TikTokTrends Week: 23
December 28th – January 4th
Hi!
Welcome to the first edition of TikTokTrends in 2021! Happy New Year to everyone; I hope you all had a safe and enjoyable New Year's Day!
Just a quick update: I will be posting TikTokTrends every Monday from now on.
This week I will be talking about #AndyCohen, #LinWood, and #TrumpTapes.
Let's start!
#AndyCohen
A lot has happened in the first four days of 2021, which I will get into. But I wanted to start with a celebratory New Year's TikTok. Andy Cohen is a talk show host, and he got drunk on live TV with Anderson Cooper for the New Year's celebration.
In the video above, you can see Cohen and Cooper drinking their butts off after the ball dropped in Times Square. The video quickly went viral on TikTok and other social media platforms. Cohen continued his drunken bashing Bill DeBlasio, saying, "Do something with this city!"
Many right-wing accounts were seen posting in support of Cohen attacking DeBlasio, and enjoying the drunken rant he was in. The Cohen rant continued by trying to persuade Cooper into trying acid for the first time after the show. It was a hilarious show to watch, and many enjoyed it.
#LinWood
Lin Wood is a pro-Trump attorney who has recently been getting a lot of attention due to his tweets. His latest antics include tweeting about executing Vice President Mike Pence and arresting senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
His tweets are becoming very popular on TikTok, with many seeing him as a source of credible information. However, his last tweet about Pence has gotten some worried about his sanity.
The video above has been watched over 300 thousand times. It was posted by a Trump supporter that goes by the name Republicanty. The video showcases the Lin Wood tweet about Mike Pence I mentioned above. Many videos about Wood can be found on the platform, mainly agreeing with what he is saying.
Wood began gaining attention when he became the lawyer for Kyle Rittenhouse, the teen charged in the Kenosha shooting in August. Wood was then recognized as a QAnon follower, with several references to the movement found on his Twitter profile. Wood is now a central figure for the right-wing conspiracy movement, with Trump not denying any of his conspiracy-based posts. The video above uses this as a reason to trust Wood, stating that "If Lin Wood was lying, why isn't Trump calling him out? Instead, he is advocating to listen to him?"
I feel that Republicans are diving deeper into the rabbit hole that is the QAnon movement every day. Donald Trump continues to use these conspiracies as evidence of voter fraud and continues to try to overturn the election with these baseless claims. Of course, not all republicans are in this mess; many are lashing out at Wood's tweets about Pence and are distancing themselves from him.
As a fact-checker, I find it hard to tackle conspiracy theories. They are usually very intricate, and they combine a lot of baseless information, some of which cannot be disproven. This deepens the rabbit hole and increases the spread of the claims made by conspiracy theorists.
What can Pence do?
Many right-wing content creators are focused on Mike Pence saving them from President-Elect Joe Biden on January 6th during the Electoral College vote, where Pence has the constitutional role of presiding over the senate. They see that Pence can reject swing state votes to ensure a second term for himself and Donald Trump. However, the role Pence will be taking on January 6th is mostly ceremonial.
"Pence will announce the roll call for each of the states so their ballots can be counted, ask if there are any objections against a certain state's votes being tallied, and if there are, announce if the objection has been sustained. He will also be the one to declare a winner if one candidate receives the majority of the Electoral College votes."
This conspiracy has recently been fueled by Pence signaling his support to the 11 republican senators and senators-elect that say they will vote to reject president-elect Joe Biden's victory. What can be expected on January 6th is a house member and a senator objecting to a state's result, which will suspend the joint session, and a separate session will commence debating the objection. A vote will then be held to reject or accept the results of the state. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnel stated that he is not interested in the challenges, as did House of Representatives leader Nancy Pelosi. The objections will most likely be rejected, and the joint session will continue.
#TrumpTapes
Yesterday a phone call that Trump had with Georgia's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and his team, was leaked. The leaked recording is about an hour-long. It included many conspiracy theories that the President talked about as 'rumors he was hearing’—asking if the ballots were shredded, if the Dominion Voting Machines were changed and if there were forged signatures in Georgia.
On TikTok, videos of the conversation were mainly being shared by left-leaning content creators. Some Trump supporters can be seen sharing the clip; however, they mainly focus on parts of the phone call where Trump is not talking about rumors but is asking Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes, which was seen as political talk by conservative content creators rather than being recognized as pressuring the secretary of state :
The video above was posted by Topher Town Music, a right-wing content creator who I have previously fact-checked on TikTokTrends. Topher and other right-wing content creators report the phone call as if it was a routine call. Topher explains that Trump has had phone calls in the past about the Georgia Presidential election. He says Trump just wanted to verify previous claims about election issues from the past. That is not the case here. Trump openly tried to intimidate Raffensperger into finding 11,780 votes to win the election and he used baseless claims to support his arguments of voter fraud.
The only democrat on Georgia's state Board of Elections has called for a civil and criminal investigation over the phone call. Saying that "It's a crime to solicit election fraud and asking the secretary to change the votes is a textbook definition of election fraud."
Many right-wing content creators focus on the statements where Trump asked Raffensperger to 'find' 11,780 votes and reexamine the election with people who want to find answers, hinting that Ryan Germany, the Georgia Office's General Counsel, was not doing his job. Right-wing content creators also say that Trump has tweeted these baseless claims he says to Raffensperger prior to the phone call, so it is no secret and therefore is not that important.
Content creators on the left can be seen sharing larger parts of the tape, where Trump can be heard trying to intimidate Raffensperger and talk about baseless rumors about Dominion machines. At one point, Trump says, "the internet, you know what was trending on the internet?" Trying to justify the baseless claims he talks about during the phone call by what he has seen online.
Here is the full transcript of the leaked tape.
The phone call is clear evidence that Trump fully believes everything he sees and reads online. He is knees deep in QAnon conspiracy theories and cannot separate the truth from the fiction. As the highest power of the country, this is more than scary.
There are 2 days until the election is certified by the electoral votes. Trump supporters are planning on protesting in Washington, D.C. It will definitely be a crazy day, let’s see how the demonstrations go, what the Trump supporters will do, and how the joint sessions will end.
Stay tuned to see how content creators on TikTok will react to the results on the 6th.
In Other News:
The Conservative Hype House is gone. The TikTok account was formed by a group of republican content creators, where each would share a video a couple of times a week. The account quickly grew in popularity with their pro-trump content. However, the group has recently announced that they are ending their account and will all continue on their own. I have previously fact-checked many of their claims on TikTokTrends; they were an account known for spreading misinformation.
Robot Influencers are now a thing! Miquela is an Instagram account that is a fictional character posing as a real influencer. The account has close to 3 million followers on Instagram, and at first glance, the images don't seem that different than other influencers on the platform. Miquela can be seen singing, dancing, and enjoying taking pictures with celebrities. The account was created by a studio in LA called Brud.fyi, a studio that creates digital character-driven stories. Miquela is also a TikTok star. With 2.6 million followers and 25 million likes, her TikTok account is filled with typical content you would find on any account – which is creepy when you think about it.
Walmart will be pilot testing video shopping on TikTok. The new product experience on TikTok will allow the app to be used as a shopping tool. Although TikTok does house millions of videos from brands trying to get users to buy their items, TikTok cannot inherently sell these items. Much like Instagram was, TikTok allows users to go to the seller's website and purchase the product. With Walmart's new integration, users could shop from Walmart during livestreams without ever leaving the app.
That is all I have for this week! Let me know what you think by hitting reply to this email or sending me a DM through Twitter!
Thank you for reading; I hope to see you next week, on Monday!