Throwback Thursday: Neal Brennan knows why Fyre Festival failed

Comedian Neal Brennan went on The Daily Show to provide insight on how the Fyre Festival became such a disaster.

Recently a lot of attention has been put back on the Fyre Festival thanks to the release of documentaries on Netflix and Hulu. The “luxury” music festival in the Bahamas was an unmitigated disaster from the start. And while the documentaries try to offer some explanation as to why, comedian Neal Brennan had it all figured out from the start.

The festival was organized by a shady businessman by the name of Billy McFarland and by rapper Ja Rule. They leveraged the social media influence of models to promote the event and sell tickets for packages that either didn’t exist or were wildly exaggerated.

The Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened has some great footage and interviews with people working behind the scenes. It justifiably puts most of the blame on McFarland. But when the entire fiasco first happened, Neal Brennan went on The Daily Show to break down where the blame really belonged:

Brennan brilliantly detailed the importance of staying in your comfort zone. The shirtless, growling Ja Rule is the only Ja Rule Brennan wants to see. He has a clear “no wings” policy when it comes to Ja Rule spreading out to concert promotion.

Like any good comedian, Brennan is then able to take the example of Ja Rule and spin it to the extreme. Ja Rule’s confidence that he could pull of Fyre Festival is a metaphor for the problem of too much self-belief in America.

A discussion of over-confidence, too much self-belief, and stretching beyond the comfort zone of course ends with President Trump. Even a segment on Ja Rule’s failed Fyre Festival isn’t immune to the Trump effect. So perhaps Trump will follow Neal Brennan’s advice and Ja Rule’s example by sliding out of the danger zone and back into his comfort zone when 2020 rolls around