TikTok refugees flock to Xiaohongshu to become a MEME nugget

Even Xiaohongshu himself did not expect that he would usher in this huge wave of wealth.

The conflict between China and the United States is intensifying, but in the Internet world, Chinese Internet manufacturers have achieved overtaking in another sense - TikTok's raging war has given Xiaohongshu a rare opportunity to break out of the circle.

As January 19, the last date for the U.S. government’s “sale or ban” of TikTok, is approaching, a large number of American netizens have become rebellious. Since the official is unwilling to "leak" the so-called information to China, it's up to me to do whatever it takes. American netizens directly searched for Chinese Internet APPs and insisted on giving the information away. Xiaohongshu, which combines realism and strong interaction, and can be registered and used with overseas numbers, has been listed as the number one location.

A large wave of netizens rose up in the name of "TikTok refugees" and followed the Internet cable to Xiaohongshu, truly realizing exchanges and collisions between cultures. On January 13, Xiaohongshu’s downloads soared to the top of Apple’s U.S. App Store. On the evening of the 15th, Xiaohongshu ranked first in the APP Store free rankings in 87 countries. In Xiaohongshu, the number of views of the topic "#tiktokrefugee" (TikTok Refugee) has soared to 460 million, with 9.37 million discussions and 360,000 notes, and continues to increase.

This is undoubtedly an alternative and grand meeting between China and the United States. If you open Little Red Book recently, you will see overwhelmingly foreign faces and English. Some netizens jokingly called "Little Red Book has become an international book." As for the influx of foreign friends, Chinese netizens have also shown an extremely welcoming attitude, which can be seen from the fact that foreign friends who are the envy of the local people started calling in Pingdi.

In Xiaohongshu, the two communicate on a wide range of topics. In addition to makeup skills, dressing tips, photography and other fashionable beauty, there are also Chinese and English teaching, avatar homework help, and cute pet photo exchanges. Even recently, Private reconciliation has also become a hot topic. The two parties began to communicate about local work salaries, rent, medical and childcare costs, and compare living conditions. In one fell swoop, they uncovered the prejudices and fallacies that had previously been lost in the public discourse or some media discourses, and returned to the truth to disenchant and dismantle.

In addition to culture, business is also a highlight. Xiaohongshu here has not secured its fortune yet and is urgently hiring an English content reviewer in the middle of the night. Xiaohongshu’s concept stocks over there are taking the first step. On January 14, Xiaohongshu concept stocks have been rising strongly since the early trading. Yuanwang Technology, Gravity Media, etc. hit the daily limit at the opening, and Yiwang Yichuang and Fushi Holdings continued to hit the daily limit of 20CM; by the close, Tianxiaxiu, Huayang Lianzhong, Yao Many stocks such as Ji Technology have reached their daily limit, and BlueFocus and other stocks have also increased by more than 10%. On January 15, Xiaohongshu concept stocks led the concept sector with an increase of over 8%. To this day, the craze for Xiaohongshu concepts continues, with Tianxiaxiu, Yuanwang Technology, Aimu Shares, Gravity Media, and Huizhou Intelligence continuing to bid. daily limit.

Market speculation is swarming, but the target is really fixed. When it comes to finance, the crypto world, which has always pursued hot topics, will not give up easily. There are Xiaohongshu concept stocks, and the Xiaohongshu concept coin came into being .

The MEME army quickly marched towards Xiaohongshu, and currencies such as momo, REDnote, Tudang Zhang, and xiaoya emerged one after another. MOMO, the little pink dinosaur, is no stranger to Chinese Internet users. It is one of WeChat’s design IPs. When the name and avatar are not logged in on the APP, WeChat will automatically generate a MOMO account for the user. Since its development, MOMO, as a representative of anonymous identity, has become popular on all major platforms. Xiaohongshu, Douban, and Zhihu have all been involved. Previously, MOMO’s anonymity and management standards in the online world had caused a large number of discussion.

There is no shortage of MOMO appearing in the posts of foreign friends. Some overseas people will also ask "Who is MOMO?" It can be seen that compared with other MEMEs, the identity hiding and encryption concepts in MOMO are similar, and identity recognition The feeling is stronger and the group effect is more significant, so it also attracts much attention in MEME. On January 14, MOMO’s market value once exceeded US$12 million, ranking first among Xiaohongshu concept coins.

Other concept coins also performed well. Captain Tu is derived from Xiaohongshu’s mascot. As Xiaohongshu’s most popular Captain Tu MEME, it has reached a peak of US$0.002. The market value of the overseas nickname REDnote also reached US$940,000.

In addition to MEME, which leads the way, advertising and product placement are also not uncommon. In fact, even before Xiaohongshu became popular overseas, there was already a lot of Crypto content on the platform. However, due to regulatory reasons, both token recommendations and technical analysis were relatively conservative, and most KOLs tended to Speaking on the X platform, the popularity of encryption topics is very limited. Currently, Crypto content continues this trend, but with the influx of traffic, some new network immigrants are also publishing crypto-related content, and content such as XRP, Coinbase, MEME, wallets, etc. are continuing to increase.

In the long run, due to the key variable of regulatory differences, it will be difficult for Xiaohongshu to become a comprehensive gathering place for crypto KOLs, and PR and traffic will also be very controllable. However, from the perspective of MEME, Xiaohongshu, as a community public opinion field for Chinese people to communicate, has once again taken advantage of the Sino-US meeting, and the probability of the appearance of golden dogs has inevitably increased significantly.

Of course, regardless of the encryption field, Xiaohongshu’s popularity this round may not be sustainable. It is difficult to determine whether TikTok, which is the primary reason, is actually banned. In the current context of national outrage and the intense period of competition between the two parties in the United States, in order to stabilize the political situation and occupy the high ground of public opinion, the government authorities may also mediate in this as high as 1.7 In the battle to protect the APP with 100 million US users. On January 15, according to two people familiar with the matter, Trump may sign an executive order that will lift the Biden administration’s nationwide ban on the app on the 19th. Even if TikTok cannot escape completely, it will be difficult for TikTok to disappear completely, and it is more likely to end with the seller changing hands under some consensus.

The second is user experience and usage habits. Although the interface design is similar to TikTok, it saves a certain amount of user education costs, but in terms of the current ease of use of Xiaohongshu overseas, user participation can also be considered cumbersome. A typical example is that Xiaohongshu does not yet have Chinese and American account partitions, nor does it have a built-in translation function. Overseas users need to constantly switch between translation software and platforms to reply. Supervision is also an important factor. For overseas people with freedom of speech, in order to integrate into domestic social platforms, they need to fully respect and understand local cultural beliefs and special national conditions. This aspect may seem basic, but in fact it is extremely sensitive. If you are not careful, it will lead to a reversal of public opinion.

Even if users are retained in the short term, in the long term, there will be conflicts between TikTok and Xiaohongshu. Overall, Xiaohongshu combines the visual presentation of Instagram with the community interaction function of Reddit. Its positioning is rooted in lifestyle sharing, has a significant community tone, and highlights the differentiated approach of "planting grass". It is in content and e-commerce. Achieving a balance between time and space, it also uses the aesthetic slow pace to resist the attack of traffic giants. However, TikTok’s algorithm is in the same vein as Douyin, and the information cocoon room algorithm has remarkable characteristics. Similar to other e-commerce platforms, it speeds up the commercialization process through traffic compression. The two have very different positions for the word community. Therefore, even if this wave of traffic is retained, how to resolve the positioning conflict between users, whether to be a Chinese Xiaohongshu or an international Xiaohongshu, will also be a problem that brands will need to face in the future. key strategic issues.

In fact, as early as February 2024, Xiaohongshu had made a small overseas appearance with the selling point of "listening to advice" and the transformation of amateurs. This move laid the foundation of overseas public opinion for Xiaohongshu's online utopia. Therefore, we can take the lead in this round of netizen migration.

But we have to admit that Utopia is hard to find. Walking on thin ice amid one political correctness after another, fighting to the death in the field of social public opinion, and carefully avoiding social death are the current normal conditions of social media. When the social arena becomes the arena of public opinion, control comes as expected. TikTok is not the first, nor will it be the last. If Xiaohongshu becomes the second TikTok, the long arm of the United States will surely come under its jurisdiction, and a new wave of refugee migration will begin. Social media, it seems, has become a game of whack-a-mole for law enforcement. But from this point of view, this round of social media migration, even if it is unsuccessful, has sounded the clarion call for a counterattack against power control. Political barriers will eventually be unable to resist human beings ' yearning for freedom. This may be similar to everyone’s pursuit of the encrypted world.

Back to the present, according to the data of Google Trends, although it is significantly higher than usual, the popularity of Xiaohongshu has gradually begun to decrease. Whether the climax of this wave of cultural exchanges has come to an abrupt end is still unknown to the market, but its impact is not short-lived. The impression of China on overseas people is becoming increasingly clear, and the door to cultural attraction is also opening. According to TechCrunch, influenced by the influx of American users to Xiaohongshu, Duolingo Chinese learning users increased by 216%, and the source of new users was investigated. The proportion of TikTok” options has increased significantly.

Back in the crypto space, the impact of dwindling attention spans is even more significant. The most prominent currency in the Little Red Book concept, $momo, has dropped from its highest point of US$0.015 to US$0.003, a drop of more than 80%. Its market value has dropped sharply from US$12 million to US$3.1 million. The market value of Captain Tutu has dropped from US$2 million. The dollar slipped to $58,000. A flash in the pan, it is also in line with the trend of most crypto MEMEs.

Although the golden dog dream was briefly shattered, the Chinese Internet may also become one of the MEME observation windows for crypto people. After all, the accumulation of traffic will bring emotions and attention, and in the encryption circle, where the attention is, the money will flow. What’s quite interesting is that even in the crypto circle, cultural self-confidence will show up in a different way. Local MEME is booming. Who can guarantee that the next golden dog will not be our hot meme?