TikTok Tulsa

Donald Trump promised us his Tulsa Rally would be like something no one has ever seen before. That did not turn out to be true because I’ve seen empty seats before. Now, where was it? Oh yeah. His rally in Fredericksburg, Virginia in 2016. That room was only half full too.

Donald Trump held his first rally in three months in Tulsa, Oklahoma and it was supposed to be the energizing boost to restart his campaign. Despite being advised not to hold covidchella in a Tulsa petri dish, his plans moved forward. And expectations were high as campaign manager, for now, Brad Parscale boasted over 1 million people had signed up for tickets.  1 million people did not show up for Trump’s Saturday night hate rally but I do believe over a million laughed.

Oh, but Trump expected a million people to show up. Expectations were so high, the campaign planned events outside the arena for an overflow crowd. They set up jumbotrons so Trump fans unable to get inside the BOK arena would be able to see and hear their racist leader give his speech full of lies and praise for himself. When it was clear there was not going to be an overflow crowd, the campaign quickly tore the stage down to avoid embarrassment but left the jumbotrons up which gave the impression someone had gone to bed and forgot to turn the TV off.

The seats in the BOK are blue which was prominent with no one sitting in there. Even half the arena floor was empty. It’s estimated the attendance in the 19,000-seat arena may have been as low as 6,000. In case you’re a Republican, 6,000 is less than a million.

It was like preparing for a major party so you make 17 bowls of guacamole then no one shows up except your cousin Steve who’s in his 40s, still lives with his mom, only wears Star Trek shirts, and he’s allergic to guacamole.

Republicans will claim the arena was full and White House spokesgoon Kaleigh McEnany will do her best Sean Spicer impression and argue the arena was overflowing. Hell, they started off with six fewer people than expected as six Trump staffers on the team preparing the event tested positive for the coronavirus. It was not a good night for Donald Trump.

The Trump campaign claimed the arena was empty because the media scared Trump supporters away by reporting facts about the coronavirus. They also claimed, Brad Parscale in particular, that Black Lives Matter protesters were blocking the entrances. Before the event, the press reported there were about 200 protesters (who Trump called thugs). They also reported that no entrances were blocked.

Before the event, Donald Trump threatened protesters. That didn’t work either. Donald Trump had a very bad embarrassing night. It was like running for class president and nobody voted for you except for cousin Steve.

As it turns out, Donald Trump and his campaign got rolled by TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music. What? A prank to register for tickets went viral by TikTok users which soon went over to K-Pop Twitter. Thousands of teens who haven’t been able to march and can’t vote protested by pranking the Trump campaign. It worked. They should have told old man Trump it was a costume party just to see what would happen.

With the success of this prank, you can expect more throughout the campaign. I expect different tactics as today’s teens are creative. The irony here is they’re hitting a bully and you know what happens when you hit the bully back? He goes crying in his bunker.

The zoomers were able to generate and promote this prank while keeping it off the mainstream internet. They would delete their posts 24-48 hours after creating them, thus being quiet about it and keeping the Trump team from finding out what was going on. 4chan can only dream of being this effective.

I personally signed up for tickets with no intention of going but I wasn’t playing a prank. I wanted to see if I could still get tickets after the campaign claimed they had given out more than the arena held. I got tickets. Unfortunately, since I had to register, I also got texts and emails from the Trump campaign. I blocked the texts but I’m still getting the emails.

Donald Trump has been claiming enthusiasm for his campaign. According to John Bolton’s book, Donald Trump believes the public wants him to serve more than two terms. He’s been claiming Joe Biden doesn’t have any momentum. On Saturday night, the wind went out of his sails.

Crowd sizes are important to Donald Trump. They’re one of his greatest lies. Even when he does have giant crowds, he lies about their size. He’ll lie about this one, too, as he conducts a rampage over it behind the scenes. So much leftover guac. On Monday, he’ll probably have a new campaign manager. Campaigns usually undersell and hope to overperform. Brad Parscale oversold and underperformed. Why would you keep a guy who got rolled by meddling kids? Ruh-roh, Parscale.

Donald Trump has many more rallies planned between now and election day. He might have to get used to smaller than expected crowds because he’ll never outsmart the TikTok gang.

And he might wanna prepare for a smaller than expected turnout for him on election day.

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