TikTok refugees are pouring in, Xiaohongshu becomes a gold mine for MEME

Even Xiaohongshu itself did not expect to usher in such a huge wave of wealth.

The conflict between China and the United States is intensifying, but in the Internet world, Chinese Internet companies have achieved another kind of overtaking - the TikTok war has given Xiaohongshu a rare opportunity to break out of the circle.

With the approaching of January 19, the last date of the US government's "ban or sell" for TikTok, a large number of American netizens are playing rebellion. Since the authorities are unwilling to "leak" the so-called information to China, then the mountain is not for me, I will go to the mountain. American netizens directly searched for Chinese Internet apps and insisted on sending the information out. Xiaohongshu, which has both realism and strong interaction, and can be registered and used with overseas numbers, has been listed as the number one station.

A large number of netizens rose up in the name of "TikTok refugees" and came to Xiaohongshu along the Internet cable, truly realizing the exchange and collision between cultures. On January 13, the number of downloads of Xiaohongshu soared to the top of Apple's US App Store. On the evening of the 15th, Xiaohongshu ranked first in the APP Store free rankings in 87 countries. On Xiaohongshu, the number of views of the topic labeled "#tiktokrefugee" (TikTok refugees) has skyrocketed to 460 million, with 9.37 million discussions and 360,000 notes, and it continues to rise.

This is undoubtedly an alternative and grand China-US meeting. If you open Xiaohongshu recently, you will see foreign faces and English everywhere. Some netizens jokingly call it "Xiaohongshu has become an international book." As for the influx of foreign friends, Chinese netizens also showed a very welcoming attitude, which can be seen from the sudden rise of foreign friends who made the locals envious.

On Xiaohongshu, the two sides discussed a wide range of topics. In addition to makeup techniques, dressing tips, photography and other fashion and beauty topics, there were also many ways to teach in Chinese and English, turn into homework helpers, and exchange cute pet photos. Even recently, private reconciliation has become a hot topic. The two sides began to exchange their local work salaries, rent, medical care, and childcare costs, and compared their living conditions. In one fell swoop, they uncovered the prejudices and fallacies that had been lost in the discourse of public intellectuals or some media, and returned to the truth to disenchant and remove the veil.

In addition to culture, business is also a highlight. Xiaohongshu has not yet secured wealth, and urgently hired English content reviewers in the middle of the night, but Xiaohongshu concept stocks have taken a step ahead. On January 14, Xiaohongshu concept stocks have been rising strongly since the early trading session. Yaowang Technology, Yinli Media and other stocks rose to the daily limit at the opening, and Yiwang Yichuang and Fushi Holdings rose to the daily limit of 20CM in a row; at the close, Tianxiaxiu, Huayang Lianzhong, Yaoji Technology and many other stocks all rose to the daily limit, and Blue Focus and other stocks also rose by more than 10%. On January 15, Xiaohongshu concept stocks led the concept sector with an increase of more than 8%. Until today, the Xiaohongshu concept craze is still continuing. Tianxiaxiu, Yaowang Technology, Aimu Shares, Yinli Media, and Huizhou Intelligence continue to bid to the daily limit.

Market speculation is swarming, but the target is also really fixed. When talking about finance, the crypto world, which has always pursued hot spots, will not give up easily. Since there are Xiaohongshu concept stocks, Xiaohongshu concept coins will also come into being.

The MEME army quickly marched towards Xiaohongshu, and currencies such as momo, REDnote, Captain Shu, and xiaoya emerged one after another. MOMO, the pink little dinosaur, is no stranger to Chinese Internet users. It is one of the design IPs of WeChat. When the name and avatar are not logged in on the APP, WeChat will automatically generate a MOMO account for the user. So far, as a representative of anonymous identity, MOMO has been flying across major platforms, including Xiaohongshu, Douban, and Zhihu. Before that, there was a large-scale discussion because of MOMO's anonymity and management norms in the online world.

MOMO also appears in the posts of foreign friends, and some overseas people will also ask "Who is MOMO?" It can be seen that compared with other MEMEs, the identity hiding and encryption concepts in MOMO are similar, the sense of identity is stronger, and the group effect is more significant, so it has also attracted much attention in MEME. On January 14, MOMO's market value once exceeded 12 million US dollars, ranking first among Xiaohongshu's concept coins.

Other concept coins also performed well. Captain Potato originated from Xiaohongshu's mascot. As the top streamer of Xiaohongshu, Captain Potato MEME rose to a maximum of 0.002 US dollars; and the overseas nickname REDnote's market value once reached 940,000 US dollars.

In addition to MEME, which took the lead, advertisements and implants were also not uncommon. In fact, even before Xiaohongshu became popular overseas, there were already many Crypto contents on the platform, but for regulatory reasons, both token recommendations and technical analysis were relatively conservative, and most KOLs tended to speak on the X platform, so the popularity of crypto topics was very limited. At present, Crypto content also continues this trend, but with the influx of traffic, some new Internet immigrants have also released crypto-related content, and XRP, Coinbase, MEME, wallets and other content are continuing to increase.

In the long run, due to the key variable of regulatory differences, Xiaohongshu is unlikely to become a comprehensive gathering place for crypto KOLs, and PR and traffic will be very controllable. But from the perspective of MEME, Xiaohongshu, as a community public opinion field for Chinese people to communicate, has once again taken advantage of the China-US meeting, and the probability of the appearance of the Golden Dog is inevitably greatly increased.

Of course, even without considering the crypto field, Xiaohongshu's current round of popularity may not be sustainable. It is difficult to determine whether TikTok, the primary reason, is really banned. In the current context of national indignation, coupled with the fierce period of the game between the two parties in the United States, in order to stabilize the political situation and occupy the high ground of public opinion, the government authorities may also mediate in this APP protection war with as many as 170 million American users. Just on January 15, according to two people familiar with the matter, Trump may sign an executive order that will lift the Biden administration's nationwide ban on the app on the 19th. Even if it cannot get out of this unscathed, TikTok will find it difficult to disappear completely, and it is more likely to end up with a change of ownership by a seller under some consensus.

The second is user experience and usage habits. Although the interface design is similar to TikTok, it saves a certain amount of user education costs, but from the current convenience of using Xiaohongshu overseas, user participation can also be described as cumbersome. A typical example is that Xiaohongshu does not have a partition between Chinese and American accounts, nor does it have a built-in translation function. Overseas users need to constantly switch between translation software and platforms to reply. Supervision is also an important factor. For overseas people who have freedom of speech, to integrate into domestic social platforms, they need to fully respect and understand local cultural beliefs and special national conditions. This aspect seems basic, but it is actually extremely sensitive. If you are not careful, it will lead to a reversal of public opinion.

Even if users are retained in the short term, in the long run, there is a conflict between the tone of TikTok and Xiaohongshu. Overall, Xiaohongshu combines the visual presentation of Instagram with the community interaction function of Reddit. Its positioning is rooted in lifestyle sharing, with a significant community tone, highlighting the differentiated approach of "planting grass", and achieving a balance between content and e-commerce. It also resisted the attack of traffic giants with its slow pace of aesthetics. However, TikTok's algorithm is in the same vein as Douyin, and the information cocoon algorithm has significant characteristics. Similar to other e-commerce platforms, it accelerates the commercialization process through traffic compression. The two have very different positioning for the word community. Therefore, even if this wave of traffic is retained, how to resolve the positioning conflict between users, whether to be a Chinese Xiaohongshu or an international Xiaohongshu, will also be a key strategic issue that brands need to face in the future.

In fact, as early as February 2024, Xiaohongshu had a small overseas circle with the selling point of "listening to advice" amateur transformation. This move laid the overseas public opinion foundation for Xiaohongshu's network utopia, so it can take the lead in this round of netizen migration.

But we have to admit that utopia is hard to find. Walking on thin ice in one political correctness after another, fighting desperately in the social opinion field, and carefully avoiding social death are the norms of current social media. When the social field becomes the opinion field, control will come as expected. TikTok is not the first, nor will it be the last. If Xiaohongshu becomes the second TikTok, the long arm of the United States will also govern here, and then a new wave of refugee migration will also begin. Social media, it seems, has become a game of whack-a-mole for law enforcement. But from this point of view, even if this round of social media migration is unsuccessful, it has also sounded the clarion call for a counterattack against powerful control, and political barriers can never resist the human yearning for freedom. This point may be similar to everyone's pursuit of the crypto world.

Back to the present, from the data of Google Trends, although significantly higher than the normal period, the popularity of Xiaohongshu has gradually begun to decline. Whether the climax of this wave of cultural exchange has come to an abrupt end, the market is still unknown, but the impact it has left is not short-lived. The impression of China among overseas people is becoming increasingly clear, and the door to cultural attraction is also opening. According to TechCrunch, due to the influx of American users to Xiaohongshu, Duolingo Chinese learning users surged by 216%, and the proportion of "TikTok" options in the source survey of new users increased significantly.

Back to the encryption field, the impact of the decline in attention is even more significant. $momo, the most prominent currency in the Xiaohongshu concept, has fallen from its highest point of $0.015 to $0.003, a drop of more than 80%. Its market value has dropped sharply from $12 million to $3.1 million, and the market value of Captain Potato has fallen from $2 million to $58,000. It was a flash in the pan, which is also in line with the trend of most crypto MEMEs.

Although the Golden Dog dream was briefly shattered, the Chinese Internet may also become one of the MEME observation windows for crypto people. After all, the gathering of traffic will bring emotions and attention, and in the crypto circle, where the attention is, the money will flow. It is quite interesting that cultural confidence will be presented in an alternative way even in the crypto circle. Local MEME is booming. Who can guarantee that the next Golden Dog will not be our hot topic?