$12,000 refugee camp festival was a fantastic party experience, as expected: “we just imitated druglord gangster life”.

Lucas Roitman
6 min readApr 29, 2017

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There was a festival being advertised on Instagram earlier this month. Top models were introducing the event. Like Kendall Jenner, who’s well known for her symbolic role fighting for social justice, with the backing of Pepsi, and whose sister is a national hero. Other people advertising the event were pretty hot too.

Their video shows an island close to the Bahamas, that used to be owned by one of the richest drug dealers: Pablo Escobar.

“The event was a dream come true. Who doesn’t want to be a drug dealer for a weekend and have their own private island? Even if there are thousands of people in the island for the festival, it can still feel like gangster life, without all the guns, risk, shots and drugs, of course.”

However, some people from the audience went on social media to complain that the festival wasn’t what they expected. These people were not paying attention to the small print.

Image: some people tried to be humorous, but the festival went exactly as planned. Most people knew what they were signing up for.

For this party, the organizers claim: “we wanted to appeal to an audience that was tired of boring holidays within the US, in places like Las Vegas, but who weren’t rich enough to travel outside the country. So we settled on a reasonable price for the weekend”.

“Our audience are people who are interested in the frat life. Those interested in feeling like gangsters. We copied a lot from both worlds.”

In frats, organizers claim, people come for the promise of hot girls. After they “realize it’s bullshit, however, what really makes them stay is the hazing”. Bros go through so much hazing together as a group, that they end up forming strong bonds with each other, barely surviving each task.

Moreover, after they get accepted to the group, even if they realize girls aren’t into frat guys just for being in a frat, guys still like their Bros, and they still have to advertise to everyone else that “frats are the shit”. After all, they’ve already paid the price to get in. Even if girls try to “stay the fuck away” from frats, and even if Bros could have better luck in cougar night, these guys have invested lots of time in going through hazing, and they’re not gonna waste it. They’ll “tell everyone just how much pussy their frat gets them”.

Image: frat guys go looking for a sex life, and they find it there, but it’s different than they expected.

Another example he gives is Apple. It’s a “great company” and it’s “making a lot of dough” (money). Apple advertises their products as if they were amazing. Those buying the products though, are faced with something similar to other products, but a lot pricier. This way, those who invested their money on expensive products, now have to convince their friends and themselves that the investment was worth it. It’s a cycle of marketing that’s perfect for innovative businesses.

Image: Apple selling a new feature. Users often start to love the “apple way” of doing things after they spend money on the product.

Yet another example is college. Highschool grads can do the same work, but obviously you’d only hire college grads, since you’ve paid $240,000 for the degree. It can’t be worthless.

“We wanted to copy that Stockholm marketing effect, where customers recommend their not-so-great experience to everyone, so that it becomes at least worth it as a status symbol.”

“Some people spend $20k for holidays abroad. We didn’t want that kind of people because they tend to be boring and spoiled. However, we definitely wanted people to stretch their budget just a tiny bit, so that they would consider the event a luxury holiday, and they’d 'show it off’ to their friends no matter how good it really ends up being. Thus, we decided the range should be from $4k to $12k for the weekend. This way we can ensure we get more 'gangsta' folks, from the ghetto, for example. This can make the party more like a real drug dealer party.”

Pablo Escobar used to party with his lowest level gangsters for protection. He would always have a standing army around him to protect from police, the state, or other illegitimate authority. He considered himself an anarchist, and he “distrusted authority”.

“We wanted to capture this ideology and way of life. That’s why we created the conditions for perceived chaos on the island. When the audience arrived, we gave them improvised tents, like those Pablo Escobar used to sleep in.”

Pablo, the drug dealer, often had to move from island to island, avoiding the police and the army. He and his gangster team had to all sleep in the same tent.

Image: The community of gangsters assembling their tents in the festival, forming ever-lasting human bonds and making memories they’ll never forget.

Some people are so excited that they started bonfires and gathered around them to tell stories and laugh together.

Besides giving these people a drug warlord experience, organizers said they felt inspired to “mix in a bit of the refugee experience”.

“We see all these refugees fleeing war zones and getting free stuff. Free housing, food. Who doesn’t like free stuff? We thought we should surprise our customers by providing free lunch and dinner, at no extra cost. We hired refugee camp catering directly.”

There were some more spoiled “rich bros”, who were in for a life lesson. The organizer of the Fyre festival told us: “We wanted to teach them empathy, so we gave them a taste of what it is like to be a refugee fleeing Syria. We bought a few disaster relief tents, and hired volunteers from refugee camps”.

Image: people are sharing “like crazy”. The festival is a great refugee camp, gangster dumpster fire, frat, music festival.

This is a one-in-a-lifetime experience. Everybody on the festival seems to agree. They never expected that they could feel like a refugee, while on holidays in the Bahamas, with only $4k. “We consider this a success and we’re looking forward to more similar events like this in the future”.

Tickets are still on sale on the website. If you haven’t applied yet, what are you waiting for? Fill the form, show us how much of a gangsta fratstar you are, and book your spot on the tropical island, before prices increase!

Disclaimer: I have bought tickets for the party, and just wanted to share how great it was.

Also, check these other articles I wrote:

No, you can’t just fucking press your own juice. Buy the $700 machine. You’ll save the environment

Barely scraping by with a $250,000 salary in Silicon Valley

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