In 2020, it couldn’t be more clear that power comes in numbers and there is no group on the internet more populated than the K-pop stans on Twitter.
While K-pop stans often flood Twitter with fancams to get their favourite artists more views and attention, this time they’re motivations are for good, siding with the Black Lives Matter movement and the George Floyd protests. By the way, if you don’t know what a fan-cam is, don’t worry, we’ve got an explainer for you.
We spoke in-depth about the Black Lives Matter movement on this episode of It’s Been A Big Day For…
Earlier this week, it was reported that the Dallas Police Department in the States was asking the Internet to send them videos of protesters via their new “snitch” app, iWatch Dallas. As a result, the K-pop fandom took it upon themselves to ensure that protesters wouldn’t be recognised by the Dallas Police Department by flooding the app with their fancams. Subsequently, the app crashed and the fandom celebrated.
Well, it looks like they’re not done yet and they’re coming for racist hashtags as well. While the Black Lives Matter hashtag is predominantly used on Twitter and Instagram to share videos, important information, resources and donation links, the White Lives Matter hashtag has become a hub for racist garbage. But, not anymore.
Now, the k-pop fandom has flooded the ‘White Lives Matter’ hashtag, the pro-Trump hashtag ‘MAGA’ and the pro-Police hashtag ‘Blue Lives Matter’ with videos of their favourite performers. As you can imagine, the k-pop community (along with progressive Twitter) celebrated their victory once again.
As a result of this, there’s even a fan-cam about the work the k-pop stans have done.
It goes to show the effect that drowning out a hashtag can do for those that rely on it. Earlier this week, the Blackout Tuesday movement caused a lot of controversies when participants hashtagged ‘Black Lives Matter’ instead of ‘Black Out Tuesday’. As a result of this mistake, what was initially the hub of protest information, pepper-spray remedies and information resources were nowhere to be found, instead leaving only black boxes.
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