- (reporter) Rachel, Nevada at 6:30.
- That's the best clip I've ever seen.
- What if the government arrested all of them
before it got reported? - ♪ (X-Files theme) ♪
♪ (industrial intro) ♪
- (anchor) Storm Area 51 weekend is just getting started.
- Oh gosh.
- Oh my gosh. This again.
- Yes, my people, dog.
- (reporter) Here's a look at the area right now.
- I hope this goes down in history.
- (reporter) There's no hotel rooms in this
isolated area. - Well, duh.
- I didn't think it would actually happen.
I really thought two people would show up.
I'm surprised.
- (reporter) Her people were told coming in
from around the world and especially across the country
is interested to see what happens after that viral idea
to storm Area 51. - I actually really wanted to go
really badly.
- Oh my gosh, the graffiti.
- (reporter) Expecting up to 30,000 people to show up
during the course of-- - That's a lot of porta potties.
- (reporter) We will have much more from the tiny community
of Rachel, Nevada at 6:30.
Of Rachel, Nevada at 6:30.
- That's the best clip I've ever seen.
- (reporter) Of Rachel, Nevada at 6:30.
- The Naruto run, I saw this.
- (reporter) Of Rachel, Nevada at 6:30.
- Yes. You can stop.
You can stop it now and I'm satisfied.
- Man, it could have been the greatest event
of the 21st century, but instead, it ended up
becoming the biggest flop of the 21st century.
- (reporter) Back out here live, we'll have much more
from the tiny community of Rachel, Nevada at 6:30.
♪ (electronic music) ♪
- Loving the anime references, dude.
It's good.
- Grandayy and Dolan Dark, they're famous memers.
- That's how the event went. This is real footage.
- The people that made these memes are the ones
that probably went.
- Always goes to space.
- It's a mixture of all of 2019 so far.
- Oh my God, the Bee Movie.
- Shrek 5, Bee Movie 2, Obama's last name.
Oh my God, that's so good.
- There's tiers of memes and I think Area 51
generated a lot of tier ones and tier A memes
and this is what we see here.
- "How I imagined the #raidarea51 looking.
#NarutoRun #Area51."
- That was my imagination, too. We have the same mind.
- That's how it should have been, though, but then
literally nothing happened. I heard a few people
got arrested.
- I love that there's people blowing up in the background
because I'm pretty sure that's what the government would have done
if we would have just full on Naruto runned into it.
- Everyone imagined everyone storming it and then
people were just kinda chanting holding signs.
- (FBE) So, you know about the sign?
- Everyone knows about the sign. - (FBE) This is Generations React
and we're showing the sign, but not to the kids
in this episode, but you already know about it.
- I already know about the sign. Who doesn't know about the sign?
- Oh my God, all I could see-- I didn't see the top part.
I was like, "Clap alien cheeks."
- Smack the booties? Smack the alien booty?
Like these are the booty and it does that?
- I'm guessing this is sexual in a way?
Well, I learned something new.
- When are they gonna look back and think of our generation
in the future. We're just the biggest clowns.
- That sign just tied everyone together.
That was the peak of internet culture and if this doesn't
end up in a textbook, I'm gonna be really upset.
- "Me nine months after clapping fresh alien cheeks."
Ew, that's kinda gross.
- A lot of people Photoshopped a lot of weird alien pictures
and low key, some are dumb thick, so maybe people
would clap alien cheeks. Not me.
It's not my thing, but you never know.
- Now that I know what clapping cheeks mean,
this is kinda disturbing.
- Yes, dude. Is that Jack Black?
Oh, that is Jack Black? What the heck?
- Oh, Jack Black. "You may call me,
Master Naruto."
- Jack Black is a national treasure.
- I like the sound of his sneakers.
That's such a good touch.
- I just need to marry this meme, then I'll be good.
- Oh my God. There goes Jack Black.
- Oh, there we go.
- (reporter) Rachel, Nevada at 6:30.
- That looked pretty close to being real.
That was pretty good.
- Oh my gosh. Why was he not there?
He should have been the ambassador of Area 51.
- If Jack Black led the raid on Area 51,
we would have the secrets of the universe.
- "How people are heading back home after the raid of Area 51."
- (man groaning)
- I want that.
- This was Eric. Eric came home with
a 40 foot inflatable alien.
- We all wanna get our alien, treat it like our child.
A new race, but I guess it's
a government facility and people had guns there.
- "How I'm pulling up to Area 51 vs how I'm leaving Area 51."
Bet, yes.
- True. They're holding that technology
in there. We know it.
- I'm going with them.
- "Me after getting home from the Area 51 raid,
introducing my husband to his new child."
- What the heck is that thing? That's not real.
Ew, I did not like that.
- That's kinda gross.
- "Well done, everyone." Expectation, reality.
Yeah, that's about right.
- A little too many people RSVP'd for it
versus the actual turnout, which was like my birthdays
growing up.
- I remember reacting to this a while back and I thought
that the outcome was gonna be way bigger,
but it seemed pretty chill. It was a little bit of a letdown.
- We just all assumed that it would be a giant turnout
and then a lot of people just don't show up
because of course. It's pretty dumb.
- This is my conspiracy theory. What if the government
arrested all of them before it got reported?
♪ (X-Files theme) ♪
- (FBE) So, how much did you follow this from when
it first went viral to now? - Literally not at all.
- I was kind of keeping track. I kind of lost interest
towards the middle, but as it got closer,
there were more hashtags about it.
People were bringing it back, saying they were actually going.
- At first, pretty-- I was pretty up to date on it,
'cause I thought it was something interesting.
I just kinda like-- it was something that
over time, I lost interest in.
- I only followed it when the memes were presented to me
and I laughed my alien [bleep] off.
- If this actually happened closer to the time of the event,
the Facebook post, more people would have showed up.
Internet culture works so quickly. If it's not the next day
or within the next week, the hype dies behind it
really quickly.
- I wasn't paying attention much to it
and then finally, come August, September, we're like,
"What if we tried?" But we didn't really go.
We went to one better, Area 52.
We did it. We've arrived.
- (Mikaela) Thanks, Superfam.
- (FBE) So recently, the FBE Superfam
hit over 1000 members this month.
The FBE Superfam are our YouTube members
who get all kinds of perks like merch discounts,
exclusive livestreams, and bonus videos
of never seen before content, plus lots, lots more.
Well, we said we'd storm Area 51 if we hit
one of our member goals and well, we hit the goal,
but you went to Area 52. - I don't know if you can
tell in the stream, but I need you to cut
to the footage of 20 random strangers just applauding
as we walked.
- (cheering)
- (FBE) Overall, as someone who got very close to
the actual event, what was it like?
- Oh, it's wild. People knew that this
event was going on. The locals were like,
"Oh, you gonna go to Area 51?"
and they were kind of excited about it.
- It was a really active day. A lot of people were out
and about and having parties and stuff,
so it was cool. It was fun.
- (FBE) So, since the event had so many people
that were signed up, many authorities predicted
that tens of thousands of people were actually
gonna show up, but in actuality,
only a few thousand people went to the Nevada desert
and less than 100 people showed up to the official
Area 51 gate. - Aw, okay.
So that sucks. I mean, yay, government.
That sucks.
- I thought I was gonna have FOMO about this,
but I don't.
- (FBE) So, why do you think so many people signed up
for the event, but then almost no one
actually went? - I think that because
most people probably were just joking around.
- People just wanna be part of a meme and say,
"Oh, I signed up. I'm going."
Who's actually gonna-- "I'm gonna book a flight
for Nevada just to go into Area 51
when I'm probably not going to and I'm probably gonna
get arrested."
- Nobody wants to die or get blown up
and obviously, nobody wants to Naruto run into
a top secret American base.
- (FBE) One of the creators of the original Facebook event,
Matty Roberts, at first partnered with some Nevada locals
to try and put on a music festival
called Alienstock, but then he backed out
saying in an interview that "I can't have my name
associated with something that could be Fyre Fest 2.0."
- Oh yeah, no. That's probably the smart
thing to do because it would have been a disaster.
- The US government must have said something to him.
That's what I'm thinking.
- I actually really appreciate that Matty spoke out
saying, "You know what? This could really tarnish
my reputation. I could really hurt people
in a way by them doing this and getting their hopes up
and all these things when I can't make
the promises."
- (FBE) So, with thousands expected to storm Area 51,
there were many that were concerned over people getting
arrested, injured, or worse, but at the end of the weekend,
there were only around ten reported arrests due to the raid.
- Only ten arrests?
- That seems like a lot.
- People who did go said it was peaceful
and created a community of internet nerds
who came together for the sole purpose
of joining in on a meme. Do you like to see
when communities can come together like this?
- I actually kinda do. I think it's kinda cool.
- That is pretty funny that a few people
were just so committed to the bit that they
showed up and they made friends out of it.
- It's awesome to see people come together,
especially for people that maybe never met each other
and now, they're meeting up at this weird event
that they can look back on years later and laugh about.
- My favorite example is Pokemon Go.
Different people that don't really go out,
don't have that many friends, would go out to actual parks
and then they would meet these other people
that have so many different things in common
with them, they can nerd out. People have made best friends
with those types of communities.
I've seen communities be made because of
this type of thing and I think it's so cute.
- (FBE) So, despite the relative peaceful nature of the raid,
there has been some criticism that there's
much more serious issues to come together on
then this trend and it's just a big
waste of time. So, what do you think
about that point of view? - Well, it actually is true.
Instead of going to Area 51, why don't you just
start picking up trash?
- Our time and energy should be put into something
to help better the world.
- I understand what they mean. I don't think we can
bring everyone together on a single thing yet.
I think we need to work our way up
and just as a meme joke bringing people together,
I think it shows that we can slowly work our way
up to something huge.
- We're more inclined to do things that have
social relevance. Even though these other
issues do also have social relevance,
they don't get the attention because you just don't get
as much recognition for it. It's not memeable.
It's not something that you can market and put out there.
- As long as we're all trying our best to make some impact
in the world, it-- what harm is it to do
something that you just enjoy for entertainment?
- It's hard for me to know what to focus on
because the news that I receive are not curated
by me anymore. It's curated by the internet.
Yes, I want to focus on important things.
I think we all should, but that's just not the reality.
- Because we have social media and the news are constantly
covering things that are going on, sometimes our brains
just need a break and we need to see something
dumb or join in on a joke to get a laugh and breathe.
- (FBE) So finally, with all this going so viral,
do you think that September 20th will always be Area 51 raid day
with annual posts and possibly events,
or do you think it's a one and done thing?
- I think it's one and done.
- It's just a one and done thing.
- It'll fade away pretty quickly.
- It'll dissipate. I don't know.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like
that big of a deal to me.
- I wanna say one and done, but knowing how we are,
this is definitely gonna turn into some weird giant festival.
- Online, we're definitely gonna make jokes about this annually.
It probably will die out eventually, but I don't think
it's ever gonna happen again.
- Since it was such a big thing this year, it could be
a big thing next year.
- I think it's gonna get even bigger and bigger
and bigger next year and I think that might be
the downfall of it, more people going.
- We'll look back and we'll remember the time when--
do you remember in 2019 when people on Facebook
wanted to go to Area 51? It'll be one of those
and I think it's best kept a memory.
- Thanks to everyone and you aliens
for watching this episode of Generations React.
- Bye, everyone.
- Hey everybody, Lauren, producer here at FBE.
Thank you so much for watching this episode.
If you wanna help support the channel and look good
doing it, go to ShopFBE.com for some awesome merch.
Have a great day. No, don't take me yet.
No!