Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Asharq Al-Awsat
Asharq Al-Awsat
World
Asharq Al-Awsat

US 'TikTok Grandma' to Work for Biden

FILE PHOTO: A supporter of US President Donald Trump shoots a video with his mobile phone from the sparsely filled upper decks of the arena as the president addresses his first re-election campaign rally in several months in the midst of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, US, June 20, 2020. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

An American woman, who helped turn a Donald Trump rally in Oklahoma into a fiasco, has been hired by a grassroots organization campaigning for the election of presidential challenger Joe Biden.

Mary Jo Laupp has been dubbed "TikTok Grandma" since earning fame for her impassioned social media call for opponents of Trump to book out his campaign appearance in Tulsa last week.

The result was a poorly-attended speech in a stadium filled to less than a third of its capacity, despite the president's re-election team boasting of huge interest ahead of time and more than a million ticket requests.

Laupp's call on the short video sharing platform TikTok has been viewed more than two million times and was boosted by online communities of American fans of South Korean pop music, also known as K-pop.

Biden Digital Coalition co-director Caitlin Gilbert said Friday that the 51-year-old, a mother to four and grandmother of six, had joined her group to help with online campaigning for November's presidential race.

Laupp told the New York Times that one of her first projects would be to help build a group of pro-Biden content creators on TikTok.

The Iowa resident works in the music department of a high school and earlier participated in the unsuccessful Democratic campaign of Pete Buttigieg, a former Indiana mayor.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.