- TikTok might get banned except it’s bought to a non-Chinese language proprietor. TikTok has mentioned they won’t try this, thus the app may shut down on January nineteenth.
- Many TikTok customers have migrated to Xiaohongshu (Crimson Observe), one other Chinese language social media app, unrelated to TikTok.
- Xiaohongshu is primarily catered to Chinese language-speaking nationals, thus a lot of the content material is about issues in China, together with Chinese language-market EVs.
Common Chinese language-owned social media app TikTok appears prone to be banned by the U.S. authorities quickly, however true to their ironic and barely spiteful aura, Gen Z’ers and millennials aren’t taking it mendacity down.
Nationwide safety considerations aren’t sufficient to sway America’s TikTokers from becoming a member of one other Chinese language-operated app: Xiaohongshu, generally known as Crimson Observe. Some would say that these youngsters have gone from the frying pan and proper into the hearth—leaving the semi-walled backyard that was TikTok and immediately right into a China-controlled and oriented app whose identify actually interprets to “Little Crimson E book.”
However the sardonic and if considerably nonsensical humor of American TikTokers is meshing fairly effectively with the brainrot-meme-posting mainland Chinese language customers. It is additionally letting common Individuals peer behind the scenes and get at the least a glimpse of what’s occurring in China, which matches past simply meals, dancing, or memes; it even consists of China’s extremely superior electrical automobiles.
Now, a couple of regular, non-car fanatic Individuals are getting a style of what they drive in China, they usually need extra.
Take this video posted to TikTok, for instance. A lady was lurking on Crimson Observe/Xiaohongshu and realized in regards to the BYD Dolphin.
“They promote it in pink, it’s like $15,000. Which is inexpensive, so inexpensive. And it has so many options,” she says. By the tip of the two-minute-long video, she’s fairly disillusioned at the truth that she will be able to’t purchase a Dolphin in america, because of U.S. tariffs on Chinese language-made EVs.
“We mainly have merchandise made, that we don’t have entry to, that we don’t even notice we don’t have entry to, which can be truly tremendous inexpensive and tremendous good, however we are able to’t have them,” she mentioned.
Some are extra humorous and rather less bitter grapes than others, like this video from RaphaelMontes. It does a fast overview of a number of the larger hits in China just like the Yangwang U8 or Xiaomi SU7, interjected with the Bing Chilling John Cena meme.
To be honest, this was considerably of a pattern even earlier than Individuals determined to semi-ironically invade Rednote/Xiaohongshu. On TikTok, it wasn’t unusual for “edits” of Chinese language automobiles to go viral. For individuals who aren’t within the know, an “edit” is glamourized and trendy footage of Chinese language EVs clipped collectively, often to a well-liked tune, aimed toward going viral. These movies would typically be swarmed with feedback of people who find themselves excited in regards to the automobiles themselves, however as soon as once more, are let down once they study they will’t be bought within the U.S. with out extreme tariffs. Or, presumably in any respect, in accordance with the brand new guidelines set for Chinese language-operated linked automobiles.
It’s not clear what precisely will occur with Individuals on Xiaohongshu, or with the tariffs on China’s EVs. There’s been an emergency invoice drafted to delay the Jan. 19 TikTok sale (or ban) for 270 days, it’s not clear if that may go. However the cat may simply be out of the bag right here, there could also be an actual likelihood that extra Individuals will change into conscious simply precisely what’s occurring on the opposite facet of the world, and what they is likely to be lacking.
It is like she says within the first video: “America’s free and honest commerce for everybody? Capitalism? [But] we won’t promote this automotive as a result of it is Chinese language… there are merchandise being made that we do not have entry to which can be tremendous inexpensive and tremendous good.”
Since Chinese language social media does not appear to be going anyplace, anticipate extra Individuals to be saying that quickly.
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