the tiktok exodus is widely known! for those of you who don’t know, i am in high school. i can’t count with my hands how many people have talked about it, and that’s just in the two classes i had yesterday (exam week, yay). i’ve already gotten 2 people to download it. they both made accounts and use it now! it’s broken the niche internet thing into the real world, at the very least for young people.
on the app front, lots of americans are posting things like “we’ve been lied to, china isn’t that bad!” i’ve come across so many americans learning about chinese culture and responding positively to patriotic or socialist posts from chinese netizens. it’s insane, i’m really amazed at how, for at least a good chunk of americans, china is becoming less demonized.
Definitely have to be careful. What I try to focus on when I talk to people are just the facts, because those are neutral and indisputable. But if you ever talk to someone who knows they can’t argue against the facts, they’ll resort to straw man arguments where the conversation then turns to establishing definitions (e.g. What is socialism?)
I’ve also made the mistake of taking the bait and debating these people, which in my experience never leads anywhere