I don’t know, it just reminds me of when Musk bought twitter and ppl online (especially this site) were like “hahahahah it’s gonna implode in a week loolololol” and guess what, twitter is still around and now Musk is even more politically powerful. It kind of reminds me of how ppl were hyping up mastadon, blue sky, etc. and honestly who really uses those sites?
There’s also the language barrier, like are ppl actually gonna seriously try to learn Chinese? Just installing duolingo and maybe doing a two day streak is what I predict most people will do. Btw learning a language from duolingo is like learning about socialism from AOC, i.e. it’s actually harmful.
I just see this as a media hype cycle that will die down in a week or two and it’s frustrating that ppl who call themselves materialists are now putting their faith (ironic right?) into some magical app just because it’s controlled by a Chinese company, etc. The same ppl who say that real agitation/organizing/etc. is done offline are now advocating for some pure online shit and honestly just basing it off pure vibes. Kinda cringe.
I like seeing Americans and Chinese interact and to actually get along. It is also cute seeing the Americans tell each other to behave and not make thirsty comments under every hot guy or girls kissing post.
None of this was planned, it is a massive backfire in any case to attempt to ban tiktok to prevent “Chinese propaganda” and end up having Americans start to like Chinese more when the state department has been trying to dehumanize and demonize China and Chinese as their primary propaganda goal for a long while now.
Yeah, you’ve lost the plot on this one, I think. Many great comments in here already. The reality is, though, Americans like their treats, and for once in their lifetime, one of those treats is being explicitly taken away from them by the US Government in a very transparent and stupid manner. This reaction, to join the most Chinese-looking social media app, over Lemon8 the in-house replacement to TikTok, is pretty indicative of American “fuck you” culture. One of the strongest narratives that is threaded through American culture is that of the rebel. When this rebellious nature is coupled with a lack of principals, well, you get this. People hear “We don’t want you to be on the China App”, and go “Well, I’m just going to do it harder to spite you!”. It’s like a kid being told they can’t have candy, so they sneak away and eat so much candy they puke.
Except in this case, they become familiar with a bunch of Chinese people through posting their normal social media stuff. Talking about their pets, their babies, their lives. I’ve seen people posting that they want to visit China because of what they’ve seen on the app. For many people, this is the first real exposure they have to what China and the Chinese people are like. So even the small things they encounter will be dispelling.
is pretty indicative of American “fuck you” culture. One of the strongest narratives that is threaded through American culture is that of the rebel. When this rebellious nature is coupled with a lack of principals, well, you get this. People hear “We don’t want you to be on the China App”, and go “Well, I’m just going to do it harder to spite you!”.
I don’t really buy this kind of Streisand Effect thing. If that were true, why didn’t people rebel when Netflix banned password sharing? (Seems like Netflix is still alive and well). Or during the whole Gamestop/RobinHood stock thing? (they immediately folded). There are countless other examples where people said “oh yeah! we’ll rebel/leave/find another platform” and nothing came of it. Also, this “rebel” culture thing is weirdly associated with patriotic socialism and maga communism. I don’t know, I don’t think it’s an appropriate analysis.
this “rebel” culture thing is weirdly associated with patriotic socialism and maga communism.
Lol yeah, I understand that. The people moving to RedNote are not MAGA Communists. They’re typical average Americans. Typical average Americans have that dog in them because it’s a passive expression of the culture. That’s why these MAGA Communists latch onto the “rebel” archetype, it’s already part of the culture. That’s why, win or loose, collage campuses get trashed when their most profitable sports team plays in a high-profile game, rebellion lives at the heart of every American, even if their form of rebellion doesn’t make any fucking sense. In fact, Eddy and his dogshit posse are on RedNote doing their typical ACP nonsense. They showed up late because they’re tailing behind. They’re not building “rebel” culture, they’re attempting to high jack it.
why didn’t people rebel when Netflix banned password sharing? […] Or during the whole Gamestop/RobinHood stock thing?
What were they going to do here, the hard labor of figuring out how to torrent TV shows after almost 20 years of not doing it? That ship has sailed. The typical user isn’t going to deal with the data caps on their cable internet service. They don’t want to get a letter in the mail telling them to piss off with the downloads. They don’t want to deal with attempting to store these files, or make the viewing experience convenient. It’s not even a comparable example. Corporations make shit choices all the time, and no one blinks an eye. They piss and moan and they keep on paying. This is always true. People didn’t lose the service, it just got more expensive, and people had to choose to ditch it or not. Also, that GameStop stuff, in terms of scale, is dwarfed by the number of users that will be impacted by TikTok just going poof. It also wasn’t some grassroots movement, it was all part of a scheme to suck cash out of uninformed investors wrapped up in the “rebellion” aesthetic because again, Americans have that dog in them, rebellion resonates with them, and often they’re not critical of what the act of rebellion even is.
There was a mass exodus of users from Etsy to TikTok a few years ago because Etsy changed its rules and was flooded with drop shippers that were outcompeting all the bespoke crafts people on the platform. Those people found better business on TikTok thanks to its shop feature, and the fact that they could build a following through showing the stuff they make via the timeline. You then had a whole population of leftists\activists\organizers that existed on the platform nearly undisturbed, who, if you are to believe them, did organizing that benefited their causes, communities, and themselves. Then, least not forget, all the right wing chuds who also used the app, for all the same reasons as the left and liberal users. The result of the federal government, and now the supreme court, effectively playing Nanny and telling these millions of users that they’re banning TikTok, has people naturally angry at the feds thinking they know better than the average American. The impression the media and even TikTok’s own lawyers have given the users of TikTok is that on Sunday, the app will be gone, and all the videos they had will be gone with it. I’ve seen users pleading with others to download their content because TikTok is going to purge all the files, true or not, that’s what they think is happening.
This “rebel” culture extends all the way to the family dynamic, with countless stories and media about young people rejecting the demands of their parents in favor of going their own way. Often, as I mentioned in my previous comment, the depiction of this rebellion is one where the “rebels” in question don’t just do what they’re told not to, they attempt to do an extreme or more intense version of what they’re told not to do, as a “fuck you” to those they’re rebelling against. This notion of “Youth Rebellion” should resonate with the majority of TikTok creators, since the majority of TikTok creators are aged 18 to 24.
One of the first videos I saw after RedNote started gaining steam was someone calling it their “Boston Tea Party” moment, but instead of tea in the river, it was data in the hands of a social media app clearly controlled by China. This is what I mean by “rebel” culture. The Boston Tea Party, as historical act of rebellion against a tyrannical government, is pervasive and crosses the narrow American political spectrum. It’s instigator, Samuel Adams, lives on as a corporate beer company In Boston. Every time someone has a beer from Sam Adams, they’re participating in latent rebel culture. It doesn’t matter to them that Sam Adams and the like were a burgeoning capitalist ruling class, the same kinds of people that lord over them today. History is never framed that way. To most Americans, it was an act of defiance against tyranny, and many of them couldn’t tell you what form that tyranny took.
So I think it is an apt framing. Here you have a wildly unpopular Federal Government, reaching into the everyday lives and business dealings of its citizens, to enrich itself and its corporate allies, through the forced appropriation of a platform its citizens use for communication and trade. The app that they have used to build a business, organize their communities, keep in touch with their distant friends and relatives, is under threat by the “tyrannical” Federal Government. The young man in the video, who called it their “Boston Tea Party” moment, wasn’t trying to invoke images of a national uprising, but instead invoking that feeling of “Fuck you” and “Just watch me”. Now, it would appear that this Federal Government is looking to band-aid the issue, with Biden stating he won’t enforce the rule, to Trump telling the courts to delay until he’s in office so he can “save” the app. This is fuckery of their own doing, and now they’re trying to unfuck it. A ball of shit set in motion in trumps first term is now resulting in everyday Americans offshoring to an app called Little Red Book out of spite and having a cultural exchange with the people they’re told they should fear.
The fact that this bill, with bipartisan support, from representatives who actively use the platform to organize their own campaigns, was passed with such ease and efficiency, and was upheld as constitutional by the corrupt supreme court, just leaves the entry playbook out in the open. People who don’t use TikTok, they’re not invested in this situation, but those that do, even just those who use it for entertainment, have just received a massive shot in the arm of politics in action. They’re witnessing what the Federal Government is capable of doing when they decide to cooperate. It’s not passive, like when the Federal Government just can’t seem to get it together on abortion rights. People defend the lack of action on that issue because “republicans keep getting in the way”. Here, however, this is clear and deliberate action and mobilization of political forces to take away the treat machine.
And because of how clear, and deliberate, this action appears, people are tapping into that rebel spirit woven into American culture, and summoning it for a very silly form of disobedience.
No one’s saying that this is going to bring about communism.
People are enjoying that Americans and Chinese are interacting with each other and it’s going better than expected, completely shattering the narratives spun by the US state department. Some people are coming to the realization that they’ve been lied to about China for the first time, on the heels of the US government showing that the sacred first amendment is a lie too.
Saying this is nothing is immaterial too, just doomerism. If 1 in 10 people who switched to Rednote stay there, that’s still 1.5 million yankees who now have a direct cultural window into China and will be inoculated against further sinophobic propaganda. If 1 in 100 learn a little Mandarin, that’s 150,000 of them. If 1 in 1000 question their beliefs hard enough to become serious leftists, that’s 15,000 new comrades.
No one’s saying that this is going to bring about communism.
Yeah but they certainly behave like it. There’s this strange euphoria going on right now (which I believe will die down relatively soon) that rednote will “bring about class consciousness” etc. etc.
We’ve spent the last four days witnessing a very large number of Americans get rapidly deprogrammed of both the anti-China and the lie of US exceptionalism in realtime, at a speed and scale that isn’t really comparable to anything that I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. Of course people are excited.
It’s frankly weird to me that you feel the need to try to say “nooooo you can’t have any optimism, nothing ever happens
” about what is objectively not nothing. Are you doing cointelpro tactics on purpose?Instead of being determined to be a doomer about how this doesn’t change anything, why don’t you check out XHS and see for yourself? I’m only browsing casually and have personally come across a few posts of americans asking things like “chinese users, how do we get our government to give us the nice things like you have?” and all of the chinese users responding with variants on “you need working class solidarity and a communist revolution”.
Class consciousness in a population is not a binary state — more people are achieving class consciousness as a result of this cultural exchange, thereby moving the needle on it. If you don’t think it moves the needle far enough or effectively enough, why not use this flashpoint to agitate and help more people achieve class consciousness?
the hype isn’t overblown, because all that matters is hype
reality does not matter, only hype and memes do. reality only matters insofar as you can convince a bunch of english speaking honkeys to overhype and meme it. Honkeys are pretty horrendous arbiters of reality, thus reality does not matter
rednote is just another website, there’s nothing special about it. but it’s a meme among english speakers now so it matters
You’re overcorrecting in the opposite direction. The whole situation is funny because the US obviously wants to ban Tiktok for propagandist reasons, so the fact that so many Tiktokers are jumping on board to a site that translates to “Little Red Book” is funny.
This is like the CEO shooting all over again. People try to make a funny event more than what it really is which then prompts other people to overcorrect about how we shouldn’t “lionize” the shooting because the alleged shooter said some reactionary things.
Most likely, XHS will be banned in the US, making your entire post moot. Just enjoy the wild ride for what it is because the ride is going to end very soon anyways.
Most likely, XHS will be banned in the US, making your entire post moot.
Yeah I think this is what will most likely happen. That and/or the Chinese userbase will be walled off from the western one by the CPC for various reasons.
Why would the US want to ban xiaohongshu?
The whole point of banning TikTok is to force China to open up their social media spaces again as China has kicked Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. out since the last decade.
They don’t want Chinese social media app to be able to operate in the US when the US is not allowed to operate theirs in Chinese soil. American users joining Chinese social media app in China will only raise the incentives for China to open up to American social media. So, this is actually good for the US because now they have an excuse that American cultural content are not infringing on the rules set by the Chinese government.
So, there is no reason for the US to ban American users from joining Chinese social media operating within Chinese soil.
The reasons given under “national security” is as legit as the Chinese government gave for banning Western social media. You can call the US out for being hypocritical since they’re the ones coercing other countries to open up their market, but you can see banning TikTok as a political move to force China to open up their spaces to the US.
I don’t know what is the bottom line for China when it comes to cultural sovereignty after all these years of the Great Firewall, but the financial sector is already being opened up for foreign capital. So, the last realm of sovereignty left for China is their cultural spaces - will the Americans invade this space as well?
They’ll block access to it for the same reason they’re going to ban Tik Tok - because they don’t control the narrative
“National security” is just an excuse. The real reason is that US tech companies want to enter China (again).
The US tech companies have been pushing this ban for years and they have been steadfastly ignored. What changed was the pro-Palestine narrative on Tik Tok after oct 7th. That is the prime motivator.
American users joining Chinese social media app in China will only raise the incentives for China to open up to American social media.
How? It seems like having Americans on their domestic apps means that if they want access to those users, they very much do not have to open up to American ones.
China wants foreign tech companies to invest to boost their domestic consumption and save their property market. So this could be an unexpectedly welcoming incident that may or may not have influenced the outcome anyway. In any case, both the US and China want to open up to each other and this could “ease” the tension since Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. were blacklisted or “made to leave”.
At least this is where all the signals are. The real question is how much is China willing to compromise after so many years of the Great Firewall. I expect China to at least try to guard them as best as they can when negotiating with Trump.
It still doesn’t seem like this creates any new incentives for allowing the big US tech companies to operate their social media there. It sounds like you believe on background that China has incentives to open up to American social media and just wanted to talk about that.
You’re giving a bunch of senile technologically illiterate boomers way too much credit. They’re going to ban XHS because they’ll Google translate XHS, see that it spits out “little red book,” and have a kneejerk reaction in banning the site. They also recognize that a lot of their propaganda strategy hinges on people not knowing basic info on China.
There are smarter moves than just banning the site. The smartest move is to keep XHS and use it as a vector to spread US propaganda. Contact between two different parties is a dialectical relationship after all, and it’s undialectical to think that only one party will be affected. I don’t think it’s that hard to cultivate Westophilia within XHS’s userbase, but that strategy hinges on some cultural contact between the two countries, which I believe would be unacceptable to the boomers in charge. Another move they can play is to create trolls that ruin the site and push XHS to block US accounts, which allows the US to push out propaganda about how China fears US cultural exports.
The thing about this is that who is going to signup for XHS to be a lib? They have their home on Western social media.
Dialectics doesn’t mean both parties are changed equally. Westerners are getting a completely new look into something they’ve never seen before. Chinese people are making some Western friends who voluntarily chose this site.
I remember when Google “left” China back in the early 2010s lol. These tech companies have been eyeing China for so long and have been waiting to make a come back. They already have the entire world’s market - China is the final frontier they have been itching to conquer.
Everyone is now just waiting for Trump to take office and see how he deals with China. As I have said elsewhere I expect a lot of tension being eased on both sides. I don’t know how much China is willing to compromise but I hope China can come out on top of the negotiations.
I don’t know, it just reminds me of when Musk bought twitter and ppl online (especially this site) were like “hahahahah it’s gonna implode in a week loolololol” and guess what, twitter is still around and now Musk is even more politically powerful.
Nobody thought buying twitter was gonna hurt him politically but if you’re acting like the vibe of that place didn’t shift basically immediately (remember, slurs immediately started trending after he bought it), i want some of what you’re smoking.
Nobody thought buying twitter was gonna hurt him politically
People absolutely thought this. Remember when he initially backed out and then was forced to continue the purchase deal? All sorts of talk about how this was bad for him. That and other things, like how he handled twitter at the beginning of his reign. There are plenty of articles, etc. on this and they’re not hard to find.
I think he tried to back out because he didn’t really want to buy the site to begin with and thought he could bail because he’s a known liar. It was bad for him since he lost billions buying a thing that is not going to even get close to turning a profit, that’s bleeding out users because of his decisions and is now less relevant culturally and for business than ever. These just aren’t political implications right now because he’s super rich which gives him the ability to eat the losses. Buying Twitter is a thing that helped make him less popular in the mainstream so it hurt his PR.
The reason why i don’t think it hurt him politically is because that’s not how our political economy works. he’s rich enough that he could still help fund get out of the vote for Trump, which bought him influence. Buying twitter was a mistake, but it couldn’t sink him because he’s that rich and already connected to the government through his contracts.
it’s gonna implode … twitter is still around and now Musk is even more politically powerful
The platform has lost over 1 million users and global active users has gone down. Musk’s political power/will was inevitable. He’s an oligarch in a capitalist society, 'nuff said.
It kind of reminds me of how ppl were hyping up mastadon, blue sky, etc. and honestly who really uses those sites?
Objectively: many. Bluesky has 27 million users and 3.5 million daily active users. No idea about Mastedon.
There’s also the language barrier, like are ppl actually gonna seriously try to learn Chinese?
That doesn’t seem to stop my partner from using it and enjoying the content.
I just see this as a media hype cycle that will die down in a week or two
Yea, maybe. A lot of people are just pissed off at the establishment, for many reasons that they can’t put their finger on quite yet. People are downloading this app as a retaliation to whatever nonsense legislation is being passed. Some will stick around, some won’t. The people pissed about the ban aren’t eager to start being active on IG/Threads/X/whatever else because it’s all just the same crap owned by oligarchs, full of mis-/dis-information and toxicity.
The platform has lost over 1 million users and global active users has gone down.
I dunno ppl have been saying that for a while now and honestly it sounds like cope to me. And 1 million users lost? Out of how many? Hundreds of millions? Are you joking or being serious?
Are you joking or being serious?
I’m quoting actual data instead of just vague hand-waving. 1 million users leaving (actually deleting their accounts) and more simply not using the app anymore is not nothing. DAU is down, revenue is down, … people leaving matters.
I’m quoting actual data instead of just vague hand-waving. 1 million users leaving (actually deleting their accounts) and more simply not using the app anymore is not nothing. DAU is down, revenue is down, … people leaving matters.
You didn’t cite anything specifically or provide a source, but I’ll assume you’re right. But you overlooked the total userbase of twitter, which is around 400 million (https://www.statista.com/topics/737/twitter/#topicOverview). So what does a 1 million user deletion actually mean? I mentioned that in my initial response to you but you failed to engage with it. It seems like you’re the one doing the hand-waving my friend.
So what does a 1 million user deletion actually mean?
DAU is down, revenue is down, … people leaving matters
It seems like you’re the one doing the hand-waving my friend.
ok
Can you provide a few examples of “ The same ppl who say that real agitation/organizing/etc. is done offline are now advocating for some pure online shit”?
Yeah the mods themselves. There was sticked a post about a Red Note agitprop contest. And other mods didn’t take it down, so it was tacitly approved. And I know for a fact that they have said multiple times that “this is just a shitposting website, not a place for real organization” etc etc.
Yeah, shitposting isn’t organizing, but that doesn’t mean doing agitprop has zero effect. And if you’re going to be shitposting anyway, why not talk to the masses where they are?
I say this as someone who was indeed moved from a vaguely left-leaning person to a principled, studied Marxist-Leninist by the “where did that bring you? back to me
” post back on r/CTHOnline shit is free, plus it’s fun to organize an event like that in the same way it’s fun to contribute to a zine even if it’s not actually revolutionary activity
No one thinks that online agit prop will bring about revolution, but it’s not gonna hurt and isn’t really taking away from anything.
It is possible to care about more than one thing at a timeThe way I’m reading your argument is thus: the mods are advocating for an exclusive online strategy only.
I don’t think that the point of the post you mentioned was a mod directive to only use the internet now lol
there’s already a whole american side of the app. i think after just a couple days they added an english interface option, and today i’m already seeing all chinese comments with an automatic english translation in them
idk much about bluesky, was it ever that popular? XHS has been the #1 most downloaded app for days and literally got there overnight
