Sex Tape Hoax Enrages Reporters

Yacht originally posted May 9 on its Facebook page that technological missteps and the actions of “one morally abject person” resulted in an explicit video of Yacht’s romantically tied Claire Evans and Jona Bechtolt being publicly available.

They asked fans not to view the video and created a private site to release it if people felt they could not resist. Many supporters seemed to take the band’s message at face value, and did not attempt to actually watch the video, instead voicing support.

Media outlets that supported the band included the Los Angeles Times, Jezebel and Mic.

There was no sex tape. The video in question was actually a video of the band members engaging in foreplay, then transforming into aliens, a stunt to promote its upcoming music video. Media outlets and fans were outraged that the whole thing was a deception and played on their sympathy. Many felt that purporting to be victims in such a way set back efforts to seek justice for victims of “revenge porn.”

The L.A.Times joined in the backlash, suggesting that Yacht played upon the sympathy media felt for the plight of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews and the various female celebrities caught in the iCloud nude photo-dump known as “The Fappening.”

Yacht has since released several statements, including a “non-apology” and a more direct apology for the incident, stating “it was never our intention to mock or make light of anyone who has been a victim of a privacy violation like the one we mentioned.”

“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,” the band said in the original non-apology. “Even within the fictional narrative we created, there was no violence or exploitation. It was always about agency and proactive empowerment.”

The Times begged to differ, noting the band asked fans to not purchase the tape but to take their original false statement in good faith, and the non-apology apology ignored the claim made in the original statement that Yacht was taking legal action against the leaker.

“Isn’t that the definition of revenge porn?” the Times asked.