With a possible TikTok ban just days away, a growing number of the platform’s 170 million U.S. users are fleeing to a Chinese social media app with the same name as a communist text — and that’s not even the strangest part.
So-called TikTok “refugees” made Xiaohongshu the most downloaded free app in the U.S. Apple Store on Tuesday. The Chinese app’s name translates to “Little Red Book,” referring to a book of quotations from Mao Tse-tung that circulated during the Cultural Revolution. But the official international name of the app, which is owned by Shanghai-based Xingyin Information Technology, is the less literal, less political translation Red Note.
Lemon8, a Chinese social media app from TikTok owner ByteDance, sits at No. 2 in the App Store, while U.S. social media platforms Instagram and X languished at Nos. 11 and 43, respectively, as of Tuesday afternoon.
The Supreme Court is weighing the legality of a law that would ban TikTok in the country if ByteDance fails to sell its U.S. operation by Jan. 19.
The uncertainty has been a boon to Red Note. Its roughly 300 million users, mostly from China, come to the platform for user-generated recommendations for restaurants, travel itineraries, and makeup. One user likened the platform to a “Chinese Wikipedia.”
The influx from TikTok to Red Note has been a rare cross-cultural exchange, as American football meets Chinese home cooking videos, and Chinese students solicit the help of Americans for their English homework.
Some users find irony in seeing so many Americans spilling across an international border, albeit a virtual one. Quipped one video poster: “After so many years being yelled [at]: go back to China, go back to your country, finally we got a shot: go back to America, go back to your country.”
The influx of American users has sparked widespread media coverage in Chinese-language outlets, which describe the trend as Americans “occupying” the app and making it more international. Some tech stocks related to Red Note in China have surged.
But while many Americans are only now discovering the app, Chinese San Franciscans have been posting and accumulating followers on Red Note for years.
Shayna Zhang, a San Francisco-based influencer and former TV anchor, has more than 76,000 followers on the platform and felt the abrupt shift when she opened the app Tuesday.
The Chinese people on Xiaohongshu are now asking Americans for help with their English homework LMAOOOO pic.twitter.com/nAL3cedS85
— Gina Darling (@MissGinaDarling) January 13, 2025
“My feed on the app suddenly switched to English today,” Zhang told The Standard. “I’ve seen many major influencers posting videos with advice for those ‘TikTok refugees.'”
Zhang began using Red Note in 2019, initially sharing camping tips and restaurant recommendations. When she started posting bilingual vlogs about her life as a Chinese immigrant in America, she gained a following from Chinese users both domestically and abroad.
“This app feels like a combination of Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok,” she said. “It’s very women-friendly, and many users are more highly educated.”
Zhang said she and other users use the platform as a one-stop shop for any answer they’re seeking.
“When my mom wants to cook a certain Chinese dish, she will search for the recipe on Little Red Book,” Zhang said. In fact, the app is heavily populated with recommendations for Chinese tourists in San Francisco, with posts dedicated to the best spots for Golden Gate Bridge photo shoots and guides to enjoying Japantown.
Chino Yang, a Bay Area-based rapper and restaurateur with more than 33,000 followers, posted a video Monday with advice for newcomers to the app.
“I got some free game for my fellow Americans coming to this platform,” Yang said in English with Chinese subtitles. “You better learn some Chinese.”
Yang told The Standard he started using the app in 2020, mainly sharing videos about his “observation of the U.S. through my lens.”
Yang made headlines in late 2023 when he released a rap song criticizing former Mayor London Breed. His latest Red Note video also had a heavy dose of politics, advising new American users not to “bring the PC, the cancel culture, the woke culture” to the platform, adding, “This shit ain’t gonna fly.”
Aspiring influencer Maggy Chan, who posts videos on Red Note about her K-pop concert experiences and life as a Chinese immigrant in the East Bay, joked that watching Americans flock to the platform is a moment of “world unity.”
How long it will last is uncertain. YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels are expected to be the primary beneficiaries if a U.S. ban on TikTok goes into effect. If the Supreme Court upholds the law, TikTok is expected to become hard, if not impossible, for Americans to use.
“Welcome, TikTok refugees,” Chan wrote in her latest post. “Follow me, and I can teach you Chinese.”