Anonymous uses K-Pop stan army to drown #WhiteLivesMatter, #BlueLivesMatter hashtags in sea of fancams and smurfs
On Wednesday, June 3, the famous hacktivist group Anonymous posted on its Twitter account (that has 5.8 million followers), “Report from the battle: The Anonymous K-Pop division #OpFanCam has successfully conquered the #BlueLivesMatter and #WhiteLivesMatter hashtags. A major victory over online fascism's messaging tools, their fascist incel troops have been completely decimated.”
In terms of unlikely crossovers, K-Pop stans and Anonymous coming together to dismantle racism, in the wake of George Floyd’s death, is an unexpected yet pleasant product of the year 2020. K-pop stans had already been doing their bit to ensure subversive activism by crashing the Dallas Police's iWatch Dallas app, which allows people to anonymously upload photos and videos of criminal activity, with a flood of fancams.
For those who don’t know, a fancam is basically footage focusing on a single member of a band, usually while the group is performing. Any fan's footage can be a fancam. It’s a K-pop trend. And it has right now, mutated to footage of just about any celebrity.
Following that, K-pop accounts started flooding hashtags like “Blue Lives Matter”, a countermovement in the United States advocating that those who are prosecuted and convicted of killing law enforcement officers should be sentenced under hate crime statutes, and “White Lives Matter”, a racist counter to the Black Lives Matter movement.
K-Pop fans also reportedly flooded racist hashtags like "MAGA" and "Whiteout Wednesday", as a response to Blackout Tuesday, with memes, GIFs, and videos of K-Pop artists. This was taken out all over social media, be it Twitter or Facebook, or Instagram.
“#WhiteLivesMatter LMAO I was ready to insult the s*** out of everyone,” one Twitter account wrote. “Then I saw that K-Pop stans are destroying the #. Damn never thought I’d be that happy seeing K-Pop fancam.” Another wrote, “Imagine trying to trend #WhiteLivesMatter like a typical racist and K-Pop fans said ‘Not on my watch b****’.”
The Anonymous Twitter account later reported, “Report from the battle: The Anonymous K-Pop division #OpFanCam has successfully eliminated the hashtag #whiteoutwednsday which fascists were planning to use to spread their ideology and anti-Black Lives Matter content.”
But it did not stop there. Anonymous seemed to be directing the K-Pop attack on not just hashtags, but also on people. When Bill Melugin, a reporter for FOX 11 Los Angeles, tweeted about a supposed looter, Anonymous directed the stans in his direction.
Melugin wrote, sharing a video, “Not only is this clown stupid enough to show his face while he brags about all the merchandise in he looted in #SantaMonica, he also reveals his location. Someone knows who he is. Do your thing, internet. Anyone have his @?”
Anonymous, in response, wrote, “#OpFanCam side-mission: send your favorite K-Pop twitter handles to this guy. #GeorgeFloyd #ICantBreathe #BlackLivesMatter.”
The flooding of racist hashtags may have been inspired by the unintended consequences of the Black Tuesday campaign. What was supposed to be an act of solidarity -- tweeting and Instagramming black squares to show allegiance to the Black Lives Matter movement -- overshadowed the original intent of the hashtag completely due to overuse. The act managed to block essential resources, information, and news about protests.