Byron Bay locals protest planned Netflix reality series
— Angry Byron Bay locals are protesting the filming of a reality television series that some fear will damage the reputation of their trendy Australian tourist town.
Around 100 surfers paddled to sea Tuesday to form a cancel symbol off the coast of the New South Wales state town in the hope that Netflix will can the series about social media influencers.
Several Byron Bay businesses have refused to sign filming permits that would allow “Byron Baes,” a contemporary abbreviation of “Byron Babes,” to be shot on their premises.
“It’s potentially going to threaten businesses if the portrayal of Byron is as absurd as I guess a lot of the doco-soap-reality shows are,” Byron Shire Mayor Simon Richardson told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“As a community, we should have a right to be able to not be exploited
and to go about our business and also just have a community that has its real and genuine concerns and challenges shared rather than a picture postcard filmed with people who have potentially been here for five minutes,” Richardson added.
Ben Gordon is refusing to allow the eight-episode series to be filmed at his business, The Byron Bay General Store.
“They’re proposing to drag our name through the mud and make millions of dollars without offering anything back to the community and completely misrepresenting who we are and it’s totally wrong,” Gordon told Nine Network television at the Main Beach protest.
“There was no consultation whatsoever. They just came in unannounced,” Gordon added.
Gordon led a community meeting on the subject last week and complained that most of the cast were not from Byron Bay.
Netflix said its first Australian reality series would “aim to build a connection between the people we meet in the show and the audience.”
“The show is authentic and honest, and while it carries all the classic hallmarks of the form and embraces the drama, heartbreak and conflict that makes for such entertaining viewing, our goal is to lift the curtain on influencer culture to understand the motivation, the desire, and the pain behind this very human need to be loved,” a Netflix statement said.