Fyre Festival was supposed to be an amazing weekend where some of the most famous artists came together and played for thousands of people, an instagrammars dream of great music, beautiful views, tiny festival outfits, and endless celebrity sightings. In the end, it turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. People were stranded on the island of Great Exuma without any food, water, or even a place to sleep, let alone without pretty vistas and great music. It was a millennial’s nightmare and a documentary film makers dream. When the producers of Fyre at Netflix take the viewer on the journey, they start at the very beginning.
The Netflix documentary starts off with a journalist explaining how she, along with thousands of other young people, first heard about the Fyre Festival. She explained that she was hearing repeatedly about the festival because famous models were reposting a promo video created by the producers of a mysterious and amazing looking new festival, the Fyre Festival. The event itself was established as a massive promotional tool and launch for Billy McFarland’s new app, a developing platform called Fyre where individuals and festivals could book ‘famous influencers’ (singers, models, actors, etc.) for events. McFarland is a college drop out who had a bunch of failed ventures, but people thought that Fyre was innovative, which is why they invested in his app. The creators of the Fyre Festival were trying to give the festival an aura that could only be experienced on the island itself. One of the ideologies of popular culture described by Storey (2009) was ideological forms. It is, in a sense, giving viewers “a particular image of the world” (p. 4). Fyre Festival not attempting to share political views in the way Storey references, but her description still applies as the imaging presented was trying to give their viewers a particular view of what the Festival was going to be. McFarland was not alone in the creation of this app. He had a business partner, Ja Rule, the famous rapper from Brooklyn, gave them an edge and enhanced the intrigue into the festival, perhaps even encouraging the people at Netflix to take a look into the project a little more closely. The idea that a rapper was going to be a part of the app made it that more enticing, that there was going to be someone on the inside.
The idea of an influencer—a person made famous through social media, and with an extensive social media following—is extremely prevalent from the very start of the documentary because McFarland intended to use these people, mainly models with large followings on social media, to influence millennials and promote the festival. He wanted each influencer (mainly beautiful women) to each post a picture of themselves on the beach by a certain time, with the hashtag #fyrefestival. As Ja Rule put it, “It’s free press. You can’t pay for that kind of press” (13.16).
The video naturally spread widely, but, as the documentary highlights it had a major flaw: it was, though extremely appealing looking, completely unclear what was happening. People were asking themselves, what is this video actually promoting? Millennials responded, as expected by the promoters: I don’t know what the hell this is, but I want to be there. The video was essentially models flaunting their amazing bodies in bikinis, on jet skis and yachts, in the water and the clubhouse. And this is the problem with social media today highlighted by the film. People just post the amazing parts of their lives, unknowing the impact that it will have one of those who see it. People only show the fun they are having, while in actuality even the models were super confused as to their role in the whole endeavor. They were also sometimes uncomfortable with the way that McFarland and Ja Rule were talking to them, as they explicitly asked one another what is going on and pulling away when McFarland and Ja Rule pulled them close.
After watching the entire documentary, it is obvious that Fyre Festival was only “possible” because of social media and the idea of Fame. People have this new idea/obsession with the fact that they need to be famous. With each person their definition changes. With some people they want to be famous because of something special, the clothing they wear, or their profession. It is interesting to note the volume of footage that is documenting Fyre festival before it even started. It is almost like McFarland wanted there to be a movie or TV show about him and his amazing festival that would make him even more famous—he knew it would be big, though sadly for him, it ended up famous for all the wrong reasons.
When we had our lecture on reality TV, all I could think of is Billy McFarland, and the usage of cameras during all of the stages of Fyre Festival. As Ouellette and Murray (2009) said “reality TV[...] includ[es] the private surveillance of ‘ordinary individuals’” (p. 8). It’s almost like McFarland knew that he was going to be famous for doing something special.
Zoe, I very much enjoyed reading your blog post review about the fallout of the Fyre Festival. I vividly remember the days leading up to the Fyre Festival, the “supposed” best event of the year, and I recall being very envious of those who were planning to go. Looking back, I remember seeing major headlines all over the news about the complete disaster of the Fyre Festival, as it never occurred and was one big scam. I agree with you in that Billy Mcfarland presented a particular image of the world for the ill-fated Festival, in which Storey would call a specific ideological form. To add, I believe that Mcfarland used semiotic processes to present a singular, specific image of a luxurious festival on the island of Great Exuma, which happened to be nowhere near reality. Further, as you spoke of the role influencers played in promoting the festival, it reminded me of when we discussed in class the so-called “influencer burn-out.” This phenomenon stems from the constant demand of influencers to live up to a certain expectation. Similarly, the influencers that promoted the Fyre Festival were told and instructed to show off their bikini bodies and booze without knowing what they were even truly promoting. I think you did a great job connecting Ouellette and Murray’s idea of private surveillance to Mcfarland’s Fyre Fest disaster. I would like to add that as we witness “ordinary” people open their lives to surveillance, we open ourselves up to it. Overall, I think your review of the Fyre Festival documentary was intriguing and very knowledgeable.
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