- TikTok may get banned unless it is sold to a non-Chinese owner. TikTok has said they will not do that, thus the app could shut down on January 19th.
- Many TikTok users have migrated to Xiaohongshu (Red Note), another Chinese social media app, unrelated to TikTok.
- Xiaohongshu is primarily catered to Chinese-speaking nationals, thus most of the content is about things in China, including Chinese-market EVs.
Popular Chinese-owned social media app TikTok seems likely to be banned by the U.S. government soon, but true to their ironic and slightly spiteful aura, Gen Z’ers and millennials aren’t taking it lying down.
National security concerns aren’t enough to sway America’s TikTokers from joining another Chinese-operated app: Xiaohongshu, commonly called Red Note. Some would say that these kids have gone from the frying pan and right into the fire—leaving the semi-walled garden that was TikTok and directly into a China-controlled and oriented app whose name literally translates to “Little Red Book.”
But the sardonic and if somewhat nonsensical humor of American TikTokers is meshing pretty well with the brainrot-meme-posting mainland Chinese users. It’s also letting regular Americans peer behind the curtain and get at least a glimpse of what’s going on in China, which goes beyond just food, dancing, or memes; it even includes China’s highly advanced electric cars.
Now, a few normal, non-car enthusiast Americans are getting a taste of what they drive in China, and they want more.
Take this video posted to TikTok, for example. A woman was lurking on Red Note/Xiaohongshu and learned about the BYD Dolphin.
“They sell it in pink, it’s like $15,000. Which is affordable, so affordable. And it has so many features,” she says. By the end of the two-minute-long video, she’s pretty disillusioned at the fact that she can’t buy a Dolphin in the United States, due to U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made EVs.
“We basically have products made, that we don’t have access to, that we don’t even realize we don’t have access to, that are actually super affordable and super nice, but we can’t have them,” she said.
Some are more humorous and a little less sour grapes than others, like this video from RaphaelMontes. It does a quick overview of some of the bigger hits in China like the Yangwang U8 or Xiaomi SU7, interjected with the Bing Chilling John Cena meme.
To be fair, this was somewhat of a trend even before Americans decided to semi-ironically invade Rednote/Xiaohongshu. On TikTok, it wasn’t uncommon for “edits” of Chinese cars to go viral. For those who aren’t in the know, an “edit” is glamourized and stylish footage of Chinese EVs clipped together, usually to a popular song, aimed at going viral. These videos would often be swarmed with comments of people who are excited about the cars themselves, but once again, are let down when they learn they can’t be sold in the U.S. without severe tariffs. Or, possibly at all, according to the new rules set for Chinese-operated connected cars.
It’s not clear what exactly will happen with Americans on Xiaohongshu, or with the tariffs on China’s EVs. There’s been an emergency bill drafted to delay the Jan. 19 TikTok sale (or ban) for 270 days, it’s not clear if that will pass. But the cat might just be out of the bag here, there may be a real chance that more Americans will become aware just exactly what’s happening on the other side of the world, and what they might be missing.
It’s like she says in the first video: “America’s free and fair trade for everyone? Capitalism? [But] we can’t sell this car because it’s Chinese… there are products being made that we don’t have access to that are super affordable and super nice.”
Since Chinese social media doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, expect more Americans to be saying that soon.
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