The K-pop community appears to have full-on thrown its weight behind the US protesters, as a local police department in Dallas, Texas attempted to invite netizens to post anonymous complaints about the protestors’ possibly “illegal” actions.
"If you have a video of illegal activity from the protests and are trying to share it with @DallasPD, you can download it to our iWatch Dallas app", they wrote, asking for information while reserving the netizens’ right not to disclose their identities.
However, in an immediate response, Twitterians flooded the official snitching app with unrelated videos, memes, K-pop fancams, encouraging all the rest to do the same.
hope you enjoyed the fancams pic.twitter.com/MfWKIfTWDW
— ًmika (@revfestivaI) May 31, 2020
pigs are using this app to have people send in videos so they can identify those in protests. if we can swarm these pages, they won’t be able to find anything on anyone. how about we put our fancamming into good use and upload so many fancams it floods the app? pic.twitter.com/760nGHwmHZ
— lee hoseok knows acab 🐰 (@leehsk93) May 31, 2020
guys download the app and fucking FLOOD that shit with fancams make it SO HARD for them to find anything besides our faves dancing https://t.co/zqjVHLWnZG
— allie 📌 #BLM, ACAB (@YGSHlT) May 31, 2020
Many of the reposted viral videos featured police storming out into crowds and resorting to batons, and tear gas, etc., as protesters moved on with their rallies.
Some people even submitted media products like SpongeBob SquarePants memes and the Bee Movie script to the Dallas police's app, apart from a series of fancams, Mashable noted.
thanks to all americans kpop stan who mass sent their fancams😍😍 pic.twitter.com/ndDrdrChsg
— 𝕝𝕚𝕝𝕪 🌙 (@tenvlt) May 31, 2020
K-pop fans’ efforts apparently bore fruit, as just a day later, Dallas PD announced that iWatch Dallas was temporarily down, citing “technical difficulties”.
Due to technical difficulties iWatch Dallas app will be down temporarily. pic.twitter.com/zksA1hkVhV
— Dallas Police Dept (@DallasPD) May 31, 2020
Although the force didn’t specify exactly which difficulties they meant, many Twitter users attributed the block to K-pop fans' well-coordinated spamming, aimed to prevent the police from keeping tabs on protesters.
not Kpop stans having the Dallas police department app crash by spamming it with fancams lmfaooo
— HOOD VOGUE is tired of poverty (@itskeyon) June 1, 2020
oh my god the entire kpop bplot for the past few years was a chekhov's gun. i cannot believe this https://t.co/8cPM4Z6YzB
— elreon hubbard (@Cosmic_Wyrm) June 1, 2020
Dallas police asked people to send in photos, tips, etc of looters/protestors. Instead, people flooded the site with their favorite K-Pop bands and songs until site crashed. Well, Twitter. Well done.!
— Rita D Woods (@RitaWoodsAuthor) June 1, 2020
So, apparently Dallas police made an app asking citizens to send videos of protesters, and kpopers flooded it with so many K-pop videos that the app was taken down. 💋👌
— Etiene Dalcol (@etiene_d) June 1, 2020
I guess I have to take back whatever I have said about K-pop spam in the past
K-pop fans are typically avid Twitterians, eagerly posting clips of their favourite artists on social media.
However, many fans recently stopped tweeting so zealously about their beloved groups in a bid to keep #BlackLivesMatter and #GeorgeFloyd in the top trending spots, according to Mashable.
The US has been engulfed over the past few days by massive thousands-strong protests against the death of black American man George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis law enforcement, and police brutality at large, with demonstrations increasingly turning into violent riots involving clashes with police, looting, and arsons across as many as 75 US cities.
Thousands of National Guard troops have been called in to patrol major US cities in 15 states, with at least 40 cities introducing curfews to disperse the enraged crowds.
Amid the civil unrest, Derek Chauvin, who suffocated Floyd to death while arresting him, has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter and he, together with the three other officers who were present at the scene, has been sacked from service.
