Let’s talk about Little Red Book today.
These past few days, nearly the entire internet has been focused on Little Red Book. The origin of the buzz can be traced back to last Friday, January 10th. The U.S. Supreme Court began debating a potential ban on TikTok. Although the court didn’t make a ruling right away, many speculate that they will likely uphold the ban on TikTok’s divestiture. If this proves true, it may mean that TikTok will be taken down in the U.S. on January 19th, next Monday.
To put it simply, the challenges TikTok has faced have often been treated as “the wolf is coming,” with the U.S. Congress already demanding that TikTok separate from its parent company ByteDance by January 19, 2025, or face a total ban. This time, however, the wolf is right at the door. The user reaction to this ban has been significant, with many American users now looking for a TikTok alternative.
So, who can they turn to? Douyin? It’s almost impossible. Douyin has long been isolated from TikTok, and many foreign users are unaware of its existence. Additionally, you need a domestic Chinese phone number to register for Douyin. So, who’s left? Many foreign users think that Little Red Book might be a suitable alternative, as it doesn’t have the same strict requirement of a Chinese phone number for registration.
At this point, another trigger came into play. It’s said that a foreign influencer named “whattheish” posted a video on January 10th, saying, “I know where we’ll go after TikTok. I’m almost sure it will be an app called RedNote.” Other American bloggers have since chimed in, saying they’re about to move to a platform exactly like TikTok, called RedNote.
The RedNote they’re referring to is actually Little Red Book. As a result, many TikTok influencers flooded into Little Red Book overnight, calling themselves “TikTok refugees.”
By the Monday following the weekend’s developments, on January 13th, Little Red Book climbed to the second spot in the U.S. App Store and has since reached number one. According to Reuters, more than 700,000 new users joined Little Red Book in just two days before January 14th. By January 15th, Little Red Book had reached the top of the free download charts in 87 countries, including the U.S., UK, Italy, Canada, Australia, and more. If you open Little Red Book now, you’ll see a surge of foreign influencers, and most of their posts were published within the last five days.
Moreover, these foreign influencers are gaining followers rapidly. Anyone with some charm and a basic ability to speak Chinese can gain thousands of followers within a day. This is considered a rapid growth rate on Little Red Book. If they even give themselves a Chinese name, it adds even more appeal.
In addition to influencers, some foreign celebrities might also be joining. This morning, I came across posts from Mark Wahlberg, the lead actor from Transformers 4, and Kevin Bacon, the lead from Hollow Man. However, most of these celebrities have not verified their profiles, so it’s uncertain whether it’s truly them.
It’s said that because of this sudden influx of foreign traffic, Little Red Book has started working overtime to improve its review systems and is recruiting additional staff. Previously, Little Red Book didn’t have real-time translation features for English, but now they’ve reportedly set up a dedicated technical team to develop it.
So, as of January 16th, this is roughly the situation. Little Red Book has just experienced the biggest wave of overseas traffic in its history.
As for the future of TikTok, there are still uncertainties. Although a ban could theoretically take effect on January 19th, January 20th marks the day of Trump’s inauguration. Back in December 2024, Trump requested the U.S. Supreme Court to suspend the forced sale order for TikTok. He said he hoped the Court would give him time, and after being sworn in, he would resolve the issue through other means. Whether there will be any new developments after January 20th is still up in the air.
Of course, early in the TikTok ban saga, some foreign tech companies considered launching alternatives. However, these efforts didn’t go as planned. First, TikTok had the first-mover advantage, with many influencers already on the platform and unwilling to leave. Second, TikTok has ByteDance’s powerful recommendation algorithm backing it, built up over many years.
For a long time, people have been curious about who would emerge as the alternative if TikTok were banned. At the time, very few people expected that many influencers would turn to Little Red Book.
Now, returning to Little Red Book, what does this buzz mean? And what will it leave behind? To answer that, we can borrow a perspective from Mr. Liu Run. He said that whether this excitement will leave behind massive traffic or just be a fleeting event is still uncertain.
Why? There are three things to consider.
First, we need to see if these American users view Little Red Book as a TikTok replacement or a protest tool.
It’s possible some see Little Red Book as a replacement for TikTok, but it’s also possible some are thinking that since they can’t use TikTok, they’ll purposely use another foreign app, rejecting being dictated to. It’s worth noting that TikTok has an official alternative in the U.S., which is Lemon8, also produced by ByteDance. However, some influencers are concerned that since Lemon8 is from ByteDance, it might also get banned one day, leading to a second round of disruption.
But regardless of TikTok or Lemon8, they are fundamentally social platforms. Social platforms need friends—people who understand you and know you. But do these foreign influencers have any friends on Little Red Book? After the initial excitement, what will they post? Even if they share a slang joke from a U.S. state, not many people here would understand.
Over time, many influencers may return to their home country’s social media platforms, such as Instagram or YouTube Shorts. As Mr. Liu Run said, it’s in those platforms where people can truly understand their content and where their real friends are.
Therefore, from this perspective, whether these foreign influencers will stay on Little Red Book depends on whether they view it as a replacement for TikTok or just a tool for protest.
Second, Little Red Book itself is facing the pressure of incoming foreign traffic.
Apart from anything else, the time zone difference is an issue. When foreign users post content, we’re still sleeping. During this time, Little Red Book will face challenges like whether their staff is enough, whether the server maintenance team can keep up, and other review-related matters.
Third, does this mean that after the excitement, nothing will be left? Not necessarily.
After all, it’s possible that some foreign influencers might have tasted success during this surge. They might find the flow rules on Little Red Book and treat it as a new commercial platform.
In fact, some fast-reacting foreign influencers have already started figuring out the flow rules. From what we see so far, these influencers’ strategies include but are not limited to, choosing a Chinese name, praising Chinese food while complaining about Western cuisine, expressing their love for Chinese netizens, showing off their Chinese-speaking skills, and even singing Chinese songs. It’s said that one of the most liked videos right now is a foreign influencer singing “Kill the Shijiazhuang Man” by the band Wan Neng Qingnian Lǚdiàn.
Of course, many other influencers and users are still in a state of mutual confusion. Their communication is still at the level of elementary school English dialogues. You say “How are you?” and they reply “Fine, thank you, and you?”
In other words, whether this will be just a fleeting excitement or a lasting pulse of activity, or whether it will lead to sustained traffic, is still up for debate.
However, stepping back from the matter itself, there is an interesting common phenomenon. Over the past two years, many things have unexpectedly gained massive attention in surprising ways. It’s like a house where you don’t know which angle might suddenly open a window, letting in an unexpected rush of traffic.
For example, in the past two years, some hotels offering hourly room rentals have seen a surge in business. It’s not because there’s been an increase in lodging demand, but because these hotels have laundry facilities. Many people are too lazy to do laundry themselves, so they book an hourly room. Even after the time’s up, they can keep using the washing machine. Especially during seasonal changes, the demand for hourly rooms is particularly high. Furthermore, many hotels provide dryers along with washers, and the wash-and-dry service combined is more cost-effective than using a laundromat. It’s said that many hotels are now increasing their investment in laundry machines.
Another example: this winter, a type of strawberry cake packaged in enamel bowls became very popular. The packaging uses the old-fashioned yellow enamel bowls, which were originally not widely purchased, mostly being sold in small towns. However, driven by the popularity of this cake, the manufacturer’s sales skyrocketed from a few thousand yuan per day to over a hundred thousand yuan daily. It’s said that a factory in Linyi, Shandong, saw a 50-fold increase in sales of these enamel bowls in just seven days, nearly reaching a year’s worth of sales in a week.
Another case: Stanley mugs have seen high sales in the past couple of years. Stanley is an established brand abroad, but its popularity has soared recently. The cause, reportedly, is a video of a netizen who had a car accident, with the car completely burned. Surprisingly, the Stanley mug inside the car remained intact, and when opened, the ice cubes inside hadn’t even melted completely. After the video was posted online, a buying frenzy for Stanley mugs ensued.
Then there’s the case of someone live-streaming fish sales, only for the viewers to focus more on the fish-killing knife in the stream, leading the seller to pivot to selling knives instead. Another person was selling hand-woven fruit baskets, but viewers noticed a cat bed she had made in the background and decided to change her business to selling cat beds.
None of these are huge events or seem connected at first glance, but if you look at them together, you might get a subtle feeling. It’s as if the world, beyond its normal operations, has a hidden user manual. It’s as if everything in the world has a hidden function beyond its primary use, and you never know when or in what way it will be discovered. From this perspective, the opportunities in the real world might be far more abundant than we realize.
We’ll leave this topic here for now.
