For TikTok Refugees, a Wry Welcome on a Chinese App
AMANDA HESS一位小红书网红发布了一段视频，回应美国新用户的评论，其中大多数人都试图和他调情。高源KaikoAs a TikTok ban looms, hundreds of thousands of Americans casting about for a new video-sharing app have migrated to Xiaohongshu, a social media platform that translates as “Little Red Book,” the American nickname for a classic compendium of quotations from Chairman Mao. It has all played out like a global practical joke on the American government: Threatened with exile from TikTok over concerns of Chinese interference, its users have simply scrolled to a different Chinese app, one whose name evokes the Chinese Communist Party.由于TikTok禁令迫在眉睫，成千上万寻找新视频共享应用程序的美国人转而使用小红书，这个平台的名称是美国人对毛主席语录经典汇编的昵称。这一切就像全世界对美国政府开的一个玩笑：由于担心中国的干预，TikTok用户被威胁要遭到流放，但他们只是去了另一个中国应用程序，它连名字都让人联想到中国共产党。When I downloaded Xiaohongshu, widely called RedNote, it was ranked first among free apps in Apple’s U.S. App Store. (The second was Lemon8, another Chinese TikTok alternative owned by TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance.) I surrendered my phone number, reported my gender and ticked off some of my interests: baby care, calligraphy, snacks. Then I absorbed a selection of the app’s algorithmically selected videos: A girl in a lace veil eating an ice pop the size of her head; a woman preparing dinner in the back seat of a minicar lined with animal plushies; a stirring fan edit of Luigi Mangione court appearances.当我下载小红书时，它在苹果美国应用程序商店的免费应用程序中排名第一。（第二名是Lemon8，它是TikTok母公司字节跳动旗下的另一款TikTok替代品。）我交出了我的电话号码，报出了我的性别，并勾选了我的一些兴趣爱好：婴儿护理、书法、零食。然后，我观看了该应用根据算法推荐的视频：一个戴着蕾丝面纱的女孩吃着和她的头一样大的冰棒；一个女人在一辆摆满动物毛绒玩具的迷你车后座上准备晚餐；一个粉丝剪辑的路易吉·曼乔内出庭的煽情视频。Soon I started to see videos pitched directly at me — welcome notes created for the American TikTok user who recently arrived on RedNote’s shores.很快，我就开始看到一些为我定制的视频——为最近来到小红书的美国TikTok用户制作的欢迎说明。Inside the world of Xiaohongshu, the Americans downloading the app en masse have been branded “TikTok refugees.” Its existing Chinese users have jokingly advertised themselves as the Americans’ “new Chinese spies,” started administering Mandarin lessons and formed in-app group chats for “refugees” to get the lay of the land. They have warned that they intend to collect a tax from foreign users (the price tag: You must share a picture of a cat).在小红书的世界里，大量下载该应用的美国人被称为“TikTok难民”。中国用户戏称自己是美国人“新的中国间谍”，开始教他们普通话，并在应用内为“难民”建立群聊，以便他们了解那里的情况。他们警告说，他们打算向外国用户征税（价格标签：必须分享一张猫的照片）。It’s all a wry commentary on the U.S. government’s crackdown on TikTok, and the relative ease with which users can simply regenerate a similar experience on some other Chinese platform. Together, Chinese power users and American newbies are spontaneously performing a mocking burlesque of national security policy.这是对美国政府打击TikTok的诙谐评论，也表明用户多么容易就可以在其他中国平台上获得类似体验。中国的强大用户和美国的新来者们一起，自发地表演了一场对国家安全政策的嘲弄。For TikTok users, the decision to banish TikTok specifically from American phones can seem silly. Over the past several years, lawmakers have blamed the app for everything from failing to uphold “American values” to promoting pro-Palestinian content among American youth. As if American-owned social media companies like Meta have never sought to mine and exploit sensitive data. As if American-owned platforms like X would never juice their algorithms to reward certain political ideas.对于TikTok用户来说，在美国手机上禁止使用该平台的决定似乎很愚蠢。过去几年里，立法者们用各种问题大肆指责该应用，从未能坚持“美国价值观”，到在美国年轻人中传播支持巴勒斯坦的内容。就好像Meta等美资社交媒体公司从未试图挖掘和利用敏感数据，X这样的美资平台从来没有通过调整算法来奖励某些政治观点似的。But of course, it is the nature of social media to make an impersonal tech product feel intimate, while its hidden costs (and threats) remain remote and unimaginable. It makes it hard to be sure what’s really going on in the back end.当然，社交媒体的本质就是让不带个人色彩的科技产品变得亲切，而其隐藏的成本（和威胁）却并非一目了然，是用户难以想象的。人们很难确定应用后端到底在发生什么。If the TikTok ban succeeds, and Americans are on Xiaohongshu to stay, they may come to dominate its culture, water down its appeal, ruin its vibe. But for the time being, they are visitors in a foreign land, struggling to read Mandarin instructions and navigate the app’s unfamiliar pathways.如果TikTok禁令生效，美国人继续留在小红书，他们可能会主导小红书的文化，削弱它的吸引力，破坏它的氛围。但就目前而言，他们只是异国的访客，困难地阅读中文说明，摸索这个平台中陌生的路径。The platform, which is owned by a Shanghai-based company called Xingyin Information Technology, is aglow with a giddy exchange-program feeling. On Wednesday, I encountered a little boy in a fuzzy pink sweater explaining (and modeling) a rack of Chinese traditional clothing, and a sweatshirt-wearing bro warning us not to show our butts or say anything racist, and an adorable influencer who posted a video responding to “comments from TikTok refugees,” most of them attempting to flirt with him. (One asked him how to say “daddy” in Mandarin.) The cat-meme tax is a nice touch, a signal that RedNote users are eager to communicate with Americans through our shared ancient internet language.小红书由上海一家名为行吟信息科技的公司所有，充满一种文化交流项目之感，令人眼花缭乱。周三，我刷到一个穿着毛茸茸粉色毛衣的小男孩，他正在解释（并展示）一架子的中国传统服饰；还有一个穿着运动衫的老兄，他警告我们不要露出屁股或说种族歧视的话；还有一个可爱的网红，他发布了一段视频，回应“来自TikTok难民的评论”，其中大部分评论都试图和他调情。（有一条评论问他如何用普通话说“爸爸”。）猫咪米姆税是一个巧妙的细节，是小红书用户渴望通过我们共同的古老网络语言与美国人交流的信号。One of my favorite videos came from a Chinese user, a teacher of the English language, who also does a decent impression of Donald J. Trump — and who is now teaching English speakers how to say “America” in Mandarin in a Trumpian voice. The video pokes fun at Trump’s consistently bizarre pronunciation of “China” and implies that perhaps it’s time to give America the same treatment.我最喜欢的视频之一来自一位中国用户，他是一名英语教师，还像模像样地模仿了唐纳德·特朗普，现在他正在教英语使用者如何用特朗普式的声音，用普通话说“美国”。这段视频嘲笑了特朗普一直以来对“中国”一词的怪异发音，并暗示也许是时候让“美国”也享受同样待遇了。Xiaohongshu has provided a rare glimpse of a Chinese perspective on America, generously translated and packaged for American consumption. The glow of our digital vacation may come to an end soon, but it was worth the picture of the cat.小红书提供了难得一见的中国人看美国的视角，经过精心翻译并包装成适合美国人消费的形式。我们这个数字假期的光芒可能很快就会消散，但这一切值得交出猫咪照片。
