“Nǐ-howdy,” a play on the standard greetings of Nǐ hǎo and howdy is one of the many responses in the comment section of Xiaohongshu, a popular Chinese social media app. The app is China's version of Instagram and has become a place of refuge for many Americans as TikTok grows more restricted for people to use in the United States.
TikTok officially shut down the app for the U.S. around 10:30 p.m. EST Saturday, which left many people in despair as they believed they would have until midnight to continue using the app. However, in the days leading up to the ban, another app appeared to answer the question of what would be next for Americans still wanting to use a similar platform.
The app's official name is Xiaohongshu, it translates to "Little Red Book" in English, leading many people to call it RedNote. The app allows people to scroll through videos and like and comment on each one, similar to TikTok. Although the majority of the app's users are Chinese and speak Mandarin, they have started to come together to welcome new users to the app.
The app was first released in 2013 under a different name but has grown to accommodate over 300 million active users, with one of the biggest surges being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, with the increase in American users, the app has maintained its position at the top of the charts and has become much more known across the globe.
Reuters reported that nearly 700,000 people had joined RedNote in two days, and the app surged in popularity in the app store, becoming the top free-to-download app.
As the app has become more flooded with American users, people are pointing out that a lot of what they have been told about China has proved to be false while Chinese users are pointing out that what they have been told about Americans appears to be true. Users are sharing photos of the prices of farmers' markets in China to compare to U.S. costs, and comments directed toward Americans include questions about whether Americans need a job to afford healthcare.
Although RedNote is similar to TikTok with its video scrolling features, the app is more about lifestyle content and has been predominantly favored by women. Users can purchase various services and share movies, upload images and write text.
The app requires users to log in before they can begin using it, and videos do not automatically play, unlike TikTok. However, it has a similar algorithm that eventually learns what the user is interested in. RedNote is not fully accessible to those who do not understand Mandarin, but the creators of the app announced that they were working to make improvements for English speakers so they could interact better with the content.
In addition to people posting videos about learning Mandarin to better understand the content on RedNote, the language-learning app Duolingo stated there has been a 216% increase in Mandarin learners since January 2025.
As of 1 p.m. EST Sunday, access to TikTok has been restored for those in the U.S.; however, the fate of the app is still up for debate. The latest news is a statement from TikTok saying they had come to an agreement with its service providers and expressed thanks to President Donald Trump.
"We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States," TikTok posted on X.
Many users are aware of the irony that Americans are abandoning TikTok for another app that is run in China, and some of them view this as a sign of resistance against the efforts of U.S. lawmakers to outlaw it. Either way, as the fate of TikTok continues to be passed around from one bill to the next, it is clear that Americans will continue to unite with those across the globe as they look for more ways to share their thoughts, opinions and life with the world.
