It was somewhere in between Coachella meets Lollapalooza meets EDC. The Fyre Festival takeover in 2017 was the ultimate ticket and people were willing to pay thousands of dollars for their ticket to what was being known as 'the greatest party' to exist in music. Watching the videos in the module and throughout the readings, this example kept popping in my head because it is the center of the pop culture industry at its most visible. From the perspective of the Frankfurt School theory, the formula was there. Big name artists, big marketing dollars, the big marketing machine behind it. What diverted from one of the two main features outlined was the predictability of the event. I don't think anyone could have seen it as the mega farce that it turned out to be. It did however offer the false sense of happiness feeding into the one-dimensional thinking that is outlined with that theory. The greed and capitalism behind the creators of the festival had a massive control on the laborers it employed leading up to the event and the attendees. The Twilight Screening video was similar to this but on a much smaller scale. Even after those in the theater were told it was a sham they continued to believe it to be part of the atmosphere. Seeing the examples tied to deception, made me remember the ultimate act of fraud.
What was also fascinating about the Fyre Festival was how it played on the concept of work hard play hard. I cannot imagine spending upwards of $25,000 on a ticket but those who could afford that, seemed to make the justification that they work hard and so they deserved to be there. This wasn't a long term purchase. It was a limited event that offered temporary happiness and a hefty price, in more ways than just money. Focusing on this alone, it could contribute to the Frankfurt School theory that happiness is false. One thing I struggled with was how people didn't poke holes in the festival to determine the outcome. What qualifications did the organizers have that made them seem credible? Do some people become so well versed in pop culture artifacts that it creates credibility, and a false sense of it at times? Is there something with the phrase of "too good to be true"?
While the Fyre Festival may have been one of the most expensive failures in the history of live music, it was actually just the latest casualty of promotional inaptitude and commercial chaos. From Woodstock, which left thousands without food or shelter from inclement weather and lacked necessary security, adequate parking or traffic control, to Altamont, which went from the "Woodstock of the West" that was promoted to a battlefield when the Hell's Angels, hired as security, escalated tensions and killed a young African American fan.
ReplyDeleteThrough the lens of the Frankfurt School, perhaps the Fyre Festival would have been less of a failure than the people who believed it was possible. The festival, in fact, did exactly what it set out to do. It provided a fantasy--giving influencers and social climbers the promise of a utopia that could never exist--and then it gave them a story to tell over and over again about how they almost had it.