Context:

The informant is a 19-year-old undergraduate student at USC. During the spring semester of 2025 she downloaded Red Note (小红书) and used it for a few days as part of a trend where users outside China temporarily joined the platform as so-called “refugees.”

Text:

The informant describes her experience using Red Note after downloading it during a period when many new international users joined the app. She explains that she used the platform for a short time out of curiosity and to observe the content and community style. During this period, she was part of a group of users jokingly referred to as “refugees,” meaning people who temporarily migrated to the app from other social media platforms. She notes that the experience felt both unfamiliar and entertaining, as the platform’s content culture and user interactions differed from what she was used to.

Analysis:

This phenomenon reflects how digital platforms can generate temporary, identity-based user communities through migration trends and internet humor. The term “refugee” is used playfully to describe short-term users who “escape” from one platform to another, turning platform switching into a shared cultural joke. This labeling also highlights how online communities construct group identity even around brief or superficial participation. At the same time, the informant’s short engagement illustrates how users often treat new platforms as exploratory spaces rather than long-term commitments, revealing the fluid and trend-driven nature of contemporary digital folklore.