About

Rednote or Xiaohongshu is a Chinese social networking and e-commerce app headquartered in Shanghai that's often likened to Instagram or Pinterest. The app was founded in 2013 and has since gathered a large user base of predominantly female urban Chinese users. The photo-based app also has video-sharing and livestreaming features. After news about the U.S. government possibly banning TikTok began making the rounds in January 2025, several American TikTok users migrated to Rednote, calling themselves TikTok refugees, as the app began garnering virality online as a possible alternative to TikTok. Rednote notably became the most downloaded app on the U.S. App Store on January 13th, 2025.

History

Xiaohongshu was founded in 2013 as an online e-commerce and review site by Chief Executive Charlwin Mao, a former Bain consultant and Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus, and President Miranda Qu, who previously worked at German media conglomerate Bertelsmann.^[1]

The site initially garnered a 90 percent female user base due to its early focus on fashion and beauty trends. In its early years, the app was focused on connecting Chinese consumers with global retailers, entering partnerships with brands like Marc Jacobs and Sephora to supply authenticated goods to its users.

Xiaohongshu saw an increase in users over the COVID-19 pandemic, with urban Chinese women viewing the app as an alternative to Instagram, which is blocked in the country. In 2021, the app announced that it would begin courting more male user content to counteract this imbalance.^[2]

Features

The key features of Xiaohongshu, also known as Rednote, are user-generated content, e-commerce integration and influencer marketing. Rednote users are encouraged to give each other recommendations on products, dining, travel and lifestyle. For example, a series of viral Xiaohongshu posts made by a Danish-Chinese couple about the German town of Düsseldorf encouraged several diasporic Chinese residents in Europe to travel to the destination for Chinese comfort food and regional specialties.^[5]

Integrated e-commerce features on Xiaohongshu allow users to buy products directly from the app and receive recommendations geared for them through the app's personalized algorithm.

E-commerce integration on Rednote often works alongside influencer marketing, as shown by Kim Kardashian, who made a Xiaohongshu account to promote her KKW fragrance line in 2018.

Online Presence

2025 #TikTokRefugee Discussions

In January 2025, worries about TikTok possibly being banned in the U.S. led many American users to download Xiaohongshu as a possible alternative to the video-sharing site. It became the most downloaded free social media app on the App Store on January 13th and led to the hashtag "#TikTokRefugee" trending on social media.^[3]

On January 13th, 2025, a tweet about Rednote topping the U.S. iOS App Store by the X / Twitter account @PopBase gathered over 169,000 likes in a day.

Several new Rednote users also began sharing the comments they received on their posts, including Chinese people asking for help with their English homework and jokingly referring to themselves as spies. The replies to a thread on the subreddit^[4] /r/FauxMoi documented many such comments.

However, some internet users clarified that Xiaohongshu (XHS) is known as the "rich kid Instagram app" in China and is unlikely to bring "class consciousness" to the American people. X^[6] user @GMomurder's January 13th post referencing this gathered over 12,000 likes in a day.

On January 14th, 2025, Redditor winkysocks21 posted a meme to the /r/dankmemes^[7] subreddit mocking TikTok users flocking to Rednote amid the phenomenon, receiving over 270 upvotes and 10 comments in three hours.

Related Memes

White People Food (白人饭)

White People Food (Mandarin 白人饭, pronounced "báirén fàn," which translates to "white people food") or Lunch of Suffering refers to a general trend from the spring of 2023 in which Chinese social media users mock bare and mildly flavored lunches stereotypically associated with white people, such as crackers and deli meat or vegetables and sandwiches without dressing. Commentaries from Chinese social media users on sites such as Weibo and Xiaohongshu amused many Western social media users as it spread online in June 2023 who typically tended to take the mockery of their food in good humor.

You Swan, He Frog

You Swan, He Frog or You Pretty, He Ugly, U Swan, He Frog is an Engrish catchphrase used to call one person beautiful (swan) and another ugly (frog). The phrase, which is a play on the Chinese allegory, "a toad wishing to eat swan meat," was popularized online in August 2024 after an X / Twitter user posted a screenshot of a user on the Chinese blog Xiaohongshu commenting with the phrase in response to a photo of blogger YourKris and her boyfriend parting ways at the airport. The phrase became the subject of memes that month, in which it is posted alongside photos of couples in which one person is more attractive than the other, or more literally, where one resembles a frog and the other does not.

Search Interest

External References