006 ArchivesBaffler , April 28, 2017

Daily Bafflements

A modest proposal for Fyre Festival and a look at Trump’s language Artist’s depiction of the Fyre Festival. / Emperor Deathsaur

• Ja Rule’s Fyre Festival—a.k.a. Coachella for even richer, and even stupider, people—has been canceled due to Lord of the Flies-like conditions. (Some have also compared it to The Hunger Games.) The “luxury” festival—which promised resort-style accommodations and a bland lineup of pop music performances at the low, low price of $5,000 to $250,000 a ticket—made headlines earlier this year when a cadre of the beautiful rich people decided it was the place to be. Instead of drowning in the loving arms of supermodels while dining on caviar, attendees have been greeted by . . . well, take a look. There’s a reason the New Republic is calling it “the hilarious nadir of festie culture.”

Let’s not forget the political element here, though. We can make this disaster work for us! Or, to put it another way:

#fyrefestival is the future leftists want for the bourgeoisie

— Lana Del Raytheon🌹 (@LanaDelRaytheon) April 28, 2017

• Why does Donald Trump end his tweets with one-word proclamations? What’s with that bizarre capitalization? And how about all those unnecessary adjectives? Over at the Word Factory, Marissa Gemma and Arielle Zibrak delve into the rhetorical style of our gasbag-in-chief, reminding us that “in the realm of politics, adjectives piled high without a noun to stand on will eventually come tumbling down.”

• Wells Fargo is at it again—this time it’s with an account scam targeting undocumented immigrants. CNBC reports:

In a series of sworn statements filed Wednesday detailing the latest allegations of the embattled bank’s account-sales scandal, Wells Fargo employees from multiple states say they were ordered to target undocumented workers at construction sites, factories, and a 7-Eleven.

One branch allegedly instituted a program called “Hit the Streets Thursday,” where upper management ordered Latino employees to patrol streets and a local Social Security office to force passersby into branches to open unauthorized accounts, according to a filing by Julia Miller, a former Wells Fargo branch manager in Pennsylvania.

We’re reminded of what Renata Pumarol told Sarah Jaffe about how these institutions are “profiting from criminalizing our bodies, from exploiting our people, and from cutting our services.”