Right now it seems like there are two big moments happening with streaming giant Netflix. The first is that a surprising number of binge-watching viewers are horny for a serial killer. The other, though perhaps a bit more vulgar, is one the company seems OK embracing.
Netflix’s Fyre Festival documentary has received a huge amount of attention, dueling with a Hulu documentary that goes behind the scenes of the doomed luxury concert experience in the Bahamas that amounted to emergency rations served to rich kids trapped on an island sleeping in FEMA tents. The original failure of the Fyre Festival was a viral sensation, and the documentaries exploring the festival and subsequent legal trouble for its founders has created some viral fame of its own.
The general review of both documentaries is that, yes, you should watch both. And while the Hulu one is likely more balanced considering who was responsible for making it, they both have some amazing details that make them uniquely good and worth watching. But what makes FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, a must-watch is the story of Andy King.
King was an organizer of Fyre Festival and was interviewed by the documentary crew about the chaos that came with trying to make it happen in the first place. King is clearly portrayed as one of the few adults in charge of the festival, an experienced planner who knows the logistics of actually putting something like this together.
He also happens to have some of the funnier lines of the documentary, and has emerged as the face of a very specific meme from the film. King tells an anecdote about trying to clear tanks full of Evian water through Bahamas customs. The organizers owe a huge fee for importing everything to the islands, and a crisis emerges when the team suddenly thinks they won’t have any water for the festival. Somehow, word gets to King that it’s expected he perform oral sex in lieu of paying a massive fee to import the water.
“I literally drove home, took a shower, I drank some mouth wash, and I got into my car to drive across the island to take one for the team,” King explains in the documentary. “I got to his office fully prepared to suck his d-ck.”
It didn’t happen, of course, which is why the anecdote can even be played off as a punch line in the first place and not something much darker. It’s presented as a moment that shows just how absurd the planning process was — even the grown up among them had to be prepared to compromise his morals to help make the festival happen. But that moment has sparked a number of memes on social media, for better or worse. And as it turns out King has taken notice in the weeks since the documentary was released.
Netflix posted a new video of King addressing his social fame on Tuesday, and as it turns out he’s completely cool with being internet famous.
Andy King has seen all of your FYRE Fest memes — and he loves them! pic.twitter.com/mCNgDoHpjW
— Netflix (@netflix) January 29, 2019
“I just don’t want to necessarily be known as the blowjob king of the world,” King said.
The video showed off some of the memes that have spawned from his appearance in the documentary, and he reiterated that he’s extremely fine with all the attention.
“I’m blown away by the response to the documentary,” King said. “Completely blown away. I’m now a noun, a verb, an adjective. It’s mind-boggling.”
One thing that might help King’s perspective here is that, well, he’s not on social media. He had no idea that his interview for the documentary had made such an impact.
“When someone reached out last weekend and said ‘You’re trending’ and I’m like ‘I don’t even know what trending means,’” King said. No, really — King is the opposite of Online.
One nice thing about King is that he genuinely does seem to want to make amends for the damage Fyre Festival did to the Bahamas and the people living there. He said he hopes to
After doing a documentary like this and you have your 15 minutes of fame, what happens next? One of our biggest goals, obviously, is paying back everybody in the Bahamas.
King has been instrumental in the GoFundMe that helped at least one person get paid for their efforts on the island and said the crew is working to continue fundraising.
“We started a GoFundMe last week to help MaryAnn and we’ve committed to that project, and it’s met all of its goals and a lot more. And no we’ve started another GoFundMe which is now focused on playing back all of the laborers and everybody else that was involved with Fyre down in the Bahamas.
If I can drive positive influences and a lot of positive energy toward, you know, social and environmental impact, which is what I base my business on, then I think I can utilize this moment to do a lot of good.”
King may have emerged as one of the biggest memes of the documentaries, but it’s also clear he’s one of the few redeeming characters in the whole mess. Using internet fame for good is always a good idea, and taking that unexpected fame in stride is, well, a very adult thing to do.