Jess Cooper's 16th Open House Party - Why You Should Make Your Facebook Events Private!

Sometime early during the weekend of the 12-13 March, 2011, Jess Cooper, a girl from the Sydney Suburb of Chatswood, created an event on facebook. The event was an invitation for all the 10th year students at St. Andrews school to attend a house party she was hosting, to celebrate her 16th birthday, on the 26 of March.

Jess however did two major mistakes; she wrote her phone number as well as home address on the event wall, and she set the facebook event as a "Public event". A few hours later the link was posted on 4chan.

The Original Event

"Open house party as long as it don't get out of hand" Jess said on the event wall, a perfect target for the pranksters over at 4chan who aimed to do just that: let this open house party get out of hand. Within hours, 19,000 people said they would attend the party, promising to bring drugs, alcohol, and that they were 'DTF' (down to f**k). Jess immediately canceled the event, saying that it was "f**king off!".

The Fake Re-Post

Someone had already copy pasted the information of the original event before it was deleted (with phone number and address). Only a few hours after the deletion of the original event, the event was re-posted, using a fake Jess Cooper account,

The new event was posted to 4chan, and as of Monday, March 14 (23:30CET), more than 202,000 said they were attending the party, and another 20,100 said they are "maybe attending" (with numbers increasing every minute). The event wall quickly became full of people discussing who should brings what drugs, who is 'DTF', and who could carpool.

When trying to call Jess' phone, one gets a message that says her voicemail is full. Various 'sister events' have been set up, such as the 'official' pre-party, after party, and of course a after after party!

Update: The re-post has been canceled, possibly due to the police getting involved. However due to the popularity of the event and the numerous spin-off events, the party should not be considered canceled just yet! March 26 could go down in history!

News Coverage and the Future of Jess Cooper's Open House Party

The third large party related internet meme to come from Australia (after Kate's Party and Corey 'the party kid'), this could potentially evolve into the largest of them all. Of course not all people will attend, however with that many people aware of the 'open house party' and with 4chan involved, one should not be surprised if large amounts of people actually show up. Jess has probably become aware of the fake event by now, and - at least I would - has probably informed the police.

I hesitate to say that this potentially clash could turn out to be hilarious, as I would probably be freaked out in Jess' case myself. I will however pay attention to Australian news in the coming days for headlines like "Open house party turns into open suburb riot".

Update: Apparently The Daily Telegraph has already heard about the party, and so have the people over at the Sydney Morning Herald - they managed to get an statement from Jess herself: "I'm never doing this again! I am so scared, and now I have the police called" she said the the newspaper. News of the party has also reached TV, as 'Sunrise' on Channel 7 covered the story! (And as usual, they called Anonymous a group. Don't do the same mistake: read up on who Anonymous really is!)

Update: The person who created the fake Jess Cooper account has been found! The 17 year old boy is now facing legal charges for setting up the fake account and event.

The Moral of the Story

1. Never ever create a public event on facebook, for a private event!
2. Never publish private/contact information on the internet...4chan will find it!
3. Australian parties will always end up out of hand!