Thousands of Colombian k-popers have sabotaged anti-unemployment trends on Twitter.
If readers get into the # UribeTieneLaRazón trend on Twitter, they will come across thousands of videos of well-dressed and made-up young people dancing and singing Korean popular music. There will be no trace of the messages of support for former President Álvaro Uribe with which the
hashtag
was originally created
. The same happens if they visit #YoApoyoalESMAD. Instead of backup photos of the cops, you will see songs from BTS, Wanna One, or Blackpink, some of the most famous K-pop groups from South Korea. If they do it with #NoMasParo or #yonosoylucas or #LaTomaDeCali, three examples of trends promoted in recent days by politicians who are against the protests, they will find images of massive and colorful concerts in the distant cities of Busan and Seoul.
Since the national strike began in Colombia, on April 28, thousands of Korean pop fans have gotten up early every day to boycott Twitter trends that according to them incite hatred, misinform or are maliciously created to delegitimize the marches against government. The anonymous members of a group of k-pop fans say that their digital sabotage technique is simple: identify the trends they want to knock down and fill them with
Fancams, song
videos from their favorite groups, so that people who enter cannot see the original "hate" messages from those who created them.
The young women, who exchanged their profile photos with the singers for a bloodied tricolor flag that reads: “Colombia is in mourning.
The government is killing us ”, they explain that their digital activism is not against a specific person or a political party or an ideology, but in favor of human rights.
During the strike, their organization and their effectiveness in social networks have made headlines in the national press, have angered well-known Uribista politicians and have made several public figures with millions of followers wonder how they do it, what reasons they have and if there is some great leader behind his activism.
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The strategy has bothered the extreme right in Colombia so much that activist Sergio Rodríguez, close to former attorney Alejandro Ordoñez and former president Álvaro Uribe, launched a campaign on social networks to try to close the accounts of K-pop fans.
"As the puberty followers of K-pop are sabotaging the trends that show the reality of the country and urban terrorism, I invite you to denounce the winery following the instructions in this video, we are going to close their accounts," Rodríguez wrote desperately.
On the contrary, Félix de Bedout and Daniel Samper Ospina, two renowned Colombian journalists, have celebrated the movement: “If the k-popers with us, who against us”, “They messed with the K-Poppers generation. Bad Choice "," From the #kpoppers I learned that they are a true collective: I keep learning about them, a very interesting phenomenon, "they wrote.
Angela Serrano, a 30-year-old Korean pop fan who works in creative services at a tech company and has participated in digital protests, insists that K-pop is just a musical genre and that K-popers are one. community of people who really like a specific type of music and nothing else. “We are not an urban culture or a political party or an anti-urban group. We are people who agree with a social cause and we want to help ”, says Serrano. And he adds: “In Colombia there are fascist k-popers, from the extreme right, I don't know how, but there are. Simply that those of us who are not, we are more and we unite to contribute and make social protest taking advantage of the fact that we have knowledge of social networks that other people do not have ”.
#YoApoyoAlEsmad # PetroDelincuente # YoApoyoMiPolicia
Look at my beautiful man pic.twitter.com/ToVVp0Lvab
- Valery🇨🇴💜🧈 (@ VFlorez52) May 7, 2021
# OjoConEl2022 #UribeTieneLaRazon #UribeSomosTodos
Better let's see Jimin with this song in the background pic.twitter.com/l8a3SVIIpv
- Kathe (@ Kathe_24_17) May 9, 2021
The digital activism of k-popers has not only bothered radicals in Colombia.
In June 2020, they boycotted the call for a campaign event by then United States President Donald Trump in Tulsa (Oklahoma) and a few days later they sabotaged the racist tendencies of Vox, the far-right political party in Spain.
They had previously done it in the social outbreak in Chile against the Government of Sebastián Piñera.
Serrano explains that the participation of k-popers in politics began with two young Americans who saw how after George Floyd's death trends emerged on Twitter of white supremacists defending the police officers who had murdered him. “These girls decided to upload videos of K-pop singers in those trends, other fans kept doing it and the thing went viral. People liked it and it went around the world, ”says the Colombian k-poper proudly. “It's not that someone gave the order and the others obeyed. It was a spontaneous discontent ”.
It was at this point that the Twitter k-pop community realized that what they had done for years to give visibility to their favorite singers was working to support other causes as well. K-pop has had a very strong social media presence forever because the groups they follow are from South Korea, a relatively small country with a language that hardly anyone who doesn't live there speaks, and the only way to having access to that music has been through the internet.
"If you like k-pop, yes or yes, you will have to learn to use Twitter perfectly because you want to get your favorite groups to have the recognition, the votes in television contests and the visibility that you think they deserve." Serrano explains that fans are very organized, committed and disciplined people. Any day of the week in the morning or at night, when the hours coincide with those of Korea, there will always be a trending topic of the BTS group. "If we can generate a global trend every day about Korean pop, we can also make a lot of causes against racism, classism and discrimination have visibility."
If we can generate a global trend every day about Korean pop, we can also make a lot of causes against racism, classism and discrimination have visibility
The members of the BTS fan group, who appear on Twitter as @BTSMyWings_Col, agree with Serrano: “The k-pop community for years has studied the operation of social networks in order to be efficient when promoting the artists we follow.
Each of us used this knowledge to apply it for the greater good, ”they affirm.
For them it is also important to clarify that their activism is not a coordinated operation nor is anyone ordering them to boycott Uribe's hashtags, "we do it because it is what each of us believes is correct."
This group tells that people from other countries are also participating in the sabotage of trends in Colombia "who have expressed solidarity with recent events and have made the decision to be part of the boycott", above all there have been people from the Chilean community , Mexico and Peru.
The Twitter algorithm
The key to turning Twitter trends on or off is understanding how the algorithm works.
According to Serrano, the application chooses the
trending topics
of the day when there is a large volume of interaction in a very short period of time.
“It is not the same that interactions grow throughout the morning as many people post many times with the same number in 10 minutes.
This is how trends are created, ”explains Serrano.
Another k-pooper who asked not to be identified continues: "We create a peak in the trend we want, we fill it with things that have nothing to do with it, especially music videos, Twitter checks if that number is politics or entertainment, and when we have control over it, we let it die ”.
The interviewees agree that this organizing power serves to knock down a
racist or fascist
hashtag
or to collect money for a social cause or to help search for a missing person.
“All of this can be achieved because the secret is in the order, in the commitment and in the number of people who are doing it simultaneously.
We are thousands in Colombia and millions in the world ”, explains Serrano.
In addition to understanding the algorithm, the success is also due to the fact that many k-popers have Twitter accounts with many followers, that generates more impact and more interactions.
When asked how they communicate to decide which trend to attack, the activist affirms that although there are Telegram channels or specialized WhatsApp groups, these are used above all to talk about music.
Virtual protests in times of pandemic and repression
“There are many ways to express our discontent, one of them is to take advantage of social networks.
We already understood that they are a very valid tool to demand our rights, they are a very great force to show the power of the people ”, explains Serrano.
In Colombia, at least 41 deaths have been registered during the protests.
K-popers claim that this digital activism has removed negative stigmas around their musical tastes.
"Before they told us that we were crazy little girls obsessed with Korea, that we only talked about it and it's not true," they explain.
According to Serrano, this discrimination suffered by fan groups may be the roots of their activism.
“These social problems of violence and human rights violations have resonated so much in the K-pop community because the stigma towards us has been impressive.
We have been persecuted, ”he says.
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