“Fyre Festival”: 30 Things That Were Massively Hyped But Turned Out To Be Huge Flops
Launching a new business or announcing a big idea is always a gamble. As hard as companies try, they can’t always predict exactly how the public will respond. But even when ideas flop, they can never be forgotten...
Redditors have recently been discussing the most hyped up ideas that ended up being huge failures, so we’ve gathered some of their spot-on responses below. From streaming platforms to modes of transportation, have fun taking a scroll through this memory lane of unfortunate ideas, and be sure to upvote the flops you find most amusing!
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So far, the Twitter acquisition and rebranding. An exceptionally expensive act of ego.
One of the dumbest marketing examples in history. You got a strong brand, even so, that your brand name became a verb in multiple languages. (we say twittern in German!) Something other companies dream about and then you change the brand name. That is probably on the top of the dumbest decisions scale!
Elon Musk. Turns out he's a moron.
What's sad is that all it would have taken was for people to genuinely listen to him for several minutes. He has never hidden his over-sized ego and under-sized talents.
NFTs
A scam from day one. Like buying a square foot of land in Scotland so you can declare yourself a Laird.
I’m showing my age, but the Geraldo Rivera special with Al Capone’s mysterious vault, which turned out to hold—nothing.
That was the most hilarious live TV moment I ever remember seeing, until Four Seasons Total Landscaping
For those old enough to remember: Segway was *MASSIVELY* hyped for months. It was meant to change modern mobility *forever*.
When they finally showed off that goofy thing, it basically became a proto-meme in the early internet era.
Hold up OP, memes were already well established and the internet was two decades old when Segway debuted.
Games of Thrones the final season
They ran ahead of the books and that's what happened. You just have to read the books as fast as Martin writes them. I still haven't finished Dance of Dragons. But I've read about fifty books since I started it.
No rush, I doubt he's ever going to actually finish the series. It's been nearly 13 years since the last book was published.
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The last 3 seasons. The final season was just awful. But since season 4 it was a s**t show.
I was a huge GOT fan... and then the last season happened and I have never looked at another piece of GOT media since. Kind of impressive you can kill something so popular so thoroughly.
Not for nothing but in this picture Sansa Stark really looks like the mom.
All seasons, TBF. Although, and please don't hate on me for saying so, I never actually watched any of them beyond a snippet or two of Sean Bean in the very early ones.
Genuine question, how do you know they were all bad if you didn't see them? I'm not a fan either, I'm more of a fan of the books, but I watched them all and there's a huge difference between the first and last season.
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Adulthood
Highly overrated. Yes, you can spend all your money at the sweet shop or pizzeria and game the whole day and no one complains ... but you won't, because rent, food, transport has to be paid too, and the household chores and work are waiting for you. So many duties and it never ends...
The Panama Papers.
Honestly, I'm still pissed nothing came of it.
Kim Kardashian's break the internet picture.
They were weird.
https://www.papermag.com/break-the-internet-kim-kardashian-cover
3d Televisions were presented as the next huge thing. There was a massive amount of hype being able to watch 3d movies and games from the comfort of your living room. It flopped when it launched due to the televisions being ridiculously expensive and the technology not being there during the era and being gimmicky once the appeal wore off for the people that bought them.
It wasn't the cost that flopped it. 3D movies have been around for over a hundred years, but each time new technology has been used to do it they hype has always been greater than the reality and each time they have eventually flopped. Why? Because I don't want to have to wear your stupid glasses that stop me seeing properly, that's why.
Google Glass was a huge deal when it was announced, and it was a real pioneer in the augmented reality category. It didn't sell all that well though, probably because it was expensive, around $1,500 if I remember right, and I don't reckon people found it very fashionable.
They still exist in niche applications, and have been quietly evolving for the last years. In 2023 Luxottica's RayBan launched a line of AR-equipped glasses developed from Google Glass patents. Google glass was a technology demonstrator, never meant to be "fashionable"; the tech is now slowly creeping into the mass market.
what was that google social media with circles, google plus?
Target in Canada!
Heard so many people addicted to the store in the US, everyone was excited to have it here, but it flopped, stores opened being half empty, more expensive then the stores they replaced, limited selections… they only lasted a few years
Walmart in Germany... However, the Wendy's in the Netherlands (and Belgium and Luxemburg) is a success, main reason is the fact that it is a local fastfood-chain that existed before the US one expanded towards Europe. The US company tried and tries their luck at court over and over again to claim name rights, and every time they loose. Btw: Wendy is the name of the daughter of the Dutch founder. And a German horse magazine for teens bears that name, too.
Area 51 raid
I did appreciate the guy who turned "Naruto Run" into a verb.
Beanie Babies - a masterclass in hyping up something that’s worth peanuts!
Killer/Africanized Bees. Lots of fear mongering over those in the 80s, over a lot of nothing.
Don't forget the "Murder Hornets" of 2019/2020. American news media loves fear mongering.
The end of the world in 2012
And 2005, and 2000, and 1998, and 1995, and 1991, and 1988, and 1984, and 1980, and 1976. Do you see how this works?
Quibi - $1.75 billion blown in six months on a streaming service no one wanted.
Before it became a punchline people were worried that Battlefield Earth would be a dangerously effective recruiting tool for Scientology.
This movie f*****g sucks. And Scientology is ridiculous! Can't believe people still fall for that bad science fiction story! If you haven't heard of it, please read about the Galactic Overlord Xenu, who bombed the Earth with Hydrogen Bombs. Why Scientologists aren't laughed at constantly is beyond me.
The American version of "Coupling", which was being hyped as the next big NBC sitcom after "Friends" went off the air. When cast members were doing interviews to promote it, they were so assured that it would be a success that they were already talking about multiple seasons.
It was cancelled after four episodes.
American remakes of British comedy shows rarely work because the sense of humours are different. The Office and Shameless are rare exceptions because they adapted for American audiences. It should have come as a surprise to no-one that US versions of The Inbetweeners, the IT crowd, Absolutely Fabulous, Men Behaving Badly or Gavin and Stacey flopped.
Scooter sharing. Raised millions for a bunch of companies to dump those scooters on our streets, then in a matter of time, cities and towns started to either ban or regulate them, and there's very few survivors. For the price to ride a scooter, it's way cheaper to pay to ride the bus.
Oh, I didn't know that the scooter system didn't work so well elsewhere, here in Finland it's been a great succeess in bigger cities. (except they are gathered away in the winter). They cost about the same as a bus ticket, a bit more if you drive long, but they offer flexibility the busses can't. And this is even greater achievement, because busses here work extremely well.
New Coke.
The end result is you need to buy Coca-Cola from Mexico if you want to drink "real" Coca-Cola because the Coca-Cola "Classic" sold in most places is using high fructose corn syrup instead of cane sugar.
[Dan & Dave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_%26_Dave) was an advertising and merchandising campaign by American shoe manufacturer Reebok during the build-up to the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. The promotion was meant to generate excitement and support for the Olympic competition between American decathletes Dan O'Brien and Dave Johnson. *However, the campaign had to be modified when O'Brien failed to qualify for the Olympics.*
Note: this post originally had 47 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
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The Rapture. I'm kinda convinced that it happened, nobody was good enough and we've never noticed that the Second Coming came and left. We're just unwittingly dragging ourselves through the End Times like some sort of Monty Python sketch IRL.
Northern lights in southern Manitoba. Particularly in any city limits. Sure, every now and then during certain times of the year you might catch them faintly. But nothing like the vibrancy and frequency the tourism industry is trying to sell visitors. You have to go far, FAR out of city limits, where the light pollution is minimal, and watch the weather reports. Normally, most nights, there's nothing.
I have an example of one that was hyped like crazy, flopped, and redeemed itself. Cyberpunk 2077. One of the most anticipated games of 2020, but when it launched (especially on PS4 and Xbox One), it was a broken mess to the point of last generation console owners of the game getting refunds. Years of patches, a critically acclaimed anime (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners), and a critically acclaimed expansion (Phantom Liberty), and now it is has seemingly redeemed a terrible launch.
So you think a fascist, racist, homophobic, immigrant-hating, science-denying, misogynistic, orange Oompa Loompa with tiny hands is better and going to save America *insert a screaming eagle*
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The Rapture. I'm kinda convinced that it happened, nobody was good enough and we've never noticed that the Second Coming came and left. We're just unwittingly dragging ourselves through the End Times like some sort of Monty Python sketch IRL.
Northern lights in southern Manitoba. Particularly in any city limits. Sure, every now and then during certain times of the year you might catch them faintly. But nothing like the vibrancy and frequency the tourism industry is trying to sell visitors. You have to go far, FAR out of city limits, where the light pollution is minimal, and watch the weather reports. Normally, most nights, there's nothing.
I have an example of one that was hyped like crazy, flopped, and redeemed itself. Cyberpunk 2077. One of the most anticipated games of 2020, but when it launched (especially on PS4 and Xbox One), it was a broken mess to the point of last generation console owners of the game getting refunds. Years of patches, a critically acclaimed anime (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners), and a critically acclaimed expansion (Phantom Liberty), and now it is has seemingly redeemed a terrible launch.
So you think a fascist, racist, homophobic, immigrant-hating, science-denying, misogynistic, orange Oompa Loompa with tiny hands is better and going to save America *insert a screaming eagle*
Load More Replies...