Why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Turning Heads On Twitter
New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently shared on social media how, during the insurrection at the Capitol in January, she feared for her life; she was locked in a bathroom in her office, listening to the chaos outside. When it came to light that Cortez's office isn't in the dome building of the Capitol, but is in fact in the Cannon Building, which is part of the Capitol complex and is accessible from the main, domed Capitol building through a tunnel and via short walk outside. Because of this fact, AOC's detractors have taken to social media to claim that the congresswoman lied about her harrowing experience during the Capitol riots, using hashtags like #AOClied and #AlexadriaOcasioSmollett (a reference to actor Jussie Smollett, who was accused of staging a hate crime against himself), as noted by Newsweek.
The thing is, the building AOC's office was in was approached by rioters and the building was in fact evacuated, leaving AOC locked in a bathroom for her safety, just as she claimed. Now, coming to AOC's defense are two unlikely groups of people: K-Pop fans and pet-lovers.
How K-Pop fans and pet-lovers hijacked the #AOClied hashtag
Coming to the defense of Ocasio-Cortez are fans of Korean-based music genre, K-Pop; they've hijacked the #AOClied hashtag by posting K-Pop content along with the hashtag to throw Ocasio-Cortez's detractors off their game. Like this tweet, which features a GIF of a K-Pop girl group dancing, along with the simple message "#AOClied never" and this one, which reads, "#AOClied anyways here are my favorite pics of the pinks." (The Pinks are a K-Pop girl group).
Also filling your screen when you type in the hashtag #AOClied on Twitter is a parade of pictures of people's pets, thanks to tweets like, "#AOClied about nothing at all. She shared her trauma and was able to give other victims courage as well. So here are my cats," and "#AOClied nope and here is my cat." See also, "#AOClied jk here's a high definition cat pic," and "#AOClied about nothing. She was forced to relive her trauma only to have a bunch of a***oles insult her. Anyway I run a cat rescue in Spain and here are some pictures of the cats I care for."