There are currently not one but two new documentaries on the disastrous non-festival known as Frye Festival, one on Netflix (Fyre) and the other on Hulu (Fyre Fraud). The "festival" of course never took place and was a complete disaster for everyone involved. It also did a significant amount of damage to the Great Exuma island workers where the festival was supposed to take place. The reviews of the two documentaries (I haven't seen either one) have been interesting reads. New York magazine even has an article to help a person decide which documentary is right for them! The best part about these article is that a few of them do point out something very important (from the NY magazine piece): "Fyre Fraud goes a few steps further, not only placing the idea for the festival in a broader historical context but acknowledging the parallels between McFarland and other high-profile grifters...". That last bit is very important. These social media "influences" are nothing but modern day confidence men and women.
First, the confidence man is more or less apart of capitalist society. In his book Wall Street: American's Dream Palace, historian Steven Fraser explains that the confidence man is "endemic to market society. First of all this is because market society rests on confidence: confidence that strangers can be relied upon to live up to agreements, made often at long distance and extending over long periods of time.." One of the key components of the confidence man hustle is trust. Of course, the confidence man betrays that trust, it is ruse to get at the mark. Fraser notes that the confidence man is "charming, glib, seductive, even charismatic, often sexy" thus lending further appeal to his pitch. "But", Fraser continues "what is most notable is that his trick depends on the willing collaboration of his victim, or mark. The mark indulges in an act of faith born out of cupidity: the belief that there is a way to fast money that skirts the rigors and renunciations of the work ethic." To put it simply: the mark is greedy and willingly believes what the confidence man is selling. Here's the problem: the confidence man is greedy too.
McFarland, the organizer of this absurd festival, originally started with an app that would allow rich common folk to rent a celebrity. Imagine having some as famous as Ja Rule come to your house to watch football and eat chili! Put that on Instagram and instantly be the envy of other bougie people. A short cut to fame, what could be more American? McFarland and his investors clearly knew how to market their nonsense to a certain subset of wealthy, status obsessed people. Could blame be placed on "America's Luxury-Obsessed Festival Industry"? Sure. Could you blame it on FOMO? Sure. Could you blame it on social media "influences" just being dopes? Sure. All of these critiques and explanations are equally valid and true, however, they don't get to the true core of the debacle which is that: McFarland (and those like him), his investors, companies that peddle over-hyped brand messages, and the people who fall for this nonsense are simply greedy. Greedy for money, fame, power, and the supposed happiness a million Instagram followers will bring.
Wall Street is a good example to bring up because Wall Street operates just like McFarland but on a massive scale. Another excellent documentary on the same subject occurred way back in 2005, it was called Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. The dot-com bubble, the greed, the hubris, it's all in there. The only difference is scale. It's worth revisiting that documentary because that mindset is no different than McFarland or the people who bought into his cockamamie festival. It's worth asking questions, like this Atlantic article does, "Can Bankers Behave?". The answer is, obviously, no they can't. They need to be regulated and punished if they commit crimes. What about social media "influences" who peddle productions, "hacks", or whatever other nonsense pops up in a Facebook feed? Yeah, they should be held accountable too. Social media can be a powerful tool, for good or ill, it's time people realized that and stopped believing that everything on Instagram is real life.
**All views in this post are the author's own and do NOT represent the views of Mercer County Community College**
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