doute cats. Fit checks. Travel vlogs. Luigi Mangione latte art. Americans who downloaded RedNote saw it all this week, when they fled to the Chinese social media app ahead of an imminent (or not) TikTok ban.
English content has flooded RedNote, whose default language is Mandarin, with Americans posting introductions of themselves and starting cross-cultural discussions: How much do you pay for purchases? What Chinese slang do I need to know? Do you have any thoughts on Ohio State?
Qian Huang, a professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who studies Asian youth and digital culture, said she originally downloaded RedNote to keep up with Chinese trends. “But this week I woke up and my diet wasn’t normal anymore,” Huang said. “Everything was content in English. “It was a bit of a strange feeling for me.”
Despite data privacy concerns, the app jumped to number one on US app stores on Tuesday, with more than half a million new user downloads, after a Supreme Court hearing about the future of TikTok last week. Tech Reporter Ryan Broderick noted in its Garbage Day newsletter that Black beauty influencers on TikTok had seen RedNote’s potential for makeup tutorials and pre-audience trend spotting.
RedNote is primarily a video sharing app, although users can also share photo galleries accompanied by questions to stimulate discussion in the comments. Much of the content looks like what you’d find on Instagram’s Explore page: posts from Chinese influencers and regular people about what they eat in a day, how they exercise, or what they wear. The app’s Chinese name, Xiaohongshu, translates to “little red book,” a reference to a collection of favorite sayings by Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong.
Like TikTok’s famous scroll, RedNote has “a very specific algorithm, where what you see is largely tailored to your tastes,” according to Huang. He also said the app places a big emphasis on e-commerce, with built-in shopping options that cater to a mostly female audience. Over the past two years, the Shanghai-based startup that owns RedNote has taken steps to reach male users.
In China, a digital firewall blocks most Internet users from foreign search engines and social media sites such as Google, Facebook and WhatsApp. Social networks are strictly regulatedand the government has attacked certain bloggers and their followers for making critical or dissident comments. New RedNote users may feel that the impending TikTok ban in the United States is comparable to the Chinese government’s censorship (although calling themselves “TikTok refugees” certainly speaks to a uniquely American flair for the dramatic).
While China has its own version of the TikTok app, called Douyin, RedNote stands out because the app is unified rather than split into two versions; Chinese users mix with users from the rest of the world. Jiali Fan, a doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge who studies RedNote, said many long-time users of the app feel like this is the first time they’ve interacted with Americans online.
“The Chinese always feel like they live in the only country that has really restricted Internet spaces,” Fan said. “Now, Americans are experiencing the same thing with (the TikTok ban), so now we can all relate, we all have the same struggles and problems.”
In a popular meme, Chinese users demand from new American users a “tax” on cats or dogs, i.e. cute pet photos. Chinese teenagers have asked Americans for help with their English homework. Influencers give Mandarin lessons to translate Essential social media slang like “Girl, you look so stunning” or “lmaoooooooooo.”
In one of the first mistakes, a Shanghai-born man named Jerry, who now lives in Vancouver, was misidentified as CEO of the app by an American journalist after posting a friendly welcome video to his RedNote followers. Jerry had to post another video clarifying that he is, in fact, “just another normal guy.”
Luigi Mangione, charged with murder in the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and who has pleaded not guilty, is also a hot topic on the app. Chinese influencers dress up as Mangione in court or post “makeup tutorials” on how to emulate his mug shot. There are Luigi fan edits, Luigi milk art, and explanations of due process from people who think he’s been given an unfair trial by the media.
“That’s just because he looks good,” Fan said, echoing the canonization of some in the United States who see Mangione as a folk hero. “If you want to be famous in Xiahongshu, you have to be beautiful. “That’s how the algorithm works.”
Much of the humor on RedNote comes from Chinese influencers lightly criticizing Americans while welcoming them to the app. “Don’t worry, we are not like Americans. We won’t tell you to go back to your own country,” Yvonne Du, an established influencer with more than 650,000 followers on the app, said in an English video.
Other users joke about being “Chinese spies,” tapping into American politicians’ concerns about the Chinese government’s use of TikTok to access Americans’ data. Anti-TikTok politicians probably won’t like RedNote either; Cybersecurity experts say the app collects a large amount of personal data, which it may share with third-party platforms or the Chinese government.
American Tiktok users installing a Chinese app (red note) directly on their phone due to Tiktok ban is hilarious. pic.twitter.com/F9rfqarCLv
— 🐻❄️⁷ is happy (@userbfIy) January 13, 2025
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“A major red flag is the app’s lack of transparency: its terms and conditions are mainly in Mandarin, leaving non-Chinese speaking users unclear what data is collected and how it is used,” the expert said. in cybersecurity Adrianus Warmenhoven of NordVPN in a statement. “Beyond privacy, there are concerns about content censorship. “RedNote’s content moderation policies may align with Chinese government standards, which could stifle free speech and expose users to biased information.”
An anonymous US official told CBS News that RedNote could face the same restrictions as TikTok. unless it falls apart from a Chinese-owned company.
It seems that so far most interactions between American and Chinese users have been curious and mutually respectful. “This is the first time that much of the Chinese Internet has been exposed to a global audience to some extent,” Fan said. “People are very excited about this type of direct, unfiltered communication. But we also don’t know how long this will last or which government will take the initiative to do something about it. We just have to enjoy it right now.”