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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   27825 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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One thing I do find interesting is the sanitization of "Little Red Book" into RedNote. On one hand, it seems unnecessary, as a large group of potential users would be quite aware and supportive of the overt reference to Chinese Communism. On the other hand, it might just be because "Little Red Book" is a shit name when translated literally.

Is the name just a meme, or is there some non-ironic use there?
The Chinese confuse me with this. I've seen fanfiction authors argue by going "I think it is you who fail to understand the fundamental tenets of marxism-leninism" in apparent perfect seriousness.

I would guess that the name is in earnest. My own interpretation is that it essentially is implying that the app is like a vade mecum. Just as everyone used to carry around the Little Red Book that carried all sorts of wonderful wisdom, so too will everyone now carry around our app.

I get what you’re saying, though. I had a similar moment when I was watching some Chinese YouTuber who was doing a travel video about a museum founded at the site of the border between the Chu and the Han. When he was discussing why the Qin fell, he was sure to explain that it was due to the “contradictions within Qin society”. I didn’t know if he intentionally put it in there as a signaling mechanism or if concepts like this have just become standard tools of thought for Chinese people. It makes you wonder how non-Westerners react when they see how positively peppered our own discussions are with words like “marginalization” and “normalization”.

My own guess is that you have some number of small true believers who are very much intentionally lacing their speech with these words, and a much larger proportion who just get a vague good feeling when they use these words, something like “look, I’m saying something smart/morally correct/timely”.

It makes you wonder how non-Westerners react when they see how positively peppered our own discussions are with words like “marginalization” and “normalization”.

Your newspeak dialect makes my skin crawl.

Yeah, that makes two of us. But I find it repulsive because I’m enmeshed within the culture wars surrounding its use. But what does, say, some random Chilean think if he sees some Anglophone Twitter user memeing like

Normalize wearing sweatpants all day, because I’m too lazy to dress nice

or something? (Note: I am clearly incompetent at writing Twitter memes, but certainly you’re familiar with the genre that I’m pointing at.) Would the Chilean think “huh, isn’t it weird how this person is using that word?”

If you haven't noticed from my use of pronouns (heh), I am a non-Westerner. It passed beyond thinking “weird” in comparison to the English I was taught, it's to the stage of some interstellar invasion uncanny valley. “Black bodies” is perhaps the top contender, but the whole dialect leaves me very, very uneasy.

Yah I found it bizarre how a week ago it was “RedBook” and now it’s “RedNote”.

My gf is pissed because all her content got replaced by ugly selfies from Americans.

As am I. RedNote used to be really nice for finding hidden spots while traveling or getting a general Chinese sense of things. Now it's all "Hello from America, please teach me Chinese."

To me this is just a microcosm. Foreigners (in this case, literally) coming into our community and not only not integrating into our culture, but actively destroying it. A quite delectable piece of irony.

Wait why are tiktokers going to rednote? AFAIK instagram has virtually identical functionality if desired. Why rednote?

I saw someone say that the Instagram reels algo pushes more polished and professional videos compared to the more casual and viral style of tik tok. (I've never used any of them myself).

Presumably as a middle finger to the government for banning TikTok.

It wouldn't surprise me if TikTok had started pushing content suggesting it, but that's a pure guess.

I haven't yet seen an explanation for why, either. Maybe the meme about TikTok being a foreign influence vector was precisely the motivation for people seeking out a more obviously-Chinese app? RedNote has been flooded with left-leaning Western users whose brand of leftism is alien and even dangerous to China's brand of leftism.

That's another thing that I've found quite amusing during this whole thing. The West, by and large, have no idea how "based" China truly is. It's always quite funny to me (China born Chinese living in California) when I hear the people here talk because they really have no clue how far they are from the norm in the rest of the world (or at least from China, which is much closer to the rest of the world than these people are.) Most Chinese people fucking hate gays. Most Chinese people absolutely fucking hate Indians (Although Westerners are coming around on this one). Most Chinese people don't even have a conception of transgenderism in the same way Westerners do.

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