Donald Trump's birthday military parade took place in Washington D.C. yesterday (June 14), and in the run-up to the occasion celebrating the 250th anniversary of the US Army, people took to TikTok to claim they RSVP'd for the event... as a joke.
Social media users who had no plans whatsoever to attend were spreading the word on how to reserve their tickets to the parade on the US Army's event website, and shared how they used fake names to secure their places.
(To RSVP, attendees were required to provide their full name, phone number, email, state and zip code).
One of the most viral videos was from TikToker Amy (@amyy.eats) who posted a nonchalant video of herself eating with text on-screen sharing the information.
"I just learned u can reserve 2 seats for Trump's military/birthday parade. It would be awful if we all signed up and something came up and we couldn't go... I just signed up Helly R and Mark S. They're gonna have so much fun," she wrote.
The video posted three days ago now has over 3.3 million views, and people in the comments revealed they were doing the very same thing and joked about the fake names they claimed to use.
@amyy.eats Omfg I went from 40 followers to 1200 in a day what the hell💀 #usegoogleforthelink #nokings #parade #military #birthdayparty #severance #kpop #swifttok
"Anna Bortion is gonna have a blast <3" one person wrote.
A second person wrote, "Just made reservations for Hugh Jass and Dixie Normus."
"Elon Musk and Elon Musk are gonna have a good time," a third person quipped.
A fourth person commented, "Moon Beam and Ice Cream WILL be in attendance," referring to Benson Boone lyrics.
Similarly, TikToker Alison (@alofgarden) posted a clip of herself casually doing her skincare routine with the on-screen text that read, "FYI you can reserve up to 2 seats at Trump's military parade."
"Maybe you do that and then something comes up and you can't go... who knows!!" and the video has since received 2.1 million views.
@alofgarden ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #nokingsday #antitrump #trumpforprison #impeachtrump
Again, viewers took to the comments section to share the jokey fake names they were using to RSVP with, and encouraged various fan bases to get involved.
One person wrote, "Swifties if we come together for this, it’ll be unstoppable, cmon."
"I'm about to register every single person in my contacts," a second person said.
A third person shared, "Just registered Donald Trump in case he forgot."
"I registered as Joe Biden," a fourth person added.
Someone else advised, "Guys make them [names] look real so they think people really coming and don’t overbook."
Meanwhile, creator @dr.ci888 shared a video of ticket screenshots various people have reserved with unserious and vulgar names such as "Suck my d*** Donald," "Tess T. Culls," "Gofak Yosef," and "JK Notgoing."
"This is too funny," she wrote in the caption as a laughing track played in the video that now has 1.4 million views.
@dr.ci888 This is too #funny #humor
But it's not just Americans who participated, as the trolling went international with anti-Trumpers abroad shared what part of the world they reserved tickets from.
"Me in my room in South London after reserving 2 seats at Trump's military parade using a phone number for a KFC in Mexico," TikTok Bex (@bquinn94) posted, with people in the comment section saying they did something similar.
@bquinn94 Just trying to do my bit from all the way over here 🧍🏼♀️ #fyp #trump #ICE #usa #laprotest #LA
"Did it from East London, I used the Planned Parenthood phone number," one person wrote.
A second person shared, "I'm all booked up.. I also live in Ireland and I'm washing my hair that day."
"Done from Italy with a number from Uranus, Missouri," a third person posted.
A fourth person added, "Did it from Germany. Used a New Mexico Post Office number."
However, it seems organisers may have cottoned on to the trolling since social media users updated others in the comments that a two-factor verification had since been set up to reserve tickets.
This isn't the first time
You might be getting déjà vu as something similar previously occurred back in 2020, as K-pop fans and TikTok users carried out the ultimate prank where they signed up in their masses to attend a Trump election campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Trump had boasted that the event had around 1 million RSVPs; however, those numbers didn't reflect the turnout, with the venue not even reaching its full 19,000-person capacity.
In fact, more than 6,000 attended, according to the Tulsa fire brigade (as per BBC News), but Trump's campaign team suggested the figure was higher than this.
"Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don't know what they're talking about or how our rallies work," said Brad Parscale at the time.
"Registering for a rally means you've RSVPed with a cellphone number, and we constantly weed out bogus numbers, as we did with tens of thousands at the Tulsa rally, in calculating our possible attendee pool."
How many people attended the military parade?
It was anticipated that up to 200,000 people would attend Trump's military parade.
“We’re preparing for an enormous turnout — hundreds of thousands of attendees,” Matt McCool, the special agent-in-charge for the U.S. Secret Service’s Washington, D.C., field office, said at a security briefing on Monday.
Meanwhile, the parade kicked off earlier than expected due to thunderstorms forecast in Washington D.C.
As for the specific number of people who attended the parade, that has been up for debate.
"Overall this was a pretty listless and low-energy parade and crowd. People wearing Trump paraphernalia far outnumbered those wearing Army hats and shirts from what I could see," said The New York Times reporter John Ismay, who was reporting from the event.
He continued, "There were no speakers along the parade route, so spectators couldn’t hear whatever was being broadcast by the announcers closer to the reviewing stand. People are now flooding across Constitution Avenue at 18th Street to leave."
Meanwhile, The New York Times's White House correspondent Shawn McCreesh noted that "Hordes of people are streaming east across the mall to leave."
He added, “'Where’s everybody going?' one man next to me just wondered aloud."
"The #Army250 parade starting 30 minutes early due to incoming weather. Crowd nowhere near the 200,000 expected. @nbcwashington," said Mark Segraves, an NBC Washington reporter who posted footage from the parade which showed a sparse crowd.
However, Steven Cheung, the White House's Director of Communications, posted on X, formerly Twitter, that there were "over 250,000 patriots" who showed up to the parade "despite the threat of rain."
Elsewhere, the best signs that sum up 'No Kings' protesters' feelings about Trump, and Which celebs attended or supported the 'No Kings' protests against Trump?
How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel
Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter
Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.