Fun with Fyre

I don’t typically watch documentaries, barely making it a quarter the way through a Netflix murderer-of-some-sort series and then realize I just don’t care whodunnit. But after all the weekend hype, I watched the documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened – about millennial superfluity and truly fake news of influencer culture. Sure, it was fun to witness rich kids get swindled with the promise of Instagram-famous moments for tens of thousands of dollars. The excesses and falsehoods of the Fyre wanting audience make @AOC even that much more of a refreshing voice for the future generations. But after the low-hanging evidence to poke fun at millennials wanes, the dark side of the story emerges, where the Bahamian residents who worked tirelessly building a scam music festival for weeks go unpaid, while the Instagram influencers got their cash with a little ethics slap. Kendall Jenner was paid $250,000 for a single social post. Contrast that with Maryann Rolle, recently raising money on GoFundMe for all that she lost. Social justice would have been Kendall donating her proceeds. But there probably wasn’t a camera nearby to capture the moment. So have your laughs and then gives thanks you weren’t Ja Rule’d by the festival founder, now serving 6 years in federal prison.

– James Rice, Digital Experience