{"id":1667,"date":"2017-05-03T16:14:05","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T20:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/?p=1667"},"modified":"2017-05-03T16:16:20","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T20:16:20","slug":"digital-lifecycles-fyre-festivals-death-and-symbolic-immortalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/05\/03\/digital-lifecycles-fyre-festivals-death-and-symbolic-immortalization\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Lifecycles: Fyre Festival’s Death and Symbolic Immortalization"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been hard to look away from the train wreck that unfolded this past weekend on a “private” island in the Bahamas; I’ve been gleefully refreshing for updates on the massively failed Fyre Festival. Have the Fyre lawyers issued a statement responding to the multiple multi-million dollar lawsuits<\/a>? Have any festival-goers actually received that apology phone call from festival co-founder Billy McFarland<\/a>? Have any more employees come forward, disclosing delicious details about their totally inept bosses<\/a> (who apparently couldn’t recognize the island wasn’t ready to host thousands of people from the view on their yachts)?<\/p>\n

If you’ve been on the web this past week, you saw the panic of festival attendees unfold on Twitter while the rest of the web savored the moment to witness rich kids get punked by even richer kids in real time. Fyre marketed itself as a luxury get-away party, made complete by the presence of celebrities, models, and five star cuisine. Bored between musical sets? Hop on a jet ski and hunt for hidden treasure around the island — you may find cash, jewelry, or even cocaine from the eighties! (Somehow, a selling point in promotional materials was that the “private island” was “once owned by Pablo Escobar”).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, the festival presented in the flashy videos and sexy social media posts was never going to be a reality. Co-founders Ja Rule and McFarland cobbled together a media Frankenstein\/siren hybrid from fantasy and the transmission of digital bits. Social sirens — the models and celebrities paid to post about the event — lured the masses close enough to be entranced by the slick surfaces constructed out of\u00a0other<\/em> festival footage.<\/p>\n

Fyre Festival was born in digital space, and fittingly, it died there too. From the first tweets of barely constructed tents to celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos tweeting that he’s filed a fraud lawsui<\/a>t, this was a distinctly digital lifecycle.<\/p>\n