People In China Are Welcoming American "TikTok Refugees" To RedNote With Some Incredible Memes

People in China are welcoming American "TikTok Refugees" to RedNote, and here are some of the best memes that have come out of this chaotic saga.

It all began in January 2025. As a possible TikTok ban loomed in the US, many Americans began looking for alternatives to TikTok.

In protest, they decided to turn to their "Chinese spy friend", social media app Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote.

This "reverse Great Firewall" movement vaulted RedNote, the Chinese version of Instagram, to #1 on the US App Store, with more than three million downloads in the US alone.

As Americans flocked to the app, Chinese people started joking that RedNote had become "morning C, evening A", as C – Chinese – users dominate in the morning and A – American – users take over at night.

This joke is based on a common Chinese phrase recommending people use products containing Vitamin C in the morning and Vitamin A at night, or as another user put it, "Coffee in the morning, and Alcohol at night."

Chinese users began asking Americans for help on their English homework, while Americans asked Chinese people to help them solve their math problems.

Meanwhile, many newly arrived American users discovered the secret to gaining popularity on the app — by posting pictures of their cats in what became a trend called "paying cat tax."

Both sides also experienced culture shock, with Americans teaching their new Chinese friends that they could form a union or even protest in the streets if they weren't happy with their work conditions.

Meanwhile, Chinese users reminded Americans just how high medical costs and taxes are in the US.

However, the TikTok refugees who were unhappy with the US government's restrictions on freedom of speech soon realized they were facing “real censorship” from China, with people having their accounts reportedly banned after posting content about Winnie the Pooh or Tiananmen Square.

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A post shared by 公民日报 Citizens Daily CN (@citizensdailycn)

On Sunday, Jan. 19, after the Supreme Court ruled the ban was constitutional, TikTok was removed from US app stores and stopped working for American users.

However, it returned just 14 hours later, after newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20 to delay the ban, providing TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, with a 75-day extension to find a US buyer.

The brief ban sparked more jokes and memes in the West, including people around the world joking about how quiet TikTok became without American users.

And comparing it to Jesus’ resurrection.

And Selena Gomez’s brief social media breaks.

However, people also noted the language differences in the messages notifying users the app had been banned and unbanned, with many calling it a political stunt by Trump, who led the effort to ban TikTok in the first place in 2020.

Since then, TikTok users have also reportedly found that they have come back to face stricter restrictions, as searching the word "fascism" no longer works on the app.

And people searching for topics such as Palestine, the LA wildfires and the Holocaust are seeing a message warning them to look out for "misinformation".

Some people have also reported instances of TikTok taking down the phrase "Free Palestine" as hate speech.

Meanwhile, back in China, RedNote users are thanking the TikTok refugees because the app has since introduced a translate feature, as well as maps in English.

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A post shared by Dana Wang | Solo & Adventure Travel (@bydanawang)

What do you think of the whole situation?

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