With bad news dominating the headlines, this little gem is a bit of light in an otherwise dark sky.
On Sunday, the Dallas Police Department asked people via Twitter to snitch on folks from the Black Lives Matter protests through its new iWatch Dallas app, where people could submit photo, video, or text tips about possible crimes while remaining anonymous.
Let’s just say things did not go as planned.
Instead of useful tips, DPD received a flood of pictures and videos of K-pop artists and several videos of police brutality.
While we can’t say for certain that the K-Pop activity caused the app to crash, we can say for certain that, “due to technical difficulties” it was “taken down” soon after it was flooded with K-Pop videos.
The Philadelphia Fire Department asked for videos of people setting fires during the protest. On June 1, Kirkland, WA police asked its Twitter followers to use the hashtag #calminkirkland to share information about rioting and looting. Instead, both departments received videos of singers from several groups.
K-Pop fandom also targeted the Grand Rapids Police Department, which set up a portal similar to the one in Dallas for the public to submit "video evidence of crime in downtown during protests." As you might guess, that app is not performing to spec.
As with the Dallas app, Kpop fans responded. One tweet has more than 111,000 likes and 40,000 shares: "you know the drill! SEND IN ALL OF YOUR FANCAMS!!! CRASH THE WEBSITE!!! MAKE THEM TAKE IT DOWN!!! PROTECT THE PROTESTERS!!!"
Since the portal set up by the Grand Rapids police requires users to enter a phone number, K-Pop fans are entering the numbers of other police departments, as well as those of government buildings and city halls.
#MAGA and other RW Hashtags Targeted
The move to debilitate the snitch apps led someone in the Twitterverse to ask for K-Pop fans’ help in taking on right-wing hashtags.
Can the kpop stans who flooded the dallas police app with fancams do the same for the M*GA, bluelivesmatter and any other alt right hashtag, ESPECIALLY on IG and Facebook. we need your services again
Browse Twitter or Instagram for hashtags such as #MAGA and #BlueLivesMatter today and you’ll find that the majority of recent posts are filled with K-Pop fancams and memes that mock these causes.
Aristotle once said, “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” Thanks to K-Pop and its legion of fans for providing some of that light today.