Let us guess: During October, your collection of watched series was replenished with new interesting examples. But we are still going to try to surprise you. How about the most unusual celebrity podcasts?

Read this article to the end and find out what Kevin from Home Alone has to say and what Snoop Dogg is sharing with fans.

1. Fyre Festival’s Billy McFarland Has Recorded a Podcast From Prison

Billy McFarland is known as an organizer of the Fyre Festival, which is famous all over the world as the biggest party that never happened. We believe you watched the documentary about it on Netflix. The poor organization or, to be more precise, a lot of lies and even fraud resulted in a six-year prison sentence for Billy McFarland. A little over two years into his sentence and three years since Fyre Festival burned spectacularly on the funeral pyre of internet schadenfreude, Billy McFarland is back and appeared in podcast form; one called Dumpster Fyre. The author of the doomed festival is releasing the episodes from inside prison, while “Billy’s team” posts it on his Instagram.

McFarland once reported, “I’m not going to hide behind my mistakes. I am going to share everything that happened.” However, it’s obvious that McFarland simply has to take hold of the narrative and make audience believe in his reality rather than in the mass media’s. And it’s true that no one wants to deal with such a person, but it is very difficult to meet, in ordinary life, a guy who got six years for one of the most impressive public frauds.

We can’t help mentioning that you have the chance to talk to another co-organizer of the Fyre Festival: Andy King. He is available on Payphone X and can give you a great piece of advice on how to organize festivals in a proper way.

2. Macaulay Culkin Launches Bunny Ears Parody Lifestyle Website

Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin launched Bunny Ears media, which can be delineated as “A mixture of Goop (a wellness and lifestyle website launched by Gwyneth Paltrow) and The Onion (US satirical news site).” It’s difficult to say anything more precise.

The Bunny Ears website has horoscopes, comic advice on how to “arrange furniture according to feng shui to improve your sex life,” how to “look pregnant enough to do whatever you want,” and how to “buy yourself a gravestone and not screw up,” Macaulay’s personal experience on “how I ate soap for a week and now I can say whatever I want,” and celebrity advice. In short, it’s got everything we are used to seeing on ordinary lifestyle sites (just kidding). In addition, Bunny Ears has a podcast hosted by Macaulay Culkin and actor Matt Cohen with new episodes released every week. There, almost everything is the same as on the site, only the format is different. For example, Macaulay Culkin reads works of world literature with his own jokes.

3. Life Is Short with Justin Long, or What Ordinary and Not So Ordinary Things People Think About

Justin Long is an American theater and film actor, screenwriter, producer, and the face of Mac in Apple videos. He became famous for the horror movie Jeepers Creepers, Die Hard, and Alvin’s voice in all parts of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

In April 2019, Long launched the podcast Life is Short with Justin Long. Justin Long himself describes his project like this:
“I’m Justin Long, and I’ve been an actor for most of my life, so I’m used to getting inside the heads of the characters I play. But now that I’m getting older, and I want to peek inside the heads of real people to learn how they find meaning in life. I’m also very curious what their favorite snack food is and what emoji they use most often—ya know, the REALLY important stuff. Every episode, I’ll get personal with all kinds of people, from actors to musicians to deep thinkers who fascinate me.”

4. JLouis Mills from Heartbeat and his podcast On the Level

JLouis‌ ‌Mills‌ ‌‌is‌ ‌an‌ ‌actor‌ ‌best‌ ‌known‌ ‌for‌ ‌the‌ ‌television‌ ‌series‌ ‌Heartbeat.‌ ‌‌He‌ ‌played‌ ‌‌a‌ ‌snarky‌ ‌yet‌ ‌loveable‌ ‌anesthesiologist named Dr. Forester. Most likely, JLouis was inspired by this role and decided to create his own project, but now in the role of a host, and instead of patients, he invites different celebrities. From controversial to conversational, JLouis Mills talks On the Level with a variety of guests on his weekly show.

On the Level covers everything from current events to social issues or the latest hot topics to chatting it up with celebs. JLouis also invites everyone to participate in the discussion. Callers can either join the discussion or leave their question in a particular window.

By the way, you can chat with JLouis Mills on Payphone X. Ask him anything you want or even suggest a topic for his new podcast episode.

5. GGN Podcast by Snoop Dogg

GGN Podcast is a fun podcast by Snoop Dogg, the iconic rapper of the early 90s with an instantly recognizable voice. Snoop Dogg and his guests chat about all sorts of things in their pseudo-gangster manner. So far, there have been only 10 issues, but numerous fans believe that everything is still on the way.

It’s hard to describe the project in a better way than Snoop Dogg himself did by saying, “This podcast right here is hosted by none other than me, yours truly, music legend and pop culture icon, Snoop D-O-double G, ya dig? Listen to some funny-ass comedic tales or me bustin’ some off tha’ cuff freestyles. Man, me and my guests speak on everything related to popular culture. No one does uncensored and uncut quite like ya boy Big Snoop, aka Finding Nemo, aka Nemo Hoes. And now I’m inviting you to blaze one up with us and jump on in.”

The post TOP 5 Celebrity Podcasts You Must Listen To appeared first on Fanzine by Payphone.

Let’s see the possible consequences through the example of one of the biggest scams of the decade, the festival that never happened: Fyre.

A splendorous but empty promise

In April 2017, approximately 5,000 people spent millions of dollars on tickets to what they thought would be the experience of a lifetime: Fyre, a luxury music festival in an idyllic tropical setting on a private island in the Bahamas.

Never had a festival of that caliber been organized. Promotions for the Fyre Festival promised “a place where the tropical sun shines all day, and our celebrations light up the night.” They even said that the island where the festival was supposed to take place had belonged to Pablo Escobar.

Festivalgoers were promised a royal island fantasy with upscale accommodations, gourmet food, and a chance to have fun with celebrities like rapper Ja Rule and models Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid. But the reality was closer to a disaster, and it occurred in real-time on social media.

The marketing campaign

A coordinated move to promote a brand or product (if executed well with the right influencers) could reap tremendous results. Some of the world’s most powerful influencers, such as Kendall Jenner and Emily Ratajkowski, publicized the event on their social media. 

The coordinated influencers’ marketing campaign had people all over the world talking about the festival, and it surely boosted the ticket sales. Fyre reached 300 million impressions in just 48 hours when the orange title push kicked off.

A single Instagram post by Kendall Jenner about Kanye West’s G.O.O.D Music Family performing at the event claimed to have amassed six million unique impressions within five days. Kendall was reportedly paid $250,000 for this post, although she didn’t disclose that it was an ad. Instead, she posted about it as if it were a personal recommendation.

Reality check-in

Thousands of attendees flocked to the Bahamas only to find disorganization as the rest of the festivalgoers rushed to claim a limited number of tents (instead of the luxurious villas they were promised), some with stripped mattresses that were soaked in water due to being left outside in the rain.

Instead of the advertised “local seafood, Bahamian-style sushi, and even roast pork,” photos showing cold cheese sandwiches in foam containers went viral.

And instead of “an immersive music festival for two transformative weekends” the many A-list musical acts promoted as stars by Fyre Festival organizers—including rappers Pusha T, Tyga, and Migos and the Blink-182 band—retired in the days leading up to the event.

Attendees began to flock out, and images and videos of distraught and disillusioned ticket holders swept social media.

The disastrous Fyre Festival spawned lawsuits against event organizers, including Ja Rule and Fyre Media CEO Billy McFarland, the latter now serving a six-year prison sentence for fraud.

Andy King, from disaster survivor to opinion leader and advisor

The proportion of this scandalous event escalated to a point where several documentaries were shot about it on Netflix and Hulu. The Netflix documentary became a truly cultural phenomenon. What no one expected was that one of the members of the festival management team would become a viral star. This was the case of Andy King, an event producer hired by McFarland and his partner, rapper Ja Rule, to make this dilapidated festival a reality.

As a producer of the festival, Andy King recounted all the struggles and problems he had to go through only to see how all the deception fell under his own weight. 

Andy King took advantage of the surging popularity to become a co-founder in Inward, the event producer committed to conducting ecologically sustainable festivals. After his experience with the Fyre Festival disaster, Andy was inspired to change the whole event industry by conducting ecologically sustainable festivals. “We are eliminating paper and plastic in macro-concerts and events of this type, supporting local farmers and artisans, as well as companies managed by women and minorities. If I have this wonderful world of social media at my fingertips to bring about change, I plan to do so,” he said.

Luckily, Andy King is now available on Payphone X, so anyone can talk to him to get a valuable piece of advice on how to avoid disasters in business. Go to Payphone X to get the chance to talk to him!

Images courtesy of Fyre Media Inc

The post Fyre Festival: The Biggest Hoax of the Decade appeared first on Fanzine by Payphone.