(CNN) "Fyre" -- Netflix's version of a pair of dueling documentaries -- is positively bonkers, a feature-length look at the planned Fyre music festival that went spectacularly awry. But beyond the first-person accounts, it's a larger examination of the ability to sell consumers an image, and an "influencer" culture built around turning eager social-media users into marketing ambassadors.

In the case of Fyre, the image in question turned out to be a massive scam, one orchestrated by a con man, Billy McFarland, who had enlisted rapper Ja Rule as his partner. The pair seized on the idea of launching a major festival in the Bahamas, using images of sun-soaked models -- and the reach of their social-media feeds -- to market the event to young people with lots of disposable income.

McFarland was a gifted salesman, billing the concert as taking place on an exclusive island that once belonged to drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.

Yet to the growing horror and exasperation of those working for him (whose testimonials are the spine of the documentary), it turned out to be smoke and mirrors, leaving those who bought tickets essentially stranded in a far-away locale with marginal food and tents standing in for the beachfront villas they were promised, creating a "Lord of the Flies"-type melee.

Director Chris Smith (who previously helmed Netflix's excellent "Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond") not only draws upon video shot by the organizers, but cellphone footage from those who attended the festival, only to be shocked by the disastrous conditions; and local residents, many of whom weren't paid -- along with a host of others -- for an event they were told would bring millions in business along with it.

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