Fyre Fraud

"It would be perplexing and funny if it wasn't criminal. And it is criminal. But it still is perplexing. And still a little bit funny." I preferred the Netflix documentary, but it was fun to see Billy try to lie his way through his interviews.

Much better than the Netflix one. The one on Netflix is a report, this is an essay.

Fyre Fraud is definitely one of the most entertaining documentaries that I've seen recently, in that I not only felt like I learned a lot about the situation but also that I enjoyed watching how spectacularly it failed. As a documentary it does its job well, though not perfect, to provide its own point of view and new information that can inform people to making their own opinions. Interesting, for sure.

This one was harder hitting than the Netflix one which was supported by the promoters of the Fyre Festival and so never laid any blame on their feet. On the other hand, that one had better production value. This one had all the bad documentary clichés: cheesy interview room and angles, establishing shots that hit you over the head rather than help you understand, inexplicable computer voices, dramatic music with record skips for emphasis. Fav scene: Billy McFarland guilty AF when dodging.

Its has interesting content and is executed well. Not much else to say but there wasn't a good meme to come out of it.

I wasn't sure if I had anything to gain from watching this one, but despite essentially being competing documentaries, this one actually makes for a decent companion to the Netflix one. This one covered a lot of the same information, but also delved a little deeper into certain people and other forces which led to the festival and its demise. You probably don't need to watch both of these, but if you're interested in the topic, it's worth it.

The better of the two documentaries, but it still failed in some key areas. Most importantly, it didn't feel like it added much to the events as they were already known. I was expecting more investigation, or at least an effort to discuss the Fyre Fest scam in the context of other, similar scams.

The better of the two Fyre festival documentaries

Not enough on Ja Rule. Where is Ja?

This documentary entertained me but didn't really do anything else. It seemed like it was trying to tie Fyre Festival together with new age social media trends but even this potentially interesting commentary dissipates by the end. It's still worth a watch for two reasons: the way everything falls apart at the end and a look into the mind of the man who let this all happen.

Very clearly the better of the two documentaries, with a much fuller picture of the timeline, the early frauds (thus providing proper context for the later and especially post-Fyre frauds), financial details (like, um, the loan), internal machinations, and, of course, Ja. McFarland's involvement is almost unbelievable in a what-the-fuck-was-he-thinking-sitting-for-this kinda way and all-too-believable in an oh-so-THAT'S-why-he-kept-trying-to-con-his-way-through-that kinda way.