By now you’ve probably heard of the infamous Fyre Festival that lured spoiled rich kids – aka “influencers” – to a secluded island for an astronomical price with the promise of an epic music festival.
Except, these rich kids arrived only to discover their cabanas on the beach were bare mattresses in tents and the five-star dining nothing more than bologna sandwiches with a slice of Kraft cheese.
So is this the crime of the decade or the karma of a lifetime? Well, we’ll let you decide.
Much like Netflix’s “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness,” the streaming giant’s “Fyre” had the same viral popularity.
“Fyre” is the true story of how co-founders Billy McFarland and rapper JaRule deceived thousands of people to show up for the greatest music festival of all time.
Wrong island
Private island Saddle Back Cay was used in the promotional video for the festival and featured supermodels like Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner. But the exclusive 35-acre island isn’t where the event actually took place.
You can probably tell where this is going.
The “event” took place in 2017 and charged up to $100,000 per person, which included round-trip flights from Miami, performances from high-profile artists, backstage access, and dinners with a performer.
Social media influencers salivated over the occasion.
“Luxury” is apparently an ambiguous term
But it turned out that this promised “luxury” was actually bottom-of-the-barrel accommodations.
Some people ended up paying $100,000 for pop-up tents, cancelled bands, and a lack of working bathrooms.
And as you’re watching this disaster unfold, you discover that literally everyone involved in coordinating this event had no idea what they were doing. All were inexperienced and none of them did any research.
To make matters worse, instead of working hard to solve the problems, they just partied all the time. In fact, McFarland kept selling stake in the festival and just used that money for the pre-party on the island.
Apparently, none of them got the memo that you can’t party your way through planning an even bigger party. At some point, somebody has to do some actual work.
It was the greatest illusion ever pulled in music industry history.
Rich kids spent an eye-popping amount of money on what they were told would be a party full of supermodels and overrated bands in a Caribbean paradise.
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The enemy of my enemy… is still not my friend
What they got in return was a horror story and a message on Fyre’s website that read, “Due to circumstances out of our control, the physical infrastructure was not in place on time and we are unable to fulfill on that vision safely and enjoyably for our guests.”
Once you watch the show, you’ll soon learn that all of this was, in fact, preventable.
Meanwhile, co-founder and head mastermind, McFarland, was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to pay back $26 million. Ja Rule was admonished from all crimes.
When extrapolating the events surrounding this disastrous event, you reach the conclusion that two things are true – the Fyre Festival was a total scam thought up by a criminal mastermind who knew he’d spend most of the money on himself – and that these rich, arrogant spoiled “influencers” also got their comeuppance.
The biggest takeaway here is that rich kids taking advantage of other rich kids is really fun to watch.
So grab your popcorn and enjoy watching this train wreck of epic proportions unfold.
