53stans crashedthe app by flooding
itwithclose-upclipsofK-popidols
winkingatthecamera,a flexthecops
attributedto“technicaldifficulties.”
AndARMYmemberswhotookcredit
onlineforruiningTrump’sTulsarally
postedvideosofthemselvesdoingthe
Macarenainfrontoftheirticketsor
jokingthattheycouldn’tgobecause
theywerewalkingtheirplantsorfeed-
ingtheirpetrocks.OO
n the surface, ARMY’s signal-
jamming and GIF warfare might
seem to echo the unsavory viral memes
that helped drive support for Trump
four years ago and lay the groundwork
for QAnon. But K-pop stans came first,
says Wasim Khaled. He’s chief exec-
utive officer of Blackbird.AI, a com-
pany governments and corporations
hire to analyze digital disinformation
campaigns and other forms of social
media manipulation. He had to learn
how to account for ARMY when devel-
oping Blackbird’s algorithms years ago,
because the sheer volume of K-pop-
related material was throwing offevery large data analysis he tried to do.
Once he learned what BTS was, it took
a while to find a way to filter out the
stans’ noise. The ripple effects of QAnon
look much the same, he says: “Consider
QAnon like conspiracy stans.”
ARMY has been somewhat qui-
eter in the presidential race’s waning
months than they were this summer.
Partly, that’s because the fandom has
resisted co-option attempts by the
Democratic Party mainstream.
After Trump’s disastrous Tulsa
rally, the Biden War Room, a
grassroots outfit seeking to
elect the ex-vice president,
began tweeting lame “K-pop for
Biden” memes and seeking stans’
support, only to earn replies such as
“We don’t like you, either” and “hell to
the no.”
The fandom isn’t a monolith—it’s
leaderless, hard to harness, and divided
on the question of what to do next.
Overton says ARMY should steer clear
of politics to make sure the actions of
some overzealous fan don’t backfire on
BTS. Herr, in Silicon Valley, says gettinginvolved is a credit to BTS and a part of
ARMY’s civic duty. “The Trump admin-
istration’s message is racist, and it’s not
what we believe or stand for,” she says.
With like-minded stans, she’s talked
younger and non-English- speaking
ARMY members through voter registra-
tions and helped organize get-out-the-
vote efforts across California.
Of course, QAnon and similar groups
aren’t about to disappear after Nov. 3. If
Joe Biden wins the presidency, ARMY’s
political engagement could be all the
more valuable in countering a fresh
wave of revanchist conspiracy
theorists, including Trump. If
Trump wins reelection, his more
paranoid supporters will likely
plow additional resources into
the strategies that have put
QAnon followers on the bal-
lot in several states. Either way, K-pop
stans are “the only other online crowd-
sourced group that has the same kind of
amplification power across social media
networks,” Khaled says. “There’s defi-
nitely no other group that can go up
PHOTOGRAPH BY ISABELLA MOORE FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK against QAnon.”