Shuang is hooked on an app that many of its followers believe ironically adopted the name of a popular red-covered book full of doctrinal quotes from the founding father of communist China. But if Mao Zedong were to come back to life, he probably wouldn't find it amusing what he would see on Xiaohongshu: an ode to capitalism. Hundreds of thousands of videos of young Chinese people encouraging consumption, travel, and reading; a small liberal oasis in the midst of a sea of conservative and censored applications.
Xiaohongshu means "little red book", but it represents the opposite of the sober proclamations focused on austerity that Mao used to make in his parish newsletter. On this platform, Shuang, who is one of the 300 million users, can find reflections on Marxism-Leninism and laments about how modern China has succumbed to Western vices. But this 29-year-old woman living in Shanghai, like most on an app dominated by women, consumes content related to restaurants, travel, cosmetics, and clothing.
Shuang says she mainly uses Xiaohongshu to find restaurant recommendations in Shanghai. When she travels, whether within China or abroad, the app becomes her personal guide because it is full of posts with tips from experienced Chinese travelers.
She also compulsively uses it to buy clothes: within this social network, there is a huge space for the multibillion-dollar e-commerce industry and live broadcasts. It's like a kind of teleshopping where popular streamers with millions of followers are hired by brands to sell all kinds of products.
When Xiaohongshu started to dominate in China as the most popular app among urban Millennial and Generation Z middle and upper class, it caught the attention of some Western analysts, who described the application as a mix of Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and Tripadvisor.
This week, international focus has shifted to this Chinese platform after Xiaohongshu surprisingly took the number one spot among the most downloaded social networks in the Apple stores in the United States. This has been interpreted as a "revenge" by TikTok users against their country's crusade against the popular short video app that seems to be on its last legs in the American network.
On January 19, a bipartisan law banning TikTok in the US app stores will come into effect. This is imminent unless the Supreme Court halts the law after hearing arguments from TikTok's lawyers during the recent hearings.
On Tuesday, several US media outlets reported on the unexpected "exodus" of tiktokers to Xiaohongshu. They told the story of an influencer, Nuha, with over 1.5 million followers on TikTok, who called on her audience to move to the platform.
"Hi, guys, I'm a TikTok refugee. I'm very nervous to be on this app, but I also find it very exciting that we are all doing this. I feel sad that TikTok could really disappear, but if this is where we are going to hang out, welcome to my profile," Nuha said in her first video on Xiaohongshu on Sunday.
In her second post, the influencer shared a tutorial on how to create an account on a Chinese platform based in Shanghai and founded in 2013 by two entrepreneurs, Charlwin Mao and Miranda Qu - current CEO - who launched the app as a network for Chinese netizens to share snippets of their lives.
In some interviews, the founders have stated that the name, despite the coincidence with Mao's book, actually comes from the predominant red color at Stanford University in California, where one of them pursued an MBA.
Xiaohongshu has also grown thanks to the support of strong Chinese investors such as the tech giants, Tencent and Alibaba. The platform recently explained that 50% of its followers are between 15 and 28 years old, and over 70% are women.