World Affairs Forum
RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu, rockets to top of US app stores, along with ByteDance’s Lemon8.
New users have piled in to the Chinese social media app RedNote just days before a proposed US ban on the popular social media app TikTok, as the lesser-known company rushes to capitalize on the sudden influx while walking a delicate line of moderating English-language content.
In a live chat dubbed “TikTok Refugees” on RedNote on Monday, more than 50,000 US and Chinese users joined the room. Veteran Chinese users, with some sense of bewilderment, welcomed their American counterparts and swapped notes with them on topics such as food and youth unemployment. Occasionally, however, the Americans veered into riskier territory.
“Is it OK to ask about how laws are different in China versus Hong Kong?” one American user asked. A Chinese user responded: “We prefer not to talk about that here.”
Such impromptu cultural exchanges were taking place all across RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu, as the app surged to the top of US download rankings this week. Its popularity was driven by US social media users casting about for an alternative to ByteDance-owned TikTok days in advance of its looming ban.
RedNote, a venture capital-backed startup with a most recent valuation of $17bn, allows users to curate photos, videos and text documenting their lives. It has been viewed as a possible IPO candidate in China. In recent years, it has become a de facto search engine for its 300 million-plus users looking for travel tips, anti-ageing creams and restaurant recommendations.
In only two days, more than 700,000 new users joined Xiaohongshu, a person close to the company said. Xiaohongshu did not immediately respond to a request for comment. US downloads of RedNote were up more than 200% year-over-year this week, and 194% from the week before, according to estimates from app data research firm Sensor Tower.
The second-most popular free app on Apple’s App Store list on Tuesday, Lemon8, another social media app owned by ByteDance, experienced a similar surge last month, with downloads jumping by 190% in December to about 3.4m. The app saw a similar rise in Google’s Play Store.
The influx appeared to catch RedNote by surprise, with two sources familiar with the company saying they were scrambling to find ways to moderate English-language content and build English-Chinese translation tools. TikTok users posted videos of themselves speaking in basic Mandarin so as to interact more fully with RedNote users.
RedNote maintains only one version of its app, rather than splitting it into overseas and domestic apps – a rarity among Chinese social apps that are subject to domestic moderation rules. ByteDance publishes two versions of its short-form video app: Duoyin in China and TikTok in the remainder of the world.
RedNote is keen to mine the sudden rush of attention, as executives see it as a potential path to achieve global popularity similar to TikTok’s. The share prices of some China-listed companies that conduct businesses with RedNote, such as Hangzhou Onechance Tech Corp, surged as much as 20% on Tuesday, hitting the daily limit.
The spike in US users comes before a 19 January deadline for ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the US on national security grounds. TikTok is currently used by about 170 million Americans, roughly half of the country’s population, and is overwhelmingly popular with young people and the advertisers looking to reach them.
“Americans using Rednote feels like a cheeky middle finger to the US government for its overreach into businesses and privacy concerns,” said Stella Kittrell, 29, a content creator based in Baltimore, Maryland. She said she joined RedNote in hopes of further collaborations with Chinese companies which she found helpful. Some users said they joined the platform to seek alternatives to Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, and to Elon Musk’s X. Some expressed doubt that they could rebuild their TikTok follower base on those apps.
“It’s not the same: Instagram, X or any other app,” said Brian Atabansi, 29, a business analyst and content creator based in San Diego, California. “Mainly because of how organic it is to build community on TikTok,” he said.
New users have piled in to the Chinese social media app RedNote just days before a proposed US ban on the popular social media app TikTok, as the lesser-known company rushes to capitalize on the sudden influx while walking a delicate line of moderating English-language content.
In a live chat dubbed “TikTok Refugees” on RedNote on Monday, more than 50,000 US and Chinese users joined the room. Veteran Chinese users, with some sense of bewilderment, welcomed their American counterparts and swapped notes with them on topics such as food and youth unemployment. Occasionally, however, the Americans veered into riskier territory.
“Is it OK to ask about how laws are different in China versus Hong Kong?” one American user asked. A Chinese user responded: “We prefer not to talk about that here.”
Such impromptu cultural exchanges were taking place all across RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu, as the app surged to the top of US download rankings this week. Its popularity was driven by US social media users casting about for an alternative to ByteDance-owned TikTok days in advance of its looming ban.
RedNote, a venture capital-backed startup with a most recent valuation of $17bn, allows users to curate photos, videos and text documenting their lives. It has been viewed as a possible IPO candidate in China. In recent years, it has become a de facto search engine for its 300 million-plus users looking for travel tips, anti-ageing creams and restaurant recommendations.
In only two days, more than 700,000 new users joined Xiaohongshu, a person close to the company said. Xiaohongshu did not immediately respond to a request for comment. US downloads of RedNote were up more than 200% year-over-year this week, and 194% from the week before, according to estimates from app data research firm Sensor Tower.
The second-most popular free app on Apple’s App Store list on Tuesday, Lemon8, another social media app owned by ByteDance, experienced a similar surge last month, with downloads jumping by 190% in December to about 3.4m. The app saw a similar rise in Google’s Play Store.
The influx appeared to catch RedNote by surprise, with two sources familiar with the company saying they were scrambling to find ways to moderate English-language content and build English-Chinese translation tools. TikTok users posted videos of themselves speaking in basic Mandarin so as to interact more fully with RedNote users.
RedNote maintains only one version of its app, rather than splitting it into overseas and domestic apps – a rarity among Chinese social apps that are subject to domestic moderation rules. ByteDance publishes two versions of its short-form video app: Duoyin in China and TikTok in the remainder of the world.
RedNote is keen to mine the sudden rush of attention, as executives see it as a potential path to achieve global popularity similar to TikTok’s. The share prices of some China-listed companies that conduct businesses with RedNote, such as Hangzhou Onechance Tech Corp, surged as much as 20% on Tuesday, hitting the daily limit.
The spike in US users comes before a 19 January deadline for ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the US on national security grounds. TikTok is currently used by about 170 million Americans, roughly half of the country’s population, and is overwhelmingly popular with young people and the advertisers looking to reach them.
“Americans using Rednote feels like a cheeky middle finger to the US government for its overreach into businesses and privacy concerns,” said Stella Kittrell, 29, a content creator based in Baltimore, Maryland. She said she joined RedNote in hopes of further collaborations with Chinese companies which she found helpful. Some users said they joined the platform to seek alternatives to Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, and to Elon Musk’s X. Some expressed doubt that they could rebuild their TikTok follower base on those apps.
“It’s not the same: Instagram, X or any other app,” said Brian Atabansi, 29, a business analyst and content creator based in San Diego, California. “Mainly because of how organic it is to build community on TikTok,” he said.
