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URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) — The Supreme Court upheld the ruling to ban TikTok, and if the owners don’t sell by Sunday, Americans won’t be able to access it. But with TikTok potentially leaving another app from China may be stepping into its place.
The name of the app translates to “Red Note” in English. The Apple App Store shows that it’s currently the number one social networking app.
USA today said Duolingo is also getting a boost. The amount of people learning Mandarin is up over 200% as people try to communicate overseas.
“Red Note is called Xiaohongshu in Chinese,” said longtime Red Note user Siyu Wu. “And I usually tell my friends that it’s kind of like a combination of Pinterest and Instagram.”
This Chinese social media app is taking the country by storm. It’s gotten millions of downloads in the past week as people prepare for TikTok to be banned in the U.S. Wu however has already been on the app for around 10 years.
“We see a lot of foreigners, a lot of hashtag TikTok refugees on the app,” Wu said.
This wave of new American users has given birth to new types of content as well.
“There are Chinese people who are making skits of like TikTok refugees being on Red Note, and that’s like a whole other kind of like chain reaction,” Wu said.
As the two cultures collide, Wu said there are those who are very welcoming to Americans.
“But there are also voices saying that Xiaohongshu is a really Chinese central kind of platform,” Wu said. “Some Chinese people were afraid that this is just not going to be like Chinese anymore.”
But Wu has seen an effort from new users to not take over and change Red Note.
“Some Americans are genuinely trying to speak, learn some Chinese,” she said.
This is what has led to the more than 200% increase in people trying to pick up Mandarin on Duolingo.
“This is a super cool way for them to get to know the Chinese culture a little bit,” Wu said.
But it might not be the full picture.
“It’s kind of like Chinese [people] learning American culture through memes, if that makes sense,” Wu said.
Red Note is very similar to TikTok, it’s got videos you can scroll through and even a shop. The future state of TikTok will have a big role in deciding if Red Note’s popularity will continue.