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Comment by S_A_P | Hacker News Reader

Ive seen one of the documentaries about this festival. IMO, I dont think the perpetrators set out to defraud anyone. I think they were just completely inept at what they were doing. They(Billy McFarland) got in over their head and realized way too late that they were. I suppose the case can be made that they did realize early enough that they could have called it off before the dumpster fyre that it was happened. Not doing so seems solid grounds for a fraud case. I think that it is also possible that if he had admitted failure there is a chance he could have salvaged the event and had it later.

That said I don't think it was an intent to defraud people or else they would not have even tried to put the event together. Why would all of this merch have been created if they just wanted to bilk investors and festival attendees? This is hubris and ignorance more than fraud.

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Watch the Netflix documentary, and pay close attention to what he does after his failed festival. Either he's a scammer or Netflix is, as he seems to be running a new business where he sells tickets to events he doesn't have tickets for, and for which he has no way of getting them, and then ghosts the buyers.

I think he didn't really set out to defraud anyone, but he has an incredible ego and sense of entitlement, and he got used to living a jetsetting lifestyle and didn't want to downgrade, so he defrauded people (in his newer business, after the festival). Given how naturally he did it, I'd be surprised if he hadn't been running ticket scams on and off for years.

Yeah this basically matches with my impression. You can watch maybe 3/4 of the netflix doc and believe it's plausible they didn't intend to defraud anyone, and then you witness the behavior in the last 1/4 and it's clear there was intentional, serious criminal fraud.

That is the one I saw. I kinda think that he knew he was screwed and leaned in to the persona he thought he now had curated. Its one of those things where he knew he was going to jail(or really was that oblivious) and just decided to burn it down and try the persona...

What the Netflix documentary leaves out, significantly, is the involvement of the "fuckjerry" advertising/PR agency people in both promoting the festival and then later contributing to the documentary itself.

google "fuckjerry fyre festival"

https://decider.com/2019/01/15/fyre-festival-fuck-jerry/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandrasternlicht/2019/10/24/...

It's been a while, but I thought the Hulu documentary included a decent amount about fuckjerry. Might be worth comparing.

I'm pretty sure the Hulu one was made by fuckjerry. That's why they were a prominent interviewee during it and also profiting again.

I only saw the Hulu one, and I didn't remember it being very kind to fuckjerry. According to Wikipedia, Jerry Productions (aka fuckjerry) was the Netflix one. Kinda glad I didn't see it now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyre_(film)

Oh thanks. Honestly I've always confused the two so thanks for clarifying which one was made by them. I've only seen that one to be honest.

I also know one of the two also did a paid interview with Billy McFaland so it was another instance of him profiting off this. The other declining to have him due to principle. I again forget which.

Agreed, I was disappointed that I watched the one supporting that media company.

I'm pretty sure I saw evidence or at least rumor that fuckjerry knew it was going to be a colossal fuck up and continued along with it just for money and the making of movie.

I remember this being a controversy when the documentaries came out. I ended up watching the Hulu one when it came out, and was underwhelmed having already seen the Netflix one (which was quite well done). I suspect that this "controversy" was simply an attempt to get publicity for the Hulu doc (it succeeded on me, at least).

It's not surprising at all that a PR/advertising agency would have a lot of footage from the event they were attempting to promote.

> Either he's a scammer or Netflix is

From what I understand, Making a Murderer is basically one big lie-by-omission so my faith in other Netflix funded documentaries to value truth over sensation is quite low.

- https://time.com/4167699/netflix-making-a-murderer-evidence-...

That entire article is citing the now-defamed prosecuting attorney Ken kratz. He was caught sending inappropriate texts to minors shortly after the show aired, as well as lying/hiding about some evidence from the case. I wouldn't put too much credence in him.

You should watch both documentaries. It's weird how they have entirely different people in them, and they spin things slightly differently.

I do think McFarland was a scam artist. His past history of scams shows he's one of these hustle culture people who commits outright fraud, and he deserves more jail time than he got.

why is it weird? it's told from 2 different perspectives. every story has at least as many sides as there are people involved.

Billy McFarland was arrested for selling fake tickets to Coachella, Burning Man, The Met Gala, and The Superbowl while he was out on bail for his Fyre-related charges. That is not ineptitude.

You could say he was criminally inept.

I would say that is more 'ineptly criminal.'

He seems like an example for the Dunning-Kruger phenomenon...

That's not the Dunning-Kruger phenomenon.

Getting in over your head and then lying about how badly you've fucked up is the standard fraud.

The median fund manager sending fake statements isn't cynically trying to fleece people, he's desperately trying to earn their money back before anyone notices.

I largely agree with you, though I think they were both fraudsters and in over their head. McFarland seemed to buy in too much to the "fake it 'til you make it" startup ethos and desperately wanted to be a part of that.

The Hulu documentary, especially, gave me the impression that McFarland just wanted to be successful and though he could turn it around at the last minute. What I liked most about that one is that we've all had situations where we overstated our prowess, or put off a project that we committed to doing, etc. and then realized way too late that everything would have to go perfectly for us not to fail. It was that, but on a larger scale and impacting significantly more people. (Not at all to excuse what McFarland, JaRule, etc. were doing.)

This, exactly. I think the Theranos scheme was somewhat similar, albeit not as far along the "fraud" spectrum as Fyre. I have the impression that most successful startups involve someone overstating what they've got already done, in order to rally a bunch of people around the imagined upcoming success. In some cases, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the people around McFarland had somehow pulled it off, we might be seeing his picture on business magazines.

Of course, none of this means McFarland was in any way innocent. But the difference between "scam artist" and "successful startup entrepreneur", while not at all illusionary, might be one more of degree than kind.

It's easy to cut yourself on Hanlon's razor.

Billy McFarland has a long history of exploiting the benefit of the doubt. It would be self-destructive for society to continue extending it without taking that into account.

Quite. I'm surprised to see intelligent HNers pushing the advice of George Castanza, Esq: "It's not a lie if you believe it."

Billy, is a serial con artist, with a history fraudulent schemes. He continued to offend after release. This is standard con artist behavior.

Sometimes with these people you really do wonder if they believe their own lies. I think he had a pretty good idea how it was gonna go.

> Why would all of this merch have been created if they just wanted to bilk investors and festival attendees?

What was he supposed to do say? "we're not gonna do merch, because this things fake" Other people were involved. It would be suspicious not to. They might have told themselves that there's a chance it would work, but that doesn't mean they weren't setting out to defraud. You don't get to finance your moonshot with lies to investers. Not these kinds of lies, at least. Maybe some of the main guys behind Enron thought it would work, but they still engaged in blatantly illegal transactions.

MacFarland is a con man and FuckJerry is a slimy ad agency. Both of them create reality distortion fields for a living, so be skeptical of your impressions if you only watched one of the two competing docs.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Whether they intended to defraud anyone or not, they had ample warning that they were way in over their heads. After a certain point, it was criminal.

I agree, Fyre was more a product of magical thinking than anything else. McFarland did engage in outright fraud in the aftermath though.

It was very very clear intent to defraud and it took place before the festival was a failure.

He falsified bank and brokerage statements to make it look like he had millions of dollars in the bank, and falsified transaction data, in order to defraud investors.

Go read the Federal indictment. This was intentional fraud all the way through.

> I think they were just completely inept at what they were doing

Setting aside what others are saying about other examples of more obvious fraud, we must, at some point, believe that a reasonable person[1] would notice the misadventure and do something about it.

[1] A questionable but important legal concept.

Healthy doses of both maybe.

Compare it to lots of financial fraud like ponzi schemes - the perpetrators often don't think it will fall down all around them until it does.

One of my friends was hired at McFarland's first company. He was basically instructed to tell lies to customers.

If we require intent to charge, I don't quite get how the court fulfills any definition of justice. There's a clear, material list of damages here caused by individuals. Who gives a shit if they hurt people through abusing power via ineptitude rather than via malice?

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