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for those curious why an app would name itself Little Red Book despite the association, obviously they could have been better about the naming, but they're actu

for those curious why an app would name itself Little Red Book despite the association, obviously they could have been better about the naming, but they're actually not the same name in either language: The social media app Xiaohongshu (小红书) does literally translate to "little red book" in English. However, this is completely different from Mao's famous work, which was never called this in Chinese. Mao's book was informally known as "Hongbaoshu" (红宝书) meaning "red treasured book" and formally titled "Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong" (毛主席语录). The apparent connection in English comes from translators using "Little Red Book" for both terms (maybe due to training or an agenda? who knows, choosing word-by-word translation for one and popular translation for another), even though they're distinct and unrelated in the original Chinese, and of course in the official desired English "RedNote" too.

segasaturn 2y ago
The way people are talking about the name of the app feels very stupid to me, in a way I can't put my finger on. I guess it smacks of more Red Scare paranoia, trying to tie anything Chinese to scary, nefarious communists. I doubt that they were thinking of Mao at all when making the app, Xiaohongshu is an app tailored for young, wealthy, cosmopolitan Chinese as an alternative to Douyin which is more for the masses, I wouldn't call that very Maoist.
- nonethewiser 2y ago
  > The way people are talking about the name of the app feels very stupid to me, in a way I can't put my finger on. I guess it smacks of more Red Scare paranoia. Is it paranoia if Mao Zedong is still revered? If the government is the communist party? I realize the CCP is not perfectly communist in many ways but they are unapologetic about communism and their roots. It is a coincidence that the original work did not mean little red book. But thats how it was translated, and the translation of the app is correct. So obviously now when you have the same name coming from a country that doesn't denounce communism I think it's fair to be concerned about communist influence.
  - 8note 2y ago
    he'll be revered forever the same way geroge washington is. theyre both warlords who founded a country, casting away the prior government and foreign invaders washington is still liked even though he was a notable slave owner
    - nonethewiser 2y ago
      Mao Zedong should not be revered even if George Washington is worse than Hitler. What you're doing is called "whataboutism."
- atkailash 2y ago
  [dead]
- Aunche 2y ago
  Antiestablishment-types supporting an ideology like Maoism is at least something I can understand. Antiestablishment-types expressing their loyalty to the establishment of a foreign adversary is significantly more concerning.
  - kelseyfrog 2y ago
    When your own government is more of an adversary than a foreign government, the equation solves itself.
    - Aunche 2y ago
      This nihilistic outlook may make you feel better, but at the end of the day only creates a void in government that megacorporations and malicious actors are happy to fill in. In case if you weren't merely being facetious, your home country at least has some incentive to work towards your interest, no matter how evil they are because they have to pay the consequences of these actions. Even in autocratic China, for example, anti-lockdown censorship during Covid in China eventually caused even more resentment against the CCP. On the other hand, look at examples of Russian election interference in 2016 [1]. One of the posts is "Satan: If I win Clinton wins. Jesus: Not if I can help it. Press like to help Jesus win." The entire goal is to get Americans to distrust and hate each other. Nobody in America has anything to gain from posting this, but China and Russia have nothing but to gain from a more fractured America. We only found out about this because Facebook cooperated with American intelligence to find this foreign propaganda. At best, you can't expect the same cooperation from TikTok they are accountable to the CCP. At worst, TikTok would actively be working with China to disguise this propaganda as genuine content. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-election-facebook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-e...
      - kelseyfrog 2y ago
        The people who want to unite Americans might find more success meeting the outliers where they're at rather than framing it as needing them to conform. That approach is what made the outliers cynics in the first place. What would it look like to make real change to address the objects, rather than the subjects of frustration?
- 8note 2y ago
  it probably isnt, and is just a random name, but it feels like the name is a joke about the red scare
seryoiupfurds 2y ago
However, for any Chinese people who also know English, the association is obvious. I asked an actual Chinese person about 小红书 and they assumed I was talking about Mao's book until I clarified.
- crystal_revenge 2y ago
  > an actual Chinese person None of the "actual" Chinese people I know were confused about the terminology. The average Chinese does not care one lick about anything related to communism or the history of communism in this country. Mao's book is largely a relic of their great (or even great) grand parents age. However most of my Chinese friends were confused about why something that most Chinese find to be a relatively uninteresting app in mainland China is suddenly so popular in the US. It's also worth pointing out that this isn't some serendipitous accident, 小红书 has been working to become a TikTok replacement for awhile now.
- glurblur 2y ago
  I don't know which Chinese person you are talking about. I've never associated 小红书 with whatever Mao did back in the day. Hell, I don't think anyone I know made that connection. I only get that idea after watching a video made by a youtuber, who's not Chinese.
porphyra 2y ago
On Wikipedia, it says he chose red because: > The Chinese name was inspired by two pivotal institutions in its co-founder Charlwin Mao's career journey that both feature red as their primary color: Bain & Company, where he worked as a consultant, and Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he earned his MBA. I would guess that the association to Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong was intentional but he just said that for plausible deniability.
- carabiner 2y ago
  Chinese in general love the color red, and the number 8. Luck, wealth, love connotations.
- bryananderson 2y ago
  Maoism-Bainism with Stanford characteristics
- DiggyJohnson 2y ago
  Reality is stranger than fiction. That’s the reason I would expect to be reported by The Onion aha
- seryoiupfurds 2y ago
  > I would guess that the association to Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong was intentional but he just said that for plausible deniability. Yeah, I mean "Every Chinese citizen has a Little Red Book in their pocket!" is pretty compelling for a social media app. It's not necessarily political beyond that, but the connection is obviously there.
- gastlygem 2y ago
  As a native Chinese I can assure you 小红书 and 红宝书 are as close semantically to each other as the words constipation and constitution. Few would relate those two. Even the most leftist Chinese entrepreneurs avoid having their brand names associated to politics; it's just common sense.
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
bllguo 2y ago
..did you only learn chinese academically or something? anyone in china would think of Mao if you said 小红书 (well, at least before the app)
fencepost 2y ago
So they're moving to a video site named "Red" plus a four-letter word? TikTok, you've changed! But maybe not that much.
- tcmart14 2y ago
  I can't believe TikTok is not just getting around this by using the philosophy many people use when they are forced to change passwords. Just add an "!". TikTok: "We arn't TikTok, we are now TikTok!"

segasaturn 2y ago

The way people are talking about the name of the app feels very stupid to me, in a way I can't put my finger on. I guess it smacks of more Red Scare paranoia, trying to tie anything Chinese to scary, nefarious communists. I doubt that they were thinking of Mao at all when making the app, Xiaohongshu is an app tailored for young, wealthy, cosmopolitan Chinese as an alternative to Douyin which is more for the masses, I wouldn't call that very Maoist.

nonethewiser 2y ago
> The way people are talking about the name of the app feels very stupid to me, in a way I can't put my finger on. I guess it smacks of more Red Scare paranoia. Is it paranoia if Mao Zedong is still revered? If the government is the communist party? I realize the CCP is not perfectly communist in many ways but they are unapologetic about communism and their roots. It is a coincidence that the original work did not mean little red book. But thats how it was translated, and the translation of the app is correct. So obviously now when you have the same name coming from a country that doesn't denounce communism I think it's fair to be concerned about communist influence.
- 8note 2y ago
  he'll be revered forever the same way geroge washington is. theyre both warlords who founded a country, casting away the prior government and foreign invaders washington is still liked even though he was a notable slave owner
  - nonethewiser 2y ago
    Mao Zedong should not be revered even if George Washington is worse than Hitler. What you're doing is called "whataboutism."
atkailash 2y ago
[dead]
Aunche 2y ago
Antiestablishment-types supporting an ideology like Maoism is at least something I can understand. Antiestablishment-types expressing their loyalty to the establishment of a foreign adversary is significantly more concerning.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  When your own government is more of an adversary than a foreign government, the equation solves itself.
  - Aunche 2y ago
    This nihilistic outlook may make you feel better, but at the end of the day only creates a void in government that megacorporations and malicious actors are happy to fill in. In case if you weren't merely being facetious, your home country at least has some incentive to work towards your interest, no matter how evil they are because they have to pay the consequences of these actions. Even in autocratic China, for example, anti-lockdown censorship during Covid in China eventually caused even more resentment against the CCP. On the other hand, look at examples of Russian election interference in 2016 [1]. One of the posts is "Satan: If I win Clinton wins. Jesus: Not if I can help it. Press like to help Jesus win." The entire goal is to get Americans to distrust and hate each other. Nobody in America has anything to gain from posting this, but China and Russia have nothing but to gain from a more fractured America. We only found out about this because Facebook cooperated with American intelligence to find this foreign propaganda. At best, you can't expect the same cooperation from TikTok they are accountable to the CCP. At worst, TikTok would actively be working with China to disguise this propaganda as genuine content. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-election-facebook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-e...
    - kelseyfrog 2y ago
      The people who want to unite Americans might find more success meeting the outliers where they're at rather than framing it as needing them to conform. That approach is what made the outliers cynics in the first place. What would it look like to make real change to address the objects, rather than the subjects of frustration?
8note 2y ago
it probably isnt, and is just a random name, but it feels like the name is a joke about the red scare

seryoiupfurds 2y ago

However, for any Chinese people who also know English, the association is obvious. I asked an actual Chinese person about 小红书 and they assumed I was talking about Mao's book until I clarified.

crystal_revenge 2y ago
> an actual Chinese person None of the "actual" Chinese people I know were confused about the terminology. The average Chinese does not care one lick about anything related to communism or the history of communism in this country. Mao's book is largely a relic of their great (or even great) grand parents age. However most of my Chinese friends were confused about why something that most Chinese find to be a relatively uninteresting app in mainland China is suddenly so popular in the US. It's also worth pointing out that this isn't some serendipitous accident, 小红书 has been working to become a TikTok replacement for awhile now.
glurblur 2y ago
I don't know which Chinese person you are talking about. I've never associated 小红书 with whatever Mao did back in the day. Hell, I don't think anyone I know made that connection. I only get that idea after watching a video made by a youtuber, who's not Chinese.

porphyra 2y ago

On Wikipedia, it says he chose red because: > The Chinese name was inspired by two pivotal institutions in its co-founder Charlwin Mao's career journey that both feature red as their primary color: Bain & Company, where he worked as a consultant, and Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he earned his MBA. I would guess that the association to Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong was intentional but he just said that for plausible deniability.

carabiner 2y ago
Chinese in general love the color red, and the number 8. Luck, wealth, love connotations.
bryananderson 2y ago
Maoism-Bainism with Stanford characteristics
DiggyJohnson 2y ago
Reality is stranger than fiction. That’s the reason I would expect to be reported by The Onion aha
seryoiupfurds 2y ago
> I would guess that the association to Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong was intentional but he just said that for plausible deniability. Yeah, I mean "Every Chinese citizen has a Little Red Book in their pocket!" is pretty compelling for a social media app. It's not necessarily political beyond that, but the connection is obviously there.
gastlygem 2y ago
As a native Chinese I can assure you 小红书 and 红宝书 are as close semantically to each other as the words constipation and constitution. Few would relate those two. Even the most leftist Chinese entrepreneurs avoid having their brand names associated to politics; it's just common sense.
- Dalewyn 2y ago

bllguo 2y ago

..did you only learn chinese academically or something? anyone in china would think of Mao if you said 小红书 (well, at least before the app)

fencepost 2y ago

So they're moving to a video site named "Red" plus a four-letter word? TikTok, you've changed! But maybe not that much.

tcmart14 2y ago
I can't believe TikTok is not just getting around this by using the philosophy many people use when they are forced to change passwords. Just add an "!". TikTok: "We arn't TikTok, we are now TikTok!"