Parents Blame Facebook for 400 'Sweet 16' Party Crashers
Earlier today, the UK's Independent reported that a 'Sweet 16' celebration for a Brighton girl devolved into a raging, crowded house party. And the parents blame Facebook.
After planning the party for their daughter Georgiana, and allowing her to send out 100 invitations on Facebook, Michael and Sylvia Hobday left their East Sussex mansion for the evening, trusting that the kids were alright. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Hobday received a phone call from police, who informed him that 300 "out of control" revelers were creating a disturbance at the townhouse.
Rushing back home, Mr. Hobday found his home in disarray, as he later -- hilariously -- described to the Independent:
The garden has been ruined, the grass is mud, people were walking through the pond and I heard one boy was trying to headbutt the mirror. Some people were climbing up the balcony and trying to get through the windows. My floor was blackened with dirt and there were cigarette burn marks around the bottom of the door.Figuring that these uninvited guests had caught wind of the party via the Internet and cell phones, Mr. Hobday was certain that "Facebook [was] a major cause, as well as texting." We find two distinct aspects of this story to be absolutely hilarious:
- For one, the fact that the Independent has written such a dry, factual story about a high school party getting crashed borders on absurdity. At first, we had to double-check to make sure that we weren't, in fact, reading the Onion.
- Secondly, Mr. Hobday's blaming of Facebook and texting is laughable. Anybody who has ever been a kid, or watched a John Hughes movie for that matter, knows better. Since long before the Internet or cell phones came into existence, teenagers have been to parties as hound dogs are to sides of bacon.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Allen L. Kelly said 1:35PM on 12-05-2008
Hmm..don't you have to be 18 to be on Facebook?
Blame the parents...or split the blame equally between the 120 million active users on Facebook :)
Feel free to add me!
Allen L. Kelly
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Jessica Michelle said 6:29PM on 12-09-2008
No, Allen, you don't. In fact, the "networks" that you can join on Facebook include high schools. I'm not sure if their policy is the same as MySpace's, but you must be fourteen to be a member of MySpace.com. Also, Facebook's networks do not go below high school level generally, unless there is a school that offers lower grades (such as Charleston, SC's Charleston School of the Arts, which is grades six to twelve I believe; in that case, SOA is a network still even though it serves kids as young as ten/eleven/twelve). I hope this helps!
Timmeh said 10:16AM on 12-11-2008
first and foremost, how can you blame facebook for your problems? just because your daughter sent out 100 facebook invites doesn't mean someone like i could of viewed them. you can still access event pages without being added, all your facebook friends will see that you have an event going on thru the main page. it's kinda silly to send an invite online, whatever happened to handing a card in person?
second, your daughter is only 16 years old. parent supervision is a must, regardless. i'm a 19 year old college kid and i'm telling you, without parent supervision, it could of been worse. they could of did the dirty-dirty on your bed and that coulda really been bad.
this is just another case of bad parents. and as the famous saying goes, "the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree".
yours truly,
timmeh :)
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Linda said 11:25AM on 12-11-2008
typical bad parenting. I can't imagine leaving a 16 yr old home alone with over 100 guests. No matter how good your kids are, they are still KIDS and kids do stupid things.
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Janna said 1:40PM on 12-11-2008
Yeah, well, that's what you get when you let your 16 year old kid have an unsupervised party. Not Facebook's fault. Personal responsibility, let me show you it.
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