Byron Bay residents call on Netflix to scrap Byron Baes TV series
Residents and business owners in the New South Wales beachside town of Byron Bay have held an emergency meeting over the proposed Netflix original series, Byron Baes, and called on the streaming platform to cancel the show.
Locals, including the owners of the Byron establishments the Byron Bay General Store and No Bones restaurant, gathered on Friday night to discuss what could be done to protect the community.
Netflix Australia has described the show, to be made by Eureka Productions, as “a docu-soap series following a ‘feed’ of hot Instagrammers living their best lives, being their best selves, creating the best drama content. #nofilter guaranteed.”
An Arakwal Bumberin Bundjalung traditional owner, Delta Kay, said Byron Baes would “make a fantasy world about our little home town”.
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“We have huge environmental issues, huge social issues here,” Kay said. “I don’t want these influencers coming here and painting this fantasy picture that all is well in Byron Bay. It isn’t.”
The comedian Mandy Nolan, who has lived in Byron for 30 years and is running as the Greens candidate in the federal seat of Richmond, echoed concerns that the show would paper over the housing crisis that the town is now facing.
“Most of our friends, so many people that we know, have nowhere to live right now,” Nolan said. “They don’t really feel like you rolling into town telling a fantasy story that doesn’t exist.”
Kay said she was disappointed that no one from the Byron Baes’ production team had approached the traditional owners of the land before announcing the show.
“I have been contacted in the past with other big productions here for me to come and let everyone know they’re on Arakwal land and we want them to look after country and respect our community,” she said. “Everyone was fantastic and understands that for them to come here as visitors, we want them to fit into our way of life and look after our shire.
“Personally, as a traditional owner here I would like to see Byron Baes stopped. They really need to have a think about this and come in and talk to us locals before they even think about doing this production.”
A schoolteacher, Nick Gibbs, said he was worried about the impact that rebranding Byron as a “social media place” could have on local kids.
“The impact that social media, that Instagram has, on kids’ body issues, self-perception, that constant need to be validated or gratified, or the feeling of insecurity that can come from not gaining that, I find that it’s something [that] is not going to go away,” Gibbs said. “It’s something we can’t change but we need to manage.
“But when we get our community and our town, and the place where we live, given a forced rebrand like this, we don’t get that say, and we don’t deserve to have that say removed from us.”
A petition calling on business owners to refuse the show permission to film on their premises, started by a resident, Tess Hall, last week, has already amassed thousands of signatures. Businesses that have vowed to boycott the show include the fashion brands Afends, Zulu and Zephyr, and Spell.
The Byron shire mayor, Simon Richardson, is also asking the council to oppose the production. But Richardson recognised that NSW filming protocols meant the council wouldn’t be able to shut down filming except in exceptional circumstances.
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Guardian Australia understands that Netflix consulted with some locals before announcing its plans, including state and federal government representatives. The show is also engaging a high number of residents to work on its production team, as well as in catering, transport and accommodation.
Netflix’s director of content for Australia and New Zealand, Que Minh Luu, told Guardian Australia that “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.
“The reason behind choosing Byron Bay as a location was driven by the area’s unique attributes as a melting pot of entrepreneurialism, lifestyle and health practices, and the sometimes uneasy coming together of the traditional ‘old Byron’ and the alternative ‘new’, all of which we’ll address in the series.”
The show is scheduled to being filming next month.
