Adrian Lopez practically caused a riot, and it's all because of TikTok. The social media platform TikTok has over 670 million users with a range of content including but not limited to dancing, singing, news, activism, education, conspiracy theories, science, cooking, and innovation. When the young man first posted a short 30 second video inviting anyone and everyone to his birthday party at Huntington Beach, it got a mere 40 likes. However, throughout the course of one week, the hashtag ‘Adrianskickback’ gained over 265 million views on TikTok.
The viral Huntington Beach birthday celebration exploded in popularity, and over 2,500 people showed up to party. Not only that, but the function continued on in this capacity through both Friday and Saturday nights. People flew, drove, and walked in from across California, some even attending from out of state. According to Jennifer Carey, a police spokesperson, 121 adults were arrested by the HBPD along with 28 juveniles for unlawful assembly. Thankfully, nobody was injured.
Additional charges were filed, however. There are recordings and police reports documenting how teens started launching fireworks, throwing rocks and glass bottles, vandalizing property, and climbing on police vehicles. This led to some individuals who were clearly identified being charged with vandalism, launching illegal fireworks, failure to disperse, and violating a mandated curfew. Multiple police officers were on the scene before the party even started, but the attendees refused to back down.
I personally saw multiple videos regarding the huge celebration on my own TikTok account, and practically every one of my friends had heard about it. Some people I know even went. What started out as a birthday party quickly shifted into a borderline anti-police riot. It is unclear, though highly assumed, that political motivations sparked the violence against the police.
This event shows how much of a hold politics have on our society that a birthday party, admittedly a savage one, could spiral into an act of violent political turmoil. TikTok is quickly becoming the most popular way for information to be spread, primarily through young people. Most likely, it will start to become one of the most popular and used news and media outlets worldwide.
Response Questions:
Did you hear about Adrian’s kickback through TikTok?
In your opinion, was the violence against the police politically motivated?
Sources:
3 comments:
I didn't hear about this kickback on tiktok. I don't believe this party was politically motivated. It's most likely just younger people screwing around.
I heard about the kickback on TikTok as well as most of my friends. It's really interesting how quickly information like that can spread. I don't really know if it was politically motivated although I think tensions following the BLM movement and the police brutality episodes that have been frequently occurring as of late have made many people on edge and probably had some impact. My guess is it didn't start out as politically motivated actions, but people were quicker to jump than usual. I also believe that in situations like Adrien's Kickback where there are a lot of people and there's a lot of energy, riots or dangerous things can happen just because of escalation and feeding off of the atmosphere. I think that mixed with recent activism against police, was what caused the events.
I would disagree to say that Adrian himself almost caused a riot. The virality of his video is not his fault, simply an outcome of tiktok’s for you page algorithm. Regardless, it was a shocking chain of events that unfolded. One day I saw a massive amount of videos regarding the kickback, the next I say snap chat stories of people being riotous, and the third day I saw articles about it on google. I believe this event illustrates the significant reach Tik Tok has over our youth. The way that a viral video coordinated so many people to come together in one place illustrates how popular the social media app is. There are many parallels that can be drawn to the game stop short squeez that happened a few months ago. In both cases, online communities coordinated action and successfully wreaked havoc.
I do not think that the riotous actions of the party goes where any way politically motivated. The type of people who actually attended the kickback are rowdy in nature and came with intent to be rowdy. I do think that this event is a byproduct of the corona virus lockdown. Many people have been deprived of social interaction and so events such as this one and BLM protests have been used as an excuse to get out of the house and get out their aggression.
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