely. And while I've called out the bullshit millennial blaming that has been rampant for the past several years, I was guilty of laughing at what I figured were spoiled rich kids having a nightmare when I first heard about this last year. Honestly, the fact that a scam of this level is getting so much publicity and focus, when there's bigger ones that have been happening at the same time and few people seem to care, is disheartening.
Hulu documentary was OK too.
I notice a definite parallel between business scams and political scams.
Right around the same time these dumb lazy assholes were scamming people out of money for a festival that was all appearance and no substance, The Donald was doing the exact same thing to American voters.
People really have no fuckin critical thinking skills these days, and theres more than enough snake-oil salesmen to punish them for their stupidity.
Absolutely, there's similarities in how bullshitters get away with pushing bullshit. Same with Enron, same with that Oklahoma guy that was Billy's first major investor, same with Turmp, and so on. That's why I call out people on even small bullshit, as it way too often ends up becoming a big bullshit situation (probably just link to some Leahy from Trailer Park Boys with one of his great "shit blizzard" speeches) if you let it fester and grow. And then its more difficult to deal with and show people that it is bullshit.
Oh, don't forget (and I love that they did mention it in I think the Hulu one) the scam by Holmes with Theranos that was happening at the same time. They mentioned another one first that I'm not familiar with (some girl that was stealing or fleecing money from a bunch of affluent rich kids in New York I think?).
People had been sounding the alarm on these charismatic douchebags in the startup world for some time. Unfortunately because it was often women calling out them having sex rooms and sex parties in the office and horrible sexual harassment that it got kinda lost as more just d-bag guy behavior that was also being called out at the same time.
Uber was chock full of these types of guys (although they've tried to flush some of them out including the CEO douchebag). I'm still fucking baffled that they lose hundreds of millions to billions a year, there's alternatives, and they're behind even automakers on autonomous driving so I don't see how Uber will have pretty much any business as the car companies themselves can make an app and/or probably just use Google to call up any number of similar autonomous cab services including Google's own - which has a drastically better track record; plus the multitude of major fiascoes, that Uber is still being invested in; to me they're a giant load of bullshit that is destined to collapse, and I never understood why it was getting the money it had and still gets).
If a businessperson ever feels the need to flash a large sum of cash as a wow factor, its a scam. Legit businesses don't do things like that. Its what scammers and bullshit artists do though. I remember people telling me how the Quixtar guys would do that (they'd host parties, and then bring in some alleged bigwig seller who'd then flash like 50grand in cash to wow the stupid college kids). They'd also talk up how the head guy owned the Orland Magic (although for some odd reason they wouldn't mention that he's head of Amway, they would even get angry if people associated Quixtar with Amway because the latter had all the feeback on it being a pyramid scheme; of course it was the same fucking company just rebranded and targeting college kids and other people that were naive and were too young to remember Amway).
I wouldn't say that. I think its intentional. You touched on it. People hear about awful shit all the time its overwhelming them (and just general information overload), they are willing to delude themselves. And when the scam can be obfuscated and backed up by legit middlemen that don't know (as was the case here, where they had the models and bands and others saying they were going but they weren't actually aware that it was really just a scam that was never going to work), it enables it to grow into something like this. But we're seeing a rise to similar eras in history, where people are looking for some guidance, and because of societal issues, it leads them to be desperate and willing to look past warning signs. The good news is, it tends to be just a phase. The bad news is, there's often historic, definitive events (that tend to be bad) that occur due to it, that seem to shock people out of their stupor. We haven't had that yet. I'm not sure what it will take either.