Despite high attendance expectations and “over 1M ticket requests,” Trump’s ‘Make American Great Again’ rally, which was held in Tulsa, Oklahoma last week, had a pretty abysmal turnout. The reason? TikTok users and K-pop fans registering for Trump’s rally with absolutely no intention of attending. Hear all about it below:
Earlier this month, TikTok videos started making the rounds on social media and within the K-pop fandom encouraging people to reserve tickets to Trump’s rally without attending.
In one of the first of these videos, TikTok user Mary Jo Laupp says, “I recommend all of us who want to see this 19,000-seat auditorium barely filled or empty, go reserve tickets now and leave him standing there alone on the stage.”
Laupp’s TikTok has racked up over 700,000 likes, has millions of views, and sparked dozens of similar social media posts across TikTok and Twitter.
According to NBC, after Twitter user @dianafrompluto joked about having to “mop her windows” the day of Trump’s rally despite reserving tickets, her tweet received more than 50,000 likes and quickly went viral with other social media users posting about doing the same thing.
As mentioned, Trump’s rally was held in a 19,000-seat arena in Tulsa, however according to NBC, only approximately 6,200 people attended.
Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale attempted to downplay the impact of social media, writing in a statement, “Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don’t know what they’re talking about or how our rallies work.”
Later, Parscale blamed COVID-19 and the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests for the crappy turnout at Trump’s rally.
U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was quick to call out Parscale’s claims, tweeting, “Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations and tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID.”
“Shoutout to Zoomers,” she added. “Y’all make me so proud.” Earlier, she also tweeted in appreciation of K-pop allies. “We see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice too.”
It’s by no means the first time TikTokers, social media users, and K-Pop fans in particular have rallied together to fight against injustices. Earlier this month, it was reported that the Dallas Police Department was looking to identify protestors via the “snitch” app, iWatch Dallas.
In response, K-pop fans ensured that protesters wouldn’t be recognised by the Dallas Police Department by flooding Twitter with their fancams. Subsequently, the app crashed and the fandom celebrated.
Speaking of trolling Trump, hear about how his birthday was recently hijacked below:
The same month, the K-pop fandom 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.
These genius ‘hacks’ of social media – and Trump’s rally – is just further proof that people still have the power to incite real change, and in 2020, it can happen with one viral tweet or TikTok video.
Always be in the loop with our snackable podcast breaking the biggest story of the day. Subscribe to It’s Been A Big Day For… on your favourite podcast app.