YACHT and their sex tape, which they claimed was leaked by nefarious sources yesterday, has been proven to be nothing more than an incredibly misguided attempt to generate sales and in their own words “explore the intersection of privacy, media, and celebrity” – which will undoubtedly earn the band the title of shittiest PR stunt of 2016.

Straight off the bat, I just want to say that my anger and disgust are not because two hipsters from Portland pulled a fast one on me with their stunning criticism of today’s media. I tried to find their “leaked” tape yesterday, since reporting the site that did the actual hosting seemed kind of important and in hindsight, the fact that I couldn’t actually find any evidence of YACHT’s tape being leaked anywhere online, should have probably made me question the legitimacy of the entire story.

However, I chose to believe two people that claimed they were victims of a violation of privacy and, like most sites angrily reporting on the fallout from this story, my gripe sits with the way that YACHT handled the issues of revenge porn and privacy hacking. At the end of the day, their entire aim was to get as many people to view this video as possible, one which could have been achieved differently and without resorting to a parody of a violation of the couple’s privacy.

https://www.facebook.com/yacht/posts/10153803801972479
One of the first to break the story about what a bunch of bullshit this is was Jezebel. They confirmed that not only does an actual sex tape not exist, but that this entire story was a carefully orchestrated ruse which YACHT had been planning for some time, contacting numerous sites with their elevator pitch for what in their minds must have seemed like the greatest PR stunt in history! Jezebel reports that a colleague of theirs at Gawker Media received this email on April 6.

“For the upcoming music video for our song, “I Wanna Fuck You Til I’m Dead,” we’re faking a sex tape leak.

In the days leading up to the video’s release, we’re going to pretend we were hacked, share and delete confessional social media posts on the subject of our privacy, then try to “get out in front of it” and sell the sex tape, fake a server crash, etc”

At least one of the members of YACHT is in their mid-30’s and let’s face it, no one from that band are famous enough to be disconnected from reality. So riddle me this, how was everyone involved in this so utterly clueless about what an incredibly fucked up issue revenge porn is, one which has been on the forefront of a lot of discussions regarding social justice and the internet? Even YACHT’s PR team were quick to point out that they had no knowledge of this stunt taking place.

All that YACHT had to do to ensure that their weak-as-fuck joke about them (SPOILERS!) turning into aliens when they fuck landed without making them look like exploitive money hungry pieces of shit, was to just say, “We have a sex tape”, put it online, keep anyone from seeing it for a day through fake server crashes and error messages and then once enough hype had been generated over the course of the day, reveal it to be the arty garbage that it is.

Instead, what this duo achieved instead was sympathy and an outpouring of support from not only their fans but also victims of revenge porn and privacy hacks. Only for YACHT to then say, “LOL got you”, and being shocked 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.’”

Yes, it’s all on the media and not YACHT’s complete lack of foresight. In their original message to fans in which they announced the tape being leaked, they use a number of absolutely knee slapping sentences which clearly indicate that this is all just a hilarious cultural trope parody!

“…without our previous knowledge nor consent…”

“…humiliating blurring of the public and private…”

“…we still deserve to have a choice about what we share with the world…”

“…This is an exploitation…”

Cultural parody! Forget for a minute that ordinary people have found themselves in the all too real situation of having their private videos or photos leaked and consequently having to face the barrage of social humiliation and backlash which is all too common in our society. Forget that numerous young people have committed suicide after falling victim to revenge porn. Forget that people’s social lives and careers are destroyed after similar incidents befall them. Forget all of it, because, “LOL! I can’t believe YACHT were aliens all along! “

By knowingly exploiting the good-will of their fans and the general public, YACHT have managed to showcase their lack of moral fortitude and have inadvertently turned the lens of social commentary on themselves. Essentially they’ve proved that life imitates art, by becoming the morally bankrupt and greedy aliens from Futurama, instead of the cool ones they thought everyone would think they were.

Image: jedaniels-adventures.blogspot

Image: jedaniels-adventures.blogspot

Image: ohnotheydidnt.livejournal

YACHT, the electropop duo consisting of Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans, have had their sex tape leaked online, and are now selling it for $5.

In the group’s Facebook post, it was revealed that through a “series of technological missteps and one morally abject person” a video tape that the pair, who have been romantically involved since 2006, recorded for their own personal use ended up online. The Portland duo concluded by stating that, “We have commenced legal proceedings against the aforementioned person.” The band also urged their fans and the general public to not view the tape, which they deemed to be exploitive and stated that, “our hope is that you fundamentally understand that choice and you choose not to view a private act that was inadvertently made public.”

Shortly after this post, YACHT remembered that the internet doesn’t give a fuck about people’s privacy especially if they are even a bit famous, and decided to start selling the tape themselves for $5. In a second post, the artists very logically argue that since the video is out there now, the best they can do to “take some kind of ownership over what happened”, and basically charge money to people that want to see the tape instead of letting porn sites profit from the traffic. “If you feel like you 100% have to see this tape, don’t stream it on some tube site, or download a torrent,” they wrote.  “Instead, we beg you to download the video, Louis C.K.-style, directly from us.”

Having your sex tape leaked on the internet is fucking bullshit, so if you can somehow make the best of it and spin some profit out of a shitty situation, why not? Feel free to help YACHT fight the good fight by purchasing their sex-tape here.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2V3IwQiGD4]

Image: ohnotheydidnt.livejournal

Words by Dalton Woods

YACHT’s latest LP, I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler, once again sees the Los Angeles-based electroclash band drawing heavily on both new wave and the bands of the 2000s that already drew heavily on new wave.

The opening track, Miles & Miles, sets the synth-punk tone of the album, combining digital effects and electric guitars with Claire L. Evans’ vocals, which become easily recognisable as the album progresses. White Mirror is a cheesy miscalculation of a pop song. YACHT channels Talking Heads on Matter, with its syncopated rhythms and sharp strums of the guitar, only it has none of the song-writing ability and personality that David Byrne provides. Ringtone is straight up grating. The album finds some form in the middle with I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler followed by L.A. Plays Itself, both of which succeed on the simple basis of a driving beat and an earworm chorus.

I Wanna Fuck You Till I’m Dead begins refreshingly with an effect-heavy guitar and a melodic verse, until vocoders take control of the track. Hologram is a small scale electro-funk tune that again relies on digital effects on the vocals, to greater effect in this instance. The following track, Don’t Be Rude, after an energetic and irresistible opening verse, is let down slightly by a goofy – with reference to sound and lyrical content – chorus. Electric guitars feature most heavily on War on Women, however it goes along at the same pace with the same vocal delivery as the other tracks. Closing track, The Entertainment, continues the trend of heavily digitally altered vocals and dance rhythms. The tracks start to sound similar early on, with little variation in the vocals, rhythm, and instrumentation.

On this album, YACHT continues to employ a sound whose revival peaked about five years ago when LCD Soundsystem and Cut Copy were seamlessly combining dance floor fun with electric guitars. This would be fine if the hooks were sufficiently catchy, the synth patterns sufficiently well crafted, the beats sufficiently infectious, the tracks sufficiently varied, but the album is, for the most part, disappointingly pedestrian.

Playing with syncopation, vocoders, and synths, at least in the way that YACHT does on this record, is not particularly interesting or inventive, and I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler has little else to offer. It’s a regressive approach and it’s a regression for YACHT, whose earlier work, especially I Believe in You. Your Magic Is Real, demonstrated founding member Jona Bechtolt’s ability for pairing pop melodies with dance rhythms, filtered through eclectic and exotic genres. The new album, despite being one-note, is somewhat redeemed by moments of solid pop song-writing that elevate it beyond total schlock.

YACHT may feel that they have something interesting to say regarding 21st Century society – as suggested by the album’s quirky title and the lyrical focus on distinctly modern issues – however they fail to write or perform anything that will really make you pay attention. Relying on lyrics, which are not a strength of theirs, was also one of the shortcomings of their 2011 album Shangri-La.

The fascination with the 80s’ vision of the future, and its incongruence with the present, has been put to music more than enough times in the past decade, and yet YACHT still chose to focus on this worn out concept and use a worn out sound.