Today we mark the death of a meme: the Fyre Festival meme is no more.
Billy McFarland was sentenced today to six years in prison for his part in the widely mocked and catastrophic Fyre Festival. The Manhattan court largely discarded his lawyer’s contention that McFarland suffers from “mental illness” exacerbated by alcohol, including delusions of grandeur that he will become famous and rich.
(He got half of it, anyway!)
McFarland defrauded investors for the 2017 Fyre Festival to the tune of $26 million. This is on top of the ticket buyers who found themselves stranded on the island of Exuma when the festival imploded. McFarland previously pled guilty to producing fake documents to “induce investors and a ticket vendor to put more than $26 million into his company and the disastrous Fyre Festival.”
Heavily promoted by “instagram influencers,” Fyre Festival promised the kind of luxury vacation perfect for lifestyle marketing. Instead people got this.
The dinner that @fyrefestival promised us was catered by Steven Starr is literally bread, cheese, and salad with dressing. #fyrefestival pic.twitter.com/I8d0UlSNbd
— Trevor DeHaas (@trev4president) April 28, 2017
Had to post that one more time, maybe for the last time, though like all of your memories there are people who want to make Fyre Festival into a Hulu documentary series.
