One day in mid-January, the California, based in California, woke up and discovered that hundreds of thousands of so-called Tiktok refugees suddenly flowed to Red Note, a Chinese social media app that she uses every day. Lin does not want to claim that everything happened because of her, but the trend is a good example of how her videos have become an essential link that connects the parallel worlds of Western and Chinese social media. For many people who otherwise don't know much about China, Lin has become de facto ambassador of the internet culture of the country.
From December 2023, Lin, who has more than 2.3 million combined followers on Tiktok and Instagram, uploaded a series of viral videos in which Red Note (known as Xiaohongshu in Chinese) was introduced in Chinese as a destination for people looking for brutal honest make -over suggestions. The videos led beauty influences to download the app, which resulted in the first traffic bump of non-Chinese speakers. When Tiktok was almost banned in the US in January, they were beauty makers who suggested that people had to move to Red Note instead.
But long before Red Note offered millions of Americans the chance to immediately experience the Chinese internet, Lin had given them a rare view of it. “Dr. The contents of Lin is like a magical portal on the other side of the world, where everyone is just like you, but a little different,” says Lucy White, a 22-year-old Scottish bartender who follows Lin on Instagram.
In exchange, Lin has become a small celebrity and deserves a stable income from Tiktok that subsidizes her daily job as a Cantonese tutor. But her online presence also opens her for controversies and hatred from both pro and anti-china voices online. “When I say something nice about China, I am called a CCP -Bot, but when I say something bad about China, I am called a CIA spy,” says Lin Wired. As a result, she tries to stay away from politics and concentrate on more harmless and funny trends.
Every day Lin searches the Chinese internet in search of a new feud with celebrities, the most popular meme, or perhaps a dorm challenge of the viral college, which she then translates into English and explains in a minute-long video. Each clip contains her that gives the camera the same characteristic deadpan look. Lin is often asked why she is not smiling in her videos, and she explains that it is because she has to film four or five times to get the best take. No matter how funny the jokes are, they get old by the end of that old. “That's why I'm like a robot,” she says. Yet Lin can sometimes not help, but break into a smile, which delights her fans.
Lin's audience likes to learn about which hilarious things have done so -called Chinese “Netizens” lately. Chinese social media is a world that Westerners do not have access because they do not speak the same language or use the same platforms as people in China, says Josef Burton, a 39-year-old writer and former American diplomat who follows Lin on Instagram. “I can't communicate or achieve it, but there is a kind of 'all men are a kind of preference [in knowing] This ridiculous thing happens online, “he says. “China is presented as this completely different place where nobody jokes around, this censored, bare hell space that is all hyperpropaganda … but no, people make jokes. Daily life exists. Memes exist. “
Nice facts about the Cantonese
Candise Lin was born in the Chinese city of Guangzhou and emigrated with her family to the US when she was in high school. She obtained a doctorate in educational psychology and later worked as a postdoctoral teacher and tried to open an online skin care store at some point.
Then the Pandemic Lockdowns struck and while he was bored at home on her phone, Lin decided to start posting on Tiktok. In April 2020 she made a video of 24 seconds with six English names that sound terrible in the Cantonese: the name “Susan”, for example, sounds like “God or bad luck.” The video is unexpectedly blown up, with 5 million views and more than 10,000 responses. “So I kept making a series of it and I realized that there is an audience for this,” says Lin.
