NotLuigi

I keep getting Xiaohongshu posts on my feed of American users apologizing for “colonizing” the app and declaring their intent to leave. It’s usually full of Chinese users insisting that it’s not the case. My gut reaction is that it doesn’t make sense and I’ll explain why in the comments.

But it’s possible that I’m just missing something or that as an English speaker my feed inherently skews foreigners-friendly. So I wanted to ask. Why do US users think they’re colonizing Xiaohongshu? Are Chinese users genuinely insistent that they’re not? And who is correct?

I posted a video on Xiaohongshu about the fact that I’m learning Mandarin and was flooded with, among other things, requests to become my teacher and for me to sign up for courses. In that process, I did end up talking to someone who’s picking their English education back up. We’ve essentially agreed to be pen pals.

No mention of courses or anything like that. Green flag. She’s also been on the app since mid-2024, so well before the influx of Americans could have been anticipated. Green flag. But she asked to exchange contact info so I gave her my email address and hers is a {a bunch of random numbers}@qq.com.

That immediately set off alarm bells for me, as the random number email addresses I’ve seen have been anonymous throwaways. But I don’t want this to be me being culturally insensitive and just ignorant about something. Maybe it’s more common in China due to Unicode compatibility?

You are welcome here but please don’t talk politics. This isn’t Baidu Tieba. I just want pictures of your cat.

Lots of interesting conversation happening over there

If anyone wants to follow me, shoot me a DM

Edit: there’s also a lot of jokes about TikTok refugees trying to connect with their “Chinese spy”

I’m 370 lbs and today I had a doctor tell me that people who are skinnier than me are all like that because they work out and eat right. Can I get a roll call for the people who are less than 370 lbs and eat like shit or don’t work out? Because I’m pretty sure you exist.

Also, one time I had a doctor ask me “are you sure?” 4 times after I said I didn’t have any breathing problems. Like nah I’m just big.

Just used this guide to set up Luanti on a VPS via Docker. It worked beautifully and made things pretty easy.

I think my biggest complaint had nothing to do with this guide. It was how counterintuitive it was to get the world set up with Mineclonia. The file based configuration is very Linux-y and I was expecting more GUI-based config.

nose goes not it

He starts off the review complaining about the woke ideology of Wicked but it’s super clear that he’s also a massive Wicked fanboy. He’s apparently just into musical theater in a big way.