A new documentary has premiered on Netflix, offering a clinical dissection of a digital-age fable gone wrong. Trainwreck: The Real Project X, the latest installment in the streaming service’s anthology series on public disasters, revisits the 2012 incident in Haren, a small Dutch town that became the epicenter of a social media-fueled riot. Directed by Alex Wood, the 48-minute film soberly investigates how a teenage girl’s birthday party invitation, amplified by the burgeoning power of Facebook and the influence of a Hollywood movie, spiraled into a night of widespread destruction. The documentary presents the Haren riot not as a freak occurrence, but as a landmark case study in the volatile intersection of online spectacle and offline reality.
The Digital Spark
The film meticulously traces the catastrophe back to a single, seemingly innocuous mistake. A Dutch teenager, Merthe Weusthuis, created a private Facebook event for her sixteenth birthday, intending to celebrate quietly with friends. However, she inadvertently left the event’s privacy settings public, an error that allowed anyone to see and share the invitation. The digital invitation quickly escaped her control, snowballing into an avalanche of online attention. The number of RSVPs exploded, with 30,000 people eventually confirming their attendance from over 240,000 who saw the post.
Even after a panicked Merthe canceled the event, the idea had taken on a life of its own. The party was no longer hers. Anonymous users, some from outside the Netherlands, created copycat event pages, rebranding the gathering as “Project X Haren”. An unauthorized promotional campaign flourished, complete with a dedicated website, Twitter accounts, and YouTube trailers that spliced in scenes from the film Project X to build hype. The documentary features the first-ever interview with Weusthuis, who recounts how she became the unwilling face of a viral phenomenon as merchandise bearing her image was created and sold without her consent.
The Cinematic Blueprint
The documentary argues that the riot in Haren is inseparable from the cultural influence of the 2012 film Project X. The movie, itself loosely inspired by a real out-of-control party in Australia, depicts a high school birthday party that escalates into a destructive bacchanal, glamorizing the chaos and portraying its protagonists as legends with few lasting consequences. Trainwreck: The Real Project X demonstrates how this cinematic fantasy provided a powerful and dangerous script for reality.
Attendees and online promoters explicitly branded the Haren gathering with the film’s name, setting a clear expectation for anarchy. Thousands arrived in the small town not just for a party, but to reenact a fantasy of consequence-free destruction. The documentary analyzes this as a potent cultural feedback loop: a real event inspires a film, which in turn inspires a more chaotic real event, which has now become the subject of this documentary, packaging the phenomenon for a new generation.
The Night of Chaos
Using archival footage and eyewitness accounts, the film provides a moment-by-moment reconstruction of the riot. On the designated evening, between 3,000 and 5,000 youths descended on Haren, a town with a population of just under 19,000. Authorities, who had been warned but underestimated the scale of the viral threat, had blocked off the street where Merthe lived; she and her family had already fled their home.
According to eyewitnesses, the atmosphere was initially good-natured, but with no actual party to attend, the mood soured. Fueled by alcohol, the restless crowd turned to violence. They began throwing bottles, stones, bicycles, and even potted plants at police. The disorder spread through the town center, where shops were vandalized and looted, including a local supermarket. Cars were set on fire, and public property was destroyed. The police response escalated, ultimately involving 500 riot police to disperse the crowds. The aftermath was stark: at least 30 people were injured, 34 were arrested, and the damages were estimated to exceed one million euros.
A Digital Reckoning
Ultimately, Trainwreck: The Real Project X frames the Haren riot as a cautionary tale about an era of digital naivete and institutional unpreparedness. The film highlights the failure of local authorities to comprehend the nature of a viral threat, even after consulting with German police about a similar, smaller-scale incident in Hamburg.
However, the documentary also explores the dual nature of the technology that enabled the disaster. In the days following the riot, the same social media platform was used for constructive collective action. A Facebook group called “Project Clean-X Haren” was created to organize volunteers for the cleanup effort, while another, “Suspect-X Haren,” was used to crowdsource the identification of rioters for the police by sharing photos and videos. This adds a layer of nuance, showing how the tools of chaos can also be used for civic restoration. The film concludes that the disaster was not a single point of failure but a perfect storm of technology, media influence, and human behavior—a lesson that remains profoundly relevant.
The documentary, directed by Alex Wood, has a runtime of 48 minutes and was released on Netflix on July 8, 2025.
