# Fyre Festival Fyre Festival is the 2017 luxury music festival meltdown on Great Exuma in the Bahamas that collapsed in real time on Twitter, leaving wealthy ticket holders stranded with disaster-relief tents and cheese sandwiches. Attendee photos and Ja Rule communism jokes turned the wreck into a lasting shorthand for overhyped, influencer-driven scams. ## Overview Fyre Festival is the label for the 2017 luxury music festival meltdown on Great Exuma in the Bahamas that collapsed live on Twitter and turned into a defining internet fraud story. The most-shared image, a slice of cheese with salad in a Styrofoam clamshell posted by Twitter user @trev4president, became the visual shorthand for the whole mess[5]. Alongside it were photos of half-built disaster-relief tents, mishandled luggage, and empty stages, all posted in real time from a place that had been sold as a private-island paradise for Blink-182, Migos, and Major Lazer[3]. The meme cluster covers two overlapping things. There is the actual event, which cost investors and ticket buyers around $26 million and put organizer Billy McFarland in federal prison[1]. And there are the jokes that grew out of it: cheese-sandwich reposts, the word "Fyre Festival" used as a noun for any hyped-up scam[7], and the "Ja Rulag" theory that rapper Ja Rule was a secret communist who lured the bourgeoisie to a deserted island[5]. Two rival 2019 documentaries, Netflix's Fyre[4] and Hulu's Fyre Fraud[6], later locked the story into internet canon. ## How It Spread The photo that pushed Fyre Festival into a full-blown internet event was posted by Twitter user @trev4president on April 27, 2017, showing a plain cheese sandwich and salad in a Styrofoam clamshell sold as festival dining[5]. Within hours, images of the "luxury villas", in fact FEMA-style tents from a brand called Relief Tents used for housing displaced disaster victims, spread alongside side-by-side comparisons with the promised glamping[5]. Subreddit r/fyrefestival filled so fast that moderators tagged submissions "verified" to separate real reports from trolls, and posters in 4chan threads reported the same trouble telling fakes apart[5]. Twitter jokes then hardened into a subculture. On April 28, account @PaleComparison tweeted "Most of us only dream of putting the wealthy in a gulag, Comrade Ja has actually gone and done it #fyrefestival," which pulled around 4,800 retweets and 12,000 likes and kicked off the "Ja Rulag" running gag[5]. Posts on r/FULLCOMMUNISM and a fake screenshot from account ContentZone imagining Ja Rule announcing his plan to trap the bourgeoisie extended the bit[5]. The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism issued a public statement and started helping stranded travelers, while Fyre itself cancelled outbound flights to stop more people from arriving on the island[5]. The story then moved from meme to legal case. Billy McFarland was arrested again on June 12, 2018 for a separate scheme selling fake tickets to events like the Met Gala and Coachella, reportedly worth around $100,000, later revised upward to $150,000 in phony sales[5]. He pleaded guilty in March to two counts of wire fraud tied to Fyre and in July to further fraud counts from the ticket scam[2]. On October 11, 2018, US District Judge Naomi Buchwald sentenced McFarland to six years in federal prison and ordered him to forfeit about $26 million[1]. Two documentaries dropped within days of each other in January 2019, Netflix's Fyre from director Chris Smith[4] and Hulu's Fyre Fraud[6], and pushed the meme into a second life. ## How to Use "Fyre Festival" is used as a stand-in noun for any overhyped, influencer-marketed event or product that falls apart on delivery, per its Urban Dictionary entry describing it as an "illusion of a luxury music festival" applied to "the bullshit of our lives"[7]. Common formats include posting the @trev4president cheese sandwich photo as a reply to something advertised as premium but obviously not, running "promised vs delivered" side-by-side comparisons of glossy promo art against sad real-world reality, and Ja Rule "gulag" or "Ja Rulag" jokes any time wealthy people are shown suffering minor inconveniences[5]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Fyre Festival? Fyre Festival is the failed April 2017 luxury music festival on Great Exuma in the Bahamas that collapsed on arrival, with attendees documenting FEMA tents and cheese sandwiches on Twitter[3]. ### Where did Fyre Festival come from? The event was announced in December 2016 by entrepreneur Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule to promote their Fyre music booking app, marketed with a January 2017 supermodel-heavy YouTube trailer[5]. ### What does Fyre Festival mean? Online it means a heavily hyped, influencer-marketed event or product that turns out to be a scam or disaster, per its use as a noun on Urban Dictionary[7]. ### How do you use Fyre Festival? Common uses include reposting the @trev4president cheese sandwich photo in reply to overpromised goods, or comparing polished promo imagery to unflattering reality[5]. ### Is Fyre Festival still popular? It is a classic reference point rather than an active trend, kept alive by the twin Netflix and Hulu documentaries released in January 2019[4]. ### Who organized Fyre Festival? Fyre Festival was organized by 25-year-old entrepreneur Billy McFarland together with rapper Ja Rule[1]. ### What happened to Billy McFarland? McFarland pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced on October 11, 2018 to six years in federal prison, with about $26 million in ordered forfeiture[2]. ### What is the cheese sandwich photo? Twitter user @trev4president posted a photo of a plain cheese-and-salad meal in a Styrofoam clamshell during the festival, and it became the defining image of the disaster[5]. ### What is the Ja Rule communist joke? On April 28, 2017, account @PaleComparison tweeted that Ja Rule had actually put the wealthy in a gulag, launching the "Ja Rulag" running joke on Twitter and r/FULLCOMMUNISM[5]. ### Are there documentaries about Fyre Festival? Yes, Netflix released Fyre by director Chris Smith on January 18, 2019[4], and Hulu released Fyre Fraud around the same window[6]. ## References 1. [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fyre-festival-organizer-billy-mcfarland-sentenced-6-years-fraud-charges-n919086]() 2. [https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/12/us/fyre-festival-organizer-prison-trnd/index.html]() 3. [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/hulu-lands-fyre-festival-debacle-docuseries-1102725]() 4. [https://pitchfork.com/news/new-fyre-festival-documentary-coming-to-netflix-watch-the-trailer/]() 5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/fyre-festival]() 6. [https://www.engadget.com/2018-12-10-netflix-fyre-festival-documentary-debuts-january-18th.html]() 7. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fyre%20Festival]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/fyre-festival Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library