It’s an unexpected union spurred by TikTok’s impending ban thanks to a social media app that doesn’t even officially have an English name.
With the fate of TikTok up in the air in the United States, social media users have flocked to another Chinese-owned app called Xiaohongshu, and users are joining in as they adapt to the platform.
The name of the social media app, which translates as Little Red Book, has been shortened by American users to RedNote and has been so popular that it jumped to the top position in Apple’s US App Store this week. .
According to CNN, as of Wednesday, the hashtag ‘TikTok refugee’ had nearly 250 million views and more than 5.5 million comments, referring to the thousands of American users who had downloaded the app.
The sudden rush of the new platform has resulted in users rallying around its sharing, with Chinese users helping Americans translate and navigate the interface.
“I downloaded the app and checked it out and there are currently thousands of people from the US and China laughing and making memes together,” wrote one user on X, formerly known as Twitter.
They continued: ‘Chinese users will post a cat saying: “I’m stealing your cat’s data!” and then they laugh and share cat photos with each other.’
Even the language app Duolingo weighed in with a sarcastic post saying, “Oh, you’re learning Mandarin now.”
With the fate of TikTok up in the air in the United States, social media users have flocked to another Chinese-owned app: Xiaohongshu, and users are joining in as they adapt to the app.
A US law sets a January 19 deadline for ByteDance to sell the popular social media platform or face a ban on national security grounds.
In a viral post, a Xiaohongshu user asked new American users for help with their English homework in a viral post that garnered over 2,000 likes.
“Me telling my grandchildren how the government spread propaganda about the Chinese and how we finally became friends through memes and English homework,” read one reaction.
“I want an American friend,” said another comment from a Chinese user.
‘This is what the Internet was always supposed to be. “Humans connect with humans and eventually learn that the real enemies are the ones who can lose power when we realize we are more than them,” wrote one passionate user.
“I joined last night and for the most part they just want us to respect them and their culture and are so excited to finally have a platform where we can communicate together,” another American user chimed in.
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“Forget TikTok, we’re here uniting nations, one meme at a time,” another agreed.
Another user AI expert Olivia Moore, described the American migration to RedNote as the “craziest accidental cultural exchange ever.”
The sudden rush of the new app has resulted in users banding together to share use of the app, with Chinese users helping American users translate and navigate the app.
Users have flocked to other social media platforms to share their experiences using RedNote, a Chinese video and photo sharing app.
RedNote also includes images, reviews, and community discussions.
‘Hundreds of thousands of users came to an application that was not translated even in their language. A day later, it is already considered rude not to subtitle videos in another language,” he posted online.
Launched in Shanghai in 2013, RedNote combines elements of Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest, allowing users to share lifestyle content, product reviews and short videos.
RedNote also allows users to stream live video clips and offers integrated e-commerce features that allow people to purchase directly within the app.
While TikTok focuses on short-form videos, RedNote also includes images, reviews, and community discussions.
With more than 300 million monthly active users, it has gained popularity as an alternative to TikTok amid concerns about a possible ban on the latter in the United States.
A US law sets a deadline of January 19 for ByteDance to sell the popular social media platform or face a ban on national security grounds.
A lawyer for TikTok, Noel Francisco, said it would be impossible to complete the sale by then of the short video app used by 170 million Americans and said the site would quickly shut down and “essentially the platform would be shut down.”
TikTok also claims that the decision would be a violation of the freedom of expression of its millions of American users in the country.