Dear Gossips,

BTS has never played a concert in Oklahoma. They could sell out any venue in Oklahoma in an hour. But they wouldn’t jeopardise the health and safety of their fans during a global health crisis. Unlike the president of the United States.

Speaking of…

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how the BTS ARMY and K-pop fans mobilised to protect protestors by flooding police apps with fancams and taking over racist all lives/white lives matter hashtags on Twitter. As I noted in that post, the BTS’s ARMY has been dominating social media at will in support of the band for years and their power can be further harnessed, [so] it will be interesting to see if it will be, and how”. Well. This weekend we saw.

The Trump campaign had been boasting that his rally in Tulsa, OK would be attended by a million people. What actually happened was that in the days preceding the event, there was an online movement to register for tickets to the rally without any intention to attend. Per the NY Times, "K-pop fan accounts began sharing the information with followers, encouraging them to register for the rally — and then not show."

Teens and seniors on TikTok soon joined, and then it spread to other social media platforms. They are claiming credit too and, of course, unlike Trump who boasts about random sh-t and can never prove it, OF COURSE these kids have the receipts.

The result?

Look, we’re in the middle of a pandemic. It’s hard to say whether or not more people would have actually turned out if the BTS Army, K-pop fans, teens, and seniors didn’t do what they did. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that they knew exactly where to hurt him: his ego. That f-ckwit is always talking about “ratings” and he was bigging himself up for days about attendance. What the news showed instead were empty seats in the arena and an outside stage area (called the “overflow”) that was deserted and then being disassembled even before Trump started his speech. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Seriously though? None of this matters if people don’t show up to vote. The election is in November. Punking Trump online is one thing. Showing up to the polling station is another. And before that, people have to REGISTER TO VOTE. They registered to not attend a Trump event. If the same energy can be applied to voter registration and then following up on election day, then it’s a real celebration. Otherwise, this means nothing.

Until then, as you study up on the political candidates in your area, and get ready to perform your civic duty, maybe you need a playlist? Are you thinking about putting together a BTS and K-pop playlist now? It’s a good week for it. The BLACKPINK comeback is happening on Thursday. Sasha and I are already losing our minds over the visuals:

I would be happy to put together a BTS playlist for you, if you’re interested. WHY AREN’T YOU INTERESTED? I mean, I don’t want to sound petty but… I’ve been telling you about Bangtan for years. And look, now John Oliver is going Bangtan on Last Week Tonight. I told you about fancams two weeks ago and he delivered a fancam primer on the show's latest episode and then revealed himself, LIKE ME, to have a Jungkook bias!

“Jungkook could just objectively get it”, HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA. By the way, if you’re not a regular Last Week Tonight watcher, John has his crushes and his mock-crushes. For the last few months, he’s been on Adam Driver, and it’s hard to tell whether or not he actually means it. But I feel confident that he means it with Jungkook. Jungkook > 2 x Adam. Driver AND Levine!

By the way, please know that that final shirtless in that montage shot is not Jungkook. As far as I know, Jungkook hasn’t made that particular move yet. Not because he doesn’t have the abs though. If you’ve never, you should check out the video and/or the choreo for BTS’s song “Fake Love”. Or, oh look, someone helpfully made a thread:

Now remember, photos and videos like the one above were flooding the Dallas Police Department app after they asked the public to send them footage of protestors. This is what they were looking at!

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

John Oliver Gossip

About