Did teens, TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music troll the president of the United States?
For more than a week before Donald Trumpsa国际传媒檚 first campaign rally in three months on Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, these tech-savvy groups opposing the president mobilized to reserve tickets for an event they had no intention of attending. While itsa国际传媒檚 unlikely they were responsible for the low turnout, their antics may have inflated the campaignsa国际传媒檚 expectations for attendance numbers that led to Saturdaysa国际传媒檚 disappointing show.
sa国际传媒淢y 16 year old daughter and her friends in Park City Utah have hundreds of tickets. You have been rolled by Americasa国际传媒檚 teens,sa国际传媒� veteran Republican campaign strategist Steve Schmidt tweeted on Saturday. The tweet garnered more than 100,000 likes and many responses from people who say they or their kids did the same.
Reached by telephone Sunday, Schmidt called the rally an sa国际传媒渦nmitigated disastersa国际传媒� sa国际传媒� days after Trump campaign chairman Brad Parscale tweeted that more than a million people requested tickets for the rally through Trumpsa国际传媒檚 campaign website.
Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for Trumpsa国际传媒檚 Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, said the turnout was a sign of weakening voter support. sa国际传媒淒onald Trump has abdicated leadership and it is no surprise that his supporters have responded by abandoning him,sa国际传媒� he said.
In a statement, the Trump campaign blamed the sa国际传媒渇ake news mediasa国际传媒� for sa国际传媒渨arning people away from the rallysa国际传媒� over COVID-19 and protests against racial injustice around the country.
sa国际传媒淟eftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, donsa国际传媒檛 know what theysa国际传媒檙e talking about or how our rallies work,sa国际传媒� Parscale wrote. sa国际传媒淩eporters who wrote gleefully about TikTok and K-Pop fans sa国际传媒� without contacting the campaign for comment sa国际传媒� behaved unprofessionally and were willing dupes to the charade.sa国际传媒�
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On midday Sunday, it was possible to sign up to stream a recap of the Tulsa event later in the day through Trumpsa国际传媒檚 website. It requested a name, email address and phone number. There was no age verification in the signup process, though the site required a PIN to verify phone numbers.
Inside the 19,000-seat BOK Center in Tulsa, where Trump thundered that sa国际传媒渢he silent majority is stronger than ever before,sa国际传媒� numerous seats were empty. Tulsa Fire Department spokesperson Andy Little said the city fire marshalsa国际传媒檚 office reported a crowd of just less than 6,200 in the arena.
City officials had expected a crowd of 100,000 people or more in downtown Tulsa, but that never materialized. That said, the rally, which was broadcast on cable, also targeted voters in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida.
Social media users who have followed recent events might not be surprised by the way young people (and some older folks) mobilized to troll the president. They did it not just on TikTok but also on Twitter, Instagram and even Facebook. K-Pop fans sa国际传媒� who have a massive, co-ordinated online community and a cutting sense of humour sa国际传媒� have become an unexpected ally to American Black Lives Matter protesters.
In recent weeks, theysa国际传媒檝e been repurposing their usual platforms and hashtags from boosting their favourite stars to backing the Black Lives Matter movement. They flooded right-wing hashtags such as sa国际传媒渨hite lives mattersa国际传媒� and police apps with short video clips and memes of their K-pop stars. Many of the early social media messages urging people to sign up for tickets brought up the fact that the rally had originally been scheduled for Friday, June 19, which is Juneteenth, commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. Tulsa, the location for the rally, was the scene in 1921 of one of the most severe white-on-Black attacks in American history.
Schmidt said he was not surprised. Todaysa国际传媒檚 teens, after all, grew up with phones and have sa国际传媒渁bsolutelysa国际传媒� mastered them, he said. They are also the first generation to have remote Zoom classes and have a sa国际传媒渟ubversive sense of humour,sa国际传媒� having come of age in a world of online trolls and memes, Schmidt said. Most of all, he said, sa国际传媒渢hey are aware of what is happening around them.sa国际传媒�
sa国际传媒淟ike salmon in the river, they participate politically through the methods and means of their lives,sa国际传媒� Schmidt added.
That said, the original idea for the mass ticket troll may have come not from a teen but from an Iowa woman. The politics site Iowa Starting Line found that a TikTok video posted on June 11 by Mary Jo Laupp, a 51-year-old grandmother from Fort Dodge, Iowa, suggesting that people book free tickets to sa国际传媒渕ake sure there are empty seats.sa国际传媒� Lauppsa国际传媒檚 video, which also tells viewers how to stop receiving texts from the Trump campaign after they provide their phone number (simply text sa国际传媒淪TOPsa国际传媒�), has had more than 700,000 likes. It was also possible to sign up for the rally using a fake or temporary phone number from Google Voice, for instance.
As Parscale himself pointed out in a June 14 tweet, though, the ticket signups were not simply about getting bodies to the rally. He called it the sa国际传媒淏iggest data haul and rally signup of all time by 10xsa国际传媒� sa国际传媒� meaning the hundreds of thousands of emails and phone numbers the campaign now has in its possession to use for microtargeting advertisements and to reach potential voters.
Sure, itsa国际传媒檚 possible that many of the emails are fake and that the ticket holders have no intention of voting for Trump in November. But while itsa国际传媒檚 possible that this sa国际传媒渂ad datasa国际传媒� might prove useless sa国际传媒� or even hurt the Trump campaign in some way sa国际传媒� experts say there is one clear beneficiary in the end, and that is Facebook. Thatsa国际传媒檚 due to the complex, murky ways in which Trumpsa国际传媒檚 political advertising machine is tied up with the social media giant. Facebook wants data on people, and whether that is sa国际传媒済oodsa国际传媒� or sa国际传媒渂ad,sa国际传媒� it will be used to train its systems.
sa国际传媒淣o matter who signs up or if they go to a rally, Trump gets data to train retargeting on Facebook. FBsa国际传媒檚 system will use that data in ways that have nothing to do with Trump,sa国际传媒� tweeted Georgia Tech communications professor Ian Bogost. sa国际传媒淢ight these `fakesa国际传媒� signups mess up the Trump teamsa国际传媒檚 targeting data? Maybe it could, to some extent. But the entire system is so vast and incomprehensible, wesa国际传媒檒l never really know.sa国际传媒�
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Barbara Ortutay, Associated Press
Associated Press writer Ali Swenson contributed to this story from Seattle.
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