The Brief: On June 3, K-pop stans took over the hashtag #WhiteLivesMatter and #WhiteOutWendesday by tweeting those hashtags along with pictures and videos of K-pop idols and messages against racism and white supremacy.  

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K-pop stans are known for their large online presence. Their collective power has seen them change records in under an hour, like when BTS had the second most retweeted tweet of 2019, until ARMYs got wind of the Twitter record and got them to first place .

Those fans decided to use their collective force to drive a new agenda under the hashtag #WhiteOutWednesday. They tweeted photos and video of their K-pop faves with anti-racism messages while using the hashtags #WhiteLivesMatter and #WhiteOutWednesday, subsequently burying tweets about white supremacy. These hashtags began trending on June 3.

According to NBC News Reporter Ben Collins, 4chan users planned to flood timelines with the #whiteoutwednesday hashtag overnight, but K-pop fans got wind of the plans, and decided to drown it out.

This move is similar to that of Black Lives Matter protestors and supporters on Instagram. They used their #BlackOutTuesday posts, which featured black squares, to bury and black-out pro-police and white supremacy related hashtags.

K-pop Twitter’s activism was widely met with support.

Many of the tweets featured messages about against police brutality, racism, and white supremacy.

At the time of publication, the tweets haven’t stopped, with much of the #WhiteLivesMatter and #WhiteOutWednesday hashtags now being filled with memes, too.