LOS ANGELES – YACHT, a self-obsessed duo of performing pseudo-intellectuals who identify themselves as “a Band, Belief System and Business,” this week faked a sex tape leak in order to drum up publicity for the dull, machine-generated rhythms and tones they try to pass off as music.

Nobody seems to give a particular shit about the alleged sexually explicit footage, according to both music and porn industry analysts.

While the publicity stunt has ruffled a few feathers among those who think it might not be the coolest idea ever conceived to prey on people’s natural inclination to feel sorry for victims of revenge porn as a means of generating publicity for one’s band, celebrity sex tape mogul Kenton “KP” Pratt said this alleged celeb sex tape has yet to draw much interest on the market.

“Usually, any sort of connection to a famous person, no matter how tenuous it may be, is enough to get at least a little hype going around a sex tape,” Pratt said. “Hell, I even got dozens of calls about the Screech sex tape back in the day, but my phone hasn’t lit up with a single call or text asking me about these BOAT people. So they’re either really, really ugly, or even less compelling in terms of personality than the average reality TV contestant — and that’s no easy feat, obviously.”

Asked whether the news of the sex tape had caused any sort of stir in the music business, Lucian Rapino Azoff, chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Global Music Nation Entertainment Publishing Group, seemed to be completely unaware of the controversial publicity stunt.

“Who or what the fuck is ‘YECH?’” Azoff asked. “Sounds kinda like the noise I made after listening to the most recent single from that Nick Jonas kid.”

After looking over the YACHT website and the band’s mission statement, Azoff found it difficult to stop laughing long enough to answer additional questions.

“Well, I guess if pseudo-intellectual drivel on a web page were record sales, these fuckers would be sitting on a pile of platinum by now,” Azoff eventually said, wiping tears from his eyes. “But so far as the idea of generating publicity with a sex tape rumor goes, this ain’t exactly Rihanna blowing Bieber, or Kanye West taking it up the ass from Jay-Z, now is it?”

While it seems fairly obvious at this point the alleged sex tape leak is actually an intentional hoax undertaken to generate publicity (the band appears to have admitted such in advance in an email to certain members of the media, according to Jezebel) many of YACHT’s fans say they still believe in the duo and will continue to support them.

“I just think it’s amazing how they’re standing up for themselves and finding a way to turn this horrible invasion of their privacy into something positive to inspire their fans,” said Charlotte Elderberry, a 19-year-old college student from Palo Alto, Calif. “And if it is a publicity stunt, I think it’s a brave and innovative stunt that really shows their total dedication to authenticity, and not at all something that crassly exploits the media’s hunger for revenge porn stories or plies their fans’ empathy into profit in the grossest, most cynical way possible.”

Other YACHT fans are less forgiving, however — particularly those who had taken to social media to defend the duo against their detractors following the Facebook post in which the alleged leak was first announced.

“To think I stayed up all night calling people asshats and fucktards for talking shit about Claire and Jona, when clearly I’m the douchenozzle for believing these two lying sack-of-shit cock-gobblers,” said Pat Spence, a film student at UCLA who says he has been a fan of the duo since 2009. “At this point, I’m so disgusted I would totally boycott purchasing their music — if I hadn’t already downloaded everything they’ve ever recorded for free, that is.”

Meanwhile, rival California-based electropop duo SPATULA this morning issued a strongly worded statement denouncing YACHT as “a pair of unoriginal con artists who use deceitful sensationalism to make up for their lack of taste and talent.”

“As true artists and people of integrity who believe sex should never be commercialized and something as pure and beautiful as music should never be promoted through a disgusting publicity stunt that is clearly designed to latch onto something unfortunate that is already making headlines, SPATULA hereby condemns YACHT for its crass, exploitative and offensive hoax,” the statement said. “To further register our extreme disapproval, at our next show SPATULA will be performing completely nude with 18-inch black dildos inserted up our butts while playing nothing but covers originally recorded by recently departed musical legends Prince, David Bowie, Merle Haggard and Lemmy Kilmister.”

Image: Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans, founders of YACHT and sex-tape-leak fakers. Press photo via Facebook.