Despite the attempt by the feds to turn Asian and black communities on each other in the past few years, it cannot be denied the two are natural allies:
Gen Z has purposefully acted to start a people-to-people exchange and for the first time, upturned the front of geopolitics. It really shows that for a generation that has just began their 20s, they are powerful and have unrealized potential.
for being first to cross the bridge and start this breakthrough for Chinese soft power. Think about it— XHS isn't even in English! You have to jump through hoops just to sign up and learn how to use the app. It took an aggressive, concentrated and coordinated effort from 700k+ Gen Z to move onto a completely foreign app in two days. I doubt any strategist from the US or China could've even entertained this idea as a possibility.it actually started, like most American viral trends, with black TikTok users.
According to Google search caches, accounts such as and were first to use the #TikTokRefugees and #rednote hashtags on Monday. And in the case of , in her first video about RedNote, she explained that she had already heard about the app because, “all the black girlies were on here talking about how it is over there and it is, indeed, cute as shit over there.”
Gen Z has purposefully acted to start a people-to-people exchange and for the first time, upturned the front of geopolitics. It really shows that for a generation that has just began their 20s, they are powerful and have unrealized potential.