TikTok influencer behind huge party that required police intervention says video invite only had ‘40 views’ at first

Birthday party resulted in nearly 150 arrests on Saturday

The TikTok influencer whose invitation to a birthday “kickback” resulted in a huge party that ended with multiple arrests said he didn’t expect the outcome, as his video invite and accompanying hashtag only had “40 views” at first.

After Adrian, who goes by the username @adrian.lopez517 on TikTok, advertised his birthday bash on social media last week, thousands of teenagers and young adults showed up in Huntington Beach, California, on Saturday night to celebrate.

In the since-deleted video that sparked the chaos, Adrian had invited anyone to his bonfire birthday party at Huntington Beach State Park, which he referred to as a “kickback”.

On the night of the party, the sheer number of attendees, and the actions of the crowd, which included setting off fireworks and jumping on police cars, prompted the police to declare the gathering an unlawful assembly, with the night resulting in nearly 150 arrests and the implementation of an emergency curfew from 11.30pm till 5.30am Sunday morning in parts of Huntington Beach.

However, according to Adrian, who spoke to New York Times journalist Taylor Lorenz on Saturday, he did not necessarily expect the turnout of what police estimated to be about 2,500 people.

In a video posted to her Twitter, which she captioned: “I found Adrian from Adrian’s kickback! And his friend who posted the original viral TikTok. The hashtag #Adrianskickback has over 180M views on TikTok as of today,” the two teenagers tell the journalist that they had posted the first flier for the party on Monday night, the day of Adrian’s actual birthday.

“Monday night, because my birthday was on Monday,” Adrian recalled. “I made it Monday night, we started spreading it out on Snapchat, and then Tuesday morning is when he made the TikTok.”

However, according to Adrian, the TikTok “didn’t blow up” at first, with the teen recalling that when he had been on his way to school the video only “had like 40 likes”.

While the initial interest in the party was slow, by the day of, the hashtag #adrianskickback had more than 234m views on TikTok.

The app also served as an outlet for first-person accounts from the party, with numerous TikToks from attendees showing the chaos of the gathering, which also resulted in vandalisim of nearby stores and shops.

As of now, Adrian has no videos on his TikTok, however, he has accumulated more than 231,000 followers.