Feted as a teenage cult hero and lampooned as a rebellious adolescent, Corey "the party boy" Delaney has proved to be one of the biggest — and most divisive — media stories of recent times.
In one corner are Corey's peers responding mostly with admiration; and in the other, an older generation expressing their horror that young people are out of control.
Either way, media commentators say that both groups are fascinated with Corey, the 16-year-old from Melbourne whose wild party antics have turned him into an instant cult icon.
Ambivalence for the teenager is borne out among ninemsn's readership.
Coverage of Corey Delaney over the past week has scored hundreds of thousands of clicks — out-rating news stories on anti-whaling protesters, a British Airways plane crash and even Britney Spears' latest antics.
"If you or I were a teenager and invited to a party that Corey hosted, would we want to go or not?" Mike Minehan, communication coordinator at UTS Insearch, said.
"Of course we would.
"He's made it by … being unrepentant and defiant about it".
Paul Harrison, a senior lecturer in consumer behaviour and advertising at Deakin University, believes Corey is popular among his peers because of the attention he has received — something we crave as teenagers when struggling to establish an individual identity.
"The fact that he refuses to apologise for his party or take off his sunglasses only strengthens his popularity," Dr Harrison said.
"He's establishing an identity separate to everybody else. It's about being accepted by your peers, not by the wider populace."
But when ninemsn conducted an online poll yesterday asking readers "Have you had enough of Corey the party boy?" the results were startling.
More than 100,000 readers lodged a vote with a whopping 94 per cent saying they had had enough of 16-year-old.
"Everyone's following the story for different reasons," Dr Harrison said.
"There's a big group who follow the story because it feeds into their belief that teenagers need to be disciplined and made to take responsibility for their actions."
Catharine Lumby, a journalism professor at the University of NSW, said there had long been an appetite for stories about teenagers as delinquents.
"Corey fulfils this stereotype of teenagers behaving badly which is seen as a symptom of a broader social malaise," Professor Lumby said.
"An older audience always derives pleasure from moralising about the younger generation."
This was not to say Corey was just a naive victim under the media spotlight, Professor Lumby said.
"Young people are often producing media themselves, for sites like Facebook or online blogs, and they can see how stereotypes are used to create interest in a story," she said.
"They can see that fame and image are a commodity, that it involves a risk, but that if you play it right the payoff is that you get a profile, you get your air time, even if it's not always a friendly environment".
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