Thread by @BizPears

I really didn't want to get into the whole Fyre Festival thing because as a reporter who was actually on the ground and saw that horrendous campsite - and as a Bahamian - the whole disaster makes me *furious*

It makes me furious because it shows that a white man can bullshit his way through life and people will buy into it without doing due diligence. It makes me furious that people without the necessary experience thought they could pull off a festival in just a few months

And it really makes me furious that the Bahamian authorities got so seduced by it all and went along with it - potentially bending* or breaking the rules - until the final hour when shit got really real

*Evian situation

Some of the language in both documentaries pissed me off too, particularly Billy's claim that Fyre Festival was going to bring value and entertainment back to the Bahamas.

You're another Columbus, bro. You didnt discover shit.The Bahamas had been doing just fine without you

The images that *really* stuck with me from the Netflix documentary, however, was of Bahamians toiling and working the land to fulfil the whimsies of a now convicted felon, who sold a product that did not exist.

Those people were totally exploited.

Exuma, just a few gens ago, was home to the biggest slave plantation in the Bahamas, Rolleville. Bahamians who carry that surname, like MaryAnn Rolle who appears in the doc, can easily trace their roots back there.

People have worked really hard to build something for themselves

I'm talking about the small business owners who rented land to Fyre, rented their cars or homes to Fyre, cooked for Fyre employees, labourers who cleared down land, chopped trees, erected tents, and havent been fairly compensated or paid at all.

It really hurts me to say this, but despite all the damage that Europeans have done in their colonial pursuits, in some developing countries, when people see a white person with a wad of cash they lose their damn minds.

When 👏🏽Will 👏🏽You👏🏽 Learn ?

When I landed in Exuma last year, the Fyre Festival was an internet joke, but what I saw wasn't funny at all.

I saw young Americans, sunburnt, hungover, sleep deprived, overwhelmed, & with nowhere safe to stay. Many of them were not the rich douchebags associated with FyreFest

People told me they had saved up to come on this once in a lifetime experience. Well, Fyre Fest certianly gave them that.

As I drove into the campsite, I was horrified. It was like something out of a sci-fi film. No one in good conscience could believe it was a safe environment

The Bahamas is so incredibly beautiful but "Fyre Cay" was like an ugly landfill site, with a weird lagoon that had no barriers to stop people falling in. The campsite barely had any lights: Drunk people + no lights + a 20ft drop 🤔

It was a miracle that as bad as Fyre Festival was it didn't end up worse.

Miraculously, it hasn't damaged tourism, but it will take the Bahamas a long time to shake off their association with *that* cheese sandwich and the worst festival ever.

The Fyre Festival is the perfect cautionary tale for the social media generation and it seems fitting that that tale ends with a Netflix documentary and a crowdfunder* for unpaid workers.

*Do your own due dil on this

As a Bahamian, I still have questions: Who granted this licence? What kind of due diligence was undertaken? What did enviromental health or similar make of this site and its lack of progress? And what the hell kind of operation was Mr Cunningham at customs running?

Why weren't Bahamian authorities protecting Bahamian people?

How many times are you going to allow foreign interests to take advantage?

The owner of Norman Cay clearly smelled the BS and pulled out.

If only elected officials in the Bahamas had had the cajones to do the same ✌🏽

PS I watched both Fyre Festival docs and while FuckJerry's Netflix doc has the gloss you'd expect from the media company that produced the slick promotional material for the event, the Hulu doc, Fyre Fraud, is editorially superior and more balanced

Definitely watch both.