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LimeWire Acquires Fyre Festival
FyreWire // Illustration by Kate Walker
LimeWire — the early-aughts music file-sharing service reborn as a decentralized content-sharing platform — has announced it’s the new owner of the controversial Fyre Festival brand.
Why It Hits: LimeWire isn’t shying away from calling this a meme-purchase, stirring up headlines about the collaboration between two of the music industry’s most controversial brands (or in Fyre Fest’s case, a would-be music brand). But it may be the sheer absurdity of the partnership that gives it a head start in capturing culture’s attention… positive attention, that is.
Behind The Music: LimeWire was revealed as the winner of July’s online auction for Fyre Festival, paying about $245,000 to outbid Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort for the rights.
LimeWire said the Fyre acquisition marks “an entirely new chapter — one grounded in technology, transparency, and a sense of humor.”
What does that mean exactly? According to LimeWire CEO Julian Zehetmayr, the company won’t be re-launching the ill-fated festival, but instead will be “bringing the brand and the meme back to life. This time with real experiences, and without the cheese sandwiches.”
So, yeah, you can expect some ridiculous Fyre experiences that are real — but also poke fun at its history as a total failure (one that landed organizer Billy McFarland in jail for over three years on fraud charges).
The Fake Future: LimeWire COO Marcus Feistl says leveraging the Fyre brand is about showing what happens “when you pair cultural relevance with real execution.” That’s not a crazy idea when marketing firms Maximum Effort and art collective MSCHF (which recently launched its own agency) have cut through the digital noise by turning every piece of content into a stunt. Welcome to the age of the big swing.
Next Up: A Fyre Festival event with real artists onstage and a halfway-decent sandwich to eat? It could happen.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.