Little Red Book/RedNote is the #1 app on the App Store, followed by Lemon8 at #2. Duolingo reported a 216% increase in parties interested in learning Mandarin[0], people are actively boycotting the likes of Meta/Google[1], and many content creators have set up shop there (albeit with a much smaller following)[2]. It’d be disingenuous to write off these effects.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/15/duolingo-sees-216-spike-in...

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-boycott-faceb...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/over-half-million-tiktok-...

Yes, because it went from like the worst app in the US to a pretty popular one in a short period of time. YouTube has 240 million accounts in the US. Instagram has 170 million. 500k accounts in RedNote is nothing in comparison.

People are protesting because it's cool to do especially when you're a rebellious youngster but I'm pretty convinced it's going to fizzle out. I don't think it's fair to say it's disingenuous to believe as much. Maybe you could say it's "too early" to write it off, to which I'd respond saying it's too early to buy into the belief that it will take over American culture in any way that resembles TikTok.... and, even if it did, that it would not be banned from the US again.

Yeah, and BeReal beat out TikTok for a couple of months too. Being topical for a moment doesn't mean something has staying power. Learning Mandarin is a pretty big barrier to entry lol. 2x on Duolingo doesn't mean that much, how many were learning it last year?