Who’s got your vote…for today’s PT Barnum?
Hucksters and snake oil salesmen have existed for millennia. These sales folks are masters at the art of deception, using manipulation and exploitative tactics to gain people’s trust so they will loosen their purse strings.
They are so much a part of the human experience they permeate pop culture, from Huck Finn to The Music Man. As I say in my new book, Hoodwinked, “These flimflammers are the cultural ancestors to today’s social media influencers.”
P. T. Barnum—considered the godfather of PR—is arguably the most famous huckster of all time.
P. T. Barnum—considered the godfather of PR—is arguably the most famous huckster of all time. While known for the circus that bears his name, Barnum’s real talent was in flimflam, promoting hoaxes and sideshows like the “Fiji mermaid” (the head and torso of a monkey sewn to the tail of a fish), or events such as the lavish wedding of Tom Thumb, which drew crowds by the thousands. Barnum was putting on a show and he didn’t much care about the people or animals he abused along the way. He was providing entertainment in a world where he faced little competition—and it wasn’t as neat and inspiring as The Greatest Showman.
Today’s charlatans
Just because we have more and better technology does not mean we are immune to today’s tricksters. Some of you might remember “Miss Cleo,” with the Psychic Readers Network, and there’s Anna Delvey whose story was the basis for Inventing Anna on Netflix. Let’s not forget Bernie Madoff and the Sackler family. And then there are online influencers like Mikayla Nogueira of the lashgate “scandal” and Andrew Tate and his Hustler University. I have chosen two people who deserve “honorable mention” as the PT Barnums of today.
And the nominees are……
Billy McFarland of Fyre Festival fame: To jog your memory, Fyre Festival was the vastly overhyped, ultra-exclusive music festival that never happened. People paid oodles of money to sleep in FEMA tents and eat cheese sandwiches. The event was promoted on social media with celebrity influencers who had no idea they were selling a fraud. Mr. McFarland went to jail for swindling his customers.
Billy McFarland, founder of Fyre Festival
Amazingly, Billy McFarland is back and he is using the same name for the festival. The first question that came to mind was, “Why would you do that? Why would you associate your event with something that defines disaster and deception?”
Worse is NBC’s Today Show gave him a platform to “exclusively” promote this follow-up. Six months out FF2 has no musical guests set, which if you have ever planned an event you know that’s a red flag. But, not to worry. McFarland’s going to set up karate fighting pits instead. He also claims to have sold 100 tickets at $500 and packages are going for $1400 to $1.1 million.
Nominee #2: Elon Musk: Elon Musk is nothing if not a showman. But unlike Barnum, he has stockholders and regulators that he must answer to. So far he has skirted a very thin line between promoting his products and outright fraud.
Most recently, this relates to his launch of the Optimus robot which he touted as being able to babysit your kids and walk your dog (see video for the full list of “capabilities.”)
Turns out the robots are not as autonomous as Mr. Musk suggests. Instead, humans were using remote controls to do the vast majority of functions that Musk claimed the robots could do. The only thing these robots did on their own was walk.
But people ate this up! According to information science professor, Casey Fiesler, “people absolutely think they are really autonomous…in the meantime, it’s a guy with a walkie talkie.”
So what?
There is a difference between stretching the truth and an out-and-out lie.
Musk’s robots were not ready for prime time, and it is irresponsible for him to promote them as such. Is it to boost his stock price? I don’t know, but it certainly couldn’t hurt. That doesn’t make it ethical, and it’s probably illegal.
As for Fyre Festival 2, shame on anyone who would trust their guy who has already gone to prison once for swindling people. For my money, the real entertainment is going to come from all the podcasts and Instagram posts deconstructing the inevitable disaster.