I joined TikTok a few years back out of curiosity, never thinking I might start making content. Well, that is not entirely true. I had ideas about using it as a side car to this very blog. Sometimes I did. It was hard with live music slowly gearing up post-Covid. Then I started seeing people who were like me – living with Multiple Sclerosis, enjoying live music, discovering their heritage, or just really liked cats. I thought to myself, “Self…what if we tried talking about ourselves and the things we like?” (Myself is another person in my head) So I did. I started posting videos. I dug into the creator features like filters and accessories. I overlapped myself talking on a picture of what I was talking about. I made videos about Woodstock lore, canned fish, cooking haggis, living with MS, having a cool dog, buying a couch on Temu, etc. For some reason, people started following me. Then I started following them. Then I found celebs and artists and musicians I loved and we followed one another too. Suddenly I had close to 5000 followers and was following 10,000 others. We had communities of different interests. I had an international community of people living with Multiple Sclerosis and we were posting and hosting “lives”. We bought products from one another’s small businesses that they had grown on the app which allowed them to change their lives and the lives of their families for the better. This IS something! This app is fantastic! Sometimes I just scrolled through content – laughing, crying, finding new artists to dig into, and recipes! So many GREAT recipes there!
It was also a fantastic place for news. Every major news network had a profile they used regularly to share stories and smaller, independent media entities found entire followings there from people who might never have found them otherwise. It allowed us to tap into real time, real people in the very places where news was happening. It also introduced people to the consequences of their actions when creators enlisted followers to identify criminals shown in video – which they very often did, sometimes to their own selfless detriment.
Mostly though, its just been a place to turn off our mind and scroll. Find new music, meet new people, see the world through the eyes of others and open our minds to their struggles, their triumphs, and their joys.
Now it’s all going away.
Not for any good reason that anyone in our government managed to convey with any real evidence, either. Oh, they said it was! They said it was for security. They said they were preventing “data mining”. They said it was because it was connected to China and they really enjoy getting us to dislike and distrust China. This was all disproven, of course, as was the legitimacy of their argument and method of banning the app, but it didn’t matter. The minds of politicians were made up (and paid for) and that was that. Americans by the millions would be losing income, community, a method of getting up to the minute news, and in some cases their very independence and all because of the ban – regardless of the fact that we know exactly who lobbied (and paid) for it.
In our anger and frustration with this, some of us downloaded the Chinese app called RedNote. It has been China’s own version of TikTok that citizens of that country have been using for years. Immediately we were welcomed by people on that app. Many of us were enjoying their lessons in learning Mandarin, their “grocery hauls”, and we all exchanged photos of our cats, dogs, birds, and livestock. We shared meal tips and made new friends. This app was a wonderful look into the lives of the ordinary Chinese citizens and showed us how alike we really are. Sure, we speak different languages, we have different cultures, we have different governments – but at our core, we were showing one another that we are very much the same. People. People who want to feel free, feel loved, enjoy life and love our families. We all love food, we all love art, we all love to laugh.
I have heard those in charge of RedNote will be (of they have not already) splitting the servers for the app to separate Chinese citizens from foreigners. That the increase in users from outside of China has impacted the algorithms and lessened the intended experience for those within China. I can understand this and do not fault them at all for this, despite my own selfish enjoyment of the app. It has a wonderful, kind vibe. Something soothing. I give credit for that entirely to the Chinese and Chinese American folks who have made it what it is. Their personalities come through, as does the material they share. I learned several Mandarin phrases from a young boy with a whiteboard! I never learned anything so quickly! He’s a splendid teacher!
Through it all, I remember one of the reasons I loved the work Anthony Bourdain did – especially in his later years. He wanted his readers and viewers to see that people are not their governments, and governments are not their people. At the end of the day, people just want to live and be happy. He often spoke of how breaking bread with someone is a personal connection. Cooking for someone in your home is a special way to convey welcome, to give thanks, to allow the curtains to be pulled back on a family and a culture that may be very misunderstood from the outside. Some of my favorite episodes were when he visited places like Iran, Lebanon, and his episode from back in 2012 that illustrated the toxic relationship between Israel and Palestine. But he wanted you to meet families in those places and invited you into those homes with him to share a meal. It made me long to travel. It also made me long for peace.
What the time we had on TikTok and RedNote reinforced is that very point. We are all people. Human beings. We might be different in how we look and how we live, but our desires for contentment and peace in this life are very much the same. Our governments might want us to dislike one another while they battle over resources, tariffs, and weapons – but we as people simply want to live and find our happiness. If we could only have these experiences with EVERY nation! Can you even imagine? Why would be need wars? We would find friendship in our similarities, not wars in our differences. Reflecting on my experience with RedNote made me long for an app like it in every nation of the world. A place where we discover other cultures because we want to. A place where children smile and teach us their language because they want us to learn. A place where we all share pictures of our cats. A place for new friendships with different kinds of people who might show us sides of things we never even considered. A place for those curious about how others live on the other side of the world. A place to learn to cook food you might never have tasted. A place where we (as those who wish it) safely and securely discover how alike we really are. That we are not enemies, no matter what our governments say. We are not land. We are not parties. We are not resources like oil or copper. We are not a desire to own more than anyone else.
We are just people.
People who have more similarities than differences.
Peace can be real. Peace can happen today.
