Here are a few people who really should just stopping making their own decisions!
5 - Billy McFarland and Ja Rule
Billy McFarland promised his customers a once in a lifetime experience. And in that regard,
he absolutely delivered on his promise. It’s highly unlikely Fyre Festival goers will ever
feel so let down again in their lives when they go to another giant music festival.
To understand how poorly Fyre Festival was executed, it’s important to understand what
McFarland was promising. McFarland, a 25-year entrepreneur of sorts, teamed up with Ja Rule
to create a luxury music festival on the island of Great Exuma in the Bahamas. Have you ever
heard of Ja Rule being a great event planner? Yeah, things already aren’t off to a great
start.
The promotions made it seem pretty awesome. Videos on instagram showed bikini clad models
such as Kendall Jenner hanging out on a yacht. Artists like Major Lazer and Blink 182 were
supposed to headline the event. There would be gourmet food, beachside champagne service,
luxury villas, yachts, the whole nine yards and then some all on a private beach on a
beautiful island. Tickets were being sold for thousands of dollars. So what could go
wrong?
Answer….everything. When people started showing up, there was no luxury housing, there
was no gourmet food, there was no champagne, there were no half naked models, and there
certainly wasn’t anything resembling Blink 182 or Major Lazer. As it turns out, the organizers
spent all of their money on models, and other unnecessary things such as yachts and private
planes for the organizers to party on and had no money left to provide any of the stuff
they promised. They also didn’t do important things like pay the bands, or do any real
planning. According to some working on the festival, McFarland, Ja Rule, and their inner
circle didn’t even start planning until late February, which as it turns out, isn’t
nearly enough time to prepare for something this big.
When festival goers arrived on the island they found that the beach wasn’t private
at all. In fact, the festival site was simply a rocky stretch of beach next to a Sandals
resort. The luxury housing was just a bunch of tents that probably came from a FEMA camp.
The gourmet food turned out to be cheese slices on bread and a sad excuse for a salad. And
the bands were nowhere to be found since you know, Fyre didn’t pay them. Flights going
in and out were delayed, so people who were unlucky enough to actually make it there were
stuck on the island for a while with little food or water, and no first aid or security
in case something went wrong.
And with social media being what it is, it was all chronicled on Twitter and Instagram.
It was absolute chaos. When the dust settled, the 25-year old McFarland tried to blame the
lack of infrastructure on the island for the debacle. However, that doesn’t explain the
absence of all the things he promised. And now, he’s being sued along with Ja Rule
and other festival organizers for hundreds of millions of dollars.
On top of that, he neglected to pay a customs duty tax for the few supplies he did manage
to import to the beach, so he’s also in trouble for that. According to people who
worked on the the festival, McFarland and others knew for a while that they wouldn’t
be able to pull off the type of event they promised, but still decided to move forward
with it anyway….with disastrous results. According to one lawsuit, McFarland and the
Fyre folks even sent out cease and desist letters to those criticizing the event!
And as if he wasn’t already enough of a joke, McFarland is making plans for the 2018
Fyre Festival, and even offered disappointed 2017 festival goers free VIP tickets for 2018
in lieu of a refund. Should anyone really give him a second chance here, since his first
startup Magnises hasn’t been giving customers what they paid for, and it’s pretty much
setting investor money on fire as well.
4 - The Penn State Frat Guys
Generally speaking, frat dudes already don’t have an awesome reputation. While that may
not always be the fairest thing in the world, there are certainly instances that perpetuate
that reputation.
Take the recent incident at Penn State for example. After a hazing incident that killed
one of their newest pledges, 18 of the dudes from Beta Theta Pi fraternity were charged
with the killing.
On February 2 2017, Timothy Piazza was participating in hazing at frat when he consumed what’s
been described as a“life threatening amount of alcohol.” These guys clearly exhibited
no control during their drinking games.
The drinking game the pledges were participating in is called the Gantlet. It’s where pledges
form a line and take swigs from a bottle of vodka and pass it down until it’s empty.
Then they run around to different drinking stations where they do more drinking, such
as chug wine from a bag or shotgun a beer. Basically, the whole idea is to force pledges
to drink an insane amount of alcohol.
19-year old Piazza was so wasted that he stumbled down the stairs of the frat house on not one,
but two separate occasions. During his falls he ruptured his spleen and fractured his skull.
As he lay passed out, video surveillance of the party showed that leaders of the frat
were seen ordering other junior members not to call an ambulance, even using physical
force to stop members from calling for medical help.
Clearly they were scared they’d get in trouble. Even as Piazza’s skin turned grey, they
still ignored him and left him lying on a couch. It wasn’t until nearly 11 am the
next morning that they called an ambulance….12 hours after his first fall. Sadly it was too
late. Piazza passed away on February 4, 2017.
Aside from the involuntary manslaughter charge, frat members are being charged with 50 counts
of hazing and reckless endangerment, dating back to 2016. Apparently their stupidity wasn’t
relegated to just one night.
So basically they figured that leaving a passed out person with a serious head injury passed
out on the couch was a totally okay thing to do. They also were stupid enough to physically
intimidate any frat member who tried to call an ambulance, which was used as evidence against
them. These guys deserve whatever sentence they get.
3 - Martin Shkreli
Just look at him. If there’s one person who’s got a punchable face, it’s this
dude. He once bought the only copy of an unreleased wu-tang clan album for $2 million, and threatened
to destroy it. But that’s hardly the worst of his transgressions.
The entrepreneur and former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals became unpopular when his
company raised the price of Daraprim, an aids drug by 5,556 percent. Shkreli founded Turing
Pharmaceuticals back in 2015. On August 10, 2015, in accordance with Shkreli's business
plan, Turing acquired Daraprim, a medication approved by the FDA in 1953, from Impax Laboratories
for US$55 million. The drug's most prominent use as of late 2015 was as a anti-malarial,
a antiparasitic, and, in conjunction with leucovorin and sulfadiazine, an AIDS drug.
The patent for Daraprim had expired, but no generic version was available. The Turing–Impax
deal included the condition that Impax remove the drug from regular wholesalers and pharmacies.
In June 2015, two months before the sale to Turing was announced, Impax switched to tightly
controlled distribution.
In keeping with its strategy for pricing in the face of limited competition, Turing maintained
the closed distribution. Turing raised the price of a dose of the drug in the U.S. market
overnight, $13.50 to US$750 a pill, which basically left anyone in critical need of
the pill in a price gouging situation, which is basically a really sh*tty and dumb way
to do business.
Because of the Daraprim debacle, people were pretty happy when this “Pharma Bro” was
arrested for securities fraud. As it turns out, he was misleading investors by overstating
the value of his companies, such as MSMB Capital Management.
So whether it’s defrauding investors out of tons of money, basically committing felonies,
hiking up the prices of important medication, or blowing $2 million to show just because
he can, Shkreli just can’t seem to show off how big of a d*uchebag that he is!
2 - Octotom
Generally speaking it’s not anyone’s business to tell a woman how many kids she should have.
However, reason and common sense should still be applied by the woman making these decisions.
Enter Octomom, someone who’s in serious need of a life coach. Her real name is Natalie
Suleman, a woman who wanted a lot of things, but didn’t want to be the one to be responsible
for her own decisions. Octomom wanted kids…..a lot of them in fact. After many failed attempts
having kids with her husband, she got a divorce and went the in vitro fertilization route,
better known as IVF.
But 14 kids later…...really…..just...stop. After 6 kids, she she gave birth to Octuplets,
which is eight more kids at once in case you didn’t know. Once the public found out she
already had six other kids, all conceived through the use of IVF, and that she was on
government assistance, opinions quickly turned against her, which was a sign that there was
still common sense left in the US at that time.
The whole situation was pretty controversial and it sparked a lot of debate regarding assisted
reproductive technology. It even led to Dr. Kamrava, the doctor who was in charge of the
IVF, losing his medical license.
Beyond the controversy surrounding their conception, Octomom has been heavily criticized since
she’s had a hard time providing for her kids, which is completely deserved in her
case. As if that’s not enough, she decided to exploit her kids and expose them to all
kinds of public scrutiny when she signed a deal for a reality show, even it would help
her earn some money to better take care of her kids.
Somehow, even after signing that deal, she filed for bankruptcy in 2012, claiming she
had only $50,000 in assets while having more than $ 1 million in debt. In order to stay
in the spotlight and take advantage of her 15 minutes, she appeared in a p*rno film later
that year called Octomom: Home Alone. Mmmmm classy!
In 2014, she was convicted of welfare fraud when she failed to disclose $30,000 of earnings
she received from public appearances and photo shoots. Reportedly, she’s gone back to working
as an adult entertainer to provide money for her kids.
Now, I understand people wanting to have kids, but having kids is just like having a certain
lifestyle. If you can’t afford it, DON’T DO IT! At the end of the day, Octomom decided
to take on 14 little million dollar liabilities and deciding to let the government take responsibility.
Sigh.
1 - Mario Balotelli
Mario Balotelli is pretty damn good at what he does. With more than 80 career goals and
an impressive career with the Italian national team, his talent on the field is pretty much
indisputable. But his decisions off the field, however, are a different story.
The following bizarre behaviors are things this dude has actually done. He once drove
to a women’s prison to quote, “have a look around.” I don’t know, maybe he has
some sort of weird fantasy?
He once fired a pistol into the air….in public. For some unknown freaking reason he
once starting throwing darts at a youth team. Then there was that time he stopped off at
a local high school just to use the bathroom. He left right after doing his business. Actually,
this one makes total sense.
But listen to this bathroom story; in 2011 he accidentally burned down his bathroom when
he and his friends shot fireworks…...inside his house. That little debacle cause of 400,000
pounds of damage in his 3 million pound mansion.
He also seems to be really bad at parking. When he moved to Manchester to play for Manchester
City, he had no regard for their parking laws and amassed around $10,000 worth of parking
tickets. His Maserati was impounded 27 times!
Another time, one of his young fans complained to Balotelli that he was being bullied at
school. So Balotelli shows up at school to confront the bully. This is actually a good
story though, and a pretty nice thing to do. Apparently, he does a few of those as well,
such as giving $1,000 to a homeless guy after he won $25,000 in a casino.
Of course, he is also pretty well known for some of his on field antics, such as stomping
on other player’s heads. In 2012 he stomped on Scott Parker’s head during a game against
Tottenham. Weirdly enough he didn’t get a red card for that little stunt, but he WAS
suspended for four games.
I can go on and on, but really, you guys get my point. It’s easy to make the case that
Super Mario shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions for himself anymore, but then again,
you know what, it’s sooooo much fun when he does!
Here’s what’s next!