No. It's weird Ameri-centric White Guilt™ and very self-flattering to assume that any place in which they exist, they're automatically taking control of. It's the same mindset that underpins the chud replacement theory just pointed in a different direction. China controls XHS. If there's a concern, they'll cut the US off.
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2025
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No.
Just like how bourgeois-backed liberal economics sees capitalism as anything to do with money, settler-colonial-origin people see settler-colonialism as anything to do with migration, as to somewhat justify their particular mode of life, by backdating it back to their pre-origin past as something natural.
For sure, it's one part, but it isn't the only thing that defines them both.
This is just blunt vulgarization by cultural liberal hegemony.
These liberals aren't used to not having their white privilege. It's not possible to "colonize" xhs or whatever. If the Chinese people (app management or government or whatever) felt some kind of way about it they could easily lock out all foreign users and move on. That's not colonization if you can get kicked out with like 10 minutes of effort.
Yeah, settler-colonization presupposes a material base of strength, from a burgeoning capitalism, to displace, ~~(ethnically cleanse)~~, and take over land of indigenous people for petty-proprietorship.
good post.
unrelated, but my older sibling dismisses personal financial literacy--they make good money (better than me) don't know how to budget, open a checking account, and have never done their taxes... they make my elderly parents do theirs--as "capitalism". I make less than them and live over a thousand miles away and run a tight ship so I can be independent. we are both in our 40s.
their kid is becoming a teenager and my sibling laments that their kid has no idea how anything works... what is expensive/unreasonable pricing, wants restaurant food all the time and treats and games. when I mentioned the idea they could have an allowance like we had growing up for doing household chores. my sibling dismisses that as "capitalism" and that they want them to contribute to the household spontaneously for the common good.
I pointed out that they live in a mansion in a gated community with our elderly, loaded parents and benefit from twice weekly maid service. "your 'household' already has servants getting paid. you can't build Camelot on top of that." they scowled at me.
Thanks this is really helpful!!
With {western} settler-colonialism as the base of the economy, its superstructure is white supremacy, as its self-justifying aggrandizing perspective.
Also it's not like they could somehow take it over there's like 1.7 billion people in China, good luck causing any meaningful cultural shift on their own social media. I think if anything the influence will flow the other direction.
It has been so far for sure
Great comment!!
No. This type of rhetoric slides close to anti-immigration bigotry which makes sense since anti-immigration bigotry is rampant in US society. They are not colonizing XHS for the simple reason that XHS is owned, managed, and moderated by Chinese people. US users have to abide by XHS rules and social norms just like how immigrants have to abide by the laws and social customs of the country they immigrate to.
The Americans who went to xhs greatly overestimate their influence on the platform. Even millions of Americans are a drop in a pool of 300m monthly users.
Like it would take every single American to reach 50% of total users.
nah americans have more sway
no american knows chinese, all chinese know some english
No its not colonising China and Chinese people own the app and set all the rules that have to be followed, not the US. It currently reminds me more of tourism than anything else if you really want to put a label on it. Maybe immigration if people start to use it permanently. So long as the US tourists are nice and respectful and the Chinese hosts are welcoming, there shouldn't be any issues. Issues would only really arise if the US users start being disrespectful and/or the Chinese users want them off of the platform. I don't think that's the case currently.
I think this is one of the issues of people learning a word and knowing that it is bad without understanding why. Yes, America bad, but not simply because it is America. Also add an inflated sense of self-importance.
There is a version Antideutsch in every western society.
I'd guess the people leaving are libs who keep only interacting with English content so the algorithm keepa feeding them English content so they think they've taken over. Even if every single US tiktok user moved to XHS they would still be the minority on the platform.
Seems likely. I’ve had to consciously not follow or interact with anything that doesn’t have Chinese subtitles at the very least. Even with the constant reminders, most creators coming over from TikTok seem to want to dump their back catalog with zero editing and it’s just not how it’s supposed to go.
stop colonizing by being american and start colonizing by colonoscopy posting
we cant afford those in america
There has been a flood of MAGA, US military and cops over there. I think this is a part of trying to dissuade US users from staying
yeah i keep seeing MAGA morons making discussion posts like “im MAGA ask me anything”
why are you alive and not dead?
i cant ask that on rednote but thats what i wanna say
non-westerners are way too friendly and laissez faire. such accounts need to be sent to the shadow algorithm immediately
Oof, figured it was only a matter of time. Don't think I've seen that yet, thanks God. I've been seeing more "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" losers on some posts and it's raising my blood pressure. I hope it subsides eventually
There’s a flood of straight up disgusting racist hate on any post that mentions immigrants or even just two races at once.
But the users all have geotags from the US, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.
There’s an op underway and I hope the folks at XHS headquarters are aware.
My gut reaction is essentially, “the Chinese users are saying it’s not happening and they would know better than anyone, so trust them.” If that’s enough for you, no need to read my ramblings, I don’t think.
the ramblings
After thinking about it for a second, there are a lot of things missing from real-world colonization on a social media app. First, there’s no proletariat that needs to be exploited aside from the real world workers who run the thing, but they generally don’t exist within that virtual space they’ve created. That dynamic isn’t as relevant to how people interact within that virtual space. Second, the resources there aren’t as scarce as something like land and there’s no incentive to steal those resources when they’re offered up freely by a scalable app (things like compute time, memory, storage).
I think the most valid point I’ve heard is that people’s attention is finite and that is the truly valuable resource on a social media platform. So if westerners are taking attention away from Chinese users who would otherwise have it and are in the process spreading western culture to the detriment of Chinese culture, I could see that. But I kind of just… don’t see that happening? The network effect is real and it seems like we all benefit from the increased attention.
Most of the Americans I’m interacting with are putting in a lot of effort to be respectful of Chinese users and their culture. They’re learning Mandarin, learning about Chinese food, learning about Chinese traditional medicine, etc. It’s been common advice from Chinese users to treat the exceptions to this rule as targets of moderation and ridicule rather than try and simply apologize for them. It’s very proactive. The discourse there just doesn’t have the same default tribalism that is the norm on the English-speaking internet. It’s kind of live-and-let-live within certain parameters and outside of those parameters you get what you have coming, such as a removal or a ban. I’m used to that dynamic on Hexbear and quite comfortable with it.
I dont have much to add, but I think theres value in Westerners interacting with people their government labels as enemies. It helps humanize them, which in turn makes it harder for the government to justify violence against them later on.
Besides that as a xenophile, I believe respectful cultural exchange is a healthy thing for individuals. It broadens your horizons and gives you a better understanding of the world.
all the cope from sinophobic Americans has been so funny. "waaaaaah waaaaaah waaaaah why won't they let us flood them with bot farm propaganda waaaaaaah waaaah muh free speech waaaaah"
I wanna make a rednotr and just post shitty among us frawings all day
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