How could the kpop fans have affected Tulsa?
June 21, 2020 11:08 AM Subscribe
Lots of articles this morning, including the NYT, talking about how the kpop fans spamming Trump's Tulsa rally hijacked it, how?
Unless I am missing something the facts are:
1. The rally allowed unlimited registrations (they said they had over a million).
2. Registering did not guarantee a ticket (how could it have if the place holds 19k?).
If these are both true how could fake registrations have affected anything? I can't see any way that they could have.
Unless I am missing something the facts are:
1. The rally allowed unlimited registrations (they said they had over a million).
2. Registering did not guarantee a ticket (how could it have if the place holds 19k?).
If these are both true how could fake registrations have affected anything? I can't see any way that they could have.
Response by poster: Thanks bedhead, I was actually referring to the poor turnout being blamed on fake signups, sorry if i wasn't clear.
posted by Cosine at 11:14 AM on June 21, 2020
posted by Cosine at 11:14 AM on June 21, 2020
"It's too crowded, no one goes there anymore."
The way I've heard it told, people were waiting in line for days, like it was Black Friday, due to the anticipated crowd size. The high numbers and actual long lines would have had a chilling effect on people's decisions to show up especially because tickets didn't guarantee a spot.
I have my doubts on the exact size of K-Pop fandom impact vs normal spam vs how many people would have shown up anyway, but that's the story at least.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:15 AM on June 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
The way I've heard it told, people were waiting in line for days, like it was Black Friday, due to the anticipated crowd size. The high numbers and actual long lines would have had a chilling effect on people's decisions to show up especially because tickets didn't guarantee a spot.
I have my doubts on the exact size of K-Pop fandom impact vs normal spam vs how many people would have shown up anyway, but that's the story at least.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:15 AM on June 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
(they said they had over a million).
They could have been lying.
posted by Melismata at 11:16 AM on June 21, 2020 [10 favorites]
They could have been lying.
posted by Melismata at 11:16 AM on June 21, 2020 [10 favorites]
On the other hand, Parscale would certainly have hyped up the "big numbers" no matter how low they were, so...
posted by praemunire at 11:21 AM on June 21, 2020
posted by praemunire at 11:21 AM on June 21, 2020
Response by poster: I might still be missing something here but how would the actual numbers of registrations being inaccurate mean the fake kpop registrations affected attendance?
posted by Cosine at 11:24 AM on June 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Cosine at 11:24 AM on June 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
I might still be missing something here but how would the actual numbers of registrations being inaccurate mean the fake kpop registrations affected attendance?
My take: dumbass Trump supporter sees that 500,000 "tickets have been sold," so why would they bother trying to get into something that has 500,000 tickets already being sold?
posted by kuanes at 11:29 AM on June 21, 2020 [4 favorites]
My take: dumbass Trump supporter sees that 500,000 "tickets have been sold," so why would they bother trying to get into something that has 500,000 tickets already being sold?
posted by kuanes at 11:29 AM on June 21, 2020 [4 favorites]
I think the logic is people who otherwise would have attended, saw the huge registration count and decided it wasn't worth going if they'd have to line up for days to have a small chance at getting into the venue. Whereas an accurate count would have told them they had a pretty good chance of just showing up on the day and getting in.
posted by FishBike at 11:30 AM on June 21, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by FishBike at 11:30 AM on June 21, 2020 [7 favorites]
Tickets didnt guarantee you'd get in to the rally. If there's a million tickets and only (say) 100,000 can get in - your chances of getting in are only 1/10. Even of the supporters, not many wanted to bother risking it with those low odds of getting in.
posted by cgg at 11:31 AM on June 21, 2020
posted by cgg at 11:31 AM on June 21, 2020
(1) The teens inflated the registration numbers up to hundreds of thousands/millions
(2) Brad Parscale bragged in the media about how millions of people had registered.
(3) The inflated registration numbers likely affected the Trump team’s plans for the event, for example building an outdoor stage in the overflow area and scheduling Trump and Pence to speak there. Without inflated registration numbers they might not have done that and might have done something to disguise the empty areas of the arena so they didn’t look so bare on camera, or more importantly, might have worked harder to recruit people to attend (texting supporters and such).
(4) Trump fans who might have otherwise attended the event stayed home because the inflated registration numbers, which they heard about through media coverage and the campaign, made them think they had no chance of getting in, or that the event would be more crowded than they wanted in the time of covid, or that other Trump fans would make sure to show up and not leave the President hanging in an empty arena.
For the teens to have helped, I think you need to believe that Parscale wouldn’t have otherwise lied about the registration count (what if he was planning to say millions of people had registered no matter what?).
posted by sallybrown at 11:33 AM on June 21, 2020 [20 favorites]
(2) Brad Parscale bragged in the media about how millions of people had registered.
(3) The inflated registration numbers likely affected the Trump team’s plans for the event, for example building an outdoor stage in the overflow area and scheduling Trump and Pence to speak there. Without inflated registration numbers they might not have done that and might have done something to disguise the empty areas of the arena so they didn’t look so bare on camera, or more importantly, might have worked harder to recruit people to attend (texting supporters and such).
(4) Trump fans who might have otherwise attended the event stayed home because the inflated registration numbers, which they heard about through media coverage and the campaign, made them think they had no chance of getting in, or that the event would be more crowded than they wanted in the time of covid, or that other Trump fans would make sure to show up and not leave the President hanging in an empty arena.
For the teens to have helped, I think you need to believe that Parscale wouldn’t have otherwise lied about the registration count (what if he was planning to say millions of people had registered no matter what?).
posted by sallybrown at 11:33 AM on June 21, 2020 [20 favorites]
Response by poster: If huge numbers of registrations equal people not bothering to try going (which I doubt, esp Trump supporters) why would they claim a million had registered?
posted by Cosine at 11:34 AM on June 21, 2020
posted by Cosine at 11:34 AM on June 21, 2020
That’s the big question. My guess is a mixture of various factors like, the campaign is a reflection of Trump who goes for immediate “wins” over longer term strategic planning; the people working on the campaign are geared toward making Trump happy and they thought that would please him; the campaign is staffed with a lot of people like Parscale whose only other experience is the 2016 Trump campaign which was atypical; they didn’t anticipate that some potential attendees might have had more mixed feelings than usual and were looking for permission not to attend because of the virus; they were defensive about the rally in this climate and wanted to make it seem worth holding; etc.
posted by sallybrown at 11:46 AM on June 21, 2020 [11 favorites]
posted by sallybrown at 11:46 AM on June 21, 2020 [11 favorites]
I also wonder if the high registration numbers caused the Trump team to feel a false sense of security. If the numbers had looked low they might have tried harder to push the event through churches, facebook ads, busing people in, etc.
posted by trig at 11:52 AM on June 21, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by trig at 11:52 AM on June 21, 2020 [6 favorites]
If huge numbers of registrations equal people not bothering to try going (which I doubt, esp Trump supporters) why would they claim a million had registered?
Former campaign staffer here. They likely knew there wouldn't be close to a million people actually there (the rule of halves is a pretty good one in organizing, so it would have been more like half a million), but the venue fits 19,000. So even if "only" 200-300,000 people tried to show (which is a decent estimate if you have a million RSVPs but know some of them are fake), it would have been a madhouse. There would have been massive lines outside and the overflow area would have been mobbed. Hell, this would have been the case even with 100,000 people, which is only 10% of the registrations. I've NEVER worked an event that only had a 10% registration-to-show rate, so from their perspective three days ago, even if the event was a dud, it would still look huge. And yeah, reporters could say only 10% of registrations showed, but if you have photo and video of huge crowds, that supercedes the numbers.
I think that while this story about the K-pop stands and tik tok teens is a good one, and they did some great organizing, it would have been a disaster even without them. 6,200 people in a venue that holds 19,000 is never gonna look good. But they probably would have done more work to turn people out: phone-banking, texting, etc. (I have myself spent entire weeks calling people to get them to events with candidates). As others have said, they wouldn't have had the overflow, they would have probably have had a different set-up inside, they wouldn't have set such high expectations. There would have been a story about the poor attendance but it likely would have been more of a footnote rather than the whole story.
I think it also matters what kind of candidate/politician Trump is. Biden doesn't draw enormous crowds and that is noted but not made a huge deal about. Trump's whole thing is that he can draw and fire up these big, angry crowds. That's where his power and authority come from. So having all this visual evidence of a crowd that's not only small, but very "low energy" really undermines him in a way it wouldn't other politicians.
posted by lunasol at 12:38 PM on June 21, 2020 [50 favorites]
Former campaign staffer here. They likely knew there wouldn't be close to a million people actually there (the rule of halves is a pretty good one in organizing, so it would have been more like half a million), but the venue fits 19,000. So even if "only" 200-300,000 people tried to show (which is a decent estimate if you have a million RSVPs but know some of them are fake), it would have been a madhouse. There would have been massive lines outside and the overflow area would have been mobbed. Hell, this would have been the case even with 100,000 people, which is only 10% of the registrations. I've NEVER worked an event that only had a 10% registration-to-show rate, so from their perspective three days ago, even if the event was a dud, it would still look huge. And yeah, reporters could say only 10% of registrations showed, but if you have photo and video of huge crowds, that supercedes the numbers.
I think that while this story about the K-pop stands and tik tok teens is a good one, and they did some great organizing, it would have been a disaster even without them. 6,200 people in a venue that holds 19,000 is never gonna look good. But they probably would have done more work to turn people out: phone-banking, texting, etc. (I have myself spent entire weeks calling people to get them to events with candidates). As others have said, they wouldn't have had the overflow, they would have probably have had a different set-up inside, they wouldn't have set such high expectations. There would have been a story about the poor attendance but it likely would have been more of a footnote rather than the whole story.
I think it also matters what kind of candidate/politician Trump is. Biden doesn't draw enormous crowds and that is noted but not made a huge deal about. Trump's whole thing is that he can draw and fire up these big, angry crowds. That's where his power and authority come from. So having all this visual evidence of a crowd that's not only small, but very "low energy" really undermines him in a way it wouldn't other politicians.
posted by lunasol at 12:38 PM on June 21, 2020 [50 favorites]
the poor turnout being blamed on fake signups,
Honestly I think this is mostly media simplifying & misunderstanding things. AFAICT from watching this on Twitter & elsewhere, nobody with any perspective is claiming that the k-pop/Zoomer phony registrations affected the actual turnout. It was intended as trolling from the start - and k-pop stans have been trolling various anti-BLM and pro-Trump and white supremacist hashtags on Twitter by flooding them with video clips for at least a month now. The stans and teens had a pretty good suspicion that the Trump campaign would boast about the numbers, and if the numbers boasted about were vastly higher than the actual attendance, the Trump campaign would look like chumps. Which is what happened.
This was not a ploy to reduce the attendance, this was a ploy to make Trump look stupid.
Any campaign professional (and event promoter) worth a hill of beans knows damn well that something like the Trump rally with "free tickets" is going to get a lot of signups from people who won't attend. But they have some kind of formula/guesstimate they'll use to extrapolate actual attendance from the number of signups. Whatever technique the Trump campaign was using to estimate actual attendance as a percentage of the signups, clearly they were off by quite a bit - they set up a HUGE video wall and a big stage and sound system outside to cover the expected overflow. That overflow never materialized, the stage was beginning to get packed away before Trump started to speak.
Can we 110% guarantee that it was k-pop stans and Zoomers that boosted the signups to outrageous heights and not just Trump supporters signalling or Parscale lying? No, of course we cannot. But 1) as said, the stan community has a record of mass anti-trump trolling, especially lately, and 2) somebody fucked up, because you don't spend the kind of money they spent on "overflow" production if you don't really think you're going to need it.
posted by soundguy99 at 12:51 PM on June 21, 2020 [17 favorites]
Honestly I think this is mostly media simplifying & misunderstanding things. AFAICT from watching this on Twitter & elsewhere, nobody with any perspective is claiming that the k-pop/Zoomer phony registrations affected the actual turnout. It was intended as trolling from the start - and k-pop stans have been trolling various anti-BLM and pro-Trump and white supremacist hashtags on Twitter by flooding them with video clips for at least a month now. The stans and teens had a pretty good suspicion that the Trump campaign would boast about the numbers, and if the numbers boasted about were vastly higher than the actual attendance, the Trump campaign would look like chumps. Which is what happened.
This was not a ploy to reduce the attendance, this was a ploy to make Trump look stupid.
Any campaign professional (and event promoter) worth a hill of beans knows damn well that something like the Trump rally with "free tickets" is going to get a lot of signups from people who won't attend. But they have some kind of formula/guesstimate they'll use to extrapolate actual attendance from the number of signups. Whatever technique the Trump campaign was using to estimate actual attendance as a percentage of the signups, clearly they were off by quite a bit - they set up a HUGE video wall and a big stage and sound system outside to cover the expected overflow. That overflow never materialized, the stage was beginning to get packed away before Trump started to speak.
Can we 110% guarantee that it was k-pop stans and Zoomers that boosted the signups to outrageous heights and not just Trump supporters signalling or Parscale lying? No, of course we cannot. But 1) as said, the stan community has a record of mass anti-trump trolling, especially lately, and 2) somebody fucked up, because you don't spend the kind of money they spent on "overflow" production if you don't really think you're going to need it.
posted by soundguy99 at 12:51 PM on June 21, 2020 [17 favorites]
I just listened to a very interesting podcast about K-Pop's relationship with Black music and Black Lives Matter, from Reset. It's a fandom of millions and with many different groups. The podcast includes a primer on K-pop. This does not answer your question but I mention it in case you or others are interested in that angle.
posted by Glinn at 1:45 PM on June 21, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Glinn at 1:45 PM on June 21, 2020 [5 favorites]
I think the stans are a red herring/easy hook for lazy media outlets. I think the campaign assumed it would be a huge rally because this is the first rally of his new campaign and I believe his first time back in OK since 2016. I think it's a combination of (1) people are more afraid of coronavirus than the campaign assumed, (2) lagging enthusiasm for Trump, (3) bad campaign management and poor decision making.
posted by muddgirl at 1:50 PM on June 21, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 1:50 PM on June 21, 2020 [6 favorites]
And (4) trying to please Trump at all times/costs.
posted by Melismata at 2:14 PM on June 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Melismata at 2:14 PM on June 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
If huge numbers of registrations equal people not bothering to try going (which I doubt, esp Trump supporters) why would they claim a million had registered?
The goal of the Trump team is to "win" the day's news cycle. Before the rally, that meant pumping the news cycle with talk of a million people signed up for the rally. Parscale himself probably thought the important part was not attendance but collecting information, all of which is probably useless. But being able to get a few news cycles out of claims that a million people were going to see Trump at his kick-off rally was considered a success.
Now there were probably a lot of people who figured that it wasn't worth dealing with the traffic and having to camp out for days ahead of time to get a seat in the arena where a million people and their cars were going to be converging and decided not to go. The Trump campaign's mindset, however, was that they would probably have good turnout and that they could do something to "win" the news cycle the day of. Downplaying attendance beforehand and setting reasonable expectations would have caused them to "lose" the previous days' news cycles so wasn't considered as an option.
posted by deanc at 2:46 PM on June 21, 2020 [8 favorites]
The goal of the Trump team is to "win" the day's news cycle. Before the rally, that meant pumping the news cycle with talk of a million people signed up for the rally. Parscale himself probably thought the important part was not attendance but collecting information, all of which is probably useless. But being able to get a few news cycles out of claims that a million people were going to see Trump at his kick-off rally was considered a success.
Now there were probably a lot of people who figured that it wasn't worth dealing with the traffic and having to camp out for days ahead of time to get a seat in the arena where a million people and their cars were going to be converging and decided not to go. The Trump campaign's mindset, however, was that they would probably have good turnout and that they could do something to "win" the news cycle the day of. Downplaying attendance beforehand and setting reasonable expectations would have caused them to "lose" the previous days' news cycles so wasn't considered as an option.
posted by deanc at 2:46 PM on June 21, 2020 [8 favorites]
(And the press keeps falling for it, every time. :( )
posted by Melismata at 2:48 PM on June 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 2:48 PM on June 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
It seems the big thing that came out of it was the SNAFU with the outdoor venue being set up. Clearly the Trump campaign believed there would be a large overflow crowd or they never would have announced it.
So while kpop may or may not have dissuaded any Trump attendees, they did get the Trump team to expand their venue from 20,000 to 60,000 people, making the actual attendee count look even smaller in comparison.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:42 PM on June 21, 2020 [4 favorites]
So while kpop may or may not have dissuaded any Trump attendees, they did get the Trump team to expand their venue from 20,000 to 60,000 people, making the actual attendee count look even smaller in comparison.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:42 PM on June 21, 2020 [4 favorites]
Or, perhaps, Trump just told them to set it up based solely on his delusions of grandeur. We have no idea.
posted by Melismata at 6:57 PM on June 21, 2020
posted by Melismata at 6:57 PM on June 21, 2020
Or, perhaps, Trump just told them to set it up based solely on his delusions of grandeur. We have no idea.
It’s possible, but despite the fact that Trump displays the general IQ of a dead parrot that’s been put through the wash a few times he is an absolutely fantastic salesman. This entire rally was a sales event and I suspect he may have been acting more rationally than you expect for it. If they thought 6200 people were coming I doubt he would’ve set himself up for a public failure.
It’s always easy to underestimate Trump, and when it comes to selling himself it’s good to assume he’s way ahead of you.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:14 PM on June 21, 2020 [3 favorites]
It’s possible, but despite the fact that Trump displays the general IQ of a dead parrot that’s been put through the wash a few times he is an absolutely fantastic salesman. This entire rally was a sales event and I suspect he may have been acting more rationally than you expect for it. If they thought 6200 people were coming I doubt he would’ve set himself up for a public failure.
It’s always easy to underestimate Trump, and when it comes to selling himself it’s good to assume he’s way ahead of you.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:14 PM on June 21, 2020 [3 favorites]
This reporting from the NYT makes it sound like the whole Trump campaign was taken by surprise. Sources are still trying to spin how it’s actually good they received a bunch of data from “tricksters” and Parscale “claimed to have thousands of emails from supporters who tried to get into the Bank of Oklahoma Center and were turned away, but he did not share those messages or names of supporters.” The obvious lying suggests to me they got caught flat-footed...
posted by sallybrown at 7:26 PM on June 21, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by sallybrown at 7:26 PM on June 21, 2020 [4 favorites]
I looked up past rallies and when he came to Oklahoma in 2016 he had rallies with around 8k-9k people. More than the Tulsa rally but no where near filling a 19k seat arena.
posted by muddgirl at 8:58 PM on June 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 8:58 PM on June 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
If huge numbers of registrations equal people not bothering to try going (which I doubt, esp Trump supporters) why would they claim a million had registered?
Trump and by extension his campaign can't help but inflate numbers like this (or gullibilily report jiggered numbers). The man lies about how many floors his buildings have. His first number on anything always a maximum possible and then he'll inflate it from there as time goes on.
The way I've heard it told, people were waiting in line for days (Breitbart link),
Hilariously despite it being a first come first serve event the people who had been waiting in line for days were shooed away in the hours before the rally because security couldn't tell if they were protestors or not.
posted by Mitheral at 12:13 AM on June 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
Trump and by extension his campaign can't help but inflate numbers like this (or gullibilily report jiggered numbers). The man lies about how many floors his buildings have. His first number on anything always a maximum possible and then he'll inflate it from there as time goes on.
The way I've heard it told, people were waiting in line for days (Breitbart link),
Hilariously despite it being a first come first serve event the people who had been waiting in line for days were shooed away in the hours before the rally because security couldn't tell if they were protestors or not.
posted by Mitheral at 12:13 AM on June 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
For those, like me, who are desperately out of the loop - The Guardian have published an explanation of what Elite TikTok is - and how it is associated with K-Pop. In terms of answering your question about how this group might have affected the rally - it is worth considering the criteria for entry to the group itself. You can't join the elite by simply asking to (of course!) - and equally you can't join it by attaining any obvious goal or knowing any particular piece of information. Instead - you are allowed in only if your taste in videos fits a particular profile. Not a profile that is expressly political - but one that correlates with the kind of counter-culture that is unlikely to vote Republican.
I suspect that those characteristics make the group rather hard to keep track of. They are not like conventional political groups which can readily monitored and infiltrated. There is no leader and no agenda - just contributors and those who promote contributions. I would conclude that the members are proudly weird and weirdly smart in their actions.
posted by rongorongo at 2:04 AM on June 22, 2020 [4 favorites]
I suspect that those characteristics make the group rather hard to keep track of. They are not like conventional political groups which can readily monitored and infiltrated. There is no leader and no agenda - just contributors and those who promote contributions. I would conclude that the members are proudly weird and weirdly smart in their actions.
posted by rongorongo at 2:04 AM on June 22, 2020 [4 favorites]
One thing I don't think anyone has mentioned yet, is that Trump & the Trump Campaign (and to a certain extent, all campaigns) look at "winning the day" in the media as a vital goal.
So the fact that some obscure group led by a "grandma" or whatever showed up in major media outlets as partially responsible for the Trump Rally debacle is a PR loss already, whether or not they did anything very substantial, is already a major PR loss for a campaign that heavily counts PR losses.
They were definitely looking for a big media "win" in the 24 hours following the rally and the fact that they were handed a media "defeat" at the hands of "KPop, tiktok fans, and a grandma"--all seen as insignificant and powerless groups in the political arena--is particularly galling to both Trump and his campaign.
If you--like most of us--don't think PR wins are that important, you won't see the significance. But to Trump and his campaign organizers, who are most definitely counting things like this, it's a major defeat.
Not just that the rally was something of a flop, but in addition, the humiliating media story that was told about why it was a flop.
Not to belabor this, but the Trump Campaign could have--and smart money probably would have--positioned the rally as a huge win for Trump. Despite COVID and a host of other negative factors--including COVID, protestors, KPop fans, Tiktok, and the occasional Evil Grandma--Trump got a crowd of over 5000 to his rally. That was almost as many as he got in much happier times, you had over a million people who signed up wanting to be there but just couldn't, you go to a venue where that 5000 people looks like a standing room only crowd and over 2000 are left standing outside (where Trump & Pence could have addressed them), etc etc etc.
You pump out the story and the visuals about the overflow crowd, Trump's re-election campaign is off to a great start, we're re-opening the country for business and Trump is on the leading edge of that, blah-blah-blah.
Same exact rally, very different positioning, covered in the media as a "Big Win" for Team Trump.
Instead we got a story where a very weak Trump is portrayed all over the media as defeated by some random kids and grandmas.
Exactly the kind of PR defeat Team Trump is working overtime to avoid.
And not to even over-belabor the already over-belaboration, but the specific thing the KPop fans & Evil Grandmas did is help create the environment where the Trump Campaign miscalculated, resulting in what could have a been a Big Media Win turning into a Big Media Loss instead.
I know that's all pretty meta. But, well, we're on MetaFilter, right? And that's the kind of meta campaigns run on.
posted by flug at 12:04 PM on June 22, 2020 [4 favorites]
So the fact that some obscure group led by a "grandma" or whatever showed up in major media outlets as partially responsible for the Trump Rally debacle is a PR loss already, whether or not they did anything very substantial, is already a major PR loss for a campaign that heavily counts PR losses.
They were definitely looking for a big media "win" in the 24 hours following the rally and the fact that they were handed a media "defeat" at the hands of "KPop, tiktok fans, and a grandma"--all seen as insignificant and powerless groups in the political arena--is particularly galling to both Trump and his campaign.
If you--like most of us--don't think PR wins are that important, you won't see the significance. But to Trump and his campaign organizers, who are most definitely counting things like this, it's a major defeat.
Not just that the rally was something of a flop, but in addition, the humiliating media story that was told about why it was a flop.
Not to belabor this, but the Trump Campaign could have--and smart money probably would have--positioned the rally as a huge win for Trump. Despite COVID and a host of other negative factors--including COVID, protestors, KPop fans, Tiktok, and the occasional Evil Grandma--Trump got a crowd of over 5000 to his rally. That was almost as many as he got in much happier times, you had over a million people who signed up wanting to be there but just couldn't, you go to a venue where that 5000 people looks like a standing room only crowd and over 2000 are left standing outside (where Trump & Pence could have addressed them), etc etc etc.
You pump out the story and the visuals about the overflow crowd, Trump's re-election campaign is off to a great start, we're re-opening the country for business and Trump is on the leading edge of that, blah-blah-blah.
Same exact rally, very different positioning, covered in the media as a "Big Win" for Team Trump.
Instead we got a story where a very weak Trump is portrayed all over the media as defeated by some random kids and grandmas.
Exactly the kind of PR defeat Team Trump is working overtime to avoid.
And not to even over-belabor the already over-belaboration, but the specific thing the KPop fans & Evil Grandmas did is help create the environment where the Trump Campaign miscalculated, resulting in what could have a been a Big Media Win turning into a Big Media Loss instead.
I know that's all pretty meta. But, well, we're on MetaFilter, right? And that's the kind of meta campaigns run on.
posted by flug at 12:04 PM on June 22, 2020 [4 favorites]
The problem with this narrative is that it fundamentally misunderstands what information people who wanted to attend had at the time. The local media were giving a real time picture of the size of the crowd and the situation regarding protests. Anyone who lived within the area that BOk Center events normally draw from had ample notice that the expected masses were not materializing.
That's not to say that the kpop fake data played no role in setting the rally up to be a bigger disappointment than it would have otherwise been or that there is no value in fucking over Trump's data machine. I'm only saying that if people wanted to attend but were leaning no because of the hype, they still had the means and opportunity to be there despite the spam campaign. At best it provided an excuse.
posted by wierdo at 10:33 PM on June 22, 2020
That's not to say that the kpop fake data played no role in setting the rally up to be a bigger disappointment than it would have otherwise been or that there is no value in fucking over Trump's data machine. I'm only saying that if people wanted to attend but were leaning no because of the hype, they still had the means and opportunity to be there despite the spam campaign. At best it provided an excuse.
posted by wierdo at 10:33 PM on June 22, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by bedhead at 11:12 AM on June 21, 2020 [10 favorites]