Before this past weekend’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Trump administration boasted that they had received over one million tickets to attend the event. Yet only 6,200 people flocked into the BOK Center, which, for reference’s sake, singer Pink thinks she “sold that same place out in five minutes.” What happened? The K-pop stans happened. Music’s most passionate fanbase, as well as thousands of TikTok users, “claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for Mr. Donald Trump’s campaign rally as a prank,” according to the New York Times. We thank you for service.
The prank was heralded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who tweeted, “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,” as well as Stephen Colbert. The Late Show host dedicated a portion of Monday’s episode to the rally (“Doesn’t say great things when there are fewer people in your crowd than have credibly accused you of sexual assault”), including a message for the BTS and Blackpink listeners out there. “I just want to say to K-pop fans, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart,” he said.
Watch the clip above.