TikTok users and K-pop fan accounts claim they registered thousands of tickets for Trump's Tulsa rally as a prank, resulting in lower than expected attendance

Did a successful prank inflate attendance expectations for President Trump's rally in Tulsa, Okla.?

New York Times 2020-06-21

Context & Ripple Effects

The Tulsa story lands in an already fraught year for TikTok in US politics. Months earlier, Bloomberg reported that impersonator accounts of world leaders were multiplying on the app despite its fake-account ban — evidence that political manipulation of TikTok predates this prank. Weeks after Tulsa, the Trump campaign escalated from grievance to action with a petition urging supporters to ban TikTok, citing clipboard monitoring.

What makes the episode durable is how it foreshadowed both sides' behavior: the campaign treating crowd metrics as contested terrain, and TikTok calibrating its rules around political pressure — a dynamic that resurfaced when executives reportedly relaxed moderation to court Trump fans before the 2024 election.

First-order effects

Trump's campaign entered rally night with attendance expectations inflated by thousands of fraudulent registrations, turning a headlining event into an optics problem measured against empty seats.
TikTok's immediate exposure is enforcement-based: it judged that at least 14 of the implicated accounts broke no rules, leaving its fake-account policy looking toothless against coordinated RSVP abuse.

Second-order effects

The campaign converted the embarrassment into anti-TikTok mobilization within weeks, folding the prank into a ban petition that gave supporters a concrete action item.
Every large venue now faces a pricing problem: free RSVPs are unreliable demand signals, pushing campaigns toward verified or paid registration to keep crowd-size claims defensible.

Third-order effects

Crowd size itself became disputed data: by 2024 Trump dismissed a Harris rally's attendance as AI-generated, extending Tulsa's lesson that attendance numbers are now attack surfaces rather than facts.
The pattern hardened into structural alignment — platforms adjusting moderation to suit the politician who might regulate them, while politicians weaponize platform grievances for voter mobilization.

The trend: Political events and platforms are entering a loop where attendance metrics, moderation rules, and platform-ban politics each become ammunition, with TikTok's US fate tied to the very campaigns it hosts.

Discussion

@aoc Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on x
Actually 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 Shout out to Zoomers. Y'all make me so proud. ☺️ ht…
@nytimes @nytimes on x
Teenage TikTok users and K-pop fans claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for President Trump's campaign rally as a prank to ruin the event. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@parkermolloy Parker Molloy on x
If anything, turnout was suppressed by Brad Parscale. His (likely made up) tweets about hundreds of thousands of reservations may have depressed turnout. But people have been doing this “Let's all register for tickets and not go” thing since 2015.
@zeynep Zeynep Tufekci on x
Instead of short-term celebration of whatever happens to please one group, people should think: Wait how will this be weaponized by someone else? (It will). What will happen to the public sphere? How could we design things for healthier outcomes no matter who the weaponizers are?
@taylorlorenz Taylor Lorenz on x
Did the whole rally bomb because of this prank? No of course not. But this “prank” did succeed in getting the campaign to promote bogus numbers that undoubtedly shifted public expectations of the rally, which made its dismal attendance look even worse https://www.nytimes.com/...
@persily Nathaniel Persily on x
For all those taking a victory lap over the ingenuity of the campaign of false signups for the Tulsa rally, please realize this is now the new normal and will be used against your political friends as well as foes. Indeed, expect escalation in tactics to disrupt the next rally.
@taylorlorenz Taylor Lorenz on x
TikTok users and K-pop fans claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for Trump's campaign rally as a prank. Now, after his rally was poorly attended, they're celebrating their victory. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@taylorlorenz Taylor Lorenz on x
The plan to register for Trump's Tulsa rally as a prank was spread by TikTok teens, K-pop stans on Twitter, countless more ppl on Insta and Snapchat. Even Facebook moms apparently got involved! https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@joshtpm Josh Marshall on x
fwiw, this does not explain in any way why there were so few people at the event. they wanted as many sign ups as possible. they giddily gave out more than 40 times the capacity of the venue. Everyone who actually wanted to attend got a ticket. But only 6,000 wanted to attend. ht…
@sethabramson Seth Abramson on x
BREAKING NEWS: Trump Got Hilariously Punked By Gen Z https://twitter.com/...
@asharangappa_ Asha Rangappa on x
“Feeding them false data was a bonus. The data they think they have, the data they are collecting from this rally, isn't accurate.” i love it🤣 https://twitter.com/...
@tallmaurice Maurice on x
the Zoomers are good and can make fun of my avocado toast all they want. TikTok Teens Claim They Tanked Trump Rally https://www.nytimes.com/...
@zeynep Zeynep Tufekci on x
And, more, it becomes for sale. That's what happened to many other online grassroots tactics. They worked for a while, and then they became pay-platforms-to-play. Facebook gave “white glove” treatment to Duterte and embedded staff with Trump. So it goes. https://twitter.com/...
@johnolilly John Lilly on x
So, three things: 1) this is incredible and wondrous 2) there will be payback and an escalation of tactics here that worries me 3) there is an ALT TikTok?? WAT? https://twitter.com/...
@mmasnick Mike Masnick on x
Can't wait to see the next internet law Trump is going to try to overturn by executive order to stop this from happening again... https://twitter.com/...
@zeynep Zeynep Tufekci on x
Note on K-pop stans and Tiktok teens playing the algorithms a they fake-snatched Trump tickets. From my 2016 book: Activists etc. are *always* attuned to such algorithms. But also note how Facebook's algorithm had downplayed Ferguson in 2014. Notice the gatekeeping by platforms. …
@whoozley Lucy Wainwright on x
There was no cap on tickets so this has the benefit of being brilliant AND absolutely no excuse for the low turnout. https://twitter.com/...
@newtonmark @newtonmark on x
You don't have to be smart or sophisticated to do this. They benefited enormously from the fact that their targets are extremely dumb. https://twitter.com/...
@taylorlorenz Taylor Lorenz on x
“It spread mostly through Alt TikTok... K-pop Twitter and Alt TikTok have a good alliance where they spread information amongst each other very quickly. They all know the algorithms and how they can boost videos to get where they want.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
@nickday13 Nick Day on x
Never been a fan of K-pop, but now starting to see it can be a force for good in the world https://twitter.com/...
@mcfaul Michael McFaul on x
The Kids Are Alright. https://twitter.com/...
@kemc Kathleen McLaughlin on x
Underestimate the teens at your own peril. “The majority of people who made them deleted them after the first day because we didn't want the Trump campaign to catch wind. These kids are smart and they thought of everything.” https://twitter.com/...
@faduma_ldn Faduma on x
Where do I sign up to become a kpop fan please https://twitter.com/...
@sahilkapur Sahil Kapur on x
Quite a sophisticated prank by TikTok teens on the Trump campaign via posts and videos encouraging people to sign up for fake tickets to his rally, then deleting their posts in 24-48 hours to lay low. “These kids are smart and they thought of everything.” https://www.nytimes.com/…
@frankrichny Frank Rich on x
It turns out teenage Tik Tok users can outwit Trimp as easily as Putin and Kim. The gaslighter has been gaslighted. A lot of hope in this story. https://twitter.com/...
@zeynep Zeynep Tufekci on x
I got this same push-back in 2012 from many Obama supporters when I tried to warn about Facebook's potential deleterious impact. That it was about not liking the result or the people used the tool effectively.. for the moment. Look how that turned out. https://twitter.com/...
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
Sara, a bit much wouldn't you say? The truth is they were clever and actually look to have followed all rules - the desire to have the largest number possible backfired. Have a laugh for a minute. Enjoy. https://twitter.com/...
@erinbrownwrites Bethany Erin on x
This is a good piece that highlights how data-savvy people - including *a lot* of teens across multiple social media platforms - are coming together and using their understanding of online algorithms to manipulate the data used by political groups. https://twitter.com/...
@lopezlinette Linette Lopez on x
I don't know how they use this same format to ge tickets out. The kids don't sleep. https://twitter.com/...
@zeynep Zeynep Tufekci on x
Yes, but. In 2012, Obama was truly much better than Romney at data and Facebook. In 2016, Facebook embedded their own highly-skilled staff with Trump campaign and solved their incompetence problem for them. “We'll always be better at this” is short-term. https://twitter.com/...
@igorpianist Igor Levit on x
The young people will win ❤️ https://twitter.com/...
@jamesrbuk James Ball on x
Ticket numbers weren't capped, so Trump's tiny audience was simply lack of demand, not TikTok. What this *did* accomplish, though, was inflating expectations (and making the data collection effort worthless). The campaign totally blundered on this one. https://twitter.com/...
@dangillmor Dan Gillmor on x
If a 51-year-old woman truly inspired a TikTok troll/prank of the Trump rally — @TaylorLorenz reports that it's likely — there are some interesting lessons for everyone doing modern online organizing. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@kellen_browning Kellen Browning on x
A prank to reserve tens of thousands of Trump rally tickets, orchestrated by Kpop groups and TikTok teenagers...may have succeeded? An unexpected Saturday night story w/ ⁦@TaylorLorenz⁩ and ⁦@sheeraf⁩ for ⁦@nytimes⁩. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@joshelman Josh Elman on x
The kids are gonna be all right. As long as they vote. https://www.nytimes.com/...

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