You are no doubt hearing it in dining halls or whispered in libraries across campus since returning from break: “Have you seen the Fyre docs yet?” To those of you living under rocks (who is delivering your Herald, pray tell?), streaming titans Netflix and Hulu both released documentaries this January on the notorious catastrophe of 2017: the Fyre Festival. (Hulu, knowing Netflix’s release date, dropped their doc four days before.) This past Sunday, my friend convinced me to watch the Netflix doc, and as it began, she reminded me that Hulu had also dropped a 90-minute doc. “Yeah but there’s simply no way I’m watching back-to-back documentaries on this ridiculous phenomenon,” I spat with disdain. Three hours later, I had made myself a liar. What can I say? I couldn’t look away. These documentaries were like…well, like something on Fyre (I’m sorry).

The basic story is this: Billy McFarland, “entrepreneur” of dubious origins, somehow convinced rapper Ja Rule to launch an app through which regular shmoes could book high-level talent for events. You want The Black Eyed Peas at Daniel’s Bar Mitzvah? No? It’s not 2009? Okay, well pretend you did. Look no further than the Fyre app. That was the pitch. Some genius in the marketing department of this app suggested the festival as a promotional stunt and Billy ran with it. All the way to the Bahamas. I won’t say more because I’m recommending you watch both — yes both — documentaries. Here’s why:

The Netflix doc, Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, is flashier. It’s about how the festival fell apart. It revels in Billy’s failure. How did this happen, you ask? Netflix will tell you. How could this happen? Hulu’s Fyre Fraud will tell you. Hulu is more concerned with the sociocultural landscape that allowed for this kind of scam. They interview more journalists than Fyre employees. And they’re more concerned with Billy’s psyche. This is one of the starkest contrasts between the two docs because Hulu managed to get Billy (and his model girlfriend) to appear in the doc. Now before you decide that this is a huge selling point, be warned: Billy doesn’t actually say much. Rather than getting the scoop from Billy, they use him as a tool against himself in order to demonstrate just what an irredeemable pathological liar he is. He’s indefensible, but we don’t need Hulu smashing us over the head with his sociopathy to know he’s the villain. We obviously know he’s the villain. What the Netflix documentary does so well, whether it means to or not, is show that everyone else — the putzes who went along with it all — are guilty too.

In the Hulu documentary, they ask a marketing guy who he thinks is guilty. Everyone, he says. Yeah, no shit. The twist is that the Netflix doc was in part produced by the media team that worked on the festival (Jerry Media, yes the company spawned from the Instagram @fuckjerry). They may have been in it to defend themselves (we were victims too!), but they end up looking like destructive morons more than anything else. In the Netflix documentary, no one really takes on accountability, but more than one interviewee says, “At this point, he was either an idiot or the smartest guy in the room.” Isn’t that all we need to know about who was complicit?

So watch Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened to get the nuts and bolts of what happened. Then watch Fyre Fraud to get the more academic breakdown. But be prepared to have Fyre nightmares after the binge. Because the story of Fyre isn’t just a hilarious one about rich millennials getting scammed out of their parents’ money. It’s the story of just how much a white man with a little knowledge of startup culture, a smidge of social media clout, and a dream can burn down with his Fyre.

Fyre in the Hole was originally published in The Yale Herald on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

[Taps mic]

HANNAH: Hello, hello.

EMMA: Welcome to Red Hot Take, I’m Emma Chanen. I’m Managing Editor here at the Herald and today in the studio I will be joined by Hannah Offer, who is a Features Editor at the Herald. Hannah just got acquainted with the microphone, which was exciting for all of us. Our creative intro music of the week is “Twitterflated” by Podington Bear. So thank you so much to Podington Bear and that’s probably enough of “Twitterflated.”

HANNAH, we just watched this week’s episode of The Challenge: Invasion. First, just any thoughts you have on the episode?

HANNAH: I definitely don’t believe that Nicole is in love with Laurel. I think that Laurel is fucking crazy, and Cory is very annoying, and those are, I guess, my takeaways.

EMMA: Okay, just give me your rapid-fire hot take. Laurel and the peanut butter?

HANNAH: Yeah. I mean, first of all, I think more ridiculous was the fact that, so Nicole loves peanut butter, and her—should I give some background?

EMMA: Okay, yeah, Nicole’s obsessed with peanut butter and one night—

HANNAH: She had a fucking massive jar of peanut butter.

EMMA: Five gallons.

HANNAH: Which I don’t understand, because when they showed the peanut butter, when Shane was like “Nicole, there’s peanut butter,” it was a normal-sized peanut butter jar.

EMMA: She probably brought it with her.

HANNAH: Like a huge thing of peanut butter.

EMMA: That she eats with a ladle. It’s disgusting. Like I love peanut butter, but that’s disgusting. And one night, someone said to Laurel, who’s drunk, “This is Nicole’s peanut butter. Hide it in the bushes.” And she did and she forgot about it and Nicole was very upset about it.

HANNAH: And two weeks later, you know, they’re in Thailand, it’s probably 80 degrees at least every day, humid, really gross—

EMMA: There are bugs everywhere. They found a centipede in the food.

HANNAH: Yeah they found a centipede in the food, and her fucking peanut butter jar has been in the bushes for two weeks, and she immediately eats it.

EMMA: And it’s covered in mold.

HANNAH: And then Laurel’s trying to hide up the fact that she—

EMMA: And CT. Okay this moves us to CT who, in general, this season has been incredible to watch. Funny, calm, a really good competitor, it’s just insane to have watched his evolution. I think he’s great this season.

Deryl moving the cinderblocks in the challenge! I wrote this down because it seemed like a huge deal but I’m glad we get to talk about this. Deryl is unstoppable.

HANNAH: Yeah, and he’s just so soft-spoken and, like—

EMMA: He’s the ideal Challenger. He’s the champion. He’s the champion of all Champions.

HANNAH: And CT right now is just trying to fuck with all the young kids. Deryl just doesn’t even care.

EMMA: He has almost no screen time at all.

HANNAH: Yeah. I’m sure he just works out all day, and they don’t even show him. Like he mediates.

EMMA: Yeah, just sits there silently watching.

I thought the challenge was great. They were neck and neck. The champions should be winning? I’m sort of confused that they keep choking like this.

HANNAH: But honestly, in that challenge, I think being small was an advantage. Because they were trying to squeeze through doors. And you’re quick when you’re small.

EMMA: That’s true.

HANNAH: Even though Deryl was like crazy throwing those cinder blocks, they probably weren’t that heavy.

EMMA: An amazing elimination. Camilo just pulled of the biggest upset in Challenge history, maybe.

HANNAH: I sort of thought that that was gonna—like I said as we were watching it, the way that Laurel did her rope was very—

EMMA: It was simple to undo.

HANNAH: Because it’s really spread apart.

EMMA: Yeah, and you also kind of need to knot yourself up if it’s gonna be hard for them to undo.

HANNAH: Yeah, that’s why if I were in that challenge I would literally just put bunches together and knot them like fifty fucking times, because that’s so annoying. I think a good thing to do, with the exception of a few outliers, is—

EMMA: Is to knot it in itself in the middle

HANNAH: Or, like, on one side

EMMA: Stand in the middle and crawl over and back and through your own rope a bunch

HANNAH: I agree

EMMA: Camilo even got a hug from TJ which is huge.

EMMA: We have more Red Hot Take coming up where we discuss The Leftovers seasons 1 and 2, and even head all the way back to Lost for a little bit. But be sure to check out the rest of the Herald’s audio issue, too. There’s a ton of good stuff in Voices, in Culture, but for now, more Red Hot Take.

HANNAH: So what do you think of The Leftovers these days?

EMMA: Oh my god, what a wild transition. So I finished season 1, I watched all of it in a week. I had issues with the first season, but I expected to.

HANNAH: Tell me about them.

EMMA: I thought it was such a downer show. First of all, I think Justin Theroux has the potential to be incredibly charming, and they made absolutely the right call in casting him as the leading man, but they gave him nothing to do except be angry and say “fuck” a lot and be kind of awkward with his daughter and his daughter’s friend and be kind of wild with his dad.

HANNAH: What’s the deal with the daughter and the daughter’s friend? I forget.

EMMA: I either missed it or they never explain it and expect you to figure it out.

HANNAH: Does he hook up with her?

EMMA: No. My presumption is that she lost both of her parents and so she lives with them, essentially. He didn’t hook up with her. I mean it’s left ambiguous but I say no. One night when he was having one of those black-out episodes, he came home and she bandaged up his hand, and then later Jill asks her, “Did you fuck my dad?” and she’s like “Yeah Jill, I fucked your dad,” like “fuck you.”

HANNAH: And then they having a falling out.

EMMA: Yeah, and then she leaves. I forget the friend’s name.

HANNAH: What happened at the end of the season?

EMMA: So the end of season 1: the Guilty Remnant buys those stupid recreations of the bodies of the departed, and—also every time they say the departed I think of Mark Wahlberg in those slipper shoes shooting that guy—anyway, these recreations of the departed, but they are so heinous looking and they go and position them back in people’s’ homes.

HANNAH: Oh yeah, they do that in Nora’s house.

EMMA: Yeah, it’s actually horrifying. Fuck the Guilty Remnant, I hate them. They were the worst part of the first season, I don’t care about them at all. I hate cults.

HANNAH: Wait, have there been three seasons so far or two?

EMMA: No, the third season just started Sunday. Yeah, the third and final season just started Sunday.

HANNAH: Oh, okay, I need to start it then because I’m caught up.

EMMA: Okay, well I’ll try to finish season two in a week.

HANNAH: So have you started season two?

EMMA: I haven’t yet, but I will.

HANNAH: But, so, in season 2 they move.

EMMA: I know, I know that. So the end of season 1 is, all the people go and literally set fire to the Guilty Remnant’s headquarters. And then Jill, who was visiting her mom kind of, was in there.

HANNAH: Yeah, and he carries her out.

EMMA: He carries her out. And I’m pretty sure the wish he made when he encountered Wayne dying in the bathroom, is that either he’s not crazy (which doesn’t seem likely given the promo for the second season because he’s still seeing the leader of the Guilty Remnant who killed herself), or being—

HANNAH: Okay, that’s what I wanted to know had happened.

EMMA: Oh yeah, that happens in the first season. He has one of those black-out episodes and kidnaps her.

HANNAH: Fuck, yeah, that’s crazy.

EMMA: So my second guess for what his wish was is that he repairs his relationship with her daughter.

HANNAH: Yeah, the second season gets crazy, too, because the brother is involved.

EMMA: I think the brother is one of the worst actors on the show. Truly talent-free.

HANNAH: Wait, is he in the first season, too?

EMMA: Yeah, he’s in the first season because he’s protecting Christine. I’ve always thought that Damon Lindelof had some weird thing about pregnant women, and this series just confirms it. But Christine, who is pregnant with Wayne’s baby, has the baby and she leaves him with it, and he leaves it on his dad’s doorstep, and then Nora, who was going to leave, finds it and gets rid of the letter that she wrote. And then they move to Texas.

HANNAH: Yeah it’s crazy.

EMMA: I’m excited. I also love Regina King, so I’m jazzed about starting it.

HANNAH: Wait, who’s Regina King? She was in A Cinderella Story?

EMMA: Indeed she was. And Legally Blonde 2.

HANNAH: The second season is wild. I can’t even. What does the third season trailer look like? Have you even watched it?

EMMA: I haven’t watched it because I don’t want any spoilers.

HANNAH: I’m excited for the end of Pretty Little Liars.

EMMA: I don’t watch Pretty Little Liars.

HANNAH: Who watches Pretty Little Liars? I have two interesting things about TV shows lately, which have nothing to do with the two that we’ve been talking about.

EMMA: Okay, hit me.

HANNAH: Number one: I didn’t have anything to watch Sunday night.

EMMA: Yeah, which is devastating.

HANNAH: So I just watched the most recent episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I haven’t watched Grey’s Anatomy in years, but I do remember that there was a plane crash that killed Lexie and then Mark died of heartbreak, and—

EMMA: Did he really? Oh my god.

HANNAH: Yeah, and one of the lesbians, Arizona, lost her leg. It was this huge thing. And in the last episode, they’ve so fully run out of things to do that there was another episode on a plane with horrible turbulence. It almost crashed and they had to do all these emergency things on this place. This is when you know that a show should not be on anymore.

EMMA: Yeah, they just have to keep rehashing the same old plots. I think what should happen with Grey’s Anatomy is that they should take a cue from old children’s TV shows and do a crossover episode, but like a crossover rest-of-the-series where the plane crashes on an island and then the island has all sorts of things—they’re polar bears, a mysterious group called The Others—and then we’ve come full circle and we’re just doing Lost again, which I would really be fine with.

HANNAH: They never explained the polar bear.

EMMA: They didn’t.

HANNAH: And that was in the pilot!

EMMA: They also never explained why Walt can mind-control weird birds flying into glass walls and why was Walt important? There are so many unexplained mysteries, but I totally buy into the J.J. Abrams mystery box idea. I don’t think you need to reveal everything, you know. And anyone who is upset with the series finale of Lost should also feel that way, because obviously they had to wrap something up. They had to give us an answer of some sort, and people weren’t happy with the answer they got. I personally was fine with the answer I got. I was like, yeah, good, solid show.

HANNAH: I don’t really remember Lost that well.

EMMA: Okay, ask me anything.

HANNAH: So, they’re all dead. That’s the end. They’re in this purgatory-like place.

EMMA: Yeah, essentially waiting to go to heaven or somewhere.

HANNAH: So my question is, how is it possible that there were actual dead bodies on the plane? And how is it possible that, I don’t know—also what was the smoke again?

EMMA: Okay, I don’t have the definitive answers on this. So any Lost super fans, please don’t @ me. I don’t really have the time to be super right about this. But I think that the people who died in the plane crash just had no unfinished business, had no things to resolve. Very basic people there to furnish flight 815—just immediately went to wherever they were going. And everyone else who survived had something. So that’s what I think about that. As for the black smoke, this gets a little hairy, and my memory is not perfect on this.

HANNAH: Because it’s John Locke’s brother? Did I just create that in my head?

EMMA: That’s not true. So it’s the Man in Black and Jacob, and they’re like light and dark. And I’m pretty sure that they’re supposed to be some kind of version of Jacob and Esau. Their mom’s Allison Janney. It’s like the duality of man.

HANNAH: I just don’t understand, also, how children would be born in that entire storyline of nobody-has-ever-been-born-on-this-island. Like how can you fucking have a baby in purgatory? That’s crazy.

EMMA: These are good questions, Hannah. So Claire obviously has Aaron, maybe because she is very pregnant and so it’s a full baby at that point and has some unresolved issues with the dad and needs a dad figure.

HANNAH: Which is Charlie?

EMMA: No, it’s not Charlie, because, first of all—another spoiler alert—Charlie dies. It’s momentarily Charlie, but Charlie is obviously an imperfect father figure. And then, it’s Jack and Kate who take Aaron, and Jack and Kate are obviously not great parent figures. This is deep dives with Emma and Hannah.

HANNAH: Did Kate and Jack—what was the deal with the Kate, Jack, Sawyer, and whatever that fucking bitch is?

EMMA: Juliet?

HANNAH: Yeah.

EMMA: Oh my god. What was the deal with them?

HANNAH: At the end.

EMMA: Okay, we’re gonna call this a love rectangle. I personally was very happy that Sawyer and Juliet ended up together. The end of season 5 was very traumatic for me.

HANNAH: Oh yeah, that was crazy.

EMMA: And then the screen goes white, do you remember that? Because the bomb blows up, and it was a very I’ll-never-let-go moment and then of course he does, and she had to go. She did. She had to go, though. She was the sacrifice the island demanded. But it was a very sad moment. It all started obviously, season 1, you’re on an island, you’re of breeding age, you’re very attractive, there’s gonna be sexual tension. It all comes to a head in season 3 when Jack, Kate, and Sawyer all get kidnapped and you realize that it’s all this crazy plot stirred up by Ben Linus to get Jack to perform surgery on him for his spinal cancer or something. And Sawyer is brought in to motivate Kate. Kate is brought in to motivate Jack. So you’re like, okay, Jack has feelings for Kate who has feelings for Sawyer, and Jack has feelings about Kate having feelings for Sawyer, and they’re all gonna come out.

HANNAH: And Kate doesn’t have feelings for Jack at that point?

EMMA: Kate and Jack definitely have sex at some point. I think it’s after Kate and Sawyer have sex though, in the cage. Which was wild. Do you remember? Kate sneaks out of her cage and literally goes to have sex with Sawyer in his cage, and then they show Jack the footage of that. He’s really angry, so he’s doing like angry-surgery, and he nicks Ben’s artery to be like, “Run, I’ll sacrifice myself for you.” He hangs out with The Others for a while and that’s when he meets Juliet and then that’s where that comes in. It’s wild. This show was so good.

HANNAH: Okay, but Kate and Jack, in the end, are together?

EMMA: Well, Kate and Jack are together season 4 when they have the flashes sideways and when they kind of get off the island. And they’re together-together and raising Aaron. And then Jack loses it and does the whole, “We have to go back!” And they’re not together because he’s breaking down and she looks beautiful with her blowout and her makeup and is raising a child. He has a beard.

HANNAH: Wait so how does that happen? How do they get off the island? It was fake?

EMMA: No it was Keamy’s boat. Remember?

HANNAH: Wait, so they—what?

EMMA: Hannah, I really can’t spend the rest of this podcast rehashing Lost for you.

HANNAH: Yeah, we also need to go get dinner soon.

EMMA: We do need to go get dinner soon. I was gonna ask you one more thing—oh! I know what I was gonna tell you. You cannot complain about not having anything to watch on Sunday night this summer, because you have six weeks, no more than that, you have eight weeks—

HANNAH: To watch Lost?

EMMA: No, you have eight weeks to catch up on Game of Thrones.

HANNAH: Oh, fuck, I know.

EMMA: Hannah, you have to do it because you’re gonna love it.

HANNAH: I know!

EMMA: The thing is, you have great taste and you’re missing out.

HANNAH: Will you do it with me?

EMMA: I will do it with you. You’re just missing out on such an important cultural artifact. It’s like when everyone was telling me to watch Breaking Bad and I was just like “Oh man, I don’t have time…”

HANNAH: Well, I’m not watching Breaking Bad.

EMMA: Okay, no, I really can’t get into it either. It’s too late for me. But everyone, while it was on, was like, “You have to watch it!” or “Catch up!” Or same with Mad Men. I was like “I’m in high school, I’m trying to get into college, I don’t have time.” And now, one of my biggest regrets is not watching Breaking Bad or Mad Men.

HANNAH: Okay, well, we’ll watch it in my movie theater.

EMMA: You have a movie theater? Oh my god, Hannah, I’m so excited to be in L.A. with you this summer. Okay, that’s a great place to wrap up this episode.

EMMA: This has been Red Hot Take, episode 1, with Hannah Offer. Thank you for joining me. On Thursday, we’ll have—you’re very close to the mic—on Thursday we’ll have Tyler Hart and Tracy Chung in the studio to discuss Netflix’s Iron Fist and the upcoming Defender series. We look forward to discussing that on Red Hot Take.

HANNAH: Bye.

If our priorities are remotely similar then you should already be aware that Michael Fassbender’s birthday was a few weeks ago. As a huge fan of both Secret Ginger Mike and birthdays, I felt a powerful impulse to celebrate on that cold April 2. I was going to watch Assassins Creed because I don’t respect myself or my time as much as I’d like others to, but the only version I could find online was in Spanish with Chinese subtitles. I then searched Michael on Netflix and discovered to my great glee that Frank, the exceedingly strange Lenny Abrahamson film that I had been meaning to watch for a long time, was available to watch.  (Lenny Abrahamson followed up Frank with Room, a tone shift to say the least.) And thank God it was. There was no better way to celebrate the newly minted quadragenarian than taking a mere 95 minutes out of my Monday night to watch as Jon (a pitch perfect Domhnall Gleeson) immerses himself in the life of a band—erm—headed by a man named Frank who is constantly ensconced in a giant paper-mache head. Jon begins the film a lowly office worker by day and struggling songwriter in his parents’ house by night, but he seizes the opportunity to live his dream when the Soronprfbs (Frank’s band) lose their keyboardist while on a tour stop in England. The band then heads to Ireland to record their album.

Though I came to this movie for the birthday boy, I stayed for the ensemble. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Clara, a volatile, potentially sabotaging theremin player who immediately mistrusts Jon. Though she and Frank have an ambiguously sexual relationship, Clara resists the love interest role, striking the perfect balance between nurturing and infuriatingly turbulent. I was completely charmed, though, by Scoot McNairy, best known for his roles in Argo and 12 Years a Slave, as Don (who is maybe named for The Big Lebowski’s Donny). Don’s struggle with mental illness and awe for Frank informs our initial reactions to the movie’s bizarre concept, and his tacit acceptance of and love for this wacky dude convince us to, like Jon, go along for the ride. The movie is, best of all, tight. It wastes no time. The storytelling moves quickly without sacrificing character development, jokes, or even the music, which is kind of the secondary mystery of the movie (after the head, of course). When is it genius? When is it dreadful? Who drives the band’s collective sound at any given moment? The movie is odd, no doubt, but it is packed to the brim with heart, and a kind of reckless exuberance that makes the densely packed 95 minutes pass in a heartbeat. And my heart was beating fast. Because of Michael Fassbender.

Top 5 ways to pass the time in section when you haven’t done the reading

5. Pretend to look for a quote and actually make a dent in the reading

4. Sketch your TA, add a mustache if they don’t already have one

3. Count backward from 100 in your head

2. Chug a ton of water then get up to go pee

1. Practice your cursive

Originally, I was going to publish this review two weeks ago. For scheduling reasons, I got bumped a few weeks, but it didn’t matter because I only had one sentence at the time. I wrote it immediately after watching episode four of The Challenge: Invasion. It said, “The greatest television event of our generation is happening right now, and you’re missing it.” In hindsight, that was a little dramatic, but to be fair, the Champions had just made the most epic entrance since the alien in Alien. That opening no longer works because the Champions followed up their legendary entrance with a poor showing in the first challenge—they were never going to win four on six, and they weren’t meant to—and now the novelty of having Champions vs. Underdogs has worn off and it’s just another Challenge. (For those in need of a more comprehensive explanation of the show and it’s background, I explain a lot of it here.)

I’ll rewind a little bit. After last season ruined the Rivals franchise for me, I was nervous about what this season’s format would be. When I realized they were making an All-Star team (and that Johnny Bananas would be returning after last season’s disaster) I was nervous that it would just be a bloodbath, but the new framework is more thought out than I gave it credit for. The season began with only 18 Challengers, either rookies or competitors who had never won. Instead of immediately moving into a gorgeous mansion in an exotic location, they lived in “The Shelter,” a dilapidated cabana on the beach—a move that harkened back to one of the best Challenge seasons “The Island.” To get a pass to the lovely Challenge mansion, “The Oasis,” and meet the fearsome Champions, the “Underdogs,” as they were re-christened, had to either win a challenge or win an elimination; this is what challengers typically call “earning your stripes.” The structure of the show elevates having won a Challenge (capital C, as in a whole season) to godlike status. For the Champions to even deign to compete against you, you need your stripes. This is genius. It solves the problem we’ve seen in recent seasons of lame game play. If you separate the wheat from the chaff early on, you can demand a higher level of athleticism, which almost guarantees a more watchable season.

The season hopefully has some epic Champion smackdowns in store for us (that’s what they’re there for right?), but Invasion, surprisingly enough, brings a maturity that we have not seen for a long time if ever on the show. There are too many parents for “No parents. No rules. Summer all the time!” to apply to this season—Tony, Darrell, and now CT. Tony’s sobriety story is actually quite touching, and I’m not Tony’s biggest fan. And in CT’s first Challenge since his on-screen love Diem’s death, he is shockingly subdued, cheering on Tony’s rehabilitation and gushing about his son. For every Challenger that is finally growing up, though, MTV has also tracked down a middle-school grade mean girl to stir up drama. We even got the golden “I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to win” from Kailah moments before she lost an elimination and went home, and only a few days after she literally peed her bed. After a refreshingly (for the most part) dramaless episode, other than a disappointing blackout episode from Nelson, the gaggle of Underdog girls hell bent on keeping themselves entertained (Amanda, Sylvia, and worst of them all, Ashley) reopen the gossip mill, spilling to the male champions how “Jenna got f***ed on the airplane.” C’mon ladies. This season’s cast is almost comically divided into adults—Laurel, Nicole, CT, Darrell—and teenagers—Ashley, Amanda, Nelson, Zach. And of course, if the adults are oil and the teenagers are water, Johnny Bananas is the dish soap, dissolving the boundaries between them.

***

After Johnny Bananas’s infamous backstabbing at the end of Rivals III, I was all out on JB. He was disgusting to me, and I was still in shock on Sarah’s behalf. I unfollowed him on Instagram, and I’m only admitting that I followed him in the first place to demonstrate how upset I was. I was hoping he would retire as the winningest asshole in Challenge history and be out of my Challenge watching life forever. But here he is, once again, and I’m not surprised. He’s an addict, and I’m not sure he’s capable of doing anything other than Challenges. So far, he’s lying pretty low this season; most of the shots of Bananas are him laughing at the Underdogs’ disastrous attempts at politicking. But I’m wary of Bananas, and especially with a softer CT this season, there may be nothing to temper Johnny’s conniving Challenge prowess.

Maybe we won’t need CT’s raw strength, though. As the Champions were eager to point out, while Johnny has the most wins, Darrell has the best record. Johnny has won six of his thirteen challenges, but Darrell won four of the six he competed in. I’ll say what’s on all our minds right now: I love Darrell. He’s athletic, smart, and he lays low, plus, he’s old school. That could be just what the Challenge needs.

On the Underdog side, I think we’ve all been sleeping on Dario. He hasn’t gotten a lot of screen time, but he’s making successful power moves on Ashley K. and it’s looking like his Challenge game might be as strong as his flirt game. When Dario first emerged from the hell that is Are You the One with his twin brother Raphy, I thought he was a joke, but he is playing a quietly strategic game. (Throwing Sylvia into elimination was obviously the right move.) He could be the Underdog to watch.

I’m treating this ridiculous show with mock seriousness because I actually find it wildly entertaining, and I want to own that. But while I hesitate to elevate this to an artifact of high culture worthy of study, partially because you won’t believe me and partially because I know it’s not entirely true, I do think that the deeply problematic gender dynamics, casual homophobia, and cultural appropriation of the host culture provide a look into an America outside our Ivy bubble. Jenna crawling back to Zach after he, in Laurel’s words, “totally dogged her on national television,” (read: cheated on her) is heartbreaking, and the juxtaposition of confessionals from the two of them (“I miss Zach” vs. “Jenna still has a great butt. Pow!”) is hard to watch. The show is working to showcase queer characters and their authentic storylines, but no one says anything when Bananas says that Nicole has “a lot of testosterone” or when the house tacitly agrees that Shane is a weak player when he’s proven he’s not. When Nelson tells a woman on his team that the boys are going to decide on the vote, and the girls will fall in line, no one calls him out for blatant sexism. But these are real people who really talk this way, and, as my friend lovingly pointed out to me today, “we are not the target audience for this show.” I have a lot of thoughts on this, and would love to engage with my peers about the way the show presents these issues, but none of you guys (except Hannah, shouts out) watch.

I watch The Challenge because I’m a messy bitch who lives for drama, but also because it takes me out of the stuck up world of prestige (and prestige dramas). This Spring Break, yeah, maybe watch Paolo Sorrentino’s maximalist musing The Young Pope, but if you need a break from high art, reach across the aisle in your own way, and give The Challenge a chance.

Originally, I was going to publish this review two weeks ago. For scheduling reasons, I got bumped a few weeks, but it didn’t matter because I only had one sentence at the time. I wrote it immediately after watching episode four of The Challenge: Invasion. It said, “The greatest television event of our generation is happening right now, and you’re missing it.” In hindsight, that was a little dramatic, but to be fair, the Champions had just made the most epic entrance since the alien in Alien. That opening no longer works because the Champions followed up their legendary entrance with a poor showing in the first challenge—they were never going to win four on six, and they weren’t meant to—and now the novelty of having Champions vs. Underdogs has worn off and it’s just another Challenge. (For those in need of a more comprehensive explanation of the show and it’s background, I explain a lot of it here.)

I’ll rewind a little bit. After last season ruined the Rivals franchise for me, I was nervous about what this season’s format would be. When I realized they were making an All-Star team (and that Johnny Bananas would be returning after last season’s disaster) I was nervous that it would just be a bloodbath, but the new framework is more thought out than I gave it credit for. The season began with only 18 Challengers, either rookies or competitors who had never won. Instead of immediately moving into a gorgeous mansion in an exotic location, they lived in “The Shelter,” a dilapidated cabana on the beach—a move that harkened back to one of the best Challenge seasons “The Island.” To get a pass to the lovely Challenge mansion, “The Oasis,” and meet the fearsome Champions, the “Underdogs,” as they were re-christened, had to either win a challenge or win an elimination; this is what challengers typically call “earning your stripes.” The structure of the show elevates having won a Challenge (capital C, as in a whole season) to godlike status. For the Champions to even deign to compete against you, you need your stripes. This is genius. It solves the problem we’ve seen in recent seasons of lame game play. If you separate the wheat from the chaff early on, you can demand a higher level of athleticism, which almost guarantees a more watchable season.

The season hopefully has some epic Champion smackdowns in store for us (that’s what they’re there for right?), but Invasion, surprisingly enough, brings a maturity that we have not seen for a long time if ever on the show. There are too many parents for “No parents. No rules. Summer all the time!” to apply to this season—Tony, Darrell, and now CT. Tony’s sobriety story is actually quite touching, and I’m not Tony’s biggest fan. And in CT’s first Challenge since his on-screen love Diem’s death, he is shockingly subdued, cheering on Tony’s rehabilitation and gushing about his son. For every Challenger that is finally growing up, though, MTV has also tracked down a middle-school grade mean girl to stir up drama. We even got the golden “I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to win” from Kailah moments before she lost an elimination and went home, and only a few days after she literally peed her bed. After a refreshingly (for the most part) dramaless episode, other than a disappointing blackout episode from Nelson, the gaggle of Underdog girls hell bent on keeping themselves entertained (Amanda, Sylvia, and worst of them all, Ashley) reopen the gossip mill, spilling to the male champions how “Jenna got f***ed on the airplane.” C’mon ladies. This season’s cast is almost comically divided into adults—Laurel, Nicole, CT, Darrell—and teenagers—Ashley, Amanda, Nelson, Zach. And of course, if the adults are oil and the teenagers are water, Johnny Bananas is the dish soap, dissolving the boundaries between them.

***

After Johnny Bananas’s infamous backstabbing at the end of Rivals III, I was all out on JB. He was disgusting to me, and I was still in shock on Sarah’s behalf. I unfollowed him on Instagram, and I’m only admitting that I followed him in the first place to demonstrate how upset I was. I was hoping he would retire as the winningest asshole in Challenge history and be out of my Challenge watching life forever. But here he is, once again, and I’m not surprised. He’s an addict, and I’m not sure he’s capable of doing anything other than Challenges. So far, he’s lying pretty low this season; most of the shots of Bananas are him laughing at the Underdogs’ disastrous attempts at politicking. But I’m wary of Bananas, and especially with a softer CT this season, there may be nothing to temper Johnny’s conniving Challenge prowess.

Maybe we won’t need CT’s raw strength, though. As the Champions were eager to point out, while Johnny has the most wins, Darrell has the best record. Johnny has won six of his thirteen challenges, but Darrell won four of the six he competed in. I’ll say what’s on all our minds right now: I love Darrell. He’s athletic, smart, and he lays low, plus, he’s old school. That could be just what the Challenge needs.

On the Underdog side, I think we’ve all been sleeping on Dario. He hasn’t gotten a lot of screen time, but he’s making successful power moves on Ashley K. and it’s looking like his Challenge game might be as strong as his flirt game. When Dario first emerged from the hell that is Are You the One with his twin brother Raphy, I thought he was a joke, but he is playing a quietly strategic game. (Throwing Sylvia into elimination was obviously the right move.) He could be the Underdog to watch.

I’m treating this ridiculous show with mock seriousness because I actually find it wildly entertaining, and I want to own that. But while I hesitate to elevate this to an artifact of high culture worthy of study, partially because you won’t believe me and partially because I know it’s not entirely true, I do think that the deeply problematic gender dynamics, casual homophobia, and cultural appropriation of the host culture provide a look into an America outside our Ivy bubble. Jenna crawling back to Zach after he, in Laurel’s words, “totally dogged her on national television,” (read: cheated on her) is heartbreaking, and the juxtaposition of confessionals from the two of them (“I miss Zach” vs. “Jenna still has a great butt. Pow!”) is hard to watch. The show is working to showcase queer characters and their authentic storylines, but no one says anything when Bananas says that Nicole has “a lot of testosterone” or when the house tacitly agrees that Shane is a weak player when he’s proven he’s not. When Nelson tells a woman on his team that the boys are going to decide on the vote, and the girls will fall in line, no one calls him out for blatant sexism. But these are real people who really talk this way, and, as my friend lovingly pointed out to me today, “we are not the target audience for this show.” I have a lot of thoughts on this, and would love to engage with my peers about the way the show presents these issues, but none of you guys (except Hannah, shouts out) watch.

I watch The Challenge because I’m a messy bitch who lives for drama, but also because it takes me out of the stuck up world of prestige (and prestige dramas). This Spring Break, yeah, maybe watch Paolo Sorrentino’s maximalist musing The Young Pope, but if you need a break from high art, reach across the aisle in your own way, and give The Challenge a chance.

Two months into my freshman year at Yale, I called my friend Benedict at Harvard to catch up and compare notes. We covered classes and suitemates, rattled off the list of clubs and activities, bemoaned the recent loss of our beloved Grantland [1], but mostly, we marveled at how very different our new homes were from the one we had left back in Evanston, Illinois. Nobody uses our slang words or appreciates good chicken wings, we complained. The clothes are different, the language, the attitudes. “One weird thing,” Benedict cut in. “Do people floss at Yale?” Yes, I replied. Yes they do.

***

I first encountered this strange phenomenon in my first moments on campus. My roommate and I had both returned from FOOT trips, and we unpacked together in our common room. She rooted around in a bag her parents had brought for her and remarked, “Ugh, all I want to do is floss,” as she pulled out a white box of dental floss. “Really?” I thought. All you want to do is floss? Of all the infinite exciting things to do on one’s first day of college, all you want to do right now is run a fancy mint string through the space between your teeth? But I dismissed it as a curious personal preference and continued to unpack.

My dear roommate, though the first, was not the last Yalie I’ve found committed to pristine oral hygiene, however. In fact, I’ve run into almost every young woman on my floor at some point flossing away to her little heart’s content. I’ve seen everything from fancy floss gadgets to the daily disposables to the plastic floss men [2] little kids get at the dentist. Many stay true to the down and dirty fingers and floss technique, though, which I guess I can respect. Even when I venture outside of my entryway I’m not safe from this maddening dedication to oral health. In the bathroom of my friend’s off campus apartment, I found a Reach Access Flosser sitting next to an almost empty package of its disposable floss components. The apartment’s occupant was a serial flosser—I would have never guessed.

Now I’m not averse to flossing every once in a while. We’ve all had cause to dislodge a rogue popcorn kernel or, back in Evanston, a tiny bit of chicken wing. But I just can’t get behind making a habit of it mostly because it feels unnecessary to me. I know abstractly that it is a good thing to do, but those who do it everyday seem to do it because of just that—they feel they must. Surrounded, as I am, by driven Ivy Leaguers, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that many blindly follow what ten out of ten dentists strongly recommend, but it still seems to me an improbable dedication to a bizarre brand of perfectionism. It’s as if they’re all pursuing that one extra A+ on their dental exam, a gold star for sucking up to the doctor, the plaque for most zealous plaque hunter.

In 2013, the American Dental Association found that 50.5% of Americans surveyed floss daily, and 30% floss but not daily. To me that sounds like a straight up lie, but assuming it is true and I am simply a part of the “18.5%” who stubbornly refuses to floss regularly, the statistics for the Ivy League are still startling. Eleven out of sixteen people on my floor floss at least semi-regularly, which is 68.8% [3]. If we extrapolate to the rest of the glorified athletic conference known as the Ivy League, it seems we’ve got a lot of flossers roaming around here.

If over 46,000 [4] highly educated people are doing it, they must have some empirical reason. According to the first Google result for “Benefits of flossing,” “If you don’t floss, you’re more likely to have plaque build-up, which can lead to cavities, tooth decay, and gum disease. If left untreated, gum disease can be a risk factor for heart disease, diabetes, and a high body mass index.” These sound like good reasons to floss, but I know that the Ivy flossing epidemic isn’t because of the objective health benefits. It is the overarching attitude of achievement in my new home that sustains this strange practice. Yale attracts flossers and maintains them.

I’ll admit that there were times in my life when I was a flosser. I would pledge perfection for a couple weeks at a time. These bursts of commitment to my gums usually coincided with equally unsustainable promises to put my laundry away rather than live out of the basket for a few weeks or do my homework at my desk rather than on the floor or in my bed. I have a secret flosser hidden away inside me, but I try not to let her control me. She nagged me about doing ACT flashcards and keeping a journal, about making my bed and taking vitamins. She wanted me to be the perfectionist that I just couldn’t be. Surrounded by flossers here at school, I realize, she is not me—I am not her.

Back home, the neighborhood kids always marched out into the dentist’s waiting room with a plastic bag, a clean new smile, and marching orders to start flossing everyday. Like the cheap chachki picked from the “toy box” at the end of the appointment, nothing ever came of those instructions. By the time I turned eighteen, I stopped lying to Pam—my dental hygienist—at the beginning of every appointment. “Do you floss?” she always asks. I used to say something like “not as often as I should” or “every couple weeks.” These days, I just go with “no.” I’m sorry Pam of North Shore Dentistry for Children, but I am an adult now and I don’t floss.

***

On the phone, Benedict sounded panicked. “Everyone in my suite flosses together every night. They all do it.” Stay calm, I told him; stay true to who you are. In this crazy new world we need to hold onto that rebellious Midwestern, public school cowboy within us—the non-flosser. “I don’t know,” my friend, the stats major worries: “With ten percent more peer pressure, I think I’ll start flossing.” I hope it doesn’t come to that for him. I hope he stays strong in the battle against flossers, but he’s already demonstrating weakness. Not me. I may make my bed sometimes or put my laundry away due to space constraints, but I am yet no flosser. My desk remains unused, my watch almost a full minute slow. I’ve bled for my cause [5]. I’ve stared gingivitis in the face, and I am not afraid. I’ll hold on to home by the skin of my teeth.

[1] A sports and culture blog known for long form journalism that was shut down by its owner ESPN on October 30, 2015

[2] For those unfamiliar, it’s a piece of plastic shaped like a tiny man with no arms that somehow holds floss.

[3] I attended my Introduction to Statistics lecture semi-regularly, and I’m pretty sure this is what we like to call “statistically significant.”

[4] That’s 68.8% of the Ivy League’s estimated total undergraduate enrollment

[5] Because any time I do floss, my gums bleed. Whoops.

5. Obama – A president I could get a beer with, ya know? Let’s take in a Bulls game, Barry.

4. JFK – Mmmmm: gimme a frothy Guinness and this Irishman and I’m set

3. Grover Cleveland – I’m looking for a beer belly like his

2. Ulysses S. Grant – Won the civil war, sits on the $50 bill, brandy lover

1. John Adams – Word on the street is homeboy was drinking beer for breakfast as a teen at Harvard. BAMF.

My Fellow Americans (and foreign friends),

After spending this weekend at the Game in one of the bluest states in the Union, I will be heading to my family’s Thanksgiving celebration in Iowa, where I will be a blue gal in a red state, surrounded by forty members of my extended family. It will be hard to play Cornhole and celebrate the anniversary of a meal hosted by a people whose guests then slaughtered them knowing that so much is on a one way train to shitsville. As bad as that sounds, I’ll be lucky to have a Thanksgiving meal at all.

In this week’s front, Sarah Holder, SY ’17, looks at the Patriot Housing Initiative, a Westchester program dedicated to housing homeless veterans. Holder documents the paths that three formerly homeless men took in the years after they were discharged. With the help of Patriot Housing, they found homes, but thousands of men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces will not be so lucky this holiday season.

Elsewhere in the paper, the Herald contends with other pressing national problems. Will Reid, PC ’19, considers F*cking Decent, and the newly relevant issue of censorship. Isaac Scobey-Thal, CC ’19, rejects performative and ultimately unproductive allyship in the aftermath of the shocking election outcome, and Kat Lin, MC ’18, condemns the lack of diversity in the media.  

It’s been a hard couple weeks, and the next one may not be better. But in the spirit of gratitude, I’m thankful to be on a campus ready, as always, to “push back on that a little.”  Use this November break to rest and recuperate but also to call out Aunt Lucy on her racism.  We’re not done and won’t be for a long time. Happy holidays!

Unhinged, but getting it together,

Emma

Somewhere within the frenzy of Halloweekend, Yale students and Facebook users across the country found the time to “Check-in” to Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota.  The action was likely spawned by a post like this:

“The Morton County Sheriff’s Department has been using Facebook check-ins to find out who is at Randing Stock in order to target them in attempts to disrupt the prayer camps. SO Water Protectors are calling on EVERYONE to check-in at Randing Stock, ND to overwhelm and confuse them.
If you’re sharing your location (which you should be doing)
1) make it public
2) make the clarification post separate, and so that only your friends can see it
3) don’t clarify on your check in, message friends who say “stay safe!” to let them know what’s up—the stay safe posts are more convincing / confusing for p*lice
4) copy paste to share clarification messages (like this one) because making it public blows our cover
5) say “Randing Stock” in clarification posts so that when they filter out / search those terms, your post is visible to the right people.”

Many activists checked in upon seeing this on their timelines, thinking they could, through this simple , mindless action, help a cause they believe in. Why not? I waited for the cynics’ inevitable responses to that question, which began to roll in by Monday. “It’s not true! ” “It makes no difference!” One Facebook user tried to shame posters by saying it created dangerous circumstances for the in-person protesters, though the post was later deleted. Then there were those who, in their infinite millennial wisdom, posted to say: “You guys are dumb for falling for this and bad for your slacktivism.” And these didactic sages, somewhere buried deep in their self-righteous post policing, have some good points. But the people “Checking-in” to Standing Rock and creating web traffic for #NoDAPL are not nearly as unproductive or self-congratulating, as those who castigate them on Facebook. Posting on Facebook to correct what you deem inappropriate engagement is arrogant and unproductive.

To be clear, there is a difference between those who offer a list of alternative, potentially more effective ways of getting involved and those who write what I’ll call Shame On You posts. Slacktivism is unproductive, and these “Everyone post this on your wall” trends are perfect opportunities for serial slacktivists to seem woke and engaged. In fact, those who are more informed and share additional information are helpfully responding to the question implicit in the bulk of Facebook activism: “What can I do to help?” And these more substantive responses provide the second step: follow up action, which is essential for those who wish to make a genuine contribution.

Some of these posters, however, either skip out on including helpful follow-up information or still can’t resist the Holier Than Thou strategy, reprimanding other posters. This is where it’s problematic. These posts assume that a Check-in means the activist’s only contribution to this cause is a Facebook post. The rub of posting on Facebook, whether an activist post or a Shame On You post, is that the readers have no sense of what else the poster does. Sure, when someone posts #NoDAPL and calls it a day, that causes unwarranted pride in having made no real difference.  But a Check-in on Facebook does not necessarily indicate a lack of other action. Just as a critical response that says: “Everyone posting #NoDAPL, you’re doing nothing. Go out and do something real” in no way indicates the poster has actually contributed anything.  These critics of Facebook activism can now proudly smirk at on their computer screens when their less bold but equally validation-needing Facebook friend comments “OMG THIS THIS THIS.” The irony of crafting an even less productive, similarly lazy post seems to be lost on them.

Then there are those who, hoping to be helpful, suggest only monetary follow ups to written (in)action. But this creates an elite level of activism only accessible to those who have the funds to spare. Furthermore, this idea that only monetary contributions are helpful is incorrect. Calling your representatives or the company in charge of constructing the Dakota Access Pipeline in opposition allows you to lend your literal voice to the cause rather than your virtual one. But hey, go ahead and post, too. Adding another tally to the #NoDAPL hashtag count, or “confusing the local police” certainly has minimal value but is not valueless. Worst case scenario, you raise awareness about an important issue. But the best case scenario of writing a Shame On You post is you reveal to your Facebook friends how high your horse is.

To the smug of the Internet I’ll make a couple concessions: first, post whatever you want. It doesn’t matter that much. But try to be more self-aware about what you’re contributing to the conversation. And you’re right, we shouldn’t endorse the idea that social media engagement alone has the power to solve the problems we fight to solve. These posters are calling people out for the right things, but don’t post and call yourself a hero. Call North Dakota’s governor Jack Dalrymple,  (YCYale College ‘’70, ) at 701-328-2200. Sign the White House petition (bit.ly/StandingRockWH). Call the Army Corps of Engineers at 202-456-1414. Call the White House for goodness sake (202-456-1414)! But whatever you do, don’t make a post complaining about those who figured the worst case scenario of Checking-in to Standing Rock was that it was a hoax that could still raise awareness on an issue of concern to them.  Criticizing slacktivism without contributing to the cause is is just as inactive as any slacktivist, and it’s even less helpful.