January 15, 2025
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Why are US TikTok users signing up for RedNote?
Thousands of US TikTok users are joining China-based app RedNote, creating memes, jokes and confusion

A TikTok creator and advocate wears a button showing support for TikTok. Other users have moved to alternative apps, such as China-based RedNote.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
In reaction or protest against the TikTok ban in the US, which will take effect on Sunday if the app is not sold or not The Supreme Court does not interveneThousands of people across the country have joined RedNote. The latter is a China-based e-commerce and lifestyle app, also known as Xiaohongshu, the Mandarin for “Little Red Book”—also a nickname for Mao Zedong’s famous book of quotes. About 300 million people, mainly in China, use RedNote to share videos and images, shop and make travel recommendations.
This week RedNote climbed to the top of both Apple and Google’s US app store charts. TikTok’s potential ban has so far prompted about 700,000 people to join the Chinese app, According to Reuters. That’s less than 1 percent of TikTok’s 170 million U.S. users, but the influx has been enough to spawn hilarious memes and the occasional misunderstanding: A Vancouver man who welcomed newcomers went viral because people mistook him for RedNote’s CEO.
The rush to this app is an example of the “media substitution hypothesis,” where people claim to fill a media void with a new platform or network. Saleem AlhabashProfessor of advertising and public relations at Michigan State University, who studies the psychological effects of social media use. On TikTok, “there’s no implied contract you have to have active user,” he pointed out, arguably unlike more post-based platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky or Instagram. It’s perfectly acceptable to passively hide, scroll, and shop on TikTok, and RedNote is scratching the same itch. “Mix social with satisfying the need to shop (buying cheap clothes or exercise equipment), and that’s the whole package, in terms of user experience,” says Alhabash.
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Although TikTok owner ByteDance is based in China, the English version of its app operates in the US through an American subsidiary. RedNote, on the other hand, has a single app with mostly Mandarin content and is based in Shanghai. One result of the recent migration has been a cultural exchange between new US users and Chinese veterans: some Americans at RedNote, for example, were surprised. Chinese mass market electric carsNot sold in the US due to high tariffs. And Chinese students have sought help from the English homework app.
RedNote’s ownership also means that if the app were to take off in the US, it would likely face the same national security concerns about data collection and content manipulation that TikTok has faced. RedNote, which did not immediately respond American scientifics request for comment, as well it limits people would be able to share messages freely on US platforms. To avoid algorithmic restrictions on LGBTQ content, same-sex couples in China typically refer to themselves as “roommates”. According to a 2024 ethnographic study of RedNote and similar appsor camouflage their digital communities through unconventional hashtags. #Because interest in ToddlerFood is stereotypically coded in China, queer and lesbian women may use it to avoid “men who only care about themselves,” one RedNote user told the study’s author.
According to Alhabash, it is uncertain whether ex-TikTok users will migrate from one app to another in a “cult fashion”. Some people may be persuaded to follow their favorite influencers to new platforms, and where those influencers end up, financial prospects or brand support may guide them. “There is more than an individual user decision” at stake, he says.
For now, at RedNote, there are jokes. A newly registered user was greeted by a message of his “New Chinese spy friend“. Others said they were happy to give data directly to President Xi Jinping or the Chinese government. And Los Angeles Times announced this week almost 200,000 people joined the RedNote live chat called “TikTok Refugees Club”.