• China's "lying flat" counterculture phenomenon has spawned a new trend of doing absolutely nothing.
• Young workers are posting videos of themselves lying in bed all day, and relishing in the new lifestyle.
• It's part of being one of the "rat people," who enjoy being shut-ins as China's economy struggles.

They call themselves the "rat people."

The phrase has become the latest viral trend among China's unemployed millennials and Gen Zs, who now proudly say they're spending entire days in bed, surfing the internet, and eating takeout.

It's an extreme version of the "lying flat" counterculture movement young employees popularized as they rebelled against China's grueling 72-hour workweeks and the "996" tech culture that saw employees working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week.

"I refuse to be ashamed of being a dependent, I'm defending the name of the rat people," one young woman says in a montage of what she calls her 83rd day lounging in her bedroom. She shared the video montage on RedNote, a Chinese photo-based app popular among women.

"After three years of hard work, I finally got my parents to realize that holding a job wasn't building wealth for myself," she adds.

China's burned-out counterculture

Lying flat has seen different iterations over the years. The movement included young adults saying they've given up by "letting it rot." Others resigned themselves to living as "full-time children" who mooch off their parents.

After the pandemic, lying flat became so prominent on social media that it sparked alarm in Beijing as the central government tried to reinvigorate its devastated economy.

But being one of the "rat people" is more than lying flat or giving up.

"Lying flat was: 'I might not be doing anything, not working a 9-to-5, but still doing things that I like,'" Ophenia Liang, the director of Digital Crew, a marketing agency that focuses on Asia, told Business Insider.

"The rat people want to be the exact opposite of the rest of the self-disciplined and glamorous internet that goes to the gym," she said.

Many "rat people" posts are, in a sense, the antithesis of the influencer routines one might find on Instagram or TikTok, or, if you're in China, Weibo and RedNote.

Vital to the trend is the embrace of this low-energy lifestyle. "Rat people" are meant to be content as shut-ins.

American Instagram stars like Ashton Hall tout waking up at 4 a.m. for a run. Young "rat people" on RedNote, by contrast, relish in posting "daily schedule" videos of lying in bed at 4 p.m. and doom-scrolling on iPads.

A change in generational fortunes

Attitude is one motivator driving the "rat people" trend; affordability is another.

Millennials and Gen Zs are the first generations in China who can afford to stay jobless and still survive, Liang said.

"Many of their parents were born in the '60s and '70s and benefited from China's economic growth, so they have some savings," Liang said.

"This is the first economic slowdown these younger people have had in China," she added. "They're not as resilient as people who were born in the '60s or '70s. So some of them come up with this sentiment of: 'Why try so hard?'"

Liang warned that many popular posts of "rat people" schedules on Weibo and RedNote are likely exaggerated by clout-chasers trying to go viral. But their success implies a broader sentiment in the country.

"It fulfills some people's thinking, because you might look at other people your age being very disciplined, and you feel guilty," she said. "Having these 'rat people' as the other extreme, you feel less guilty."

A byproduct of China's slowing economy

China's battered economy and competitive professional environment has left many of its youth feeling despondent.

The average Chinese youth today has to contend with a tougher and more demanding job market than their parents did.

Last month, China's urban jobless rate for those between ages 16 and 24 stood at 16.5%. The country briefly stopped reporting its youth unemployment rate after it hit a record high of 21.3% in the second quarter of 2023.

China's National Bureau of Statistics started publishing the statistics again in January 2024 after it amended its methodology to exclude students.

But the troubles don't necessarily end even for those who secure a job. China's gruelling "996" tech culture fueled an expectation for people to observe a punishing work schedule.

That sense of disenchantment led to the rise of the lying flat movement in 2021, which promoted rejecting constant competition in favor for a more relaxed, minimalist lifestyle.

Eric Fu, a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne's Youth Research Collective, told BI the rise of self-mocking social media trends like being a "rat person" or "lying flat" isn't necessarily a bad thing — it's an evolution of how the country's people see work.

"It shows people are starting to really give some consideration about the work they really want to do, and the meaning of their life. It also shows that Chinese society has become more diversified in a sense," Fu said.

Fu said it's easy to misunderstand where these Chinese youths are coming from when they extol the virtues of the "rat person."

"This group of people is still, to a certain degree, a privileged group. They have the luxury to do this, but it doesn't mean they just want to waste their life," he said. "They're probably just taking some time off."

"It will be really naive to assume these people just simply want to live like that forever," he added.

• Trump's new tariffs give China room to play the foil to the US and bolster its hold on a region it values.
• Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar hold great strategic value for China as it seeks to expand its influence.
• On Friday, China responded to Trump's tariffs with a 34% tariff on all goods imported from the US.

President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs are expected to cut deep against both friend and foe, but several of the nations that stand to suffer the most are right on China's doorstep.

Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar are on track to face tariff rates of 49%, 48%, and 44%, respectively.

All three have maintained close economic and political ties with China. Only a handful of other nations have to deal with a higher or equal level of import taxes, including Lesotho (50%), Madagascar (47%), and Vietnam (46%).

China itself must contend with a total US tariff rate of 54% — the highest out of anywhere in the world. But China's response was swift: On Friday, Beijing retaliated against Trump's tariffs with a 34% tariff on all goods imported from the US.

Analysts and researchers who study the area told Business Insider the tariffs would probably push China's allies closer to Beijing, giving China's leader, Xi Jinping, an opportunity to strengthen his hold on a region that his country greatly values.

"Strategically, the US is now handing a victory to China in the US-China competition," said Vina Nadjibulla, the vice president of research and strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

"If the US is preoccupied with competing with China, it is ceding ground and losing influence by essentially making China the only possible alternative for many of these economies," she added.

The White House, US Treasury Department, and US State Department didn't respond to requests for comment for this story.

Is Trump punishing ties to China?

Some analysts think it's unlikely that close relationships with China had anything to do with the tariffs.

"Traditional US allies such as the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and even Australia were all subject to these tariffs," noted Baogang He, a professor of international relations at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.

Trump's rates appear to be tied to US trade deficits with each country, though the president has characterized the tariffs as reciprocal to taxes imposed by those nations.

"The rates are all about trade deficits," said Emily Kilcrease, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security who studies the US-China relationship.

Cambodia's export surplus to the US is worth $12.34 billion, Laos' is worth $760 million, and Myanmar's is worth $580 million.

On the other hand, Ian Bremmer, the founder and president of Eurasia Group, said at the World Economic Forum in January that he foresaw Trump targeting China through third-party countries that Beijing was using to manufacture goods to be shipped to the US.

"The only way the Chinese economy is succeeding right now is through their $1 trillion export surplus," Bremmer said at the time. "And so you see Trump and his team focusing a lot on Mexico, and India, and Vietnam. The other conversations they are having bilaterally, one of the top priorities is squeeze China coming in. That's very hard for China to respond to."

Bremmer told BI on Thursday that he stood by his earlier comments.

"Absolutely. And the Chinese government has felt the same way about the United States pushing Mexico hard on getting Chinese pass-through trade out of the economy," Bremmer said.

Countries such as Mexico, Cambodia, and Vietnam have been key players in a manufacturing network known as "China+1," which emerged in response to Trump's restrictions on Chinese exports during his first administration.

To circumvent those measures, Chinese firms diversified their supply chains by sending raw materials to friendly countries and having the host nations manufacture products instead. The goods could then be exported to the US at lower costs.

China+1 at risk

Trump's tariffs will most likely stifle China+1 among Beijing's close allies.

Cambodia, for example, relies largely on China+1 for its exports of clothing, sporting goods, luggage, and other products.

"Cambodia has no raw materials. All the raw materials, the supplies have to come from mainly China, even buttons or threads," said Mu Sochua, a former Cambodian minister who works in exile because of her criticism of the incumbent government.

"In a week from now, if Cambodia cannot negotiate to have the tariffs go down significantly, there will be an immediate economic crisis," she added. She added that if factories there shut down or paused production, more than a million factory workers could lose their livelihoods.

Vietnam, a major base for making Chinese-partnered goods, is likely to try negotiating its 46% tariff with the US. Hanoi has asked Washington to pause the taxes and come to the table, and Trump has said he's open to discussion on his tariffs.

Beijing's opportunity

Vietnam balances its ties more evenly with the US and China, and its relationship with Beijing suffers from disputes over the South China Sea.

Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar are far deeper in China's camp.

China works closely with Myanmar's ruling junta and opposing rebel factions to maintain access to vast rare earth mineral reserves in the country's north. Myanmar is also a geographical barrier between southern China and the Indian Ocean.

The Trump administration has shown little interest in extending influence over Myanmar. The US was absent from the list of parties sending aid to the country after a devastating earthquake struck Myanmar on March 28.

Meanwhile, Cambodia's southern coast hosts a naval base built by China — an important facility that would extend Beijing's reach into Southeast Asia and on Taiwan's flank.

Hun Sen, Cambodia's long-ruling and iron-fisted former prime minister, also enjoys close personal ties with Beijing. The country's foreign ministry didn't respond to a request for comment from BI.

Kilcrease of CNAS said the incentives for China's allies to look to Beijing were already shaping up on paper.

"We did some back-of-the-envelope math, and it appears that most countries in the world now face a higher tariff rate from the US than from China," she said. "So, yes, there is a significant risk that these countries move closer to China."

Beijing is also generally well-received in Southeast Asia, said Kristina Fong, a lead researcher on the region's economic affairs at Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

She cited a study of attitudes among more than 2,000 Southeast Asians conducted by her institute in early 2025.

"56.4% of Southeast Asian respondents cited China as Southeast Asia's most influential economic power. China was the choice for all ASEAN countries," Fong said.

The ball is in China's court

In the interim, the ball is in Beijing's court, said Austin Strange, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong's department of politics and public administration.

"China's government, at least in the short term, can make public relations gains — just as in other areas of foreign policy, such as international development — by presenting itself as a stable, reliable partner amid US foreign policy upheaval," he said.

Beijing's state media reported last weekend that its authorities agreed with South Korea and Japan to issue a joint response to any US tariffs. Buy Tokyo has said its leaders simply met to share views. Seoul said reports of a team-up were "somewhat exaggerated."

"But I expect China and other economies to continue to find workarounds," Strange added. "They have, after all, had months if not longer to prepare, as Trump has consistently pledged to levy sweeping tariffs."

Correction: April 4, 2025 — An earlier version of this story misstated the tariff rate given to Myanmar. It was 44%, not 45%.

• The editor in chief of The Atlantic was mistakenly added to a group chat with security officials.
• Jeffrey Goldberg said he was privy to the Trump administration's planned strikes on Yemen.
• The apparent breach has drawn alarm and criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

In an explosive new report, journalist Jeffrey Goldberg says he was mistakenly added to a group chat on the messaging platform Signal in which top US leaders discussed sensitive military operations, including the Trump administration's strikes on Yemen's Houthi rebels.

The story — which details what appears to be a massive security breach at the highest levels of the government — sent shockwaves through Washington on Monday.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for a full investigation into the incident.

"Amateur behavior. This kind of security breach is how people get killed. How our enemies take advantage. How our national security falls into danger," he wrote on X on Monday.

President Donald Trump told reporters he hadn't heard about the incident.

"I don't know anything about it," he said on Monday.

'Sounds like a huge screwup'

In the story, Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, said Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and State Secretary Marco Rubio were all in the Signal group.

The group chat was called "Houthi PC small group," with "PC" standing for "principals committee," Goldberg wrote. The National Security Council confirmed to multiple news organizations that the chat group was authentic. Business Insider could not immediately reach the agency for comment.

Hegseth disputed Goldberg's report.

"Nobody was texting war plans, and that's all I have to say about that," he told reporters.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said the Trump administration was addressing the incident.

"Apparently, an inadvertent phone number made it onto that thread. They are going to track that down and make sure that doesn't happen again," Johnson said.

"What you did see, though, I think, was top-level officials doing their job, doing it well, and executing on a plan with precision," Johnson added. "That mission was a success, no one was jeopardized because of it, we're grateful for that. But they will certainly, I'm sure, make sure that won't happen again."

Other top Republicans, including Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, expressed alarm at the incident.

"Sounds like a huge screw-up," Cornyn told reporters, adding that he hoped the government would further investigate and that "somebody dropped the ball." He sits on the intelligence committee.

Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told The Hill the panel is "very concerned" and intends to investigate.

The strikes on Yemen's Houthi rebels discussed in the chat were carried out on March 16.

Democratic lawmakers slam Trump administration

The leaked war plans drew swift condemnation from Democratic leaders.

On Monday night, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote on X that his party "will grill several national security officials under oath this week."

"The arrogance and incompetence of the Trump administration is stunning," Jeffries wrote.

Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement on Monday that the leak "represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen."

"Classified war plans don't belong in the group chat. The carelessness of Pres. Trump's national security team is stunning & dangerous. I'm seeking answers & accountability," Reed wrote on X on Monday.

The events described in Goldberg's reporting present serious implications for operational security in the Trump administration and potentially the Pentagon. Signal, an encrypted messaging app, is not an approved government platform for disseminating intelligence or classified information.

Representatives for the White House, the Defense Department, and Signal did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Howard Lutnick was standing beside Elon Musk in October when Musk said DOGE could save $2 trillion.
• Lutnick told the "All-In Podcast" that Musk was supposed to say he could save $1 trillion.
• Musk said in January that cutting $2 trillion would be the "best-case outcome" for DOGE.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Elon Musk's pledge in October to cut $2 trillion from federal spending came from a flub of a scripted moment between the pair.

Speaking on an episode of the "All-In Podcast," which aired Thursday, Lutnick said the two had planned to announce at a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden that they would collectively save and earn $2 trillion for the US.

"When I say to him: 'How much are you going to cut?' The deal was he's going to cut $1 trillion. And then he's supposed to say: 'And how much are you going to earn?' And I'm supposed to say $1 trillion," Lutnick said on the podcast.

But Lutnick said Musk didn't execute their script as planned.

"Because we're in front of 22,000 people, and the place is erupting," Lutnick said. "He says: '$2 trillion!' And I'm like, I think I said: 'All righty then.' Or something like that. I mean, what was I supposed to say?" Lutnick continued.

At the rally, Lutnick had asked Musk how much he thought he could "rip out of this wasted $6.5 trillion Harris-Biden budget."

"I think we can do at least do $2 trillion," Musk replied.

Their onstage moment became the basis for doubts among some federal budget experts that Musk could truly cut $2 trillion, or nearly a third of the $6.75 trillion spent by the US in the 2024 fiscal year.

In January, Musk told political strategist Mark Penn that saving $2 trillion would be the "best-case outcome" and that his team had a "good shot" at cutting $1 trillion instead.

"If we can drop the budget deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion and free up the economy to have additional growth such that the output of goods and services keeps pace with the increase in the money supply, then there will be no inflation. So that, I think, would be an epic outcome," Musk said in January.

In November, Musk had backed Lutnick to be President Donald Trump's treasury secretary pick.

Musk wrote in an X post then that as treasury secretary, Lutnick "will actually enact change" as opposed to Trump's eventual choice, Scott Bessent. Bessent was the "business-as-usual" option, Musk added.

On Wednesday, Lutnick said in an interview on Fox News' "Jesse Watters Primetime" that viewers should buy stock from Musk's EV company, Tesla.

"I think if you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla. It's unbelievable that this guy's stock is this cheap. It'll never be this cheap again," Lutnick said.

Before becoming commerce secretary, Lutnick was the chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald. The brokerage and investment bank owns Tesla shares, per an SEC filing in February.

Cantor Fitzgerald said in a statement last month, following Lutnick's confirmation as commerce secretary, that he has agreed to divest his business interests in the bank.

Musk and the Commerce Department did not respond to requests from Business Insider.

• Elon Musk says the DOGE team has over 100 people on staff now.
• But his team is going to "get to 200," Musk said.
• He added that DOGE mainly hired from the software, information security, and finance sectors.

The Department of Government Efficiency has recommended firing hundreds of government employees — but the team itself is staffing up.

Elon Musk, who helms DOGE's push for head count cuts across the federal government, spoke to Fox Business host Larry Kudlow in an interview that aired on Monday. During the segment, Musk said the DOGE team now has "a little over 100" employees.

Musk added that his team was going to "get to 200."

Musk, a senior advisor to President Donald Trump, said DOGE intends to hire people from the software, information security, and finance industries.

"It's basically, yeah, finance and technology," he said.

Musk told Kudlow in the same interview that it hasn't been easy working on DOGE alongside his other businesses like Tesla and SpaceX.

"With great difficulty," Musk said when asked how he was running his companies.

"I'm just here trying to make government more efficient, eliminate waste and fraud, and so far, we're making good progress, actually," Musk said.

DOGE's team already includes software developers, former Supreme Court clerks, and ex-consultants, per White House records of about 30 employees previously obtained by Business Insider.

The records show that a good portion of these people — at least two dozen — are in their 20s to 30s.

Most of the employees in those records had backgrounds in tech, with others in finance, law, and politics.

Several of the agency's more senior workers and advisors worked under the Trump administration during his first term, such as Brad Smith, a former health official who helped DOGE with staffing.

Since Trump took office in January, DOGE has been asked to recommend cuts to the federal government to make it more efficient.

The agency is still in its early months but has estimated that it has helped to save $105 billion for the US so far. However, its reported figures have been subject to change, with DOGE reducing its public tally by billions of dollars several times.

With DOGE under its purview, the Trump administration has fired thousands of probationary employees across multiple federal agencies. In January, another 2 million employees were given a chance to resign in exchange for a payout and benefits. More than 75,000 workers accepted the deal.

Critics of the agency are concerned that it's working too quickly and without oversight and transparency, potentially opening important services in America to risk or jeopardizing the careers of thousands.

That could stand to change.

On Monday, US District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that DOGE would have to comply with three Freedom of Information Act requests filed by a watchdog nonprofit. The decision can still be appealed.

A representative for DOGE did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

• RedNote, or Xiaohongshu, has taken the West by storm.
• TikTok users have flocked to RedNote ahead of the looming ban on their app.
• The sudden influx of users has created a mass cultural exchange, but experts say it may not last.

For over a decade, China's social media has been living in its own world.

Without access to YouTube, Facebook, Google, or Instagram, the country instead relies on local apps such as BiliBili, Weibo, Baidu, and, more recently — Xiaohongshu.

Xiaohongshu, now known in English as RedNote, transformed overnight into a bridge between the realms of China's internet and America's, as a sudden wave of US users downloaded the app this week in anticipation of a national ban on TikTok.

RedNote's rise was relatively recent in the Chinese space, with the app only gaining significant mainstream traction from 2018 onward.

It's most often compared to Instagram, with a heavy focus on photos presented through a grid-like feed. In China, it's been largely defined as a popular app for beauty and lifestyle content, especially among young women.

Then came the looming TikTok ban and the Americans. By Monday, RedNote became the most downloaded iPhone app in the US. As of Thursday evening, it still holds the top spot.

The sudden surge in interest in RedNote comes as TikTok inches closer to its divest-or-ban deadline on January 19. The Senate passed a law in April that would require TikTok to stop operating in the US if it didn't divest itself from its Chinese-based owner, ByteDance.

Last week, TikTok appealed to the Supreme Court for an emergency injunction to pause the divestment deadline. The court is expected to rule on TikTok's fate this week.

New US users, calling themselves "TikTok Refugees," flooded RedNote with memes and introduction videos. In turn, their Chinese counterparts uploaded welcome posts and guides on how to use Chinese online slang. Some even asked for help with their English homework.

Cultural exchange on a mass scale

It's a mass cultural exchange on an unprecedented scale.

International users typically have little incentive or opportunity to dive into Chinese social media apps, which cater to local audiences and are often locked behind strict user requirements that align with Beijing's government standards.

Weibo, for example, requires all users to register with their full names, and the app displays their location and gender to other users.

Even TikTok, founded by Chinese company Bytedance, is separate from China's version of the app, Douyin.

Cross-border interactions on RedNote have been mostly friendly, at a time when US-China tensions have dominated global politics.

"It's so amazing to have you here," said one Chinese user in a viral post. "For so long, we haven't been able to connect or talk to each other like this. But now we finally can, and it feels so special."

His video, titled "American friends please stay here," received over 174,000 likes.

Some users began hosting "cultural exchange" livestream audio chats, inviting young American and Chinese people to discuss their lives and befriend each other. One such livestream, seen by Business Insider, was watched by 70,000 users, with hundreds tuning in at a time.

Too early to tell how RedNote will impact US-China relations

Researchers and academics who study US-China relations told BI they're watching the space with interest, but that it's still too early to say how the RedNote migration might play out.

"I think it's likely true that many Chinese are interacting with Americans for the first time," said Stanley Rosen, a professor of political science at the University of Southern California's US-China Institute.

Rosen said China's government might initially be pleased by the influx of American users to RedNote, given how Beijing has criticized the impending ban on TikTok. Congressional leaders who voted to pass the divest-or-ban law against ByteDance had cited concerns about Chinese ownership.

But Rosen added that letting Chinese and American users mingle en masse could eventually disrupt Beijing's careful governance of its online platforms. For instance, a Chinese person's complaints about low pay could be met with well-intentioned — yet potentially contentious — replies from Americans, who might suggest forming a union or going on strike, Rosen said.

American users are still subject to Chinese rules on RedNote. For example, two writers from the entertainment news site The Wrap reported on Wednesday that they uploaded a post about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests — a heavily censored topic on the Chinese internet — and found that it was taken down within five minutes.

Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, told BI that it's unlikely that any friendly interactions on RedNote would impact US-China relations.

"The tensions between these countries are based on very long-term problems," Wu said.

"I think this sort of passion will die very soon," he added.

RedNote's popularity may not last

In fact, RedNote's newfound popularity in the West could just end up being a temporary phenomenon.

Natalie Pang, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore's department of communications and new media, told BI that such massive user migrations from one platform to another haven't always been sustainable.

"Many years ago, when WhatsApp announced certain features on their platform, people also left WhatsApp and migrated to Signal, but those migrations were not sustained," Pang said.

Platforms are only able to retain these new users if their network moves along with them, she added.

"We have to understand that these 'TikTok Refugees' are moving to Xiaohongshu as part of a protest against the TikTok ban. So if we understand this move as part of a protest, then I think we'll see more sustained migration toward the platform if interest in the protest continues," Pang said.

That said, TikTok may not be out of the game just yet.

The social media platform may get some reprieve from President-elect Donald Trump, who is set to take office on January 20, a day after the divestment deadline passes.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month and plans to attend Trump's inauguration.

Trump had pushed for a ban on TikTok during his first term, but has since reversed his position on the platform. The president-elect filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on December 27, asking the court to pause the deadline so that he could come up with a political resolution.

"You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok," Trump told reporters at a press conference last month.

On Wednesday, Trump's pick for national security advisor, Mike Waltz, said in an interview with Fox News that Trump would "find a way to preserve" TikTok.

"He is a dealmaker. I don't want to get ahead of our executive orders, but we're going to create the space to put that deal in place," Waltz said.

• A Chinese social media app called Xiaohongshu is one of the biggest winners from a looming TikTok ban.
• It's so popular in the US that Chinese users have started a new hashtag to welcome Americans.
• The cultural exchange frenzy has birthed posts of people asking for help with English homework, among other requests.

A Chinese social media platform has grown so popular in the US that it's this week's most downloaded iPhone app — and it's become the site of a sudden East-Meets-West cultural exchange.

Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, hit the top spot on the US Apple store's ranking this week as a divest-or-ban law threatens to shut off American access to TikTok.

The app, commonly referred to as China's version of Instagram, has been flooded with posts from Chinese users greeting the influx of US newcomers.

One post titled "American please help me" went viral on Monday and received over 10,000 comments after its poster, from Zhejiang, requested help with their English homework.

Other popular posts also featured users, who listed their location as being in the US, offering their assistance for Chinese users' homework.

"Ask me any questions! I can help with your English homework, or answer questions about America (Texas). Thank you for welcoming us TikTok refugees," one post read. Several commenters uploaded photos of English-language worksheets in response.

The surge in American users on Chinese apps has also led to a rise in the hashtag #TikTokRefugee on Xiaohongshu, with dozens of Chinese creators posting guides on how to use the platform. The hashtag itself has been viewed over 64 million times, according to data seen by Business Insider.

"If you see a video that's downright awesome, just comment 6 or 66 or 666," said a cowboy hat-toting user, Big Tooth Chinese Redneck, in one viral video, referencing a Chinese internet slang term.

The sudden interest in Chinese social media platforms comes as TikTok continues to challenge the divest-or-ban law that the Senate passed in April. According to the law, TikTok will have to stop operating in the US on January 19 if its Chinese-based owner, Bytedance, doesn't sell the app.

The divest-and-ban law was passed amid widespread security concerns that the Chinese government could access user data if Bytedance continued to own the platform. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told The Wall Street Journal in 2023 that such concerns are unfounded since the company would work with Oracle to store user data in the US.

TikTok argued its case with the Supreme Court on Friday, saying it will "go dark" in January if the court doesn't extend its divestment deadline. The court is expected to rule on the company's fate this week.

There's a lot on the line for TikTok now — it lost a challenge to the law in December when it brought the case before a panel of three judges from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

In December, President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to pause the law until after his inauguration. Trump is set to take office on January 20.

Allowing TikTok to operate in the US is a reversal of Trump's policy position on the company. Trump pushed for a TikTok ban in 2020 when he was still president. But more recently, the president-elect told reporters in December that he had a "warm spot" in his heart for TikTok.

Still, TikTok's troubles have brought unexpected benefits to platforms like Xiaohongshu and Lemon8, which both surged to the top two spots on Apple app store rankings. Lemon8 is also owned by Bytedance.

Meagan Loyst, founder of the investor collective Gen Z VCs, told Business Insider on Monday that users were flocking to these platforms to protest the government's planned TikTok ban.

"It really is just retaliation towards the government in the simplest way, but in a way that feels very native to Gen Z," Loyst said.

Representatives for TikTok and Xiaohongshu did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.