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So, you know, check them out. And now, I'll work for my sponsors. From K-Lit, this is ReplyAll, I know it's cool. I heard a really crazy story recently about TikTok.
I read about it in an article by one of my favorite tech reporters, Taylor Rens, who said the New York Times. And one of the big reasons that I read Taylor Stories is so that I can understand TikTok better, because if I'm being honest, my comprehension of TikTok is mediocre at us. And over the past couple of years, TikTok is being a big part of a beat. I just want to know what's going on.
And TikTok is sort of the place to know what's going on, you know? What have you, Taylor Dior, for you, Paige, to send you? I mean, I guess it's current, that stuff. How do you know?
It's not like current events is the wrong way to put it. Okay. It's not like, sorry, Alex, that's wrong. No, it's just more like, it's more like, it's more like, it's more like, I don't know how to describe it, but you just kind of like, I mean, it's kind of like Twitter, right?
You go on and it's not just like current events. It's just like, you kind of see what people are talking about. It's almost like, showing up at school. You know, used to like show up at school.
I mean, I went to like, a big public school growing up. It's like, you show up and you kind of just like, know what everyone's talking about. You know, we catch up with your friends. It's like that.
It's like, you kind of go on, yeah, there's a lot of garbage, but things bubble up, you know? I'm curious, like, can you tell me how you ended up coming across Adrienne's get back? Like, how did it bubble up to you? No, no, I was probably to talk for you, Paige, probably like mid-May.
And I just started to see a lot of people talking about this thing called Adrienne's get back, like it kind of became a meme. I clicked around and found the original post. It was basically this like, little flyer that was encouraging. People to show up to a 17-year-old birthday party on Huntington Beach.
Huntington Beach is a town about half an hour outside of Los Angeles. You don't have that flyer handy. Do you know what it said? I do.
Yeah, let me pull it on up. Hold on. OK, here. So it was essentially a repost of a Snapchat announcement.
Well, basically, it was like this short little like video of kind of like a party and it just said, with a little alarm emoji, Adrienne's kickback location, Huntington Beach at the fire pits, time 7.30 p.m, date May 22nd. And then it also said something about chair 13. What is chair 13? It's a life card chair out of the beach.
And it said, slide through this Saturday, we finna turn up. Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. And underneath it, it's playing the song that I don't get the name of it. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I clicked on the TikTok audio immediately. And there are already videos using that sound. That song was essentially the anthem for Adrienne's kickback, I guess. And it kind of became this party sound.
Like it appeared in all of the TikToks that were about it. It appeared in all of the TikTok videos with audio that everyone was using. It looked like something that somebody would just send to their group of friends, you know? So yeah, it seemed like people were sort of just coming across this random kid's birthday invite.
And that's actually what was happening. Adrienne's a real kid. It was a real birthday invite. He was turning 17.
A friend of his shared it with a lot of people. And, you know, for the mysteries of the TikTok algorithm it just caught on. So, you know, I think that in addition to spreading on TikTok, the flyer was also sent to thousands of people in Snapchat. And so I think, you know, I mean, it's classic, like, high school party.
It's like when word gets out, word gets out. You've been on TikTok for the past week. I know you've heard about Adrienne's kickback. I just want to know why I woke up one day and my entire TikTok feed was Adrienne in the kickback.
Okay, literally, I got my phone blown up so much. Oh, Adrienne's kickback. It's just with TikTok, everything goes bigger, faster, because of the 4U page. So, things can spread to a level that it's hard to achieve on other platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
And when they can go bigger faster, why is that? Because, rather than having to seek it out, it just comes to you. Exactly. You don't have to follow anyone to be bombarded with their content.
And tons of influencers were posting about this. Artists like 24k golden, same-this-way-boys-know-back are really popular TikTok. Members of the Hype House, one of the popular TikTok groups, members of FaZe Clan. So, they're posting about it.
And the impression that they're giving is like, hey, we're gonna roll up on Adrienne's kickback. Exactly. They're posting about it. They're implying that they plan to come, saying like, their Hype to be there, all of that.
And so, this is just whipping up children into a frenzy. You got Adrienne's kickback. Whoo-hoo! Are you going to Adrienne's kickback, like, any rice?
Okay, so I got a couple questions about Adrienne's kickback. Like, what question did I say? Is it like, are you going for real? Like, for real?
Not show out. Like, it's been in it. And for a question, what kind of code are we making? Like, are we even, like, streaming code?
Like, like, chill, like, for real? Like, for real? Like, what are we wearing? Not, like, this is for Adrienne.
Like, who can be playing Adrienne? They said that it's Tower 13. People were talking about even his kickback. It was a weekend.
Like, it was a festival. And the only thing attracting everyone to come was just the idea that was going to be huge. Because, to remind you, this was in May of 2021, right in that heady moment in the US, where COVID numbers were dropping, vaccinations were up, and it seemed to some people like TikTok anyway. Like, for the first time in 14 months, like, maybe, if there was any time to leave all of that tragedy behind and really go nuts, it was now.
I talked to four of those people. How did you hear about it in the first place? Honestly, my four-year page is just blowing up with videos. Video on video, like, I saw like the first three, and I usually get the initial indication.
You know, this is going to blow up. This is Andrew. He's 19, and he lives in New York, California. On the outskirts of LA.
And the next day, I open TikTok again. It was probably about 20 posts. I saw about Adrienne's kickback. People were making memes about it.
I was like, okay. Yeah, I got to hop on this wave, you know, before it's like huge. Why did you want to blow up? Why did you want to catch, like, the, uh, for your page draft?
Um... I don't know. My boy blew up on TikTok a couple weeks ago. Uh-huh.
So I was kind of jealous of him with a little bit of Loki. He was like, you know, like, he had this video that had, like, two million views. I was like, man, I'm gonna get a video of, like, three million. People were talking about coming from, like, Puerto Rico and South America coming to Adrian's kickback.
And I'm, like, a local to Huntington Beach, so I'm always there. And I just thought it was really cool that Huntington Beach is the spot where, like, half of LA would need up and just throw, like, the biggest party ever. It's like living down the street from Woodstock or something. Oh, yeah.
They basically are generations of what's talking away. Like, maybe, maybe a little bit. If you were to look on TikTok that Friday morning, you would have seen tons of videos of people already on their way to Southern California, so they could be there for the Friday pregame. People were taking, like, 15-hour road trips.
They were taking flights. They were taking flights. I even saw one video of a squad of skateboarders. There was, like, a dozen kids in baggy pants with floppy hair, weaving through the streets of LA.
And Andrew was one of these people. He decided to check out the scene on Friday night. And so, what were you and your friends hoping this party was going to be like? I was expecting fireworks.
People were going to be, like, running around the beach. People were going to be jumping in the water. You know, it was going to be like a ton of girls and kind of drinks and everything. Like, just a regular party.
You know, just a lit party. That was what I was expecting. How long do you think it had been since you'd been to a real party before this? Man, probably about two years before that.
Oh, my God. Like a Ranger, yeah. So this was May, which means that your senior year got cut short. Your senior year of high school got cut short by COVID.
Yes. Yeah. That was a suck, man. What was that like?
It wasn't great. It just happened very quick. At first, people were excited because we just assumed we'd be out for two weeks. Like, it was like winter break everything.
And everybody was really excited at school. And they said, all right, everyone's going home for one week. One week or two weeks. Two weeks turned to, like, the rest of the school year.
So for the rest of the time, I was just at home on my laptop doing canvas, like worksheets and stuff. Sounds lonely, man. Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah.
So, Andrew, in May of 2021, he finished his first year of college. He got in both shots of the vaccine, and he decided to check out the camera. What was it like when you showed up? It was dead.
It was just like this group of people. I remember one guy's from like Armenia or something. He was like from far away. And then there was this other guy who was just walking around recording everything.
It was kind of like the comedy for the storm. Can you introduce yourself? My name is Marcella. I'm 18, and I'm from Redmond, California.
I'm just a college student. I got a craft in at the community college. And for fun, in my free time, I liked a party with my friends. Marcella told me when the first college shot down happened.
She was a junior in high school, a competitive junior year. And so for the last two years of high school, she just missed out on everything she was looking forward to. Honestly, it was really sad. It was really disappointing.
Senior year. We didn't get any cheer competitions. We barely got any football games. And seeing the seniors now do that stuff.
I get a little delis. I tell my friends all the time. It sucks when we do a competition. It feels exhilarating.
I mean, during this time, you crack out on energy drinks. You have sugar or something. But when you finish that routine, you just feel on top of the world. And when you know you won, you're happy for weeks, months.
It's insane. So, can you tell me why you wanted to go? Do you want to get back? Well, I was already out there for a little beach trip that some of the seniors were planning.
And we were really close to our tower 13. We were on our tower 5. But we could see the crowd performing. There was a lot of people there.
I get excited because I'm like, no way. This is actually a thing. People came out. So we're like, let's make our time worthwhile.
Let's make our drive worth the drive. And so when you get there, what is it like? It's bad. I don't know what that is.
There were just random teenagers everywhere. We're all just standing around awkward. A little cold. There's no music.
We're all just waiting for something to happen. I've seen a lot of video footage of Friday. And it's exactly like this. In the videos, it's late afternoon.
It's still laid out. It seems windy. There are teenagers just wondering around filming, hoping to pick up your sort of life screens. But there's really nothing going on.
And then about 30 minutes in. About 30 people show up. What are you doing? What are you doing?
What are you doing? It got lit when this guy came with six boxes of pizza. And we're just feeding everybody. I thought I was like, sick as hell.
Yeah. He gave me some pizza and I was just like, okay, this is lit. And then people were standing around the bonfire. And then basically within 10 minutes it was flooded.
Okay, come on. It's not the run. It's a heck not the run. It's a heck not the run.
Maybe like 500 people at the exact spot. Like people just hanging out like big, sort of people. Didn't make you nervous to be in a big crowd like that. I don't know.
A little. But I think by that time I was like already vaccinated. Like I already had COVID. So I wasn't worried about getting it.
I brought my foreign cousin. She was from Indonesia. And like she was so confused. Poor girl.
Like I brought her to this crazy, crazy random beach rave. You know, like I lost her. I lost her too. So.
Did you enjoy herself or was it just like? I think she enjoyed herself. Yeah. It was kind of fun.
I think she was mostly confused. And like we were getting our feet set down. Cause it was huge crowd. So like she was just like kind of irritated with all the people.
Cause like there was no room. Like there's just so many people. I got 6,000. I got 6,000.
I got 6,000. I got 6,000. Everyone is out there. A lot of people came from like other state.
Like I remember meeting a couple people and they came from like Arizona. I met this group of guys that drove from Arizona. And yeah, they're telling me how they drove from Arizona. I got an Airbnb locally.
And like they're just there. And they wanted to find out who Adrian was. And I was like, yo, I know Adrian. Like I'll lead you guys to Adrian.
And I couldn't find where anybody was. And I look back at Tower 13. And there's people like starting to try to tear down like the beach tower. And the video is turning into a sea like tower 13.
Because it is so overtaking my teenagers. And they're just screaming. People are on top of it like jumping. People are like shaking it.
I just start running over. And I know the party is like right now. Like people are like have music blasting. Like fire.
What's going on? 830. Absolutely nuts. And then police were like swarming the beach.
Trying to get people off. Do you remember like a specific event that caused them to start to begin or anything like that? Well cops are always there. Like I don't know who snitched.
But they definitely had a heads up and they were asking us questions. But they weren't having a reason to shut it down. I don't know if anybody's been on the floor. It was like on the floor.
Yeah. Some sort of cops take cops. And then the cops would like shine a light at us. So we'd like move location.
But then it was crazy. So like the cops would show up and they start shining a light on you. They'd run to a different part of the beach and start partying. Yes.
In my head I have this image of like you know if you like run it, run it like a seal. And it flies like 50 feet down the beach. That's like a match. No that was it.
There was a moment where like after the cops chased us down for a little. We all went into a circle and we were all dancing. There was like this dance group thing. It was such a bi.
We were there in like the middle and we could hear the music clearly. But like out of the movie. Just the music was so loud and like everyone was just having fun. And they were just that moment in time where like they like slow down.
And it's like a real like party. It was just bodies and bodies on the beach. By around nine o'clock the cops finally managed to push most of the people off of the beach. And it ran around to find his friends who he lost in the crowd.
Marcella drove home to make her feel. Friday night the pregame for Adrian's kickback. It was over. After the break.
Saturday. The day of the kickback. Welcome back to the show. I guess the first question is check it's easy.
That's the hardest question to answer. Everybody always ask me that. This is easy. He's 21.
He was an L.A. And she is exactly the kind of person that so many of the people who went to Adrian's kickback are going to see there. He's a YouTube star. How did you take off on YouTube?
Like what was the thing that's her hit? At the end of senior year in school I started making full on prank videos on college campuses. Like social experiments like you know awkward handshaking people something that's funny to watch. And then I fled L.A.
And I jumped off of a peer for a girl's number for video. And then that video just worlds are posted against millions of views on all these meme pages. Yeah. And then on YouTube it just started blowing up.
I'm actually wearing a straight edge sweater right now. And I don't have a problem with people who drink or smoke. I want to make it cool to be sober because there's a lot of people that don't even want to be smoking that smoke purely on peer pressure. Do you win when other people are like at a party like that or even at a party that's maybe in smaller with friends who are drinking or smoking?
Like do you have fun or does it feel annoying to be around a bunch of drunk or some people? No I think it's funny. I think it's really fun because it's like when I'm around people who are drunk I start to get into that energy as if I'm drunk and I've had people come up to me at parties and stuff. And they're like, yo, I thought you didn't drink.
Like what happened? I'm like, I didn't drink. I'm like, I didn't drink. I'm just having fun.
I'm just having fun. It's easy like many other people because of the coronavirus and they're like, yo, I thought you didn't drink. Like what happened? And I'm like, I'm not, I didn't drink anything.
I'm just having fun. Like can I not, can I not have fun? It's easy like many other people because of the coronavirus and I had a chance to go to a party in a long time. And then on the morning of Saturday, make me second.
You started seeing all these TikToks about Friday night on the beach. If you're wondering what the beach is like, I don't know who the fuck Adrian is. I don't think anybody knows who Adrian is. Keep in mind, this is a kickback.
This is not a party. This is not a party. We're in a pandemic right now. So, you know, it'd be totally responsible for a party right now.
That's why this is a kickback. The area around the beach was already teeming with people, everywhere you are. The beach, you just could not even go into the beach, like, too many people. Right around the pier.
It just looked like a concert with no stage. It was so loud, everybody was yelling every zone, Adrian. Nobody even knows who he is. You know, since I'm known as a pier jump guy, that's a video that blew me up and since we're here at a pier, there were fans that came up to me.
And they were like, yo, season, you're going to jump off the pier, like, right now. And so, yeah, I went to the railing and there were other people jumping off the pier to the crowd. It took me a while because at first it was like, people were kind of spreading away because they were scared that people were jumping and three people were like, I got you, I got you, but three people come on. Yeah.
Yeah. So, I waited until like, there were more people that kind of got closer and made it more confident for me to jump. Everybody was yelling, like, everybody was chanting. What were they yelling?
They were chanting my name because they knew who I was. And as soon as I jumped, like, there were fireworks going off. And then everybody catching me. And then they were carrying me for a while.
And I was just like floating on top of people. It was unreal. It was really unreal. For those 10 seconds of me crowd searching, it felt like it was like my concert.
It was pretty sick. What was it like to see people jumping off the pier? Can you describe it? Oh, it was insane.
Like, I'm like a huge, like, warrior. So, like, I was really anxious. Like, I thought they were going to break their ankles. And I remember, like, one of the friends I was with was like, oh, should I go do it?
And you're like, like, no. Like, I don't know. It was just like really crazy. That's Jaden.
And the person who left in the background is Marcelo. The two of them are friends. They were cheer together. Jaden says they balance each other out.
I would say I'm definitely the anxious one. And so it's kind of the one I have to, like, calm down sometimes. She kind of just says everything on her mind. Being stuck at home during COVID wasn't all bad for Jaden.
She's an introvert. So, not even people around all the time. It was mostly okay. But it was a lot of like the cheer aspects.
Like, cheer was such a big part of my life. And we didn't get to do, like, any other things we would look forward to. Like, we spent our whole high school, like, looking forward to our senior year. And then it was just, like, completely disregarded.
So, when Saturday, the official day of Adrienne's kick program, Jaden and her friends joked about going without any actual intention of doing so. And then they realized, like, oh, you know, we don't have anything else to do. Marcelo decided to sit Saturday out, but Jaden and some other friends drove down. So when you got there, like, what was the mood like?
Um, it was, like, kind of overwhelming. Like, we had a park really far. But still, like, a whole walk. Like, there were still people behind us.
Like, we were all going to the same place and stuff. And, like, people were, like, honking their horns and stuff. And, like, it was so light outside. And it was just, like, a ton of people.
It was kind of scary, like, walking into it. And then it just, like, only dollars. People were, like, climbing trees and stuff. And just, like, throwing, like, full, like, beer bottles or, like, beer cans.
Like, I don't know. Like, people were, like, getting hit with, like, heavy bottles. Like, it was, like, insane. That's not shitty.
That's not shitty. No, it was crazy. Like, I'm, like, a really anxious person. It's, like, the whole time.
I was just, like, really anxious. I was gonna get hit with some, like, full beer bottles. There were also people standing on vehicles, but they were on the street. Um, and the people kind of doing burnouts and donuts on the intersection.
Well, there's just a bunch of cops around because I mean they can't do anything. And then quickly, like, turn into a riot. There's, like, stairs, like, meeting to the boardwalk. So everybody was, like, lined up on the stairs.
And then someone, like, threw a firework directly at one of the police officers. And then they just started, like, shooting rubber bullets. Well, I mean, what happened then? Where did you go?
What did you do? Everybody just, like, split off into the streets. There was nobody on the beach anymore. They made it, like, so much worse because there's, like, the kind of traffic.
So there's, like, cars everywhere and people are just, like, running. Like, everywhere. And they were, like, breaking glass, like, in the streets. And just, like, constantly, like, setting off fireworks.
Be careful. But then, like, once the cops started, like, showing back up, it started getting, like, really scary because they were, again, like, just shooting the rubber bullets and stuff. So, like, even though I wasn't doing anything, it was, like, totally a possibility to get, you know, shot by one of the rubber bullets. So that's when we started, like, making our way to the car.
Once we started walking back to the car, there was, like, a 7-Eleven. And people were completely, like, invading it. People were on top of, like, the gas pumps, like, spraying gas, like, all over the parking lot. Oh, my God.
Like, the cars that were just trying to get gas, like, couldn't even leave. It was, like, out of, like, the purge or something. Like, I have never seen something like that. It was insane.
And, like, I can't even, like, express how scary, like, the fireworks were. Because we would be, like, walking to the car and then, like, don't be able to have a firework at your seat. And you just have to, like, immediately drop everything and just, like, run. Wait, what?
Yeah, like, I literally have, like, a video of me and my friends, like, just sprinting. Because somebody would just randomly, like, drop the firework. And then, like, this huge crowd of cops would run. So, you have to, like, run in opposite directions.
People started running because I think sometimes the fireworks sounded, like, a gun, or something. And when one person runs, everybody runs. God! Where's HBO?
Every, like, two minutes. There will be a way of people running. And then they'll stop. Very, very.
In the YouTube video, you can see this one point where everybody's running and I run into an alley. Okay, Val, I think I want to leave now. Because I don't know why they're running. Maybe they saw something that someone's doing, but it just takes one person and everybody just follows.
How did you end up getting home? Like, how did you do? Were you with your friends the whole time? Or did you guys get separated?
No, we were, I mean, we got separated so many times, but we were always, like, calling each other. Every time we, like, there was a group of people running, we would get lost. I was just calling them like, were you at? They're like, oh, I'm about to see, yes.
And then we'll meet up again. And I went back home with the same people. Party's not just overwhelmed. You know, just doing what's going on.
Too much to focus on. Kickbacks. More on my style. Yeah.
I don't know why this comes. Kickbacks. The next day, the time I'm going to be told I'm going to be hit by a hurricane. I've already spent 100 people showed up on the beach in the streets.
Multiple downtown businesses. And a lifeguard tower. We're all so violent. Legal use of fireworks and curfew violation.
You throw in a thing like that and you got people from Lord knows from where and who they are. Would you describe it as fun? Oh, yeah, definitely. Because the way you're describing it sounds dangerous.
So what was fun about it? I think just the aspect of, like, wow, look what the internet can do. And all these people just came here. I was looking around like, wow, we're brought here by some satellite frequencies that we call the internet.
It's, I don't really know how to describe how it feels. It feels like you know these people in a way because you can relate to them. They're kind of the same age. They like the same humor because they obviously thought this agent kickback thing was going to be funny.
And when one joke starts, it can just snowball into this huge event. Was it like, are you glad you went? Yeah. I mean, it was just an experience.
Like, it wasn't a fun night. But like, that's something that everybody has talked about. And it's like nice to have a story from you. When I asked Jean if there was anything specific about the kickback she enjoyed, she actually said, yeah, she told me about this one moment when she and her friends were walking back in their car through the crowds.
We met this like group of girls that were like so nice and we just had like a conversation about like everything that had happened. It was just fun having like a normal conversation like in the midst of all the chaos and stuff and you just got to like share like our own perspectives about it and stuff. So it was like really fun getting them. How did the actual agents kickback match up with your expectations of agents kickback?
I honestly thought it would be great in the name of my expectations. Really? This is Andrew again, the guy who went on Friday evening. When I asked him what his favorite memory was, he said it was when everyone was running from the cops.
I was like in the rush and exhilarating feeling like just causing trouble, I guess, like it's exhilarating. You know, I had that in a long time and everybody was just so excited everyone's like screaming and there's like people dressed up all like crazy and stuff like I was dressed like a gladiator and he had like a sore. And he was like pointing his door until it forced the cops like he was like making it defending us. It was super silly stuff.
You know, it just thought it was crazy. All these different characters around the musical. And his favorite souvenir from that day is so small. It's a video of him feeling some guy on the beach and yelling at the guy.
It's like a game. You of course posted it on tiktok. I saw someone make a compilation of agents kickback videos and I saw my video there and I was It's like, let's go, you know? It's like, we're gonna look back, and then we'll be like Ethan's kickback, and then we'll be able to see my silly video of me screaming at this random kid.
I'm just like, sure. Thanks to Andrew, Marcella, Steezy, Jaden, and of course, Taylorance. We'll have a link to her fantastic article on Ethan's kickback in the show. To find more of their lovely music, search L-I-N-Pesto.
Additional music by Breakmaster Cylinder and Mariana Romano. The theme song for Agent's Kickback is Yae-Yae by Compton Rocco. Special thanks this week to Rachel Strom, Nabil Cholampot, Gabriela Boogarelli, and Dusk. Also to Chris Benegas, who shared footage he took on Friday night.
You can see all of his work on YouTube, and we've included a link to his channel in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you in a couple weeks.