I’m not sure 2020 has been a good year for anyone, but some people are still determined to make the most of it. I, for one, remain super impressed with Gen-Z’s dedication to trolling Donald Trump, repeatedly using TikTok and other methods at their disposal to rain on his sh*tty parade time after time. Finally, there is hope for the future.
As you may recall, the TikTok teens, along with the good samaritans of K-Pop Twitter, banded together last month to massively inflate attendance expectations for Trump’s big return to the campaign trail in Tulsa. The arena was mostly empty, the photos were glorious, and everyone had fun. But since then, the teens have still been hard at work coming up with new and exciting ways to mess with Trump.
This week, it was reported that the Trump administration wants to ban TikTok in the United States. According to Trump, banning the app (which originated in China) would be a way for our country to retaliate against China for giving us the coronavirus. Sounds unbelievable, but at this point, is anyone surprised that Trump wants to do something like this? But on top of wanting to punish China, it seems like Trump might want to put a stop to the Zoomers using TikTok against him.
Of course, these kids aren’t going down without a fight. In response to Trump’s threats to delete their favorite app, they hatched a plan to delete his favorite app: the official Trump 2020 campaign app. According to the people of TikTok, Apple’s App Store has a quality control policy where any app that has an average rating of one star gets removed. It’s questionable whether or not this policy actually exists, but we can play along for now. Basically, the plan is to spam Trump’s app with as many one-star ratings as possible, so the average drops, and his app will be removed from the App Store.
omg guys.. it would be so bad if we got the app store to delete trumps app definitely do NOT leave a one star review that would be so bad could u imagine pic.twitter.com/kHcidOR1H8
— 𝙜𝙞𝙖⁷ (@FL0WERH0YA) July 9, 2020
While it’s unclear if this will actually work, the app has been flooded with thousands of negative reviews, and the app’s average rating currently sits at an abysmal 1.2 stars. But it’s not just the TikTokers ruining the app’s score—a quick scroll of the reviews suggests that the app might just suck in general. One reviewers wrote “I downloaded this app to keep up with when the rallies were. I’m devastated to say that this app took hours to load.” Damn, “devastated” is a strong word, but that’s so rough. Other sincere reviews note frustration with the fact that the app requires you to register an account and share your location services. GTFO, Trump!
But there are also plenty of less serious reviews that are funny as f*ck. One reviewer complained that they “downloaded this app to hopefully improve my spray tan skills,” but were disappointed to realize that “is NOT what this app is for AT ALL.” So misleading, honestly. Another claimed that the app took 69 days to download (nice), then filled their camera roll with unwanted pictures of bare feet. Gotta love all this creativity coming from America’s youth.
The current attack on Trump’s app reviews might seem creative, but it’s actually not the first time Gen-Z has used this same tactic. Back in April, as schools across the country transitioned to at-home instruction, the reviews for the widely-used Google Classroom app were similarly flooded with negativity, with such insightful comments as “I don’t wanna do work during lockdown.” The app’s average rating currently sits at 1.5 stars, which seems high when compared with the Trump app, but it was never removed from the App Store.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that Apple will remove the Trump 2020 app, but all these 1-star reviews are still good for a laugh. If you’re feeling particularly stressed about the upcoming election (same), feel free to go leave a sh*tty review just as a way to vent. Let it out sweetie, put it in the book App Store.
Images: Frederic Legrand – COMEO / Shutterstock.com; flowerhoya / Twitter; App Store
