California band, YACHT have been through a rather strange series of events the past two days. Around lunchtime yesterday, the electro duo took to their Facebook page to announce a ‘personal video’ of theirs had been leaked online, which soon was revealed to have been a sex tape.

To use a sex tape to your advantage for publicity is not unheard of in this day and age but YACHT have taken it to a whole new, extra terrestrial level

Following in the footsteps of the iconic greats before them, Pam Anderson, Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton to name but a few, the band resolved to curate and sell the tape themselves as opposed to having it sold by a third party. If people didn’t smell a rat then, they never will.

As became fairly apparent while the situation unraveled, the tape was, in fact a hoax. Well, there was a tape, it’s just not what they said it would be. The tape, posted to the notorious PornHub, depicts two fairly grotesque aliens engaging in some pretty lewd acts in the night vision camera style made famous by sex tapes before it.

The band have since come under fire for staging the hoax, some labelling it a blatant publicity stunt and others saddened by the band’s lack of compassion in ridiculing previous events which could have been perceived as sexual violations.

hey @YACHT, I am made some tasteless art to coincide with your tasteless publicity stunt. pic.twitter.com/0hDDqZQpJP — Josh Coll (@childbearer) May 11, 2016

In any case, it was pretty weird. The band had this to say in an official statement made today:

“We created a story that was quickly revealed as fiction by the internet. We expected interest, skepticism, and laughter. We didn’t anticipate the outpouring of genuine support, due partially to the credulity with which this story was so extensively and immediately reported.

We did make a “sex tape,” and we want you to watch it. We released it as a slowly-unveiling conspiracy, inspired in equal part by The X-Files, Nathan for You, and The KLF. It’s a project that allowed us to play with science fiction, the attention economy, clickbait journalism, and celebrity sex tapes all at once.

lol even Kim is subtweeting Yacht https://t.co/80hB9z1DTB — Sarah (@SarahSahim) May 10, 2016

If you tried to purchase the video here, your card was never charged. This was not designed to make money or sell records, but to explore the intersection of privacy, media, and celebrity. We enjoy and have spent a decade creating multi-faceted projects that unfold over time, using the most current tools at our disposal.

There is one dark note we want to address. We never make light of victims of any form of sexual abuse. Frankly, it’s disturbing to us that press outlets could make the incredibly irresponsible leap from “celebrity sex tape,” which is the cultural trope this project explicitly references, to “revenge porn,” which is unfunny, disgusting, morally repugnant, and completely unrelated. Even within the fictional narrative we created, there was no violence or exploitation. It was always about agency and proactive empowerment.

We couldn’t have asked for better fans, and we realize we’ll need to try much harder to fool you. We will continue to work very hard to produce work that engages and responds to you.”

.@YACHT So maybe don’t blame the press for doing what survivor advocates fight for daily: Believing someone who says they were violated — Kim Bellware (@bellwak) May 10, 2016

@YACHT you literally pretended to be sexual assault victims for publicity. You are everything wrong with everything — Lindsay Erin (@Lovely_Linds) May 10, 2016

It’s not really clear exactly how the band came to the decision to pull something like this. We can only wonder.

Anyway, check the video out here if you’re in to that kind of thing.