Updates from Digital Refugee

The META Boycott Continues

I haven’t logged onto Instagram for a week. I don’t have any interest in going back so far. I didn’t delete my TikTok app like some Americans did when the 12-hour ban ensued. I was complimented for being steadfast and not deleting the app during the brief hiatus. But like many of us, TikTok has admittedly given me the ick. I subscribe to the theory that something changed when the servers went down and suddenly were back up half a day later. It is peculiar that folks who did delete the app cannot re-install the alleged ban. The end continues to be nigh. I deleted my most popular videos in TikTok once the app was back up and running due to my suspicions.

I have started uploading content on RedNote. I am enamored with It! My husband likes to call me out saying I used to say the same thing about TikTok.

“There is a people’s revolution happening on this app” I will tell him while I’m scrolling on the couch on a weeknight. "

”That’s what you said about TikTok 4 years ago” he’ll quip.

”No, this is different. This is breaking down the barriers between the East and the West. It’s happening” I immediately retort.

My political ideologies led me to question the propaganda we receive about the East. Even with some of my closest friends, I have found myself in heated arguments about what is actually going on in China. Our society is quick to push rhetoric about their human rights, their working conditions, etc. This isn’t to say that there likely are negative things that happen in China. But, the same negative things happen here, and one could argue that it happens on a larger scale. Surely, it is difficult for us to truly know, because our media from both sides are censored. All of this to say, despite Red Note also being censored by the Chinese government, real people from all over the globe are connecting on Red Note. They’re talking about everything, their cultures, their tax systems, the cost of their lifestyles, how to improve health by drinking warm drinks, and sharing memes of our cats…together. Red Note is breaking down barriers and for the first time, we are unlearning the stereotypes that we’ve been fed about other cultures, in real-time. As someone with the political ideologies I have, it is truly astonishing. I’ve been enjoying commenting on the litany of posts discussing this newfound connection of regular folks from across the globe, “The People United can never be Defeated.”

I will continue my boycott of META apps. I encourage you to consider doing the same. I encourage all of us to spend more time connecting in real life with our communities. And take it from a super hyper online girlie, you can get your digital fill on Red Note. Another important thing that I’ve learned from Red Note this past week is that Americans and Chinese people are much more similar in personality than we realized. Chinese people are trolls. They don’t take life too seriously. They are hilarious, spicy, and sassy. Thanks to RedNotes’ quick update to include both Chinese and English subtitles internally in their app, we are breaking down the language barriers and ROFL-ing together, authentically.

To conclude this rambling post, I will share some screenshots that moved me during my Friday night leisurely digital scroll on RedNote. These example screenshots speak to my observance of the growing class consciousness and global community being fostered on this app.

This was a post of an American user sharing the audio of what Lake Tahoe sounds like when the lake becomes frozen. The poem by this user in Shanghai was unexpectedly moving. I call it a poem, but it could also simply be how the language sounds to us when translated. Many non-English languages somehow sound so much more poetic than English…

This was a post about the realities of homelessness in America, which is something novel and shocking to many non-American users.

This was a post about the stereotypes non-American users had about Americans and how these stereotypes are being denounced and reshaped after only one week of TikTok Refugees entering the chat.

This post and the comments made me cry. The stories and dialogue surrounding the indigenous story of America and the East are deeply interconnected. We are interacting despite the propaganda. We are recognizing our deepest truths together. We are the same. We are united. This is a people’s revolution.