TikTokers Take on Trump

*Tiktokers and K-Pop stans, a match made in heaven.

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  • Image via Doug Mills/The New York Times

Anyone who’s caved and downloaded TikTok (no judgement there) might be attuned to some ‘renegading’, cosplaying, or even the ‘hype house’ drama. The videos seem only as significant as the six seconds they last, meant for the ‘zoomer’ generation. 

And yet, the same teenagers were recently found responsible for the low turnout at Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After K-pop stans—fans of Korean pop music—took to Twitter to encourage users to reserve seats and not attend, TikTok videos began to do the same. By this past Saturday, those videos garnered millions of views, shares, and reposts. 

The result? The 19,000-seat venue was left largely unoccupied, with slightly over 6,000 in attendance. The anticipated overflow crowd never appeared, causing the campaign team to cancel planned events. 

Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, claims the “leftists and online trolls” to be celebrating a false victory, pointing to alleged protests as deterrents. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was quick to respond “Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok.”

Those teens, whether or not the cause of the mishap, certainly managed to bring about new, more consequential connotations of TikTok. Many aren’t yet old enough to cast a vote, though manage to make their voice heard in six second snippets. That kind of activism, adapted for the digital age, is always trendy. 

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