TikTokTrends Week: 24
January 4th - January 11th
Hi!
Welcome to TikTokTrends, week 24!
Wow has it been a week; There was a scary coup attempt. Trump is now banned from every social media platform. There are talks of impeaching Trump yet again, and Georgia won the runoff Senate race securing a democratic House and Senate majority.
The sheer number of events that unfolded this week has prompted a little change in how I will write this week’s TikTokTrends; instead of focusing on hashtags, I will compile a couple of hashtags under some of the topics I have mentioned above. Feel free to click on the hashtags to check out other videos on the topic!
Let’s start!
The Failed Coup Attempt
#Capitol, #Jan6, #WashingtonDC, #StopTheSteal, #DoNotCertify
What a day, January 6th was. I wish I could say that it came out of nowhere, but I don’t think that’s the case. This was a very well-organized rally with the specific intention of stopping the election process, changing the electors' votes. It was fueled by Trump’s relentless rhetoric of not conceding and pushing his delusional fantasy of winning the election.
This is not the same as protesting for equal freedom and equal rights. This was not a protest; it was an act of trying to change the will of the American people. It was an act of violence against the entire country.
Many Trump supporters that stormed the capitol were geared with guns, zip-ties, and cameras. Flaunting their success by livestreaming and posting videos and images of the destruction they caused in the Capitol.
Here is a great timeline posted by the New York Times on what happened on January 6th.
This is the QAnon Shaman, a.k.a. Jake Angeli, who has recently been arrested for violent entry and disorderly conduct. The video shows Angeli talking about walking out of the Capitol building; he then explains that he walked out and is now asking people to go home due to Trump’s tweet. He then explains that the reason Trump told them to go home is because they “won the whole day.”
I think that this winning mentality is why many of the rioters who entered the Senate were open to being filmed and photographed; they felt they had won, they thought they were a part of a revolution. They were not.
The organization of this rally was immense. Many content creators on TikTok were seen going to and promoting the rally weeks in advance; websites were created to show meet-up locations and guides to traveling to DC. Trump was constantly on Twitter saying January 6th will be a big day, and so were his followers.
Trump supporters were enthusiastic about the possibility of Pence overturning the election; however, on the 6th, Pence made it clear that he did not intend to and did not have the power to overturn the election.
The counting of the Electors vote started bumpy, with Arizona quickly being objected to by a house member and Senate member Ted Cruz. Cruz was seen smugly sanding up, objecting to the electors' votes in Arizona, and forcing the joint session to break off and debate the result. Soon after, the senate doors were breached, and the panic started.
All members were quickly taken away from the Senate floor to safe locations, while the terrorists attacked the chambers, rooms and vandalized the building. Many were caught on tape saying, “This is our house!” Implying that they had the right to be in the building and were doing the right thing.
After hours of waiting, little to no force used from the police, and the late insertion of the national guard, the building was finally safe, and the joint session continued with the vote count. The votes were counted until the early hours of January 7th, where all the votes were counted, and President-Elect Biden came victorious.
On TikTok, many content creators started giving their thoughts on the events that occurred. Those who were at the march said it was mostly peaceful, distancing them from the acts of the ‘few bad apples.’ Videos of the rioters entering the building surfaced on TikTok, and other videos of rioters not being allowed to board planes went viral.
Journalism on January 6th
#Capitol, #CapitolRiot, #News, #Riot
On the 6th, many journalists were attacked during the riots. There were also numerous videos on TikTok of journalists being hit and dropped to the ground; others were seen running away from a crowd of aggressive Trump supporters, jumping off walls, and trying to get to safety while the rest of the crowd watches.
Journalists like Marcus DiPaola were on their top game on January 6th, getting millions of views, trying to show the events from his point of view. The video above has accumulated over four million views and shows the starting minutes of the Capitol being invaded. The video shows the steps full of Trump supporters waving Trump 2020 flags.
DiPaola reported through the invasion; he has many videos that were trending on that day. Another of his videos shows a scuffle between the police and the rioters later in the day, when armed forces began pushing Trump supporters away from the building.
DiPaola was not alone in trying to show what was going on the 6th; Yahoo News, CBS News, NBC, ABC, and other major news organizations were also making videos showing the attack on the Senate. Trump supporters were seen attacking the media while yelling, “Enemy of the people!”
This video from Yahoo News got over 29 million views and was trending all over the internet. The video shows a Trump supporter at the march, explaining that the police maced her because she was walking into the Capitol. She then says the now-infamous line: “We are storming the Capitol; it’s a revolution!”
Pro-Trump Accounts on January 6th
#Trump2020, #Sensorship, #Politics, #Maga
Many pro-trump content creators went to the march on the 6th; none of the accounts that I follow, as far as I have seen, entered the Capitol building, nor have they posted videos of doing anything illegal. Most did condemn the Capitol building attack, while others have deleted all their videos from that day.
Pro-Trump content creators like Topher were seen on stage, rapping his new song. The video above was watched over 500 thousand times; it showcases a song created by Topher himself that was recently removed from Spotify.
Vince Dao posted videos making fun of journalists, saying, “I cannot condemn nor endorse anything that is going on.” Dao commented on how he saw the protest was, saying it was %80 peaceful and many of the people attending the march did not go close to the Capitol.
Cam Higby posted videos condemning the violence, saying those who stormed the Capitol were far-right Trump supporters. Higby also created a video talking about how the police treated Trump protesters the same way as BLM protesters—saying that both protests had rubber bullets used and that they used force to disburse the crowds in both demonstrations.
I do find comparing BLM protests to these riots to be a wildly inaccurate comparison. This was no protest; the Trump supporters' goal was to change the results of a legitimate election, forcefully, due to unverified claims. In contrast, BLM protesters wanted equal rights, police reform, and stop racially motivated killings mainly done by the police. However, if we're going to compare the two, let’s do it by comparing it to BLM protests in the same area.
The difference is as clear as light and day; check out this Politifact article for more details on this subject. Here are two short paragraphs from the article:
“In the days that followed [the protests], police officers used tear gas, horse-mounted charges, pepper spray, shields, batons and rubber bullets on protesters and journalists covering the demonstrations.”
“Trump tweeted that protesters would have met with "vicious dogs" and "ominous weapons" if they had breached the enclosure. He also appeared to invite his supporters to clash with protesters outside the White House.”
The response was not the same; there are videos of police officers taking selfies, calmly asking the rioters to leave the Capitol building, and just a low number of police to handle such a large crowd. Whereas the BLM protests, countless police officers were sent to the area, force was used immediately, and protesters were not met with calm police officers.
Other News
Trump is Banned from everywhere! Trump has currently been banned, or new rules are being put in place, on 17 platforms and counting. Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and many others are enforcing regulations or, in some cases, entirely banning Trump from creating an account or using the platform indefinitely.
Parler is no more. After Parler was taken down by the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store, Amazon also kicked out the right-wing, free speech platform from its services, making the website and app inactive until further notice. Amazon said Parler failed to moderate users encouraging violence and on its service.
TikTok acted to remove videos of Trump’s speech inciting his supporters. TikTok has been blocking many hashtags that far-right groups are known to use, like #Q, #Qanon and the newest inclusion, #PatriotParty. TikTok restricted content about the riots on Wednesday, saying that the content “may be associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines.”
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!