Over the past few weeks, one of the most viewed and talked about documentaries on Netflix has been Fyre, the documentary made by Netflix about the creation of the Fyre music festival that occurred in 2016. This has been one of my favorite documentaries so far. It is probably one of the first documentaries made about something that we actually remember happening. Not only was the entire situation mind-blowing, but it was so intriguing to watch every step in the festival’s planning just go so far off from how it was planned.
What I mostly learned from this crazy documentary is the power that social media has over our society. The company hired to do the social media for the music festival was very good at their job. The target audience for this festival was the average millennial-age moneymaker looking for a good time –the same audience Billy McFarland (the leader of this disastrous festival) had for most of his other business endeavors. The promoters were able to use photos from a single photo shoot of models on an island to completely sell out a music festival. Celebrities posted a picture of just an orange square with a single hashtag, and it exploded. Fyre was trending everywhere, and everyone wanted in on this festival purely based on the social media presence. People believe in social media. There are all of these movements now about how we shouldn’t believe everything we see on social media because it is more of a “highlight reel,” and the disaster that is shown in this documentary is a perfect example of how these movements picked up speed. There was absolutely no legitimate evidence of how this festival was coming along. People just knew that models and other celebrities were going to be there and that the pictures looked nice, so they bought in. I did not realize how much social media actually controls our lives until I watched this. It is crazy how many people are willing to spend that much money and jump into a plan purely because of the celebrity aspect to it.
I highly recommend this documentary. It is very informative about our society and the extreme influence that social media has on our lives. It is also just a ridiculously intriguing documentary. Each step of the way, Billy McFarland creates some new plan that everyone else knows is not going to work, and it is really interesting to watch it all play out from behind the scenes. I think everyone should watch it for entertainment and for reflection. It made me really think about how I view social media and if I would have been one of those people to buy a ticket to the Fyre festival that quickly if I could have. Do I think about my social media presence too much? Do I overthink about what other people are posting? This documentary poses many questions about the thinking of both myself and Billy McFarland. Unexpectedly the craziest hour and a half I’ve ever had on Netflix.
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