What the HELL is a K-Pop?
- Thousands of seats were left empty at a Donald Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday night
- TikTok users and K-pop fans said they had signed up for the rally with no intention of attending the event
- Trump’s campaign said it had more than a million ticket requests, but crowds looked lighter than expected
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said ‘teens on TikTok flooded the Trump campaign with fake ticket reservations’
Thousands of seats were left empty at a Donald Trump rally last night after young critics reserved tickets with no intention of going to the event.
TikTok users and K-pop fans said they had signed up for the Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday night – which marked the US President’s return to the trail since campaigning was sidelined by the coronavirus crisis.
Trump’s campaign declared it had more than a million ticket requests, but in the hours before the event, crowds looked significantly lighter than expected at the 19,000-seat BOK Center.
Prominent Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the President’s campaign ‘just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign with fake ticket reservations’.
The prank came after the Trump campaign tweeted to ask the President’s supporters to register for the free tickets earlier this month. The plan to sabotage the rally quickly went viral and videos telling viewers to reserve tickets and then not show up to began racking up millions of views.
Many of the videos were then deleted in an attempt to keep the plan a secret, although in one a TikTok user says sarcastically: ‘Oh no, I signed up for a Trump rally and I can’t go, I’m sick.’ The plan then spread across multiple social media platforms.
Brad Parscale, campaign manager for Trump’s 2020 campaign, tweeted Saturday night: ‘Radical protestors, fueled by a week of apocalyptic media coverage, interfered with @realDonaldTrump supporters at the rally.
Enjoy it while you can, AOC!……
The unemployment line awaits your arrival!
Tick-Tock!……Tick…..Tock!
‘They even blocked access to the metal detectors, preventing people from entering. Thanks to the 1,000s who made it anyway!’
US Representative for New York’s 14th congressional district Ocasio-Cortez responded: ‘Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud.’
She added: ‘KPop allies, we see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice too.’
Zoomer is a nickname for a member of Generation Z.
On Saturday, Trump tried to explain away the crowd size, blaming it on the media for declaring ‘don’t go, don’t come, don’t do anything’ while insisting there were protesters outside ‘doing bad things,’ though the small crowds of pre-rally demonstrators were largely peaceful.
‘We begin our campaign,’ Trump thundered. ‘The silent majority is stronger than ever before.’
But huge swaths of empty seats remained in the downtown arena before Trump was to take the stage. And that came on the heels of the campaign revealing that six staff members who were helping set up for the event had tested positive for the virus.
H/T Feet2Fire
Calamity Jane