Written by | Wen Yehao

Edited by | Wu Xianzhi

"I'm a TikTok Refugee. If you teach me Chinese, I'll help with your English homework." "I'm American, thank you for accepting us. Although I can't understand your text, I can feel your kindness."

Recently, such self-descriptions have become common on Xiaohongshu. Users calling themselves "TikTok Refugees" with IPs primarily from the United States have collectively flocked to this Chinese social platform.

External analysis suggests that the direct reason is TikTok's survival dilemma in the US. If TikTok is forcibly shut down or sold, US users may lose their accumulated fans and self-expression space.

As the deadline looms, some rebellious users have chosen to leave, unexpectedly propelling Xiaohongshu to the top of the US App Store's free app chart. Xiaohongshu seems to have become their promised land, much like Moses leading the Hebrews through the Red Sea.

In the public's perception, Xiaohongshu has always been associated with "grass-planting" (recommending products), "petite bourgeoisie," and "life sharing." The adaptable overseas "refugees" have adapted to this trend by showcasing pets, fashion, discussing beauty, or practicing language with Chinese users.

In this "soft landing" scenario, the "refugees" and "natives" observe and adapt to each other, giving rise to numerous "performance arts." This interaction begins to dissolve the distant "other" identity, conjuring up an ideal vision of the internet amidst today's noisy context.

On one side are American users flooding into Chinese social platforms with a playful and resistant mindset, and on the other is Xiaohongshu trying to capitalize on this unexpected opportunity. Whether the two can "integrate" remains uncertain. However, what is certain is that amidst TikTok's sudden changes, this "collective airlift" of American users has not only made the outside world view Xiaohongshu from a new perspective but has also prompted the platform to re-examine its product mechanisms, content operations, and overseas prospects.

However, this sudden influx brings challenges.

Why Xiaohongshu?

This is the question many ask after this "refugee tide." When TikTok faces restrictions, why do overseas users turn to Xiaohongshu instead of returning to local social platforms or choosing homologous platforms like Lemon8 or Douyin? This is indeed puzzling, and perhaps even Xiaohongshu itself hasn't figured it out.

However, reviewing it retrospectively, it is likely the result of multiple factors working together.

Firstly, Xiaohongshu was initially an overseas shopping platform focused on shopping guides. To facilitate cross-border shopping and student registration, it didn't set rigid thresholds like binding domestic mobile phone numbers or partitioned servers for different countries. This allows American users to directly download and install the app from the local app store and log in immediately.

Secondly, these overseas creators are unwilling to return to Instagram or X (formerly Twitter) not due to a lack of technology or algorithmic capabilities on the latter platforms, but rather due to the strong resistance and rebellious mindset of users after the US Supreme Court's tough stance. Since TikTok is considered a "foreign threat," it's better to "vote with their feet" and go to a more "pure" Chinese platform.

Against this backdrop, Xiaohongshu's bright red logo and purely local background inadvertently cater to this ironic choice. While Lemon8 might seem like a closer "substitute" for TikTok users within the same ecosystem, it also harbors a high risk of being "taken down all at once." Xiaohongshu appears much more stable.

Additionally, Xiaohongshu's relatively gentle community atmosphere provides a soft transition zone for newly arrived overseas users.

Looking at the current interaction between domestic and overseas users, the tone is mostly inclusive and gentle. Domestic users are generally curious about the daily lives of American bloggers, offering comfort and encouragement through machine translation or bilingual methods, or even sharing language learning experiences. This "soft landing" atmosphere has allowed many newly arrived "refugees" to accumulate considerable attention in a short period.

However, various objective factors and the current warm atmosphere do not mean that Xiaohongshu has truly opened up the American market.

The surge to the top of the App Store's free chart is mainly due to a short-term surge in "first-time downloads." For most Americans, apps like Instagram and X are already installed and won't contribute to repeated download data. Xiaohongshu, on the other hand, is relatively unfamiliar in the local market. Once a "viral" topic effect is formed, just a certain scale of initial installations can bring about a rapid surge in rankings.

In other words, the so-called refugee tide is, in a sense, a product of confusing "first-time downloads" with "long-term retention." Many overseas users may hold the mindset of "having a Plan B in case TikTok shuts down" and may not necessarily engage deeply in posting and operating.

Furthermore, Xiaohongshu's recommendation algorithm has, to a certain extent, amplified the perception of "screens full of refugees." Several Xiaohongshu users told Guangzi Planet that interacting with a "refugee" note likely floods their homepage with similar content, reinforcing the impression of "screens full of foreigners." As a result, many users who have grown tired of it have to repeatedly click "not interested."

This means that, in the algorithm logic of "thousands of faces," some may feel like they have instantly entered an "English corner." In reality, the proportion of overseas users is not large enough to completely change the platform's content ecosystem.

Therefore, this sudden change can be seen more as a "dramatic moment" that Xiaohongshu has caught up with, rather than a proactive layout. How Xiaohongshu, which has been "chosen" by this wave of traffic, will respond has become an important issue for its future.

What Falls into the Bag is Not the "Refugee Business"

What do the swarming "TikTok Refugees" really mean for Xiaohongshu?

On the surface, Xiaohongshu seems to have received a full "influx of traffic," soaring to the top of the US download chart at one point. However, as the buzzword "Rednote/xhs" spreads on social networks, many essential issues have also surfaced.

Firstly, Xiaohongshu has almost no prior preparation at the technical and product levels to welcome and accommodate "refugees." As a domestic social platform, Xiaohongshu has always focused on Chinese interaction and content sharing, lacking built-in translation functions and not making corresponding upgrades for multi-language content distribution.

This means that this "infusion" growth was not deliberately facilitated by Xiaohongshu. Without large-scale international promotion, it was suddenly pushed to the center of the "globalization" vortex.

Unlike TikTok, which has a widespread commercial presence globally, Xiaohongshu's commercialization is more centered around the domestic market. Whether it's the e-commerce scenarios discovered in recent years or placements by brands or merchants, the consumer base is centered on local users, lacking overseas e-commerce, advertising revenue sharing systems, and directly implementable "cross-border monetization" tools.

This makes it difficult for overseas users to achieve high monetization through commercial conversion on Xiaohongshu as they can on TikTok. Without significant revenue growth, the so-called "refugees" may lack the motivation to continue cultivating the platform. After all, fleeing to Xiaohongshu was originally a form of "venting."

Additionally, there is still uncertainty about TikTok's ultimate direction in the US market. If it is ultimately retained, the "refugees" will also return in full.

Therefore, for Xiaohongshu, whether to truly accommodate this batch of overseas users is crucial. After all, this may be a rare opportunity for it to "continue to set out" after years of unsuccessful overseas incubation.

If it chooses to delve deeper, it must pay a considerable cost of transformation, such as launching one-click translation or improving the commercial cooperation mechanism for overseas creators. But this series of actions also corresponds to greater compliance and operational pressures. As such, according to media reports, there is no consensus within Xiaohongshu on how to deal with this "sudden wealth."

Based on this, for Xiaohongshu, the most practical "benefit" of this current upsurge may not come from overseas but rather from within China.

The influx of overseas users has made Xiaohongshu the perfect field for various brands and products to market overseas. Many internet and game vendors have immediately sensed the heat.

Companies like NetEase and Tencent's TiMi Studio are using all-English posts to "brush up their popularity" on Xiaohongshu. Even if they fail to capture too many overseas users, they can still ride the "refugee tide" trend to garner attention from the domestic crowd through intriguing marketing. This means that Xiaohongshu's already impressive marketing value is being further amplified by the arrival of "refugees."

Even more valuable is that this phenomenal hotspot has allowed Xiaohongshu to gain a large number of onlooker users and media exposure within China, bringing natural marketing to itself. Compared to whether overseas users can stay, gaining a louder echo in local public opinion and thereby acquiring incremental users beyond its original customer base may be a more pragmatic and realistic revenue point.

Attracting new users has always been a painstaking endeavor for internet players. According to media reports, Xiaohongshu set a goal of exceeding 140 million DAU within 2023 but did not achieve this goal as scheduled.

Although Xiaohongshu has not yet announced the latest DAU data, it still has considerable room for improvement compared to Kuaishou's 400 million DAU in the third quarter and Douyin's 700 million DAU. Therefore, the assessment of user growth may still hang over its head.

Xiaohongshu has been expanding its user boundaries and trying to make the community more diverse. After its cooperation with the Spring Festival Gala last year, it renewed its contract with the Gala this year or "poached" talent from Baidu for search, all of which have played a role in attracting new users to a certain extent, but none have become a phenomenal breakout like this round of the "refugee tide."

Now that a large number of overseas users have "occupied" Xiaohongshu, it has naturally attracted the attention of groups that were originally not concerned about traditional tags such as beauty, fashion, and travel guides. When users who do not yet belong to Xiaohongshu see topics about "Xiaohongshu being occupied by foreigners" on platforms like Zhihu, Weibo, and Bilibili, they will always come to watch out of curiosity. Xiaohongshu has completed a wide-ranging "secondary breakout" in China without much effort - while topping the charts overseas, Xiaohongshu has also squeezed into the top five of the domestic App Store's free chart.

And as time goes by, even if the "refugee tide" eventually recedes, some of the domestic users who came because of it will stay on Xiaohongshu. Therefore, although the retention rate of American or other overseas users is still unknown in terms of numbers, the topics they create are indeed fermenting in the domestic market. For Xiaohongshu, this more certain increase in user volume may be the value that can be more securely pocketed.

Therefore, Xiaohongshu is more likely to treat this incident as an "opportunity" to consolidate its popularity in the domestic public opinion field with minor changes (such as adding basic translation functions, optimizing overseas registration processes). This will make more people realize that "Xiaohongshu can actually do more things," thereby expanding domestic demand, enriching the user structure, and waiting for changes in the overseas situation.

However, while the value of this round of breakouts is being realized, the accompanying problems and concerns still exist.

Conclusion

Faced with the sudden influx of traffic, the sword of Damocles hanging overhead may be another reason why Xiaohongshu is repeatedly deliberating internally.

As a domestic content platform, Xiaohongshu is naturally adapted to the domestic regulatory system, and its content review is mainly aimed at the Chinese market. Now, with the sudden influx of a large amount of English content, its review costs and difficulties have increased sharply.

If it's just images, texts, or videos, Xiaohongshu can still set up defenses before content is published. But once live streaming scenarios are involved, the risks double. Taking the social platform Soul as an example, it once supported cross-border live voice chat, but now the relevant functions have been closed.

Regardless of the solution or direction, Xiaohongshu has been pushed to the center of the table, and it needs to decide whether to accept these "uninvited guests."

It remains uncertain whether the current prosperity will endure in the long term or serve as a harbinger of a new dawn. Furthermore, no one can assure that this group of seasoned "refugees" will not depart en masse one morning. However, one thing is certain: all stakeholders are strategizing their "next move." This upheaval may prove to be merely a fleeting stir, or it could herald a significant transformation. For Xiaohongshu, which has been thrust into the spotlight, reaping the benefits while navigating this turmoil, finding a secure exit strategy appears to be imperative.