Over the past five years, Manimatana Lee has created one of the most popular online communities: people who can see her TikTok videos without fail. She filmed herself cleaning up her Wisconsin home while her youngest child napped in a ship on her up, gaining nearly 10,000 followers. Since November, a picture of Lee dance and doing the dishes while wearing her sleeping child has been viewed more than 1 million days.
With the Supreme Court preparing to rule on whether TikTok may be banned in the US over safety issues, Lee and other Americans are downloading Xiaohongshu, a little-known social media app, to try to find solutions. Lee wrote on TikTok on Monday, encouraging her fans to meet her,” How amusing would it be if they ban TikTok and we all just shift over to this Chinese app.”
On Tuesday, Xiaohongshu was the most popular free game in the US Apple Store. Over 300 million people, mainly in China, use the software, where they share short clips as well as however, text-based content. Individuals flocking to it said, in conversations and on the software, that they wanted to show they do not discuss Washington’s worries about TikTok’s ties to China.
TikTok, which is available in more than 150 countries but no China, is owned by the Chinese internet firm ByteDance. Since it became a hit during the Covid-19 crisis, American authors who post movies on TikTok claim that the software has provided connections, pleasure, and information. The company’s custom algorithms, a piece of technology that consistently suggests a stream of short videos with a focus on keeping viewers scrolling, is its secret sauce.
However, US and international politicians have warned that the Chinese government might be able to rely on TikTok to get user information. Officials in Washington say they are likewise concerned that China might apply TikTok to disseminate misleading information among the 170 million American consumers.
Xiaohongshu means “little dark text” in Mandarin. The reference to a publication of Mao Zedong’s phrases was not offensive to American users, according to the app’s new users. Some call the game” Red Note”. ” I don’t really care if I’m using a Chinese game at all”, said Lee. ” If it’s making me feel fine, I’m here for it”. A group of American makers have filed a lawsuit against the US government over the possible rules that would force the sale or ban the TikTok app in the US, and TikTok is paying their legal costs. In interviews, Lee and another father claimed that neither company had promoted Xiaohongshu’s interest. TikTok and Xiaohongshu didn’t reply.
Americans on Xiaohongshu have rallied around the tag” TikTokRefugee,” which had already been used on 2.5 million Xiaohongshu conversation threads by Tuesday and had received 100 million views. The inclusion of the software has made American consumers more in touch with Chinese users than they have ever been on TikTok. Numerous individuals shared advice on how to use the software, which is primarily intended for and used by people who read and speak Mandarin. Some users allegedly requested ChatGPT to convert content and took screenshots.
