I’m pretty glad I don’t use Duolingo, it’s easier to learn language tips from YouTube

Not that there’s anything wrong with people wanting to learn mandarin but I wonder whether this uptick in engagement with the Chinese world will just be a blip and soon people will get bored of it and look for more “Western” platforms again.

Like, when the enshittification of reddit and Twitter took root, you would also see very big numbers of users flocking to alternative platforms like Lemmy (like yours truly!) or Mastodon but in the end, after the initial novelty wore off, how many of those people actually ended up sticking around or moved on to something else after a short while?

My point is that it is still way too early to judge whether RedNote will become the next TikTok in the US, or whether this could be the start of a mass grassroots movement for American and Chinese people to get closer.

These kinds of figures are pointless without knowing the starting number of users, it could be an increase from 10 to like 30 or something… Also, this sudden rush of articles mentioning rednote seems more like an attempt to induce movement to it, but that could just be me being cynical.

Shame it’s Duolingo though. HelloChinese and DuChinese are way better for actually learning the language.