Every time we hear a story about ridiculous things that young people do today, we can’t help but shake our heads. How crazy can things get? Crazier than you might imagine. If you have been watching Netflix’s Trainwreck series, you’ve learned about some unbelievable stories, like the hoax about a six-year-old boy believed to have floated away in a homemade helium balloon or a cruise that stranded people with no functioning toilets.
If you watched Trainwreck: The Real Project X, about a teenager whose Facebook party invite went accidentally viral and caused local panic, and you thought that couldn’t be topped, Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 makes it look like child’s play.
The Storm Area 51 Joke in a Nutshell
Back in 2019, the Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us controversy started as a Facebook joke. But like many others, it exploded into something entirely different. Matty Roberts, who worked at a vape shop in a mall, was bored at work and scrolling through YouTube on his phone. He came across a clip of Joe Rogan on his podcast talking with a conspiracy theorist about purported aliens at the U.S. Air Force facility known as Area 51. He found it interesting but didn’t think much else of it.
At 2 a.m., unable to sleep, he decided to play around with the idea on his s**tpost website, where he creates funny memes and jokes, all clearly sardonic. He made a post called “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us.” He was thinking about how it would be impossible for the military to stop millions of people if they all showed up at Area 51 at the same time, but also how completely ridiculous that idea would be.
He laughed about it, went to bed, and then woke up to a shock. The post went viral. People were RSVPing that they planned to attend, creating their own memes, and commenting about the “event.” It didn’t take long for the news to be picked up by websites, YouTube channels, internet personalities, and even mainstream media. Roberts couldn’t believe what was happening as the attendee list for the event, which wasn’t even real, skyrocketed to about two million people.
The situation ballooned from there, as noted in the two-part disaster documentary, causing the U.S. government to issue a statement stating that it isn’t a joke to try to storm Area 51. The military guards have clearance to use deadly force, and they would not hesitate to do so if there was a potential breach. The FBI even visited Roberts to verify he wasn’t a terrorist threat and to warn him that if anything went wrong, he was on the hook for it.
Believing that an event would happen whether he liked it or not, Roberts met with Connie West, who owns the Little A’Le’Inn in Rachel, Nevada, close to Area 51. Together, they tried to enlist the help of others to turn Storm Area 51 into a more positive-themed music festival in the desert. But with no plan, no funding, and no idea how to organize an event of this scale, they were dangerously close to putting on the next Fyre Fest (which has been covered in many documentaries, including Fyre on Netflix).
Eventually, after Roberts and West acrimoniously parted ways, the plans shifted to a party called Alienstock at a club in Las Vegas that Matty put on with the help of a promoter. It attracted 10,000 people in a proper venue and was a success, though Roberts ended up with only $1,700 in profits from selling T-shirts. Meanwhile, West planned to move forward with the Alienstock event in the desert since she had already sunk money into it, obtained the necessary permits, and knew people would be coming anyway.
How did it turn out? In the end, a few thousand people drove to and camped out near Rachel. But only a couple hundred people turned up at the gates of Area 51. They filmed for their socials, counted down to 3 a.m., then jokingly started running towards the gates in a Naruto pose (as Matty had joked for them to do), only to stop before they got too close and start laughing hysterically. It was all a joke. Nothing but a silly joke.
The Area 51 Situation Is Crazier Than You Can Imagine
The Storm Area 51 situation is such a crazy reminder of the blurring of lines between reality and fiction when it comes to online content. You really don’t know what to believe. What started as a joke exploded into something much more. People donned masks and posted videos online as aliens, some even making serious-sounding threats and claims about what they planned to do. Media outlets interviewed people and talked endlessly about the event. Big-name brands confirmed thousands of dollars in sponsorship deals based on nothing more than the viral status of the so-called event. And that’s the crux of the story: while all this was going on, there was no event!
The people involved spent weeks and thousands of dollars investing in whatever type of makeshift event they could put together on a whim, anticipating a turnout. Yet they had no idea who and how many people would come, nor even any way to generate income from the event, since they weren’t even selling tickets. Yet somehow, they kept trying to make this work, bracing themselves for what might come with crossed fingers and toes, a hope, and a prayer.
Failing to consider the necessities that would be needed was crazy enough, like bathrooms, water, security, safe transportation, room and board, and a safe space overall to accommodate an unknown number of people. But people from all over the world were planning to travel to this event with no idea of what it might be like, and with warnings from the U.S. government that suggested they could be killed, it is even crazier. You have to wonder: were they really planning to attend or just trying to get in on the online action, capitalizing on those hashtags, and gaining clicks?
One planned attendee joked that at least if people die, they’d at least be livestreaming it. It was reckless and stupid, and most people recognized this. It seems that everyone on the internet was in on the joke except Roberts, the people of Rachel, Nevada, and the government and military. The military spent millions of dollars beefing up security to ensure there wasn’t a breach from a “bunch of nerds,” as one officer put it, when those nerds and outcasts were simply chasing social media clicks or hoping to meet like-minded people.
Was the military dumb in spending this money? Not necessarily. As they point out, had they not taken the proper measures, and Storm Area 51 had turned out to see millions of people rush into the desert towards the base, it would have been a mass casualty event like America had never seen. Still, was it ultimately a waste of money? Absolutely.
What Does Storm Area 51 Say About This Generation?
Storm Area 51 says a lot about a generation willing to risk their lives for the sake of getting exclusive content. They might have known it was all a joke, an internet hoax to get some amazing footage. But they fooled the legacy media — even modern media outlets like Vice — the military, and local businessowners and residents, into thinking that something terrible was about to happen. But that’s what’s crazy: did they pull off a mass hoax, or did it just work out that way? Is it possible that thousands of people could have shown up, and what would have happened then?
Interestingly, it appears as though the few hundred people who did show up weren’t disappointed at the turnout. They were presumably fueling the fires online, watching as they baited the media into covering it, and officials and the military into panicking. They meant no ill intent. They just wanted more subscribers and footage from an area no one else could get to.
It’s bonkers to consider that what caused a massive frenzy and ended up costing millions of dollars overall turned out to be nothing more than a few hundred cosplayers pretending to storm Area 51 while capturing it on film, then enjoying a party in the desert until the sun came up.
While s***tposting continues to be a popular thing online, clearly, content authors need to be more transparent about the fact that what they’re posting is satire, not meant to be taken seriously. The crazy part is that even with people stoking the flames with their memes throughout the months leading up to the supposed event, there’s no real way to know who was in on the joke and who truly thought it was real and pretended they would be there. They say don’t believe everything you read on the internet, and Storm Area 51 is a shining example of that. Stream Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 on Netflix.
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