The throngs of drunken college students who disrupted neighborhoods and clashed with cops in Amherst last spring and in Keene more recently came not just from those college towns but from campuses across the Northeast.

And no wonder: Social media megaphones like FinnaRageTV—a Massachusetts company that promotes parties near college campuses and then broadcasts the madness on the Web—have made invitations a viral matter.

“Click HERE to experience the RAGE,” boasts the landing page at finnaragetv.com, where visitors are greeted by a grainy clip of partiers using a gas mask and bong to smoke … well, let’s just say it’s probably not Prince Albert tobacco.

Last week, FinnaRage posted its video montage of the mayhem unfolding in the Keene State College neighborhood on the same day as the city’s family-friendly Pumpkin Festival. In a preface to the video, CEO Trevor Finney declares that FinnaRage “did not condone or instigate any of the actions that took place on October 18th-19th.”

The behavior that Finney alludes to is the riotous kind that led to 80-plus arrests, thousands of dollars in damage including a car flipped onto its roof, and numerous trips to the emergency room for people hit by bottles (some of them full of booze) hurled through the air. The video features repeated clips of young people bellowing at the camera, rushing through the streets with beer cans in hand, all set to throbbing house music.

“Why does it feel so good to be bad?” the lyrics open. “‘Cause if it’s trouble that you’re lookin’ for, then baby here I am.”

On and near the campuses of UMass and Keene State, college and police officials say the influx of out-of-town students played a large role in pushing the size and tone of parties beyond control. And they suggest that outfits like FinnaRage bear a measure of blame.

“Outrage” is the word New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan used to describe the Keene rioting. “Obviously, we want to hold the parties who were behaving as they did accountable,” Hassan said of those young revelers who turned destructive. “We also want to investigate ways to hold accountable any social media organizations that fueled this.”

In Amherst, Enku Gelaye, vice chancellor for student affairs at UMass, said FinnaRage and organizations like it have been on her radar for some time. She said that social media played a major role in escalating the March 8 Blarney Blowout, which resulted in 55 arrests and police firing hundreds of pepper balls in a much-criticized reaction to unruly crowds.

“You don’t do student affairs work without knowing about these organizations—they’re part of the landscape,” Gelaye said. She said the social media magnets create an “x factor” that makes it hard to predict and contain crowds.

“If these groups are expanding these events beyond these resources, that poses a huge safety issue,” said Gelaye.

In Keene, officials say the annual Pumpkin Festival has long served as a draw for students not only at Keene State but also at other New England schools. For the most part, though, the partiers dispersed to a wide range of gatherings that rarely got out of hand.

FinnaRage, however, organizes centralized “rages” with expensive sound equipment and cameras that encourage already amped-up young people to party even harder—to pit one college against another for the title of rager-in-chief.

“We’ve come to the conclusion … every school we’ve gone to goes hard as f— …BUT … we think Keene State still holds the title,” FinnaRage posted to its Twitter feed on Oct. 11, a week before the Keene event.

The results of such promotion may make for good video, but Keene State College Vice President for Student Affairs Kemal Atkins said the school is looking into how FinnaRage’s language may have contributed to bringing a crowd at least 2,000-strong to the streets of Keene.

“Organizations that promote these extreme parties or gatherings have a role in terms of the numbers,” Atkins said. “They’re appealing to students’ desires to gather in large numbers and, in this case, that led to some extreme behavior.”

Captain Brian Costa of the Keene Police Department said Finna Rage’s involvement in the events of Oct. 18 is still under investigation.

Trevor Finney, the 20-year-old owner of FinnaRage, declined to comment for this article. But in earlier interviews, the Boston-based Finney denied responsibility, saying that the company simply provided music and then cleared out when trouble began.

“We were put in the middle. I got shot by a rubber bullet,” he told New Hampshire Public Radio reporter Jack Rodolico. “We had nothing to do with this.”

 

Invitation to “be crazyyyyyyy”

 

In the days leading up to Pumpkin Festival weekend, FinnaRage tweeted almost daily, inviting T-shirt orders and asking Keene State students if they were ready to rage. Twitter feeds in the wake of the event showed that the message reached well beyond the 5,600-student campus to students at the University of New Hampshire, New York University—and UMass.

“Being at Keene Pumpkinfest this weekend makes me appreciate UMass so much more. Keene people be crazyyyyyyy,” Bridget Kilkenny tweeted on Oct. 19.

“Sad to say couldn’t make pumpkin fest but the Blarney Blowout at UMass should be something else,” tweeted Ian Willis on Oct. 19, complete with the hashtag, #Blarneyblowoutwilldoitbetter.

FinnaRage appears to have a sister outfit in RageON Amherst, a party promotion group run by recent UMass graduates.

One RageOn organizer, Kevin Durst, had earlier approached an Advocate reporter, seeking unpaid freelance photography for various RageON events. Durst declined to comment on the record for this article. However, a person who asked to be identified as a “spokesman” for the group agreed to answer questions.

The spokesman said that RageON’s first event took place during last spring’s Blarney Blowout. He said that, as a senior, he felt there wasn’t enough year-round fun, that too many UMass parties were concentrated at the end of the year, and that he “wanted to get the ball rolling with the good times earlier on [in the year].”

Describing himself as a personal friend of Finney’s, the spokesman said that announcing party events via social media “creates a spark and increases attendance.” He said the parties RageON and FinnaRage throw are free, though FinnaRage sells branded T-shirts and other merchandise. He conceded that the biggest issue that stands between their organizations and legitimate venues—and profits—is the question of who bears liability if the fun turns ugly.

Finney makes cameo appearances in many of his videos. He is shown partying alongside the students of various schools in the region, donning a black FinnaRage T-shirt and gesturing wildly for the camera. Finney declined comment via Twitter, “No thank you … our side of the story has been twisted and turned, our mouths are closed.”

In interviews in the neighborhood where the rage took place, many Keene State students answered questions about FinnaRage with more questions—most knew them as the “guys on Twitter,” but could say little else about them. Christian Amedan, a junior, described the FinnaRage party hosts as “a bunch of bros wearing black T-shirts.”

Rodrigo Piriz, a junior, said he first heard about FinnaRage during the week before PumpkinFest, when the promoters were trying to land a location for their DJ and sound equipment. “I heard they were the ones that were going to start the party.”

Piriz said that the organization’s attempts to find a venue in the face of opposition from school officials and landlords amplified the social media mystique, drawing even more revelers from out of town.

“There were a lot of kids I haven’t seen before,” said Piriz.

Piriz said he spent a good part of the night of Oct. 18 making sure the crowd didn’t trash the house he rents near campus. He pointed out the property’s partially dismantled fence; he said that, out of nowhere, the crowd began ripping it down, but an undercover police officer emerged from the crowd to halt the fence’s destruction.

Piriz criticized FinnaRage and the students who defend its role.

“A lot of kids are defending them, which I think is stupid,” said Piriz. “They had a lot to do with making it as huge as it was.”

 

“A dangerous new phenomenon”

 

Paul Orr, a student who lives on Winchester Court, said he tried to steer clear of the crowd gathered a couple of houses down from him in the early afternoon hours on Oct. 18.

“There were a billion people throwing bottles,” Orr said.

Trevor Grauer, co-owner of the family-run KeeneCribs property management company, said that Keene State Student and Community Relations Coordinator Allison Riley warned him ahead of time that a tenant had invited FinnaRage to one of his Winchester Court properties. In response, Grauer sent messages to all his tenants, threatening eviction to anyone who hosted any kind of large gathering.

“I think it’s a dangerous new phenomenon,” Grauer said of groups like FinnaRage. While students should be held responsible for their own actions, he said such groups “set the framework for what’s going to happen” at the centralized gatherings.

“They use social media to get people all riled up,” said Grauer. “That’s the part that I think is really dangerous and they’re completely responsible for—churning everybody up and drawing a lot of attention from other areas.”

“They’re creating this sense that wherever FinnaRage is, it’s going to be a good time,” he said. “I’m against everything they stand for.”

Not all party promoters walk the wild side.

David Barth, 22, owns Peak Sound of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Barth’s company, which he started by scrounging together $15,000 for sound and lighting equipment, operates like FinnaRage in that it draws people with bright lights and loud music.

But, Barth says, the similarity ends there. He says his company is hired by fraternities, sororities, other student groups, and the schools themselves to provide entertainment. He does not record and post party videos, nor does he incite schools to compete with each other in degrees of rage-worthiness.

In fact, Barth said he tries to keep students as calm as possible for fear if they become rowdy, they will damage his equipment.

“We’re not getting paid enough to lose thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment because one person is a jackass,” Barth said.

Barth said if the crowd becomes unruly, the music stops, and the DJ tells people the music will resume when people calm down.

“I don’t even know how they [FinnaRage] get people so riled up,” said Barth. “The kids are putting on a show for them. They create that expectation.”•

 

Contact: adrane@valleyadvocate.com. On Twitter: @amandadrane.