TikTok ban, migration to RedNote & changing sentiments about the Chinese people

As you probably know, the TikTok ban is looming. Because of this, US TikTok users are “migrating” to RedNote, aka Xiaohongshu — a Chinese social media app, mainly used by Chinese netizens previously (before today/yesterday…). This app has risen to #1 in the US App Store now.

With the masses of Americans joining RedNote, Chinese users and Americans are now able to interact with each other’s content. With this, many Americans are realizing….. Chinese people are just people like us…. while it’s sad that it takes this for some Americans to realize that, this is obviously a result of the incessant anti-China and sinophobic propaganda pushed by the US government for decades. There are generations of young Americans who have never lived during a period where China wasn’t an ENEMY to the US.

There are a ton of videos, tweets, posts, everywhere of Chinese and American people interacting with each other on the app — and both sides are happy to learn more about the other.

I’ve also seen a variety of posts from Americans specifically that are saying “I can’t believe they’re just like us” and realizing that “Chinese are ‘real people’” etc.

It’s really a striking note of how the US government propaganda has been absorbed by Americans, at the least, on a subconscious note. This is a very interesting shift and I am interested to see what is next. I would guess unfortunately that some other type of ban may come and it won’t last long but people are beginning to realize and separate the Chinese people and the Chinese government.

I feel that this could be a good (very small) step toward (very very slowly) backtracking on some of the Sinophobia the US government has pushed so hard for decades, or at least a nice small blip of hope. I don’t expect it to last too long frankly due to both governments probably placing restrictions soon.

As a Chinese American, this is important to me.