TikTok Ban Backfires

I don’t usually follow up a previous dispatch with another one on the same topic so quickly.

But the last few days have seen a significant awakening in America among Gen Z, the largest generation on earth—and the most technology-in-tune generation in history. And one day, the largest voting bloc. That’s important.

If you recall last Friday’s dispatch, I explained the impact—financial and social—of a potential TikTok ban that was scheduled to take effect on Sunday. In short: the ban would have cost tens of millions of American content creators, billions in combined income. And it would have destroyed livelihoods, since so many small and single-proprietor businesses in the US rely on the social-media, video-sharing app as their marketing platform.

Well, President Crypto J. Trump stepped in to say he would delay the ban.

Thus, US TikTokers live to dance another day.

But here’s where the story takes a much darker turn for the American government…

If you’re Gen X, like me, you will know of a particular phrase we grew up with. It ends with “and find out.”

Well, the jabronis in Congress are in the “find out” stage.

See, Gen Z, it turns out, is one hell of a petty generation.

And I am here for it!

Mad props to the Zs for doing what they’ve done. They are Gen X, but with a vindictive streak far deeper.

As the days counted down to TikTok going dark, Gen Z didn’t kowtow to Congress. It didn’t say, “Oh well—fun while it lasted.” And it 100% did not migrate to Reels, a dime-store TikTok knock-off owned by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta. (Zuckerberg spent a reported $7.6 million lobbying Congress to ban TikTok, and some members of Congress were pushing for Americans to simply migrate to Reels and/or for TikTok to sell to Zuckerberg’s company. Basically, arguing for TikTok to relinquish its technologically advanced algorithm to an inferior American competitor.)

Instead, Gen Z collectively said, “You wanna F around? Well, let’s find out.”

By the millions, Gen Z (and others) signed up for an account at RedNote, a TikTok competitor.

Now, as I noted in last Friday’s dispatch, Congress banned TikTok on grounds that it was a Chinese company “spying on US citizens,” a laughable rationale.

I mean, ummm NSA anyone?

Or how about the vast, vast number of companies in America that collect troves of consumer data surreptitiously that they then sell for big dollars? Or lose during the vast, vast number of hackings that happen in America because consumer-data safety is a yawner compared to finding new and creative ways to separate another dollar from American wallets?

Ironically, Meta’s basket of subpar social-media apps (Facebook, Instagram, and Threads) are the most data-hungry social-media apps in the world, according to 2023 research. Those three apps collect and store 86% of users’ personal data.

But the most stunning irony is this… RedNote, unlike TikTok, is an actual Chinese-headquartered company. (TikTok is headquartered in Singapore and Los Angeles, and owned by global investors, including a private Chinese company called ByteDance.)

And RedNote’s Chinese name (Xiaohongshu) translates literally to “Little Red Book,” which—if you recall—is also the name of the famous book of Communist propaganda by Chairman Mao Zedong, founding father of Communist China.

Some Americans signing up for RedNote were using their Social Security number as their user ID… just to spite Congress and to help those Chinese “spies” earn a raise.

That’s worthy of howling, tear-stained laughter!

Better still, American content creators—primarily Gen Z—returned to TikTok in the days before the short-lived ban with their own stories to tell… and in every case those stories begin with some version of: “We’ve been lied to!”

The Americans—after surveying Chinese life on RedNote—reported that, contrary to US stereotypes about “backwards” China:

• The Chinese are amazing people.
• China is already living in the 22nd century.
• Chinese technology—especially phones and cars—is far more advanced than what Americans can buy.
• Chinese cities are technological wonders, highly advanced, and quite beautiful.
• The Chinese cost of living relative to income is shockingly more affordable than America’s.
• … And these Gen Z TikTokers are learning Mandarin! (Which absolutely leaves me in stiches.)

Moreover, every last one of them was embarrassed that Chinese impressions about America were so sadly accurate.

To wit, Chinese RedNote creators were asking TikTok’s American refugees:

• Do you really have to pay thousands of dollars for an ambulance to the hospital?
• Do you really buy bullet-proof backpacks for kids in school?
• Do you really work two or three jobs to pay for your life?
• Why do you eat like your healthcare is free?
• Why do you think you’re free, but not see that you are living inside a corporation where everything is designed so that you have to pay?

The Americans also realized that middle-class Americans are actually living below the standards of the typical middle-class Chinese. And they are incensed that in China:

• Food costs are radically—radically!!—cheaper than in the US, based on shopping tours RedNote creators posted from inside uber-nice supermarkets.
• The Chinese don’t pay property taxes on their homes, meaning they could lose their job and never work again, but no one will ever take away their home because they couldn’t afford the property tax.
• The corporations and the rich pay the taxes that provide free healthcare and low-cost college tuition and such, and the typical Chinese middle-class taxpayer pays a rate of 6% to 8%.

I could go on. The revelations that shocked the Americans were numerous, funny, sad, poignant, and enlightening.

Now, let me stress… Me pointing all this out is not me arguing in favor of the Chinese Communist Party or the Chinese social system! This isn’t me taking sides with China—at all.

Rather, it’s me taking sides with Gen Z—and understanding why they’re now wanting to unfriend Uncle Sam. Why they’re incensed and feel they’ve been lied to. I always talk about a social crisis coming to America, and, well, it could very well be Gen Z taking control of the next political race in four years…

Here’s the big take away: Revolution is in the air in America.

As one white-hot American TikToker noted:

Four days on RedNote and I think I’m going through all the stages of grief. And right now, I think I’m sitting firmly in anger. American Exceptionalism is a lie.

This country, every day of our lives, is just one big g—–n commercial to leech every dime out of our pockets. We start talking to [the Chinese on RedNote] and seeing how they live… and we’ve been told our whole lives that these are evil people that hate us, and they’re backwards and they’re slaves working in sweatshops and living in gulags… And a lot of us ignorant Americans—we bought the propaganda sold to us our whole lives.

And then all at once, tens of millions of us go over to [RedNote] as a lark, and we all got slapped in the face with these cities. It looks like the g—–n future. I’m not even sure we’re a First World country anymore. We just not living, not like the way other places in the world are living. We’ve got to get over the nonsense we’ve been sold. Something’s gotta change.

The TikTok refugees returned from RedNote pissed off and ready to burn the system down. They’ve seen behind the curtain and they’re angry.

They’re incensed that Congress would vote to strip First Amendment freedoms, and to rob millions of Americans of their livelihood, in an apparent effort to benefit Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta—which then benefits Congressfolk who all voted to ban TikTok and bought Meta stock.

But I’m sure there’s no correlation there.

Right?

Like I said, revolution is in the air.

The US government f’d around and now it’s about to find out.

More to come, because my bet is that this isn’t going away…