June 21, 2020

K-Pop Stans and TikTok Teens Mobilized to Derail Trump’s Tulsa Rally

TikTok

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If you believe President Donald Trump, nearly one million people registered for his June 20 campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But come Saturday, fewer than 6,200 people showed up, according to the Tulsa fire department. Large swaths of the 19,000-seat arena were empty,  the New York Times reported, and the outdoor overflow venue was such a ghost town that Trump and Vice President Mike Pence cancelled appearances there. 

Maybe Trump’s popularity has fallen just that far. Maybe Tulsans were worried about catching the coronavirus. And maybe a horde of K-pop fans and TikTok users successfully pranked the president’s campaign into thinking its rally would be packed to the rafters. 

Since June 11, when the Trump campaign asked supporters to register for the event using their phones, social media users been encouraging each other to reserve tickets (for free) to the Tulsa rally with no intention of showing up. 

“I just registered for Trump’s rally, and I’m so excited—to not go,” one user posted on TikTok.

@emilysdcp

GO REGISTER! And don’t forget to not show up! Take those seats away! #trump #trump2020 #2020 #trumprally #republican #tulsa JK #blm #lgbt #voteblue

♬ original sound – vividdreamergirl

Others made similar announcements while dancing the Macarena.

@thiqbish

Duet your confirmation that you took seats to the trump rally (which I’m tOOTTTALLLY going to use wink wink)with @indiefilmprotagonist #greenscreen

♬ Macarena – Bass Bumpers Remix Radio Edit – Los Del Rio

 

Thousands of fans reportedly joined in the effort.

On Twitter, Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) thanked the teens for their service. “KPop allies, we see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice too,” she added. 

It’s not the first time K-pop fans have mobilized en masse for political or social causes in recent weeks. When the Dallas Police Department launched an app for users to send in videos of “illegal activity” taking place at Black Lives Matter protests, K-pop fans crashed it with videos showing their beloved stars dancing and singing. When white supremacists planned a day of action online, attempting to make the racist hashtag #WhiteLivesMatter trend on Twitter, K-pop fans flooded the hashtag with more fancams. And when K-pop boy band BTS donated $1 million to Black Lives Matter, its army of fans matched the contribution within 24 hours. 

In a statement, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale blamed the rally’s poor attendance on protesters and “fake news media” warning people of the risk of catching coronavirus, which has killed nearly 120,000 people in the US.

He also implied that the real purpose of collecting sign-ups for the rally was to harvest the contact information of people who may later be spammed with fundraising requests and targeted political advertising. 

Campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh echoed this in an interview with Bloomberg: “Leftists always fool themselves into thinking they’re being clever,” he said. “Registering for a rally only means you’ve RSVPed with a cell phone number. Every rally is general admission and entry is first-come-first served. But we thank them for their contact information.”

I wonder how well Team Trump’s data specialists are dealing with their new spreadsheets of minors and BTS fangirls.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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