The former social media designer for Fyre Festival says social media is fueling the idolization of bad actors and scammers, specifically naming Fyre Festival creator Billy McFarland, notorious scam socialite Anna Delvey Sorokin and UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione as prime examples.
Oren Aks spoke with Fox News Digital after Fyre Festival 2, a do-over version of the original Fyre Festival that failed in 2017, was postponed just weeks before it was scheduled to take place in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, between May 30 and June 2.
Oren Aks, who was employed with Jerry Media when he did graphic design and social media strategy work for Fyre Festival in 2017, told Fox News Digital that, in the age of social media, the public makes icons out of con artists and criminals like Delvey and Mangione. McFarland is no exception, he said.
“We look at them like they’re iconic, like, ‘Oh what’s she wearing to court?’ And … at a certain point, you’re just more obsessed with them as this narrative that you’ve built rather than who they actually are. … If you met Billy, you wouldn’t be impressed,” Aks said.
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Aks added that the public, especially the American public, does not talk about the success stories of millionaire and billionaire business moguls in the same way the public discusses scammers and “money grubbers,” particularly on social media.
“It used to be … this inspirational route you would take in your career to kind of move up a ladder or earn a living and buy a house or something. Now, we vilify those people, and we glorify the bad, the scammy, the evil, and we look at those people as heroes,” Aks said.
“Like style icons or freedom fighters or whatever other imaginary title you want to assign them. And I think … it’s very worrying as a societal shift. … Why are we doing this?”
Aks added that America has built up the idea “that you have to fail big to win big, or you have try big to succeed.”
“And they’re almost kind of like this never-ending train wreck. … It’s what fuels the internet,” he said. “That’s why people care about this Luigi Mangione guy. In what universe are we living in that this is a relevant story to glorify these people as the image of success? And … there’ll be a thousand more. And it’s truly an American story.”
Aks said he was excited about the Fyre Festival project in 2017 because he had a background working in the music industry and was passionate about music festivals. The event and McFarland promised attendees who paid thousands for tickets a luxurious music festival set in the Bahamas but delivered a glorified campsite on the island instead.
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There was “writing on the wall” before the festival began that should have indicated the event would be a disaster, from credit cards bouncing to Fyre Festival’s partners being left out of the loop on logistical planning, Aks said.
He recalled the moment he knew things were going south.
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“When we arrived, the point where it really hit me was actually … going over this hill and kind of descending into the valley where the beach area, where the festival was taking place, and seeing the tents and the actual media center stage area and … nothing was there,” he said.
“In my brain, the logistics didn’t work out, but I just assumed that’s just not my territory. I’m the graphic designer. I’m sure they’ve got like an architect or … someone dealing with that. But then I saw the FEMA or the U.N.-style tents, and that was the moment it all hit.”
After the 2017 Fyre Festival’s failure, it went viral on social media when Hulu and Netflix published documentaries about the failed beach bash, making the #fyrefraud hashtag and a photo of the strewn-together sandwiches served at the festival go viral at the time.
The festival reached a settlement with 277 ticket holders in 2021, when it was ordered to pay each recipient an award of $7,220.
Fyre Festival 2 has since been postponed, and McFarland announced this week he is selling the Fyre brand.
“We have decided the best way to accomplish our goals is to sell the FYRE Festival brand, including its trademarks, IP, digital assets, media reach, and cultural capital – to an operator that can fully realize its vision,” McFarland wrote in a statement posted to Instagram Wednesday.
McFarland said the Fyre brand “deserves a team with the scale, experience, and infrastructure to realize its full potential.”