K-Pop fans sink Trump Tulsa rally

US President Donald Trump’s campaign promised huge crowds at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but it failed to deliver. Hundreds of teenage TikTok users and K-pop fans say they’re at least partially responsible.

Brad Parscale, the chairman of Trump’s re-election campaign, posted on Twitter on Monday that the campaign had fielded more than 1 million ticket requests, but reporters at the event noted the attendance was lower than expected. The campaign also canceled planned events outside the rally for an overflow crowd that did not materialise.

Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s spokesman, said protesters stopped supporters from entering the rally, held at the BOK Center, which has a 19,000seat capacity. Reporters present said there were few protests.

TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music groups claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for Trump’s rally as a prank. After @TeamTrump tweeted asking supporters to register for free tickets using their phones June 11, Kpop fan accounts began sharing the information with followers, encouraging them to register for the rally — and then not show.

The trend quickly spread on TikTok, where videos with millions of views instructed viewers to do the same, as CNN reported Tuesday. “Oh no. I signed up for a Trump rally, and I can’t go,” one woman joked, along with a fake cough, in a TikTok posted June 15.

Thousands of other users posted similar tweets and videos to TikTok that racked up millions of views. Representatives for TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“It spread mostly through Alt TikTok — we kept it on the quiet side where people do pranks and a lot of activism,” said YouTuber Elijah Daniel, 26, who participated in the campaign. “K-pop, Twitter and Alt TikTok have a good alliance where they spread information amongst each other very quickly. They all know the algorithms and how they can boost videos to get where they want.”