By Jacinto Caballero-George
Post the US congress finalizing the TikTok ban, many users have moved to a Chinese app called “Red Note” (Xiaohongshu). This app was promoted as “Chinese TikTok.” Many users did not want to move to Instagram because of all of the pointless AI added to the app. Many do not want to move to Twitter for 2 main reasons because it was practically destroyed or they don’t want to support Elon Musk. Mostly both.
A second reason for people going to Xiaohongshu, besides not wanting to go to Twitter or Instagram, was to “protest” the ban in a way. The main reason the US gave for the TikTok ban was that the Chinese government was stealing users’ information, despite the CEO being Singaporean and HQ being in Singapore. So, purposefully going to a Chinese run app like Xiaohongshu, rather than Instagram or Twitter, was a sort of protest to the reason TikTok was banned in the first place.
People who did move to Xiaohongshu were pleasantly surprised. The app had a similar short form video program, as well a pinterest like format. Many users say the algorithm was much better than TikTok’s as well.
The users of Xiaohongshu were very welcoming to the many Americans that were moving to the app, as well as the app itself. The app added an official translator 2 days after TikToks temporary ban. Almost immediately after Americans moved to the app there was already a trend of welcoming them called the “Cat Tax.” This was a trend that started because most of the videos on Xiaohongshu were of people’s pets, mainly cats. So the “Cat Tax” was a trend where Americans would post videos or pictures of their cats, or pets if they didn’t have cats. Many users joking that it was their “Green card” to use the app.
When asked why they downloaded Xiaohongshu, a Liberty High student responded, “I downloaded Red Note because my online friends did.” When asked why they use it over TikTok, they responded, “Because people are nice there, like, genuinely nice.” This shows the real impact the app has had on some people’s judgment of what social media sites they should use.
With people moving to Xiaohongshu, lots of them actually deleted Instagram and Twitter. Meta stocks have dropped drastically, which was a devastating loss to the company and Mark Zuckerberg himself. It was very surprising, as many expected that people would move to other Western social media platforms, most of which are owned by Meta. So this devastating loss made a large impact and statement on the TikTok ban and the move to Xiaohongshu.
Many users who downloaded Xiaohongshu have decided to keep the app despite the TikTok ban ending after 12 hours. The people opting to use it over TikTok show the impact Xiaohongshu has made in the US in just a few days. Some people who never had TikTok have downloaded the app, showing how mainstream it’s become in less than a week.
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