Reply All - #180 Who's Going?

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

🚨Adrian's Kickback🚨 Location: Huntington Beach🌴 at firepits Date: May 22nd Time: 7:30 PM BYOE❗❗ Slide tru this Saturday we finna turn up❗❗ ❗❗ Chris Venegas' Youtube Channel (link to his kickback videos) Taylor Lorenz' story on Adrian's Kickback Andrew's TikTok Marcella on Instagram Steezy Kane's YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of Reply All is brought to you by ferns. They're beautiful. They're hearty. They're easy to grow. And they're one of the world's oldest plants. They've been around for like 360 million years. Dinosaurus used to eat them. So, you know, check them out. And now a word from our sponsors. From Gimlet, this is Reply All. I'm Alex Gold. I heard a really crazy story recently about TikTok. I read about it in an article by one of my favorite tech reporters, Taylor Lorenz, who's at the New York Times. And one of the big reasons that I read Taylor's stories is so that I can understand TikTok better

because if I'm being honest, my comprehension of TikTok is mediocre at best. And over the past couple of years, TikTok has become a big part of her beat. I just, I 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 tailored your free page to like to send you? I mean,

I guess it's current events stuff, but like how do you know? It's not like current events is the wrong way to put it. Okay. It's not like, sorry, Alex, not to be like, that's wrong. No, it's just 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, I 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 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 Adrian's kickback? Like how did it bubble up to you? I don't know. I was scrolling my TikTok for you page probably like mid-May. And I just started to see a lot of people talking about this thing called Adrian's kickback. 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's birthday party on Huntington Beach. Huntington Beach is a town about a half an hour outside of Los Angeles. You don't happen to have that flyer handy anywhere, do you? Do you know what it said? do. Yeah, let me pull it on up. Hold on. Okay, 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 the little alarm emoji, Adrian'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 the lifeguard chair on the beach. And it said, slide through this Saturday. We fin a turn up. Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. And underneath it, it's playing the song that I don't know the name of, but it's like, I clicked on the TikTok audio immediately, and there were already kind of videos using that sound. That song was essentially the anthem for Adrian's Kickback, I guess. And it kind of became this party sound. Like it appeared in all of the TikToks that were about.

It appeared in all of the TikTok videos. It was the audio that everyone was using. It looked like something that somebody would just send their group of friends, you know? So, yeah, just it seemed like people were sort of just coming across this random kid's birthday invite. And that's actually what was happening. Adrian'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, through 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 on 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. All right. If you've been on TikTok for the past week, I know you've heard about Adrian's kickbacks. I just want to know why I woke up one day in my entire TikTok feed was Adrian and this kickback. Okay, literally, I've got my phone blown up so much from, oh, Adrian's kickback. I swear God, all I see on my four.

pages, oh, who's going to agents kickback? Who's going to agents kickback? It's just with TikTok, everything goes bigger, faster, because of the For You 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. Intensive influencers were posting about this. Artists like 24K Golden, same with the Sway Boys.

Noah Beck, a really popular TikToker. Members of the hype house, one of the most 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 going to roll up on Adrian's kickback. Exactly.

They're posting about it. they're implying that they plan to come, saying like they're hyped to be there, all of that. And so this is just whipping up children into a frenzy. Are you going to Adriams? Are you going to Adrian's kickback tonight? Because I need to rise. Okay, so I've got a couple questions about Adrian's kickback.

Like, well, first question, are you guys serious? Like, are you guys really going, like, for real, for real? Because I'll show out. Like, it's been a minute. And fourth question, what kind of clothes are we wearing? Like, are we doing, like, street wear clothes? They're like, chill, like, for real, like, sweatpants and hoodies. Like, what are we wearing?

Lastly, this is for Adrian. Is there going to be music? Like, who's going to be playing the music? That's very important, the most important. Hell yeah. Been sending TikToks back and forth about this, bro. This is about to be a movie. By the weekend of the party,

Adrian's kickback was no longer just a one-day thing. Hey, is it supposed to be like a two-day event or some shit? Three days. Three days. What? They said that it's Tower 13. People were talking about Adrian's kickback like it was a weekend, like it was a festival. And the only thing attracting everyone to come was just the idea that it was going to be huge.

Because to remind you, this was in May of 2021, right in that heady moment in the U.S., where COVID numbers were dropping, vaccinations were up, and it seemed to some people on 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 for you page was just blowing up with videos.

Video on video. I saw like the first three and I could usually just get the initial indication. You know, this is going to blow up. This is Andrew. He's 19 and he lives in Norwalk, California on the outskirts of L.A. And then the next day I opened tick to. again and it was probably about 20 posts I saw about Adrian's kickback

people were making memes about it so I was like okay yeah I got to hop on this wave you know before it's just like huge why did you want to blow up why did you want to catch like the the for you page draft um I don't know my my boy

blew up on TikTok like a couple weeks ago so I was like kind of jealous of him like a little bit like low key you know what I'm saying because he had like he had like this one video that had like two million views I was like, man, I'm going to get a video of like 3 million. People are talking about coming from like Puerto Rico and stuff, South America, coming to Adrian's kickback.

And like I'm like a local to Huntington Beach, so I'm always there. And like I just thought it was really cool that Huntington Beach is a spot where like half of L.A. would meet up and just throw like the biggest party ever. It's like living down the street from Woodstock or something. Oh yeah. It basically is our generation's Woodstock in a way. 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. I even saw one video of a squad of skateboarders. It was like a dozen kids and baggy pants with floppy hair weaving through the streets of L.A. 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 like fireworks. People were going to be like running around the beach. People were going to be jumping in the water. You know, there was going to be like a ton of girls, a ton of drinks and everything. Like just a regular party, like a full on, 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 rager, 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 must have sucked, man. What was that like? It wasn't great.

It just happened very quick. At first, people were excited because we just, soon we'd be out for two weeks. It was like winter break type of thing. And everybody was really excited at school and they said, all right, everyone's going home for one week. One week turned to 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, you know, doing canvas like worksheets and stuff. Sounds lonely, man. Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So Andrew in May of 2021, he'd finished his first. first year of college, he'd gotten both shots of the vaccine, and he decided to check out the

kit back. What was it like when you showed up? It was dead. It was just like this group of people. I remember one guy was 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 calm before the storm. Can you, can you introduce yourself? My name's Marcella. I'm 18 and I'm from Redlands, California. I'm just a college student. I go to Crafton. It's a community college.

And for fun, in my free time, I like to party with my friends. Marcella told me when the first COVID shutdown happened, she was a junior in high school, a competitive cheerleader. And so for the last two years of high school, she just missed out on everything she was looking forward to. Honestly, like, it was really sad. Like, it was really disappointing senior year. Like, we didn't get any cheer competitions. We barely got any football games. And, like, seeing the seniors now do that stuff, like, we, I, like, I get a little jealous.

Like, I tell my friends all the time, like, like, it sucks. When we would do, like, a competition, like, it feels, like, exhilarating, like, a drug. I mean, like, majority of the time you're, like, cracked out on energy drinks or, like, sugar or something. But, like, when you finish that routine, like, you just feel on top of the world. And when you know you won, like, you're happy for like weeks, months. Like, it's like insane. So can you tell me why you wanted to go to Adrian's kickback? Well, I was already out there for like a little like beach trip.

That's something the seniors were planning. And like we were really close to like Lifeguard Tower 13. We were on like Lifeguard Tower 5. But like we could see like the crowd of people for me. There was a lot of people there. I get excited because I'm like, no way. Like, this is actually a thing. Like, people came out.

So we're like, let's just, you know, make our time, like worthwhile. Let's make our drive worth the drive. And so when you get there, what is it like? It's bad. You guys have any idea like each one's here. There was just like just random teenagers everywhere. We're all just standing around, awkward. It's 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 light out. It seems windy. There are teenagers just kind of like wandering around,

filming, hoping to pick up viewers for their live streams. But there's really nothing going on. Hey, go interview here. They want to be interviewed for sure. And then like about, 30 minutes in, about like 30 people show up. Where's Adrian? Where's Adrian? It got lit when this guy came with six boxes of pizza,

and we're just like feeding everybody. And I thought that 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 like within 10 minutes, it was just flooded. Gangs come here, bro. There's a helicopter. There's a helicopter, right?

Project X. Maybe like 500 people at this exact spot. Like people were just hanging out, like a big swarm of people. Did it make you nervous to be in a big crowd like that of people you didn't know? A little, but I think by that time I was like already vaccinated and like I already had COVID. So like I wasn't really 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 and you know like I lost her for a little too so did she enjoy herself or was it just like I think she enjoyed herself yeah like she looked like she was having fun um I think she was mostly confused and like we were getting our feet stepped on a lot because it was a huge crowd so like she was just like kind of irritated with all the people because like, there was no room. Like, there's just so many people. Hey, yo, listen, I got 6,000 left. You're on TikTok right now.

What the fuck is going on? Everyone was out there. A lot of people came from, like, other states. 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 then I look back to Tower 13 and there's people like starting to try to tear down like the like the beach tower

in the videos it's hard to even really see lifeguard Tower 13 because it is so overtaken by teenagers and they're just screaming people were on top of it like jumping people are like shaking it I just start running over there because I know the party's like lit now

like people were like people like had music blasting like fireworks were going off 830 went 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 move in or anything like that well cops were always there like I don't know who snitched but you know they definitely had a heads up and they were asking us questions but okay well they weren't have a reason to shut it down.

I don't know that anybody snitched. It was like on the 4-U page across the entire world. So I'm sure cops have TikTok too. And then the cops would like shine the 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 their lights on you and you'd just run to a different part of the beach and start partying again.

In my head I have this image of like, you know if you like run it, run it like a seagull and it flies like 50 feet down the beach? That's like what I'm imagining. No, that was it. There was a moment where like, after the cops chased us down for a little, like we all went in a circle and we were all dancing. There was like this dance group thing. It was such a vibe.

Like we were in like the middle and we could hear the music clearly. It felt like out of a movie. Just the music was so loud and like everyone was just having fun. And there was just that moment in time where like they like slowed down. And it felt like a real like party. It was just bodies to bodies on the beach. By around 9 o'clock, the cops finally managed to push most of the people off the beach. Andrew ran around to find his friends who he lost in the crowd.

Marcella drove home to make curfew. 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, should I call you Steezy? That's the hardest question to answer. me that. I just made Steezy as like just a nickname and everybody calls me Steezy now. So you can call me Steezy. This is Steezy Kane. He's 21. He lives in L.A. And Steezy is exactly the

kind of person that so many of the people who went to Adrian's kickback were hoping to see there. He's a YouTube star. How did it you take off on YouTube? Like what was the thing that sort of 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 fly to L.A. and I jump off of a pier for a girl's number for video. And then that video just World Star posts it. It gets millions of views on all these meme pages. Yeah. And then on YouTube, it just started blowing up. Steezy now has 3.5 million followers. He also has a clothing.

line where he sells hoodies that say things like small dick big dreams as well as a line of t-shirts that say sober for life and straight edge i'm actually wearing a straight-edge sweater right now and i don't have a problem with people who do drink or smoke it's just like i want to i want to make it cool to be sober because there's a lot of people out there that don't even want to be smoking that smoke purely on pure pressure do you when when other people are like at a party like that or even at like a party that's maybe even 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 and stone 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? And I'm like, I'm not, I didn't drink anything. I'm just having fun. Like, can I not have fun?

Steezy, like many other people, because of the coronavirus, hadn't had a chance to go to a party in a long time. And then on the morning of Saturday, May 22nd, he started seeing all these TikToks about Friday night on Huntington Beach. If you're wondering what Adrian's kickback looks like. Yeah, it kind of showed people like what to expect for Saturday. It felt sort of like a promo for the main event. So he posted online asking if anyone was driving down there. And some strangers who lived nearby were like, Sure, we'll give you a ride.

I think it was around 6, 7 p.m. when I got there. All right, so we're here at Huntington Beach. We're at Adrian's kickback. 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. Right, you guys, this is not a party.

It's a kickback tonight. We're aware that we're in a pandemic right now. So, you know, it would be so irresponsible to throw a party right now. That's why this is a kickback. The area around the beach was already teeming with people, like everywhere you look. What the fuck? Look at all these motherfucking people. The beach, you just could not even go on to 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, everybody's yelling, Adrian. Nobody even knows who he is. What up, bro? You know, can't take a picture with you? Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know, since I'm known as the peer jump guy, that's the video that blew me up. And since we're here at a pier, there were fans that came out.

up to me and... Jump out of the pier! Yo, that's here! That's here. Do some steazy shit. Come up to beer again. Hold on. They were like, yo, Steezy, you got 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, too, into 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, going like, I got you, I got you. But three people, come on. Yeah.

They don't have you. They don't have you. 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. And what were they yelling? They were chanting my name.

Because they knew who I was. They were like, Steezy, Steezy, Steezy. 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 surfing, 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, worrier. So, like, I was really anxious. Like, I thought they were going to, like, break their ankles. And I remember, like, one of the friends I was with was like, oh, should I go do it? And you were like, no. Like, I don't know.

It was just, like, really crazy. That's Jaden. And the person you hear laughing in the background is Marcella. The two of them are friends. They were in cheer together. Jaden says they balance each other out. I would say I'm definitely the anxious one. And Cel is kind of the one I have to, like, calm down sometimes.

She kind of just says everything on her mom. mind. Being stuck at home during COVID wasn't all bad for Jaden. She's an introvert, so not having 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 of the 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 sad, Saturday, the official day of Adrian's kickback rolled around, 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. Marcella decided to sit Saturday out, but Jaden and some other friends drove down. So when you got there, like, what was the mood like? It was, like, kind of overwhelming. Like, we had to park really far, but still, like, the whole walk. Like, there were still people behind us. Like, we were all going to, like, the same thing. same place and stuff and like people were like honking their horns and stuff and like it was still

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 got worse people were like climbing trees and stuff and just like they were 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 It's like insane. That sounds shitty. Like, that's a shitty thing to do. No, it was crazy.

And I'm, like, a really anxious person. It's, like, the whole time I was just, like, really anxious that I was going to get hit with some, like, full beer bottle. There were also people standing on vehicles that were on the street. And then people kind of doing burnouts and donuts on the intersection. While there's just a bunch of cops around, because, I mean, they can't do anything. And then it quickly, like, turned. into a riot. There's like stairs leading to the boardwalk.

And so everybody was like lined up on the stairs. And then someone like threw a firework directly at the like one of the police officers. And then they just started like shooting rubber bullets. What I mean what happened then? Like where did you go? What did you do? Everybody just like split off into the streets. There was nobody on the beach anymore which made it like so much worse because there's like

a ton 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. 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 kind of 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. It could have been so easy to set off a fire.

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 somebody would set off a firework at your feet. And you would 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 a firework. And then, like, this huge crowd of car. would come, so you'd have to like run in the opposite direction.

People started running because I think sometimes the fireworks sounded like a gun or something. And when one person runs, everybody runs. Every like two minutes, there will be a wave of people running. God, that's terrifying. Very, very. In the YouTube video, you can see there's one point where everybody's running, and then I run into an alley. Okay, bro, I think I want to leave now.

Because I don't know why they're wrong. running. Maybe they saw something that someone's doing, but it just takes one person and then everybody just follows. How did you end up getting home? Like, how did you, did you, 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 were, like, there was a group of people running, we would get lost. I would just call them like, yo, were you at? They're like, oh, I'm by the CVS and then we'll meet up again. And I went back home with, with, with the same people.

Steezy and his new friends filmed a quick recap in the car before they drove off. Parties, I just feel overwhelmed, you know, just too much going on, too much to focus on. Kickbacks, more in my style. Yeah, I would say so. Fucking cops like me. Yeah, I don't know why these cops had a kickback. The next day, the town of Huntington Beach looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. Authorities estimate more than 2,500 people showed up on the beach and in the streets,

multiple downtown businesses and a lifeguard tower were also vandalized. of fireworks and curfew violation. You throw an event 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, it sounds dangerous. So what was fun about it? I think just the aspect of like, wow, look what the internet can do.

Like all these people, we don't know anybody here. And all these people just came here. I was looking around like, wow, we're brought here by some like satellite frequencies that we call the internet. It's, I don't really know how to describe how it feels. It's just, 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 Adrian kickback thing was going to be funny. and when one joke starts, it can just like 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, like, talked about. And it's, like, nice to have, like, a story from it. When I asked Jaden 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 to, their car through the crowds. We met this 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 we just got to like share like our own perspectives about it and stuff. So it was like really fun meeting them. How did the actual Adrian's kickback match up with your expectations of Asia?

train's kickback. I honestly, I thought it would be great, and then it met 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. That like adrenaline rush and that exhilarating feeling of like just causing trouble, I guess, like, it's exhilarating, you know, and I hadn't had that in a long time.

And everybody was just so excited. Everyone was like screaming. And there was like people dressed up all, like, crazy and stuff. Like one guy was dressed like a gladiator and he had like a sword and he was like pointing his sword towards the cops like as if like he was like mimicking defending us. It just like it was super silly stuff. You know, I just thought it was it was crazy and all these different characters around me.

He was just exhilarating. And his favorite souvenir from that day is so small. It's a video of him filming some guy on the beach and yelling at the guy. Is that fucking Adrian? while the Yay Yay Song Blasts on top of it. He of course posted it on TikTok. I saw someone made a compilation of Adrian's kickback videos, and I saw my video up there,

and I was just like, let's go, you know? It's like, people are going to look back, and they're going to be like Adrian's kickback, and then they're going to be able to see my silly video of me screaming at this random kid. It's just like, sure. Thanks to Andrew, Marcella, Steasy, Jaden, and of course, Taylor Lorenz.

We'll have a link to her fantastic article on Adrian's kickback in the show notes. This episode of Reply All was produced by Jessica Young and Lisa Wang. It was edited by Jessica Young and Tim Howard. And of course, the episode wouldn't have happened without the rest of the Reply All team. Emmanuel Jochi, Fia Bannon, Damiano Marquetti, Anna Foley, and Norgil. Our intern is me, Esperanza Rosenbaum. We're hosted by Emmanuel Jochi and Alex Goldman. this episode was mixed by Rick Kwan with fact-checking by Isabel Cristo, music and sound design by Luke

Williams and Tim Howard. The song Carolini is used with permission by Lynn Pesto. To find more of their lovely music, search L-I-N-Pesto. Additional music by Breakmaster Cylinder and Mariano Romano. The theme song for Adrian's kickback is Ye-Ye by Compton Rocco. Special thanks this week to Rachel Strom, Nabil Cholompot, Gabriella Bougarelli, 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.