Many new users opening RedNote, the Chinese social media app gaining sudden traction with American users, were greeted by a familiar face plastered across their feeds: Luigi Mangione, the suspect charged in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Mangione achieved notoriety in the United States as many propped him up to be a working-class folk hero, even as others condemned his alleged act of violence. This week, it became clear to Americans on the app, who are searching for a new platform ahead of TikTok’s imminent ban, that even those inside China’s opaque cyberspace have made him a frequent subject in fancams, paintings and latte art.
RedNote, known in Chinese as Xiaohongshu (which translates literally to “Little Red Book”), shot to No. 1 in the Apple App Store earlier this week as American TikTok users migrated to alternative apps. Many posted that they joined RedNote, which is based in Shanghai, out of spite for U.S. officials who cite national security concerns related to TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance.
With the surge in international interest, RedNote is now offering many Americans a glimpse at online culture in China, where the internet is heavily censored. Chinese users on the app often display a love of Mangione, cute animals and American media, all of which have provided ample meme fodder.
Reaction images, or humorous pictures meant to depict a specific emotion, are some of the most commonly used memes on RedNote. One popular post — a reaction image pack — features edits of Mangione’s face, wearing a green Luigi (from Nintendo’s Mario franchise) hat, encircled by yellow cats holding hands. The text on each of the cats espouses facetious praise, including an English version with lines like: “Funny and perfect Luigi” and “Kind and lovely Luigi.”
With around 300 million monthly active users, according to 2024 data from Xiaohongshu brand marketing firm Qiangua, the app is known for being popular among young Chinese women in particular. Much like Instagram and TikTok (both of which are technically unavailable in China), it offers lifestyle, travel and shopping content alongside a variety of other topics.
But this is a Chinese platform that never marketed itself to foreigners. It operates within what is dubbed China’s “Great Firewall,” the country’s legislative and technological internet censorship system working to block topics deemed politically sensitive — such as LGBTQ-related content and discussions of political dissent — making some users’ content prone to removal.
For now, however, many Chinese and American users on RedNote have welcomed the cultural exchange facilitated by this week’s events. Cat memes are among the most common forms of casual humor on the app, as many Americans learned when they were asked by Chinese users to pay a “cat tax” by sharing photos of their cats upon joining.
Just as on Western social media platforms, RedNote also features plenty of “thirst traps,” or fan edits featuring celebrities and influencers. These include numerous fan edits of Mangione, such as a video compilation, set to Usher’s “Hey Daddy,” of him in court. Some men on the app have also cosplayed as Mangione, sharing makeup tutorials and outfit checks.
Western movies and TV shows are also popular on the app, with users often posting content ranging from “Pride and Prejudice” fan edits to funny “Family Guy” clips and reaction images. Jokes that originated outside China sometimes make their way to RedNote as well, as when one user gained tens of thousands of likes after posting the “chill guy” meme alongside a lengthy caption about the misery of making no friends at school abroad.
A trending piece of brain rot on the platform in recent weeks features Plankton from “SpongeBob SquarePants” wearing a wrinkled facial expression and emitting an eerie moan. It’s become a meme template for jokes about the discomfort of running out of toilet paper, “accidentally drop[ping] a mango on your new white shirt,” or getting splashed in the eye with chili oil while slurping noodles.
One such video, about the struggles of getting the shower water temperature right again after accidentally shutting off the faucet, got 265,000 likes on X after a user reshared it there, writing, “this post from xiaohongshu literally transcended all language I’m crying.”
It’s led some Americans online to note that despite the language barrier, memes seem to operate as a universal language. As one X user put it: “People are realizing that the Chinese are just as unserious as us.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
