Adrian's Kickback
| Adrian's Kickback | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| File:Adrian's Kickback.jpeg Attendees at Huntington Beach during Adrian's Kickback | |||
| Date | May 22–23, 2021 | ||
| Caused by | TikTok birthday party invitation | ||
| Status | Dispersed by police, emergency curfew imposed | ||
| Parties to the civil conflict | |||
| |||
| Casualties | |||
| Injuries | None reported as significant[1] | ||
| Arrested | 121 adults, 28 juveniles (May 22)[2] 29 additional, incl. 13 juveniles (May 23)[3] Total: ≈ 178[4] | ||
| Charged | Vandalism, failure to disperse, curfew violations, fireworks offenses[2] | ||
Adrian's Kickback was a viral birthday party invitation that spread on TikTok in May 2021, drawing thousands of people to Huntington Beach, California, and resulting in clashes with police, an emergency curfew, and nearly 150 arrests.[1][2] The event was named for Adrian Lopez, a 17-year-old from Eastvale, California, who had posted a digital flyer inviting people to a small gathering for his birthday.[5][6]
Background
On May 17, 2021, Lopez created a digital invitation for a birthday gathering at Huntington Beach, giving a date, time, and location, and captioned it with an informal call for people to attend.[6] Lopez later said the invite had originally been intended for people at his school.[6] His friend Yahir Hernandez shared the flyer to Snapchat and then to his TikTok account to build interest.[5]
Viral spread
Hernandez's TikTok post initially attracted little attention, but it was picked up by TikTok's recommendation system and quickly spread across the platform, becoming a widely shared meme.[5] Several online personalities, including the musician 24kGoldn and members of FaZe Clan, posted about the event, further amplifying its reach.[5] By the weekend of the party, videos under the hashtag "#adrianskickback" had accumulated approaching 280 million views, with later estimates citing figures as high as 352 million.[5][4]
Communication scholars later suggested the video's appeal stemmed from its absurdity and the unpredictability of TikTok's algorithm, noting that Lopez had no prior online following.[4] Commentators also linked the party's popularity to pent-up demand for in-person socializing among teenagers following more than a year of pandemic-related restrictions.[4]
Attempted relocation
As the video spread, people began posting that they intended to travel to California from across the country to attend, and on the Friday night before the event roughly a thousand people gathered early at Huntington Beach, prompting an initial police response.[5] Concerned about the size of the anticipated crowd, Lopez and Hernandez partnered with the streetwear retailer Cookies N' Kicks to sell tickets for a relocated event at an undisclosed venue in Los Angeles, to be announced shortly before it began.[5][6] The announcement of the new venue's address was delayed from 9:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., and many people who had already traveled to Huntington Beach for the original location never learned of the change.[5]
Events of May 22, 2021
On the night of Saturday, May 22, an estimated 2,500 people converged on Huntington Beach.[1] Business owners and residents described crowds moving from the beach onto Pacific Coast Highway and into the downtown business district, with some attendees spray-painting storefronts, setting off fireworks, climbing traffic signals and lifeguard towers, and throwing bottles at officers.[1][7] A police vehicle's windshield was smashed, and several storefronts, including a CVS pharmacy, were damaged.[1]
More than 150 officers from law enforcement agencies across Orange County responded to the scene, having been placed on standby earlier in the week after police became aware of the viral posts.[1] The Huntington Beach Police Department declared an unlawful assembly at 7:13 p.m. and later used tear gas and less-lethal rounds, including pepper balls, to disperse the crowd.[1][7] An emergency curfew covering the downtown area was imposed from 11:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.[1]
Police reported 121 adults and 28 juveniles arrested on charges including vandalism, failure to disperse, curfew violations, and illegal use of fireworks.[2] No major injuries were reported.[1] Meanwhile, the relocated Los Angeles event never took place; its venue address leaked online, a crowd gathered there before midnight, and police shut it down before the party began.[5]
A smaller gathering of about 150 people returned to Huntington Beach the following night, prompting police to again declare an unlawful assembly; 29 more people, including 13 juveniles, were arrested.[3] Police said a majority of those arrested on Sunday were not local to Huntington Beach, with some traveling from as far as the Central Valley.[3]
Aftermath
Local business owners and volunteers cleaned up graffiti and debris the following morning.[1] A crowdfunding campaign was organized to support local artists whose beachfront exhibits were destroyed during the unrest.[3] Hernandez spent the following days arranging refunds for people who had purchased tickets to the relocated Los Angeles event.[5]
Lopez deleted his social media posts about the event as the situation escalated and later issued a public statement denying that he had encouraged illegal activity or profited from the party.[6][5] He subsequently began working with a talent manager.[5]
Reactions and legacy
The event drew comparisons to earlier cases of social media posts unexpectedly drawing large crowds, including a 2012 Dutch birthday-party invitation that led to rioting, a 2016 quinceañera invitation in Mexico that drew over a million online responses, and the 2019 online Storm Area 51 event.[5]
In the weeks that followed, similarly named "kickback" gatherings organized on TikTok were reported in other U.S. locations, including a "Washington kickback" at Alki Beach in Seattle, where police also broke up the crowd.[4] Similar events were also planned in Wisconsin and Hawaii.[4]
See also
- Storm Area 51
- TikTok
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Barboza, Tony; Wigglesworth, Alex (May 23, 2021). "Nearly 150 arrested after TikTok birthday invite draws raucous crowd to Huntington Beach". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 16, 2026. Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "latimes-may23" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Rosenblatt, Kalhan (May 23, 2021). "Nearly 150 arrested at TikTok 'kickback' party after thousands attend viral California event". NBC News. Retrieved August 16, 2026. Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "nbcnews" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Pinho, Faith E.; Wigglesworth, Alex; Szabo, Matt (May 25, 2021). "'Adrian's kickback': How a teen's TikTok birthday invite ended in arrests, clashes at beach". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 16, 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Andrew, Scottie (June 2, 2021). "Why TikTok's chaotic 'kickbacks' took off with young people starved for company". CNN. Retrieved August 16, 2026. Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "cnn" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 Lorenz, Taylor (May 24, 2021). "How a 17-Year-Old's Birthday Party Became the Biggest Thing on the Internet". The New York Times. Retrieved August 16, 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Bekiempis, Victoria (May 28, 2021). "Adrian's Kickback: US party goes viral on TikTok and draws thousands of teens". The Guardian. Retrieved August 16, 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Corcoran, Nina (May 23, 2021). "TikTok Beach Party Broken Up by Police Using Tear Gas". Consequence. Retrieved August 16, 2026.
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