What is happening:
Due to massive grassroots backlash to the looming TikTok ban in the US, millions of users are currently creating accounts on Xiaohongshu aka “Little Red Book”. It is currently the top trending app in the Apple App Store.
Why it is special:
This is truly an unprecedented development. Never have regular American and Chinese netizens had the ability to mingle so freely. Even more unprecedented is the fact that most of this early conversation will be regarding backlash to the US itself. This presents us with an opportunity to appeal to a large swath of (mostly young) Americans at the same time.
What the goal is:
We have recently had several chats on this site about how to actually turn posting/effortposting into something positive. Several ideas have been floated regarding Agitprop and how to encourage the creation of engaging content, and many people agreed on the idea of Agitprop contests. That is what we will be trying to do here for the first time ever.
The contest/rules are quite loose here and definitely open to change, so feel free to give your input:
‼️In an effort to help shepard the rapidly growing disgruntled and pliable new English speaking audience on Xiaohongshu, the leftist post or comment for English speakers on Xiaohongshu that garners the most interactions before January 19th at 5PM GMT will be featured on c/agitprop.‼️
Simply submit by linking the post or comment in the replies of this post. Please try to include some kind of watermark that identifies it as a Hexbear user. Ideally if you can link back here we can foster a few new users as well. Good luck my fellow posters
As of now there are no submissions, so if you’d like to participate just comment a link to your post! Of course, feel free to reuse your own Hexbear posts, and if you want to use somebody else’s post reach out and ask permission first.
Eh, looking into it the Mao book was "红宝书" but the app is "小红书" (disclaimer I speak zero Mandarin)
Either way reactionary yank news WILL make the connection and it will be hilarious to watch
Comments by Chinese on the app are all saying that it is directly translated as Little Red Book. It’s just called RedNote in the western app stores to be more palatable I guess.
The app is absolutely named after Mao’s little red book lol. But it’s not supposed to be disrespectful, more of an endearing reference I think
Link doesn’t work for me. But in Chinese culture allusions/references are used all the time, either openly or obliquely. The little red book isn’t seen as some sacred text among the general populace, but is something that was a cultural and social touchstone. Of course they wouldn’t invite trouble by saying it’s named after it, but such an obvious reference is very unlikely to be accidental. Revolutionary imagery and slogans are used all the time in commercial settings in China, often with a lightly humorous touch.
It’s not really a shopping app. It’s like if Instagram had a section where you could shop. TikTok had one too
Already looking forward to the Congressional hearings