Before the luxury-free amenities, the nonexistent fun, the bread-and-lettuce sandwiches and, of course, those seven (so far) lawsuits, Ja Rule and Billy McFarland's notorious Fyre Festival was just a dream. A big, high-end dream in touch with 2016 memes, apparently.
In a video posted five months ago, the Fyre co-founders, along with supermodel Bella Hadid and a couple dozen other Instagram friends, gathered in a Bahamian bar to take part in a Mannequin Challenge. Remember those? The shooting of the since-retired meme likely coincided with production of the official "Announcing Fyre Festival" promotional video, which emerged in January.
Soundtracked by Rae Sremmurd's "Black Beatles" ft. Gucci Mane, the Fyre mannequin challenge opens on Ja Rule standing over a female friend enjoying a bottle of water. As the camera pans around the bar you see assorted beautiful people in varied poses -- bros mid-toast, hirsute man taking photos of model types, someone praying for god knows what (a drama-free Fyre Festival perhaps?) -- until you land on Hadid, seen blinking at around :22 seconds in. Party foul!
Several seconds and many earnest poses later you stumble upon McFarland sitting confidently (but flinchingly) at the bar with what we assume was a fine cigar. A moment later, two guys behind the bar just give up and start walking away.
And it doesn't end there! A quick pivot back in Ja Rule's direction and you'll see the rapper's friend caught napping, meaning, she too broke her pose. At that, the imaginary pause button is lifted and the party time excellence resumes.
Not bad, not good. Unlike Fyre which was, of course, all bad.
Overall, the challenge exists now as a brief time capsule back to a more carefree time, one before a tropical debacle (trobacle?) known as Fyre Festival left disgruntled attendees stranded and not enchanted in The Bahamas. Watch the video below, and click here for an exhaustive (and constantly updated) timeline of the Fyre fiasco.
