- TikTok might get banned except it’s bought to a non-Chinese language proprietor. TikTok has mentioned they won’t do this, thus the app may shut down on January nineteenth.
- Many TikTok customers have migrated to Xiaohongshu (Purple Observe), one other Chinese language social media app, unrelated to TikTok.
- Xiaohongshu is primarily catered to Chinese language-speaking nationals, thus many of the content material is about issues in China, together with Chinese language-market EVs.
Standard 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 referred to as Purple Observe. Some would say that these youngsters have gone from the frying pan and proper into the fireplace—leaving the semi-walled backyard that was TikTok and instantly right into a China-controlled and oriented app whose title actually interprets to “Little Purple Ebook.”
However the sardonic and if considerably nonsensical humor of American TikTokers is meshing fairly properly with the brainrot-meme-posting mainland Chinese language customers. It is additionally letting common People peer behind the scenes and get at the very least a glimpse of what’s occurring in China, which works past simply meals, dancing, or memes; it even consists of China’s extremely superior electrical automobiles.
Now, a number of regular, non-car fanatic People are getting a style of what they drive in China, and so they need extra.
Take this video posted to TikTok, for instance. A girl was lurking on Purple Observe/Xiaohongshu and discovered concerning the BYD Dolphin.
“They promote it in pink, it’s like $15,000. Which is reasonably priced, so reasonably priced. And it has so many options,” she says. By the top of the two-minute-long video, she’s fairly disillusioned at the truth that she will’t purchase a Dolphin in america, as a consequence of U.S. tariffs on Chinese language-made EVs.
“We principally 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 reasonably priced and tremendous good, however we will’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 among the greater 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 People 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 classy footage of Chinese language EVs clipped collectively, normally to a preferred track, geared toward going viral. These movies would typically be swarmed with feedback of people who find themselves excited concerning the automobiles themselves, however as soon as once more, are let down once they study they’ll’t be bought within the U.S. with out extreme tariffs. Or, probably in any respect, in response to the brand new guidelines set for Chinese language-operated linked automobiles.
It’s not clear what precisely will occur with People 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 can move. However the cat may simply be out of the bag right here, there could also be an actual probability that extra People will turn into conscious simply precisely what’s taking place on the opposite facet of the world, and what they is perhaps 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 automobile as a result of it is Chinese language… there are merchandise being made that we do not have entry to which can be tremendous reasonably priced and tremendous good.”
Since Chinese language social media does not appear to be going wherever, count on extra People to be saying that quickly.
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