Posted on 01/24/2019 7:53:56 AM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
The two competing documentaries out this week on 2016’s calamitous Fyre Festival — Hulu’s brutal, superior “Fyre Fraud” and Netflix’s more self-serving “Fyre” — both tell stories of hubris and entitlement, and of the farcical overreach by Billy MacFarland, the “brains,” such as it was, behind the ill-fated gathering. MacFarland and his team of erstwhile con artists swindled thousands of mostly young, wealthy marks who believed they were buying tickets to an exclusive island adventure — but found only dirt lots, disaster tents and wilted lettuce (though, of course, plenty of booze) when they arrived.
It’s easy to chuckle at MacFarland’s epic failings as both a businessman and a human being as the films document one collapsed con job after another. As my “Esquire” colleague Olivia Ovenden wrote earlier this week, “McFarland is the perfect millennial villain, a remorseless narcissist on a hover-board who promises you the world then worries about it, well, never.” He is perhaps the perfect millennial allegory for the Trump era — no wonder he was the subject of dueling profiles.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
The Wall Street Journal had an informative discussion of these two television programs. I confess that I laughed and laughed about the events when they occurred.
Frye. Jet-set weekend turned into Lord of the Flies.
bookmark
Watched this last night on Netflix. There were so many people around him that saw the train wreck coming but couldn’t sit the MacFarland child down and say stop. Failure on everyone involved with Fyre. Did laugh at the guy who was ‘going to take one for the team’ to get the water released from customs.
If only. I’d pay-per-view to see a thousands of millennials lured to a tropical island ‘paradise’ only to then enjoy the ‘castaway’ experience. Last one alive wins a million bucks ... eh, why not?
Excellent documentary. Proved to me once again that millennials are stupid!
Exactly what I told my wife as we watched the documentary. I still cannot believe Billy is still breathing.
Over the years, I’ve worked, managed, and consulted on a good number of medium to large music festivals. I can tell you first hand, all the warning signs were there right from the start. That’s why nobody with veteran credentials wanted to touch that event.
As a seasoned senior, instead of a young narcissistic millennial, I would never have fallen for this fraud for a minute.
My rule is that if it sounds too good to be true, it is. These young people with too much time, money and egos on their hands never stopped to consider that they were being offered so much with no verification and confirmation of what they were actually paying for.
Sometime being young and stupid and getting burnt real bad, is the only way for some people to ever learn the lessons of life.
Spent some money, experienced some inconvenience, felt like a fool. That's not "burnt real bad."
They lost thousands of dollars each, got taken for a ride to nowhere and were conned with nothing to show for it, not even a t-shirt. If that's not "burnt real bad", I don't know what is.
It's no small irony that the name of this non-festival that was hyped and then cancelled before it even started, was named "Fyre".
Burnt in the Fyre real bad, I'd say.
Differing perspectives, I guess. To me, “burnt real bad” means serious illness or injury, a felony record, a massive liability judgment, etc.
Anyway, I do hope the buyers learned a lesson.
That is exactly what happened to these people who were hoodwinked, bamboozled and taken for a ride by this McFarland fraudster.
I guess you have "higher" standards for getting "burnt".
Different understandings of a colloquialism. Maybe we’re from different parts of the country or different generations.
Yea, I don’t think they were “burnt real bad”..
Paid a stupid tax and endured some humiliation...
That’s a life lesson, not really a burn.
Most of them didn’t even feel the money loss personally... because to have paid it they weren’t the people who worked (more often than not) for the cash they wasted.
No doubt.
But believe what you want about how these people were conned out of their money.
You call it a life lesson. The judge called it criminal.
The person responsible, McFarland, went to prison for six years for perpetuating the fraud.
You seem to have some sort of chip on your shoulder.
I NEVER said the acts of the person who defrauded them was not criminal.
I never said they were not “conned”...
Nothing I said once offered any excuse or justification, excuse or defense of the person who defrauded them.
So not sure why you feel you need to point all that out.
Of course the guy engaged in criminal acts.. that doesn’t mean the victims didn’t learn a life lesson.
And I never claimed you said all those things. I was just voicing my opinion. Is that okay with you?
"....that doesn’t mean the victims didn’t learn a life lesson...."
Oh, they learned a life lesson alright. By getting "burnt".
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