Follow live updates on the Supreme Court's ruling on TikTok.
As TikTok's ban looms, hundreds of thousands of Americans are moving to Xiaohongshu in search of a new video-sharing app. The social media platform translates to “Xiao Hongshu,” the American nickname for a collection of classic quotes from Chairman Mao. . It all played out like a global prank against the US government. Users who were threatened with being kicked out of TikTok over concerns about Chinese interference simply scrolled to another Chinese app whose name evoked the Chinese Communist Party.
I just downloaded Xiaohongshu, popularly known as RedNote, and it was ranked #1 among free apps in Apple's US App Store. (The second was Lemon8, another Chinese TikTok alternative owned by TikTok's parent company ByteDance.) I gave up my phone number, reported my gender, took care of the baby, I ticked off some of my interests like calligraphy, snacking, etc. I then absorbed a selection of videos selected by the app's algorithm. A girl wearing a lace veil is eating a popsicle the size of her head. A woman prepares dinner in the back seat of a light car lined with stuffed animals. A touching fan edit of Luigi Mangione's courtroom appearance.
I soon started seeing videos thrown directly at me: welcome messages created for American TikTok users who had recently arrived at RedNote.
In Xiaohongshu's world, Americans who download the app en masse are branded “TikTok refugees.” Existing Chinese users have jokingly advertised themselves as Americans' “new Chinese spies,” started offering Mandarin lessons and created in-app group chats for “refugees” to learn about local conditions. They are also forming a group. They warn that they intend to collect taxes from foreign users (price tag: you have to share a photo of your cat).
This is all a scathing commentary on the US government's crackdown on TikTok and the relative ease with which users can recreate similar experiences on other Chinese platforms. Chinese power users and American neophytes come together in a spontaneous burlesque of mocking national security policy.
For TikTok users, the decision to ban TikTok from American phones in particular may seem foolish. Over the past few years, lawmakers have blamed the app for everything from failing to uphold “American values” to promoting pro-Palestinian content among American youth. . It's as if US-owned social media companies like Meta have never attempted to mine or exploit sensitive data. As if American-owned platforms like X would never use algorithms to reward particular political ideas.
But, of course, while it is the nature of social media to make impersonal technology products feel intimate, its hidden costs (and threats) are remote and unimaginable. It makes it difficult to see what's actually happening on the backend.
If the ban on TikTok is successful and Americans try to stay in Xiao Hongshu, they may end up dominating its culture, diluting its appeal, and ruining its atmosphere. But for now, they are foreign visitors, struggling to read Mandarin instructions and navigate the app's unfamiliar paths.
The platform, owned by a Shanghai-based company called Xingyin Information Technology, shines with the feel of a fast-paced exchange program. On Wednesday, I watched as a little boy in a fuzzy pink sweater explained (and modeled) a rack of traditional Chinese clothing, never showing his butt or saying anything racist. I ran into a brother in a sweatshirt warning me to do this, and an adorable influencer who posted something like this: In a video reacting to “comments from TikTok refugees,” most of them are trying to play with him. (One person asked him how to say “daddy” in Mandarin.) The cat meme tax is a nice touch, showing that RedNote users are trying to communicate with Americans through an ancient internet shared language. are.
One of my favorite videos is by a Chinese user who is an English teacher and also has a good impression of Donald J. I'm teaching you how to say “America” in Chinese. The video pokes fun at President Trump's consistently odd pronunciation of “China,” hinting that perhaps it's time to give the United States the same treatment.
Xiaohongshu offers a glimpse into the Chinese perspective on America, generously translated and packaged for American consumers. The glow of our digital vacation may be coming to an end soon, but it was worth taking a photo of the cat.
