The Inside Story of How We Got Two Warring Fyre Festival Documentaries in the Same Week

This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply.

Scott Tobias, writing at The Ringer:

Fyre and Fyre Fraud arrive at many of the same conclusions about what happened with the festival, and both documentaries place much of the blame on McFarland, a scam artist who was subsequently sentenced to six years in federal prison for wire fraud. However, the major difference between them is that the Hulu doc has an exclusive interview with McFarland and the Netflix doc does not. In the course of preparing a profile on Chris Smith (American Movie, Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond) for The Ringer, coming later this week, I asked Smith on Monday about the Hulu documentary that was released earlier in the day. What he said wound up sparking a kind of ethics-off between the two camps.
​

Expand - View Original

 

One of these streaming services makes its viewers watch ads on top of charging a monthly fee. The other doesn't. I know which platform's documentary I'd choose to watch.

EDIT: Good points have been raised. I'm mainly just bitter because I mainly use Hulu to watch Community and How I Met Your Mother reruns and wish I didn't have ads with them. I'll get over it.

 

I’m interested in seeing both, and the interview with McFarland you’d think would be enticing. Until you consider that it’s probably just aggravating excuses for being a shitty person.

 

The one that was produced by the dude who did the marketing for Fyre Fest?

 

I don’t see how this is an argument at all to choose between the two. The one that with ads (Hulu) on top of the monthly fee is the only one that has new episodes the day after they air on network TV. If you have a choice between the two, then that means you subscribe to both which makes your argument make even less sense. Not to mention Netflix’s doc appears that it will be somewhat biased due to who produced it. Hulu’s doc actually has an interview with Billy McFarland.

EDIT: also Netflix just announced yet another price increase of $2/month

 

I'm keen for both. This whole story was just endless laughs at every turn so I'll take anything showcasing this glorious dumpster fire and watch.

 

Fyre Fraud was terrific, caught it last night. The first 20 minutes or so aggravated me because it was beginning to look like a puff piece for McFarland, but they let him have it as the film moved along. The one aspect of this whole thing I'll never understand is the early portion where they cover what it is about a festival like this that one would find so appealing and how we're living in a time where people feel they have to be at an event or be seen with certain types of people to feel validated. It's so stupid.

 

The Hulu doc was great. The filmmaker did a thorough job of showing all the scams in McFarland’s past and what built up to that Fyre dumpster.

 

I was scratching my head throughout most of the doc. The way investors were willingly throwing money at McFarland was mind boggling.

 

hard times posted on instagram that it looks like the hulu doc stole a joke from an old hard times article.

 

Especially with the incredibly cryptic pitch deck they were presented.

 

Not really. There a part in the doc where they’re talking about how the festival was “memes to death” and they show a bunch of different ways it was memed, one that flashes was from a hard timed article.

 

I felt the same way early on. Having everyone quoting him as some sort of visionary or genius at the beginning was irritating, but I see how they brought it around.

Maybe I missed it somewhere, but I felt like they didn't even address one of the biggest parts of the scam that related to all of the "FOMO" and Instagram lifestyle stuff they talked about in the beginning. From what I could tell, none of the models or Instagram celebrities (aside from the ones in the documentary) used to promote the festival ever had any intention of being at the festival. They plastered Hailey Baldwin and others all over all of the marketing for the festival, but none of them even attempted to go when the time came. It was almost like they were insinuating to these kids that these models would be in attendance but technically never claimed that to be true. That was sketchy in itself, but I don't remember the documentary ever pointing that out.

 

I guess there's a debate to be had whether using someone in advertising fairly suggests they're going to be there, or whether anyone should care whether a random model in a swimsuit is there among all of the other women in swimsuits. Obviously the marketing worked to get people to buy tickets, but is it because people actually wanted or expected those people in attendance, or they just aspired to replicate the lifestyle demonstrated in the ads.

 

Honestly, I think it was quite a bit of both. I think a lot of the people wanted to attend a luxurious event, but some of them naturally assumed that if it were really that big of a deal, celebrities would be there regardless (as they are with a lot of the biggest festivals).

 

Oh I don't doubt people assumed there'd be celebrities there, and in fact some might have planned to go (I don't necessarily mean the ones in the marketing though), but I suspect most would have been tipped off in advance that it was going to be a disaster - rich and connected people tend to find those things out earlier.

 

Hulu is cheaper though.

 

Oh yeah, I remember reading this now. Super shady! It was funny how when people saw Ja Rule they thought, ah this must be legit. When he was arrested for tax evasion. I still am curious how he got out of all this scot-free.

 

At the very least, they found out once people started arriving and didn't get on the plane. Seems like that was the case with most of the artists as well - people were suspect but wanted to hope for the best until they saw the photos.

 

Not to mention has better content in general

 

I have Netflix. I don’t have Hulu. So I’ll watch the Netflix one

 

We watched it last night and this pretty much nails all my thoughts on it haha

I'm willing to accept that I just won't fully understand the latter though, while I can get the principles of it all

 

Because Brian wouldn’t name him as an organizer, but he was one and was heavily involved/aware. For whatever reason, Brian won’t give him up and took the fall entirely. Ja is a p.o.s. who saved his own ass and never even showed up if I’m not mistaken.

 

I watched Fyre Fraud, and I'll watch Fyre. It'll be interesting to see the overlap.

 

word, okay. thank you for clarifying!