Recently, a lot of American netizens have flocked to China’s social media platform, Red Note, sparking heated debates, and they call themselves “TikTok refugees”.
In recent days, a large number of users from the United States have suddenly appeared on the Chinese social media platform Red Note. Calling themselves “TikTok refugees,” they have been interacting with Chinese netizens by posting relevant entries on Red Note, accompanied by Chinese translations of their own introductions.
The incident started when, in April 2024, U.S. President Joe Biden signed a bill passed by both chambers of Congress requiring TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company within 270 days or the app would be banned after January 19, 2025 in the United States. In the face of this unwarranted bill, ByteDance had made it clear that it would not sell TikTok.
With the date of January 19 approaching, American netizens have to Red Note “camp”, hoping to find a new world of communication and sharing on Xiaohongshu. From January 13, the application’s downloads once soared to the top of the free list on the Apple App Store in North America. In just two days, hundreds of thousands of new users joined.
American Netizen: One of my favorite emoticons I’ve seen so far is that a lot of Chinese people will say, “Hello, Americans, let me see your cats”.
A large number of American netizens and Chinese netizens have warmly interacted with each other. Some Chinese netizens who love bird watching said they “want to see the rare birds in the United States”, so the comment area was flooded with thousands of foreign netizens to take photos of the message; there are also foreign netizens to show their eighteen skills, there are handmade bloggers specializing in the production of Britain and the United States of America ancient costumes, and Chinese bloggers to compete with each other; there are musicians to release an original music video, bringing the flavor of the United States of America country, rock and roll. and rock flavors. Some American netizens said that their “stereotypes” of China have been shattered.
US Netizen: It’s a good opportunity to observe, as if it’s a sociological study, how the people of China and the United States interact without any resentment. So why do they always say, we have a grudge against China? It’s the U.S. government that has grievances, not us.
Joe Dietrich, American Internet user: All my life we’ve been told, “The Chinese are scary,” “The Chinese are coming, the Chinese are coming,” and none of that is true. The Chinese people are so warm and friendly, they welcome us with open arms.
Some U.S. media pointed out that TikTok users collectively “defected” to Red Note move is to express dissatisfaction with the U.S. government.
US netizens: the US government said it was going to block TikTok because the Chinese government had our data and would be a threat. So we, myself included, went and downloaded more local Chinese applications. And lo and behold, there’s our data.
For some American netizens, their lives have been changed.
Joe Dietrich, American Netizen: To all our new friends in China, thank you for welcoming us with open arms, you’re really nice people, you’re fantastic. From now on, from my perspective, we are family.
Another netizen posted a screenshot of Chinese and American netizens sending photos of their families to each other, commenting, “Isn’t that the way the world is supposed to be?”