About
Kate’s Birthday was an open Facebook event organized by Kate Miller, who wished to invite some of her close friends and celebrate her birthday on May 1st, 2010. Although it was meant to be a small, intimate get-together, the number of invites quickly got out of hand after it became widely publicized by others, amassing over 60,000 attendees before getting shut down.
Origin
In late April 2010, an open Facebook invitation to Kate’s birthday party in Australia began spreading around the internet, with the event page reading it is only going to be a small gathering of friends. However, Kate Miller made two fatal mistakes: making it completely open event and advertising free booze.
Spread
On April 21st, David Thorne, owner of 27bslash6.com, tweeted “Yay. Kate’s having a party in her apartment. Hit attending & give the host an aneurysm.” (http://www.geekosystem.com/kates-party-facebook-meme/) The Facebook event was added to Digg on the 22nd and Reddit on the 25th, garnering over 30,000 attending guests in a matter of days. Soon after, the original event text was changed to:
“WTF?? WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?
WHY ARE THERE 10000 PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN INVITED??
THIS IS A PRIVATE PARTY AT OUR APARTMENT."
After reaching approximately 60,000 attendees, the event was shut down by Facebook.
Prank Revealed
On April 27th, the Sydney Morning Herald posted an article in which they spoke with David Thorne, who tweeted the link to the event to his then-27,000 followers. He revealed Kate’s party – and Kate Miller herself – was just a prank to “entertain a few people over the weekend.”
Last updated on May 6th, www.katesparty.com states that the entire prank was developed by Sticky Media, an Australian “multimedia studio.” They deemed the event campaign “hugely successful” and are now using katesparty.com to advertise their services.
Derivatives
After people started attending the party, hundreds of offshoot groups and pages appeared such as Kate’s party better not be BYO, Sorry Miley, the party isn’t in the USA, it’s at Kate’s apartment, Ted Mosbey met your mother at Kate’s Party, Who needs a ride to Kate’s party? and Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits for Kate’s Party just to name a few.
It also spawned the following YouTube videos:
Leave Kate Alone! (a nod to Chris Crocker’s “Leave Britney Alone”)
News sites even picked up on the party event and, thinking it was a real person’s invitation, San Francisco News posted an article on April 25, 2010 to showcase the lack of privacy control on Facebook, noting that since Facebook is so easy to use, anyone can make a mistake like this.