Trainwreck: The Real Project X (2025)

1. Haren is a very calm and green and peaceful place.

2. We don't have tourists, uh, here in Haren,

3. and that's, uh, what we like.

4. Normally, there's nothing happening.

5. Apart from that one particular day.

6. Haren!

7. It was Friday night.

8. We are pumped up to go to the party.

9. We're going to the biggest birthday party in the history in the Netherlands.

10. The strangest thing, it was in, like, this small town.

11. It was the first time I heard of this place, Haren.

12. A Facebook invitation to a girl's 16th birthday party

13. went viral.

14. The girl had posted a message inviting her friends,

15. but forgot to mark the event as private.

16. All I wanted was just to have a good 16th birthday,

17. but it really got a bit out of control.

18. Some of my friends said it might be turning into a Project X party.

19. Project X, that movie, fueled the fire.

20. Wait a minute. 17,000 people are invited to my house?

21. Are they gonna show up?

22. It was a scary situation.

23. If this Project X escalates, we will have disaster.

24. Let's be clear. There is no party here.

25. Fuck off.

26. We're gonna do this real movie in real life.

27. Let's go.

28. Where is the party? The party is here!

29. Everybody was jumping, drinking beer, having fun.

30. The energy just made a 180 all of a sudden.

31. People just went berserk.

32. It was completely out of control.

33. Oh my God, they are gonna destroy everything.

34. I was worried they'd reach the house

35. and, um, destroy whatever they could.

36. Burn it down, pretty much like in the movie.

37. After everything that happened with the party,

38. I left the Netherlands.

39. Nowadays, I don't come home that much anymore.

40. I don't think the Dutch have forgotten what happened.

41. People see the Netherlands as quite a party country.

42. A lot is permitted here, right?

43. Uh, weed, prostitutes.

44. But in reality, the Netherlands is very controlled.

45. The Dutch don't like it when people break our unwritten rules.

46. But I never tended to be someone who conformed.

47. Sometimes when I talked to my dad, he would just sort of remind me that

48. you know, when you stick your head above the grass...

49. it also might get cut off.

50. When I turned 16, I told my parents

51. I would love to throw a birthday party here at home.

52. Sixteen is an important birthday for us in the Netherlands,

53. especially because the drinking age then was 16.

54. Back then, everyone used Facebook for everything.

55. Popularity was associated with how many friends you had,

56. you know, how many likes you got.

57. People wanted to show that they were fun, right,

58. that they were doing cool things.

59. So I created the event, something like "Merthe's 16th birthday."

60. I invited 78 people, to be exact.

61. It asked whether I wanted to make it public or private.

62. I clicked "public."

63. We met Merthe in 2012 when she joined our volleyball team.

64. She was the new girl. She didn't know anybody.

65. We went to different schools. We lived in the city center of Groningen.

66. And she was from a smaller town next to Groningen called Haren.

67. People living in Groningen view people living in Haren as,

68. "They're from Haren. They're probably posh."

69. Yes.

70. Didn't have to be, but everybody thought it.

71. Yes.

72. But, eventually, her personality was completely different than we expected.

73. She could make jokes about herself.

74. She was very easy to talk to. She fitted right in.

75. When she invited us,

76. we were super excited to come to her party.

77. - Merthe was a lot of fun to hang out with. - Yes.

78. We all loved watching Hollywood films.

79. Things like Mean Girls, Easy A, Hangover.

80. Life in these movies was quite different

81. from what we experienced in the Netherlands.

82. And kids my age wanted to experience something similar.

83. When I got to school the next day, now and then, I was looking at my phone.

84. Ah, the old iPhone.

85. So small.

86. I can't remember how we could type on it with a screen of this size.

87. I guess it was the first time

88. when you could use social media on your phone.

89. So events were in the palm of your hand now,

90. and you always knew what was going on.

91. Somewhere around lunchtime,

92. the number of attendees was ticking up slowly,

93. but nothing out of the ordinary.

94. I was chilling out in between classes.

95. Suddenly, I got a ping on my phone, and it was an invite to the party.

96. I went to school with Merthe, but I wasn't really friends with her.

97. She lived in a nice house. They're a little bit elite.

98. Everyone in our school knows where they live.

99. It looks like a little bit of the, um, Home Alone house.

100. And of course it looked like a good house for a party.

101. And then I saw it was a public party.

102. I was a little bit of a rebel.

103. So I thought, "Wouldn't it be funny if I invite more people?"

104. Yeah, but I couldn't invite all of my people at once.

105. So I needed to click on every person who was in my contact list

106. to invite them personally.

107. It took me a long time to do it.

108. I sent like 500 invites.

109. Everyone was so excited about inviting more friends.

110. After the break, one of my friends came up to me

111. to say, "Laurens is crashing your event

112. and talking about inviting a lot of people."

113. That's probably when I started to check my phone.

114. There were now 3,000 people invited to my party.

115. What the hell is going on?

116. People were very enthusiastic

117. and were posting things on the timeline of the, uh, event.

118. And then some of my friends said

119. it might be turning into a Project X party.

120. Mom, Dad, it's me, Thomas.

121. I wanted to be cool for one night.

122. The Project X movie came out earlier in 2012.

123. Tonight's about changing the game.

124. Every teenager wants to go to a party like that.

125. I remember people jumping off roofs.

126. The worst nightmare of a parent.

127. - Hello? - Thomas?

128. - Dad, hey. - We just wanted to call one last time.

129. Make sure you were set for the night.

130. This is too much out of control.

131. Best party movie ever.

132. Now, people were hyping each other up,

133. posting pictures of, you know, the gnome with the ecstasy.

134. Suddenly, I got texts, messages on my phone,

135. "What a really good idea."

136. And then it went rolling and rolling.

137. Yeah, it was exciting, and it was cool.

138. So I took to Twitter and tweeted something like,

139. "Just 3,500 people coming."

140. I really thought it's just a joke. It will calm down.

141. But it just didn't stop.

142. The number of invites went up and up.

143. And it was doubling, tripling.

144. It was crazy.

145. I don't think we had any class at all.

146. It was just people hanging over tables

147. and absorbing this crazy thing that was happening.

148. And also the teacher was sort of into it.

149. At this point, it's starting to feel like maybe this isn't gonna stop by itself.

150. So I looked at my phone and I tried to find an option to delete the event,

151. but at that time, you couldn't from the phone.

152. It was only possible on a desktop version.

153. But I couldn't go home yet.

154. So there was nothing I could do in this moment.

155. When the class finally finished, I quickly took my bicycle and went home.

156. I definitely felt, "I can't hide this," like, "I have to ring the alarm bells."

157. But I don't think my parents really understood social media.

158. You know, whenever I posted anything on Facebook,

159. they'd say, "Did you send them an email?"

160. And so I showed my dad the event.

161. And he was more like, "Huh? What— What happened?"

162. "17,000 people are invited to my house?"

163. "Are they gonna show up?"

164. But he did realize quite early the trouble that the whole family was in.

165. So my mom started calling the police...

166. to see if she could find someone that could help us.

167. But I'm not sure the police understood what the Facebook event was.

168. So we decided that it would be best for me to delete the event.

169. It was a mixed feeling, right?

170. "Okay, now, it's a good thing that it's over."

171. But at the same time, it's like an anticlimax or something.

172. I don't have any connection to Merthe,

173. except that I saw her birthday party on Facebook.

174. And it was, like, the first event to explode like this.

175. I was an 18-year-old kid.

176. And I just wanted to experience that one epic party, like the Project X.

177. I remember getting something to drink,

178. refreshed my Facebook, and I saw it was gone.

179. "404, page not found." I was a little bit disappointed.

180. Things don't happen here.

181. I was having fun. Everybody was having fun.

182. And for me, it felt like it was too early to end.

183. So that's when I created the copycat event at Merthe's house.

184. I called it Project X Haren.

185. A surprise birthday party for her.

186. That evening, I had plans to go to the cinema with one of my best friends.

187. And so we were standing in the line for the popcorn

188. and hearing the people in front of us.

189. "Oh my God, did you see that event?"

190. "Project X. Yeah, I'm gonna go."

191. We're like, "What the fuck?"

192. "What's going on?"

193. My phone is blowing up with messages.

194. This new event has been created

195. using a lot of references to the Project X movie

196. and inviting everyone to my house.

197. What the hell?

198. What? Who did this?

199. It went really crazy and viral.

200. It was meme after meme after meme after meme.

201. The memes is what really did it for me because I'm a meme fanatic.

202. I was just balling.

203. There were other memes of like, "Where is the party? Here is the party."

204. One of them photoshopped me.

205. It was really surreal. You can't believe it's happening to you.

206. What on earth was I gonna do?

207. I was the first elected night mayor of Groningen.

208. And I was responsible for all the nightlife in the city.

209. Organizing festivals.

210. Dealing with bars, with problems.

211. In the Netherlands, it looks very liberal,

212. but there's also a lot of structure, a lot of rules in the background.

213. We have a city council, but after five o'clock, they go home,

214. and I come in.

215. I was on Facebook, and I saw this event coming up.

216. It was a little bit weird because it was an event in Haren.

217. It's a little bit of a boring town. Nothing is happening there.

218. Only some rich kids living there.

219. But then I started to receive phone calls from residents.

220. They had a bad feeling there was something not really right.

221. I really thought it potentially could go wrong.

222. But I could not do anything on my own.

223. I thought action should come from, uh, local authorities.

224. I was just working on my laptop.

225. And then there was this message popping up on the phone.

226. Somebody had sent me the Project X trailer.

227. There were streets that were on fire.

228. My thought then was, "Oh my God, they are gonna destroy everything."

229. If this is going to happen in a little village like Haren,

230. we will have disaster.

231. I love Haren very much.

232. Really, very much.

233. In fact, I was a member of city council on the opposite side of the mayor.

234. I thought, "This is gonna be huge." So I tried to warn the mayor.

235. But he was away for a couple of days, so I couldn't reach him.

236. I tried to contact the mayor.

237. I wanted to help. I wanted to solve this problem.

238. Something a night mayor has to do.

239. But he didn't respond.

240. So every day I called the city council of Haren.

241. They were used to dealing with lampposts, crossings.

242. So they were not taking it serious.

243. We must, uh, find a way to stop this.

244. We must find a way— a way to protect people in Haren.

245. My parents at this point started to get a bit worried.

246. "Are people actually gonna show up?"

247. You know, "Will we not have a house anymore in one week?"

248. And then we, obviously, started thinking about,

249. "Okay, what can we do in order to take this down?"

250. The admin of Project X Haren was someone called Jorik Clarck.

251. So we went back and forth a little bit, making snarly comments at each other.

252. I think she liked the attention.

253. Yeah, I made her, uh, Facebook famous.

254. Jorik didn't understand

255. that it really had an impact on my life and on our family.

256. And I don't think he grasped that.

257. But I wanted to try to convince him to take it down.

258. And so a friend, who was connected to him on Facebook,

259. she gave me his number.

260. I'm hesitant to pick up numbers I don't know,

261. but I was like, "Ah, fuck it."

262. So I slide it, I pick it up, and it says,

263. "Hey, is this Jorik?"

264. I'm like, uh, "Yeah, who am I speaking with?"

265. "Well, this is Merthe's dad." And I was like, "Oh shit."

266. He was a little mad at me.

267. He explained to me, like, people were climbing over their fence

268. and taking pictures of them inside their living room.

269. And that was the point that it finally hit me.

270. If I'm actually ruining their life, that's not something I want.

271. So that's when I put out the message saying that the party's over.

272. And people didn't like that.

273. When he finally took it down, obviously, there was a lot of relief.

274. It's over.

275. Then a few hours later,

276. another event popped up...

277. which was crazy.

278. It shocked me.

279. It was like an exact copy of my page.

280. The numbers went up very, very fast.

281. There were already 30,000 people invited.

282. It was a weird name to have.

283. Der Führer obviously has a very negative connotation

284. in the German language.

285. So I thought I'd try to reason with the admins,

286. saying how serious it was,

287. and how really we were urging and really asking them to take it down

288. because it was having a really big impact on our lives,

289. and, um, it wasn't just a joke.

290. And the only response that I got were two words.

291. "Eat shit."

292. The rumors about this party started getting bigger and bigger.

293. There was gonna be a stage, and there were artists coming.

294. Heineken was even gonna sponsor the event, like it was some kind of festival.

295. That was crazy.

296. I was listening to the radio in the car,

297. and, suddenly, they were talking about Project X.

298. Merthe speaking.

299. It's Timor and Coen from 3FM.

300. - Hi. - Hi.

301. The party's coming up?

302. Unfortunately, everyone had my phone number.

303. And one of the first calls that I got was from De Coen en Sander Show.

304. I didn't really know what to do. I just, sort of, kept talking.

305. The party is definitely canceled.

306. You could've had 6,000 presents.

307. That'd be great, but it wouldn't cover the cost of a new house.

308. By the way, am I live on the radio right now?

309. - Yes! Ha-ha! - Yes! 3FM! Merthe!

310. Then it went huge in the national media.

311. The town of Haren is getting ready for the arrival

312. of thousands of unwanted partygoers.

313. 50,000 invitations have now been sent via the internet.

314. One, two, three. Do it! Do it!

315. When a crazy video of a poster rolling off of a building hit the news,

316. we started realizing, okay, this is really going to— to happen.

317. There were already rumors

318. about people getting on buses from different cities in the Netherlands.

319. Residents on the Stationsweg in Haren

320. are worried.

321. There were now thousands of people coming.

322. It's even bigger than I was thinking at the start.

323. I had a very nasty feeling.

324. Uh, we are just not ready to— to host all these people.

325. At this point, we kept the curtains closed 24/7.

326. People were always taking pictures of the house.

327. I couldn't go to volleyball. I couldn't go to school.

328. People started making masks of my face.

329. It's almost like The Purge where you're trapped in your house,

330. and people are ringing the doorbell and trying to get in.

331. Our target for this year's Purge is hiding in your home.

332. It wasn't just, you know, people making fun anymore.

333. They also became a little bit scary.

334. The day before the party, I was getting more and more nervous.

335. I was thinking this is not a place

336. where you wanna host a few thousand people.

337. It's gonna be very, very dangerous.

338. If the council doesn't take it seriously, I had to come up with a plan.

339. The only solution was to organize an alternative party outside of Haren.

340. I said to the city council, "I don't wanna make a penny on this."

341. So they were like, "Oh, this may be a good idea."

342. "Uh, can you work that out for us?"

343. Normally, it takes months to organize a very big party.

344. We only had like 24 hours to organize this.

345. I sent a plan.

346. But Mayor Bats had the final say...

347. and I was really praying that he was making the right choice.

348. The day before the party,

349. I was invited for a meeting with the mayor.

350. And I really hoped that the mayor would say to us,

351. "Okay, I made a decision,

352. and I will close every road to Haren, so no one can come in."

353. But the mayor didn't wanna do that.

354. I have a very clear message.

355. This party is canceled.

356. Just so everyone is clear, there is no party here.

357. I got a bit angry when I heard that.

358. Why don't you take the youth seriously?

359. There was no kid that thought,

360. "Oh, well, if he says there's no party, I believe him."

361. It was too late. It was the wrong message.

362. I received a call from the city council.

363. Uh, the mayor decided to not do this alternative party

364. but just work with police.

365. They were very stupid, and they were naive.

366. There was no music, there was no stage, there was nothing.

367. And if you don't provide these things,

368. the kids will find ways to have a good time.

369. Stuk means broken.

370. We want to break television channels because they have rules.

371. We hate rules.

372. We do, like, Jackass stuff. Crazy challenges every fucking week.

373. Everybody was texting, "Hey, are you going to Project X Haren?"

374. "This party is gonna be epic."

375. "Everybody is gonna talk about it, so you need to be there."

376. We had a dream.

377. We want to have the biggest YouTube channel in the world.

378. So this was our move.

379. Let's fucking film this shit,

380. and let's have fun.

381. You wanna go to Haren? Party? Project X!

382. Here we go.

383. It was the morning of the party.

384. The city council of Haren asked me to help monitor social media

385. because they did not have that experience.

386. I was asked to put the message out that there would not be a party.

387. My boss told me, "Do whatever it takes."

388. Just keep telling the public, "Do not come to Haren."

389. "There is no party."

390. But we were just this tiny town with four likes.

391. We started to interact, uh, but it was impossible to do.

392. It was a— a David and Goliath situation.

393. When I checked Facebook on the day of the event,

394. about 350,000 people had been invited.

395. So the timeline was just streaming with posts.

396. People were gearing up to— to come.

397. My youngest daughter worked in the supermarket.

398. She told me that there were a lot of strange people buying a lot of alcohol.

399. Everyone was just trying to get their hands on alcohol.

400. We were 16, and in the Netherlands, it means you can drink.

401. We didn't need a fake ID like McLovin.

402. Why did you decide to get the train here to Haren?

403. Uh, just out of curiosity really.

404. It'll be an experience to see something like this.

405. By lunchtime, there were people really gathering

406. in front of the house in large numbers and planning to stay.

407. The press was ringing the doorbell a lot.

408. Still quiet at Merthe's. We'll ring the doorbell.

409. Good afternoon.

410. No cameras.

411. Her father has had enough of this.

412. I was doing live coverage for Project X Haren.

413. When I drove to Merthe's street,

414. they had taken away the street signs.

415. I guess it was kind of funny.

416. People have navigation on their phones, so it's not very hard to get there.

417. When I looked outside,

418. so many people had gathered in front of the house

419. that it started to feel unsafe.

420. So that was the moment where I said, "I want to go."

421. There were too many people standing in front of her house.

422. And the police decided, "Okay, we're going to stop this,"

423. and they were closing both ends of the street.

424. I was very relieved that we left.

425. When we arrived at my aunt's house, I don't think we said much.

426. We just sat there watching everything as it unfolded.

427. Just two more hours, and the party starts in Haren

428. for 16-year-old Merthe.

429. The man next to me now, police spokesman Paul Heidanus,

430. stands here with a cautious smile.

431. Mr. Heidanus, I understand you have 300 police officers on standby?

432. I won't say anything about the measures we have taken.

433. But let it be clear, we know what we're doing.

434. Everything was under control.

435. My shift ended, so I left.

436. I was cycling, and then I stopped.

437. And I saw this endless line of cars coming in,

438. and people walking towards Haren.

439. We were outnumbered.

440. So I called the people at the— at the town hall,

441. and, uh, I said,

442. "This message we put out,

443. it didn't work."

444. Every time a train arrived,

445. I saw this stream of people walking past us.

446. I didn't know Merthe, but I'm a party animal myself.

447. And we were just walking to Haren, you know, with a big-ass group.

448. The vibes was nice.

449. Hey!

450. When I arrived at the party,

451. I saw people having fun.

452. We could hear the shouting and screaming.

453. We closed the doors and the windows.

454. You cannot do very much more than that.

455. Very scary. Very scary.

456. The busier it— it got, the— the crazier it got, really.

457. Chaos.

458. This is absolutely crazy.

459. I've never known someone have so many friends.

460. Project X Haren can start, we are here!

461. Everybody was jumping, drinking beer, having fun.

462. They were thinking, "Let's have the best night of our life."

463. Everybody was screaming like crazy animals.

464. Where is the party? The party is here!

465. I loved it.

466. I still sometimes, in my head, sing this song.

467. Where is the party?

468. Because that's what I heard all night.

469. A lot of these young people

470. were really expecting to find some sort of a party.

471. And all they found was— was barriers and a few police officers

472. and a crowd that was getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

473. Oh, sorry!

474. And every time I was going live, these strange, stupid things happened.

475. Arnoud?

476. Hey, guys, what are you doing here?

477. Good vibes, motherfucker!

478. And I was like, "How long are we going to keep this going?"

479. A Facebook party attracts strange people from all over the country.

480. I've just been showered in whiskey.

481. - I think it's time to move on from here. - Good, Arnoud Bodde. Thank you.

482. I walked with the dog to the center

483. to see what was happening.

484. Behind me, there was a group of people...

485. chanting, making noise.

486. And then, suddenly, I felt a hit on the head.

487. And, immediately,

488. I heard glass breaking.

489. They threw a bottle... at my head.

490. The dog started to shake.

491. That's when I felt that the atmosphere turned around.

492. You could feel it in the air.

493. You could see, in a minute,

494. it can explode.

495. We are now in Merthe's street, and it's madness.

496. It looks like we entered a football stadium.

497. Thousands and thousands of young people.

498. And we have only ten officers.

499. I saw so many people.

500. More and more and more.

501. And I was like, "No way that there's 300 police officers

502. in the village right now."

503. There was obviously no plan.

504. These were not riot police.

505. They were just regular cops...

506. who were looking at each other, scared.

507. The police, they were outnumbered by... thousands.

508. And I wasn't sure that they were gonna hold the line much longer.

509. I was very worried they'd reach the house...

510. and burn it down, pretty much like in the movie.

511. They saw the movie Project X.

512. They want to have the party in the house.

513. They want to have the swimming pool, but they don't get it.

514. And people get really, really drunk.

515. And then some people get aggressive.

516. Everybody was screaming.

517. We thought, "What the hell is happening here?"

518. I opened up my Twitter. I saw them start to throw bottles.

519. And suddenly I hear a lot of sirens.

520. Oh no. Now— Now it's gonna happen.

521. If you invite the police to a party, there's only one outcome.

522. There's gonna be a riot.

523. Whoa!

524. The police have fired a warning shot.

525. The police made one fucking big mistake.

526. They were trying to push us away.

527. Now it's really getting out of hand.

528. Fuck, it's getting crazy now.

529. They started a war they couldn't win.

530. It was the police that provoked this.

531. Nothing ever happens here, and we're not allowed to go crazy.

532. People tasted that freedom.

533. And when the riot police started to take it away,

534. people just went berserk.

535. This is fucking bizarre.

536. How long will the police let this go on?

537. I was worried about my dad because

538. he had decided to stay.

539. He wanted to be there for the neighbors.

540. I hoped that he wouldn't somehow get caught up in that crowd.

541. We didn't go to the party.

542. And I also didn't want to contribute to a crowd

543. that is putting her family in danger.

544. I remember the footage from the news.

545. It was the police hitting people.

546. The police were getting, also, aggressive.

547. If somebody was getting close to the police,

548. the police would...

549. smash the guy.

550. I was filming this. I was like, "Okay. Oh my God. What's happening here?"

551. I've never seen this before in the Netherlands.

552. Hit people that hard when they are laying on the ground?

553. That's wild.

554. I fell down.

555. And, yeah,

556. riot police started, like, attacking my legs with their bats and stuff.

557. You know, but I managed to get up and got away.

558. And I was like, "Okay, you wanna treat me like a rioter?"

559. "Then I'll become a rioter."

560. I saw people bending down a pole.

561. So I just decided to help them.

562. I saw people...

563. running through our garden to avoid the police.

564. Normally, you see it on television, and it's far away,

565. but now we had it in our front yard.

566. People were throwing Molotov cocktails into the cars.

567. And I thought, "Oh my God, this is like... Call of Duty."

568. "This is real."

569. "This is fucking real."

570. I saw this very big guy grabbing a pole,

571. and he just started bashing in the windows of the supermarkets.

572. The thing that was going through my head was, "Free cigarette."

573. So I put on my hood,

574. and I was actually the first one to go inside.

575. So I just filled up the bag to the brim.

576. I was living in the moment.

577. I felt alive, I guess. You know?

578. We were just filming the robbery.

579. But that was a wrong decision.

580. In just one second, shit hits the fan.

581. "Hey! Hey! They're filming us! They're filming us!"

582. "Grab them! Grab them!"

583. And after a— a few seconds, you were laying on the ground.

584. And people were trying to get his camera, "Give me the camera!"

585. I saw these arms with big tattoos, like, bam, bam!

586. And the only thing that I could do is grab the people away from him

587. because I want to have the footage.

588. We filmed something new.

589. So, if you have 500 subscribers in Holland, just 500,

590. this was the moment for us to grow.

591. And you wanna save my life because otherwise—

592. That's the second part.

593. No, no, no.

594. Without him, I was pretty dead.

595. We jumped him over a— a roof, right?

596. I was really scared.

597. The camera, they hit it really hard.

598. But we managed to get the tape. We saved it.

599. Okay, that's it. No more!

600. What we just experienced was insane.

601. I was scared to death.

602. We're sitting in a car.

603. And we say, "We have gold."

604. "Let's get out of this war zone."

605. At some point in the evening...

606. my dad was told by the police...

607. that two girls had died in the crowd.

608. Sorry.

609. So that was tough.

610. People are... dying on your birthday party, and...

611. somehow the role you played in that,

612. and it's just an empty feeling.

613. Like, it— That's— You can't, uh...

614. Can't grasp that, I don't think.

615. On Twitter, there are rumors

616. that a girl has been crushed to death,

617. but there are tweets that say it's not true.

618. What do you know?

619. We also read Twitter and have the same information,

620. but we have not heard this from the police.

621. I wanted to bike home,

622. but I just couldn't because there was glass everywhere.

623. It looked like a tornado had hit the town.

624. And I was walking, and I felt guilty.

625. I'm sad to be associated with this.

626. Later, luckily, we heard that nobody had died.

627. But I think the emotional impact is already done.

628. As it got to midnight, the police finally took control,

629. and things calmed down.

630. And then I saw this car.

631. The windscreen was smashed, the side mirrors were off.

632. There were footsteps on the top of the car.

633. There was this big triangle-shaped brick, uh, on the passenger seat.

634. I was standing there looking at it.

635. And then behind me,

636. I— I heard this voice of a colleague of mine,

637. "Is that your car?"

638. I said, "Yep, that's mine."

639. Um...

640. I've kept the brick as a sort of a— a souvenir.

641. My girlfriend has asked me a couple of times,

642. "Are we still keeping that?"

643. And I'm like, "Yeah, we're— we're keeping the brick."

644. We stayed up the whole night,

645. cutting the film,

646. and put it on our website.

647. After one hour, it goes viral.

648. Yeah, that was the really first big hit for StukTV.

649. It started with Project X Haren.

650. And after 12 years, we're one of the biggest YouTube channels in Holland.

651. From initial analysis, we are dealing with

652. what I can only call scum

653. who, in a violent, well-prepared manner, consciously sought out confrontation.

654. The mayor and the police didn't take responsibility.

655. He called the kids scum. I didn't agree with him.

656. The kids were just coming to Haren to have a good time.

657. And they did everything to not provide that.

658. The rioters have left the people of Haren in shock.

659. The total cost of the damage is unknown.

660. All the windows are broken. It's so bad.

661. We'll have to work hard today to get Haren clean again.

662. We're still the best community in the Netherlands.

663. Sorry.

664. The next day, I went for a walk with my husband,

665. and everything was already cleaned up.

666. I was very, very proud of the people in my town.

667. I woke up with a hangover,

668. and everything was all over Facebook.

669. And people were tagging my name under those videos.

670. Fucking snitches.

671. This was gonna come back on me one way or another.

672. So I just decided to go back and return what I stole.

673. I was like, "Oh, damn, I fucked up."

674. On tonight's show,

675. what are the consequences of the critical report on Project X Haren

676. for the mayor and the police chief?

677. The one time he should have been here and not taken any risks

678. and just protected the people,

679. it did not go well.

680. Things should have gone differently.

681. Let there be no misunderstanding about that.

682. And for that, here today, I apologize.

683. A couple of years after Project X, I was at a party,

684. and in comes walking Merthe.

685. And I was like— I recognized her immediately.

686. But because of the shame I felt, I didn't say anything.

687. His face looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.

688. She looked at me, I looked at her. She was like, "You're that guy, right?"

689. I was like, "Yeah, that's me."

690. She's like, "Okay, it's fine. It's in the past. Don't worry about it."

691. "And we were young and, uh, stupid."

692. I don't think most people that came to the party

693. were intending to riot or to commit a crime.

694. I think a lot of people came because they wanted a party.

695. I think it's sort of a normal inherent thing

696. in teenagers around that age,

697. that they wanna rebel and take their freedom,

698. express their... personalities.

699. I definitely would have gone if it wasn't my party.