Skip to main content

K-pop fans are taking over 'White Lives Matter' and other anti-Black hashtags with memes and fancams of their favorite stars

(CNN)If there's one rule on social media that people can agree on, it's this: Don't cross K-pop stans. With tens of thousands of K-pop fan accounts posting over six billion tweets last year, they have become one of the strongest forces on social media.

Now, following George Floyd's death, K-pop fans are using their power on the internet to rally around the Black Lives Matter movement.

Floyd, 46, died last week in police custody after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest. His death has sparked nationwide and international protests.

Hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackoutTuesday have been trending on social media as Americans demand justice for Floyd. But many who oppose the BLM movement have been countering those hashtags with their own, such as #WhiteoutWednesday.

So K-pop fans did what they do best: Post countless memes and videos of their favorite groups, this time using the anti-black hasthtags to drown out those voices.

Now, when people look up the hashtags #WhiteLivesMatter, #WhiteoutWednesday and #BlueLivesMatter on social media platforms, they are met with endless pictures and performances of Twice, EXO and other hot K-pop groups.

"Police arrest that boy for stealing my heart #BlueLivesMatter," one tweet says with a fancam of SuperM's Lucas performing.

"The only blue thing that matters is Namjoons hair #blueLivesMatter," another tweet says referring to the BTS rapper.

K-pop fans spammed a police app

On Sunday, the Dallas Police Department asked people on Twitter to submit video of "illegal activity from the protests" to its IWatch Dallas app. But instead K-pop fans flooded the app with fancams.

That afternoon, the police department tweeted, "Due to technical difficulties iWatch Dallas app will be down temporarily."

Even after the app crashed K-pop fans replied to Dallas PD's tweet with more K-pop videos.

The police department said the app was back up and running on Monday and that the cause of the "temporary interruption" is "still being determined," according to a statement.

When asked for further comment, the Dallas Police Department referred CNN to its statement.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Black Adam Can Be The DCEU’s Wolverine

The upcoming Black Adam movie could position its title character as DC's equivalent to Wolverine. Though Black Adam has taken quite a long time to get rolling, the first day of DC FanDome gave a peak at what audiences can expect, from name-dropping several Justice Society of America members who make appearances to Dwayne Johnson stressing the harsh origins of the title character. Johnson's description of Black Adam himself also may offer a sense of just what role he'll occupy in the world of the DCEU. Johnson would place particular emphasis on Black Adam having been a slave who achieves his freedom after being granted power from the gods and who now seeks to unleash his own brand of justice on the world. Aside from the moral ambiguity of Black Adam, Johnson has also repeatedly spoken of him as a game-changing figure in the DCEU with the power level that he operates at. Meanwhile, with the way Black Adam is being presented as a character, he could carry some notable parallel...

Epic Games asks court to stop Apple's 'retaliation' after App Store ban

Epic Games said late on Friday that it has asked a court to stop what it saw as Apple Inc's retaliation against the "Fortnite" creator after the iPhone maker terminated Epic Games' account on its App Store. Epic Games filed for a preliminary injunction that would put its game back in the App Store and restore its developer account. The filing was made in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. It argued that Epic Games is "likely to suffer irreparable harm" in the absence of a preliminary injunction and that "the balance of harms tips sharply in Epic's favor". The filing described the iPhone maker as a "monopolist" that maintains its monopolies by "explicitly prohibiting any competitive entry". Late last week, Apple terminated Epic Games' account on its App Store amid a legal battle over the iPhone maker's in-app payment guidelines and accusations they constitute a monopoly. Apple sa...

Microsoft's latest Windows 10 updates come with nasty printer bugs

The latest updates for Windows 10 give the platform’s security a boost, but they unfortunately come with nasty bugs that make printing impossible, as well. Microsoft released the buggy updates —  KB4560960  and  KB4557957  — on June 9th, and users started experiencing issues as soon as they installed them. As  Bleeping Computer  notes, user reports on  Reddit  and the Microsoft Answers  forum  show that the issue affects various HP, Canon, Panasonic, Brother and Ricoh printer models. Some users even reported being unable to print files as PDFs. Microsoft has  published  a notice acknowledging that update KB4557957 may render certain printers unable to print. The tech giant warns users that the “[p]rint spooler may error or close unexpectedly when attempting to print and no output will come from affected printer.” Also, it says the app users are attempting to print from may close unexpectedly. Finally, it admits that the issue “might also affect software-based printers, for example prin...