Manimatana Lee spent the past five years building one of the hottest commodities on the internet: a group of people who reliably watch her videos on TikTok. She built an audience of nearly 10,000 followers with videos of herself vacuuming her house in Wisconsin while her youngest daughter napped in a carrier on her back. A video of Ms. Lee dancing and doing dishes — while wearing her sleeping baby — has been watched more than 1 million times since November.
Now, with the Supreme Court soon to rule in a case that could determine whether TikTok could be banned in the United States over national security concerns, Ms. Lee and other Americans looking for alternatives are downloading Xiaohongshu, a social media app that is popular in China and little known outside the country.
“Who knows what would happen if it was banned… it’s just another app… and I think it would be weird to not have TikTok,” Lee wrote on Monday on TikTok, encouraging her followers to join her on Xiaohongshu.
Xiaohongshu was the most downloaded free app in the US Apple store on Tuesday. Over 300 million people, mostly in China, use the app, where they share short videos as well as still, text-based posts.
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