- A Chinese social media app called Xiaohongshu is one of the biggest winners from an impending TikTok ban.
- It’s so popular in the US that Chinese users have created a new hashtag to welcome Americans.
- The power of cultural exchange has led to posts of people asking for help with English homework, among other things.
A Chinese social media platform has become so popular in the US that it’s the most downloaded iPhone app this week — and it’s become the site of an unexpected East-meets-West cultural exchange.
Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, took the top spot in the US Apple Store rankings this week as a sell-or-ban law threatens to shut down US access to TikTok.
The app, commonly known as the Chinese version of Instagram, has been flooded with posts from Chinese users welcoming the influx of American arrivals.
A post titled “American please help” went viral on Monday and received over 10,000 comments after its poster, from Zhejiang, asked for help with their English homework.
Other popular posts also featured users, who listed their location as being in the US, offering their homework help to Chinese users.
“Ask me any questions! I can help you with your English homework or answer questions about America (Texas). Thanks for welcoming us TikTok refugees,” one post read. In response, several commenters uploaded photos of English language worksheets.
The rise of American users on Chinese apps has also led to a rise in the hashtag #TikTokRefugee on Xiaohongshu, with dozens of Chinese creators posting guides on how to use the platform. The hashtag itself has been viewed over 64 million times, according to data seen by Business Insider.
“If you see a video that’s totally awesome, just comment 6 or 66 or 666,” one cowboy user, Big Tooth Chinese Redneck, said in a viral video, referring to a Chinese online slang term.
The sudden interest in Chinese social media platforms comes as TikTok continues to challenge the sell-or-ban law the Senate passed in April. By law, TikTok will have to stop operating in the US on January 19 unless its China-based owner, Bytedance, sells the app.
The sell-and-hold law was passed amid widespread security concerns that the Chinese government could access user data if Bytedance continues to own the platform. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told the Wall Street Journal in 2023 that such concerns are unfounded as the company would work with Oracle to store user data in the US.
TikTok argued its case with the Supreme Court on Friday, saying it will “go dark” in January if the court does not extend its sale deadline. The court is expected to decide the fate of the company this week.
There’s a lot on the line for TikTok right now — it lost a challenge to the law in December when it brought the case before a three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
In December, President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to halt the law until after his inauguration. Trump will take office on January 20.
Allowing TikTok to operate in the US is a reversal of Trump’s policy stance on the company. Trump pushed for a ban on TikTok in 2020 when he was still president. But more recently, the president-elect told reporters in December that he had a “warm spot” in his heart for TikTok.
However, TikTok’s woes have brought unexpected benefits to platforms like Xiaohongshu and Lemon8, both of which climbed to the top two spots in Apple’s app store rankings. Lemon8 is also owned by Bytedance.
Meagan Loyst, founder of investor collective Gen Z VCs, told Business Insider on Monday that users were flocking to these platforms to protest the government’s planned ban on TikTok.
“It’s really just retaliation against the government at its simplest, but in a way that feels very native to Gen Z,” Loyst said.
Representatives for TikTok and Xiaohongshu did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
