In case you haven’t been getting a hearty helping of schaudenfreude from your social feeds over the past 72-odd hours, the Fyre Festival has allowed America to rally around one of its most celebrated modern causes: laughing at what happens when rich people get bilked, until it emerges that they’re also kind of suffering as well. From the first arrivals at the Bahamas event on Thursday afternoon, word quickly spread that the expensive, allegedly “exclusive” event pushed so heavily on Instagram was not what had been sold to attendees. Despite promises by numerous top-tier models and Ja Rule, Fyre proved to be a mess of unassembled amenities, nonexistent luxury catering, and a series of delayed flights that left festivalgoers stranded and panicked. (Also, Fyre wasn’t even on the private island that had been promised; it was closer to a Sandals.)
The takes have been emerging strong and quick, from those enjoying the logical end result of a shady pseudo-festival aimed at rich kids, to those empathizing with a bunch of people who spent a lot of money to be roped into what’s an unacceptably disorganized cash grab at best and a possible scam at worst. (Don’t worry, Fyre will be trying it again next year.) And now, it seems like the real-life fiasco might’ve been the accidental realization of an in-progress comedy about a music festival gone wrong.
On Saturday, Seth Rogen jumped on Twitter to join the storm of riffs on Fyre Festival’s misfortunes:
And then the Lonely Island replied in kind:
It’s unclear how far into production the new film is, so there might still be plenty of time to sneak in a bit about two pieces of cheese on white bread. Either way, the coincidence is pretty funny, though it’s possibly even more surprising that Hollywood has taken this long to greenlight a comedy about the contained madness of a music festival. But then again, some things are just stranger than fiction, and we’d argue that Fyre Festival is one of those things.
Hopefully, more people will go see this next movie than Popstar. (This has been your periodic reminder that Popstar is a woefully slept-on modern comedy, and well worth your time, even though nobody saw it in theaters.)
Meanwhile, Fyre has issued an apology for, well, all of it.
